COBRAS, CARS AND CONGESTION
Amazing Race Canada contestants experience the challenges of Jakarta
JAKARTA, INDONESIA Before The Amazing Race Canada: Heroes Edition debuted earlier this month, members from the 10 new teams were asked what foreign capital they hoped to visit.
Not one person mentioned Jakarta — just as supervising producer Mark Lysakowski had hoped.
“When we do international shows,” says the native of Welland, Ont., “we’re always looking for a fish-out-of-water experience.”
These waters, however, were a world away. Producers had to arrange visas and fly the eight remaining teams, camera and sound crews, director Rob Brunner and host Jon Montgomery approximately 30,000 kilometres there and back for the single episode, which will air Tuesday.
These international turnarounds take place over just a couple of days, with much of that time — more than 40 hours in this instance, both ways — spent in the air. The time difference from Toronto to Jakarta is 11 hours, in case any of the par- ticipants still thought they knew what day it was.
Watching teams try to overcome those challenges “is where viewers see themselves in the racers and become inspired,” maintains Lysakowski.
Even for Montgomery, Jakarta is the least familiar region ever featured on the CTV series.
“I had zero idea or picture in my mind’s eye of what this place might look like,” says the former Olympian. “I really didn’t expect the tall, glass skyscrapers that are everywhere, and the prolific shopping malls, which makes sense now that I’ve been here because the heat is stifling.”
The city seems less defined by the usual big-city boundaries. Five-star hotels and luxury restaurants share the same block with makeshift markets made out of corrugated steel and concrete blocks.
What Canada is to lakes, Indonesia is to islands, with more than 13,000 — many volcanic — dotting the Pacific Ring of Fire.
Indonesia dwarfs Canada in terms of population, with more than 261 million people. Metropolitan Jakarta alone is home to more than 30 million, not far off the entire population of Canada.
And with that population comes traffic. A lot of traffic.
While efforts are underway to ease commuting with plenty of highway construction, this didn’t help the Amazing Race teams when the show was in production last May. Participants had plenty of time to ponder large billboards for the 2018 Asian Games — coming to Jakarta in August — from stuck-in-traffic taxis.
Producers familiar with the region warned Lysakowski that the racers “will never get anywhere” because of road congestion. “Perfect,” he said. “Makes it harder. You can win or lose this show in a taxi.”
To add to the disorientation, cars and scooters drive on the opposite side of how traffic flows in Canada.
Throwing participants well outside their comfort zone is Lysakowski’s specialty. Jakarta’s geographical position just south of the equator saw temperatures soar into the high 30 C range. If traffic didn’t leave players steaming, the weather would bring them to a boil.
Crews had to navigate around the annual May Day labour parades and protests as they tested camera angles the day before the race. Lysakowski says the series has no problem wading into similar parade routes last season in Panama, and in an upcoming episode set in Canada.
Getting trapped, he says, is what makes the show. “What happens when you’re travelling and you’re suddenly stuck? Who can best figure out their world?”
Tuesday’s telecast will also find racers washing large cobra snakes by hand, and carrying armfuls of spiky, stinky durian fruit across a plank and into a cargo ship.
Mellisa Hollingsworth, 37, listed snakes as one of her greatest fears coming into the race. Her teammate, fellow Alberta native Nancy Csabay, suggested they simply “talk to them like they were horses.”
Viewers can judge for themselves how well that worked, but the former Olympian and the professional barrel racer are already pleased by how well they’ve meshed on the road.
“Communication is key,” says Csabay, 50. She hopes to show her 13-year-old daughter back home that “women can win any race once they set their mind to it.”