The next day the remaining teams had to get to Huahua (pronounced Hooha by those wacky quacks, David and Mary) via pedicurecab where they would face their first Detour. Their choices were either to lay some bricks in a specific pattern or to master the art of Tai Ji Ba Long, which is Mandarin for dancing on downers.

Most of the teams chose the brick-laying except for Tom/Terry and the Cheerleaders (they would since cheerleaders are dancers gone retarded). Imagine tennis crossed with synchronised swimming and slowed down like a scene from 'The Matrix' and you have Tai Ji Ba Long, a new kind of Chinese relaxation technique. Now why couldn’t Rob and Kimberly have chosen that one? If anyone needs to relax, it’s them.

Tyler and James were the first to complete the bricklaying and found out they had to make their way to the Great Wall. Guess they’re not quite Zoolander and Hansel in the problem-solving stakes. Peter and Sarah also completed it quickly but Duke and Lauren looked like they had a bit of trouble despite being one of the first couple of teams to arrive. Dammit, Lauren, you’re supposed to be good at home improvement. What kind of lesbian are you?

In her attempt to hail a taxi, she pulled a Charla and played the one leg card by pointing to her artificial leg and saying “This is an emergency”. What, it’s about to rust? How can anyone even fall for that? She could at least take off the steel part and smear some tomato sauce on the stump to really play the emergency card.

Vipul and Arti had managed to find the worst pedicab driver in Beijing and couldn’t even find the Detour. They were clearly in a lot of trouble especially since Godwin and Erwin teamed up with Rob and Kimberly to lead them to the right place. Gah, why are you helping them?! Damn you, Meatheads!

It was at this point that I noticed Vipul’s shirt had “college” misspelled as “colege”. Is it an ironic T-shirt? Designed by Jamie and Kellie? We’ll never know.

Before any of the teams could check into the Pit Stop, they had to rappel up there. Yes, the teams had to rappel the Great Wall of China. Next up: shining and polishing the Eiffel Tower. The Ex-Junkies had no trouble scaling it and checked in first at the Pit Stop where Phil announced their prize of $20 000. Woohoo! Wonder how much crack that’ll buy ya?

Sarah had a big problem. She couldn’t get any traction with her artificial leg. That sucks. Can’t she just stick a suction cup on it or something? She persevered and conquered the pesky wall but not before Duke and Lauren had conquered it themselves. At the Pit Stop, they raved about overcoming their differences and finding their similarities (such as them both liking girls). Awww, I’m a sucker for a good parent/child team.

The Wall posed a challenge for several other racers, including Terry (I think), Mary and the Lyns. All things considered, the Great Wall doesn’t seem that bad compared to some other places past racers have had to climb/rappel. Now if they had to do a couple of laps all the way around the Wall, then we’d have a challenge on our hands.

Sadly, it was Vipul and Arti who arrived last and were given the bad news by Phil that they would be joining the Beards in Sequesterville. Damn, I liked them. They seemed really sweet. Plus all the lovely diversity this season has already taken a major blow. Naturally, I blame Ma Weaver.

Next week: The teams wear funny hats that may or may not be Mongolian and get dragged behind horses that also may or may not be Mongolian. Or maybe it’s Scotland and they’re re-enacting the movie 'Braveheart'.