Thread: The Amazing Race in Indonesia

Indiana Jones and the “Temple of Jakarta”
Oct 26th, 2011, in Featured, IM Posts, Travel, by Chris

A fan/local perspective on the recent visit of American reality TV/game show "The Amazing Race" to Indonesia.


After years of visiting neighbouring countries (e.g. Malaysia) multiple times, "The Amazing Race" finally touched down in Indonesia earlier this year for two legs - Episodes 2 & 3 - of the current 19th series. (It is not known how much a personal appeal to the Indonesian Tourism Ministry to get TAR impacted this).

One part of Episode 2 the author was looking forward to see was how racers dealt with their international arrival in Jakarta, especially:


Welcome to Indonesia
1. How the different teams dealt with the famously long queues at the visa on arrival and immigration counters while in a "race".
2. Working out transport arrangements for getting to the main train station, Gambir, in Central Jakarta. Would they get accosted by various touts offering "Taxi, Mister" even on camera/international TV? Would they get stuck with a taxi driver who either didn't know the way or didn't have any small change when they arrived? Or would they all just travel together on the DAMRI Airport bus to Gambir?

3. More generally, how would the racers go when they clearly had little knowledge of Indonesian geography and culture? Only one team, Justin and Jennifer, managed to say "Yogyakarta" remotely correctly.

Unfortunately, this part was not included. The only footage at the airport showed racers jogging down the arrivals hall past the money changer and visa on arrival counters, suggesting some kind of expedited arrival arrangements had been made in advance. Suddenly, all competitors were at Gambir (some 35km away), waiting for their overnight train to Yogyakarta. Alas, being an overnight train, competitors didn't see the many interesting sights and pretty scenery along the way.

Full story and youtube link at http://www.indonesiamatters.com/1527...rta-indonesia/