Lowell and Julie are 7th after 3 Stages of the Amazing Race Canada

Visually impaired athlete Lowell Taylor and his wife had a great Stage Three in the Amazing Race Canada and are in 7th place after herding ducks and transporting coconuts in Vietnam. It is so great to watch an ASRAB member succeed in this difficult race week after week. Here is Lowell’s report.

Vietnam! We were very excited to head to Vietnam as it is a country of great meaning for Julie’s parents (the same ones that took our kids while we were on the race). Dr. Peter Greidanus started his family medical practice in Lethbridge in 1978, where many “boat people” resettled. Lowell carrying two ducks Dr. Greidanus and his wife Bette had just come back from Nigeria, were familiar with tropical medicine, so many of these immigrants became his patients. Last year, Julie’s parents spent a month doing medical work in Vietnam, and were even in the Mekong Delta!

I am assuming there are some of you who want behind the scenes information about this leg of our journey. The top two comments we seem to be getting on social media right now are: 1: where are you guys? They sure didn’t show much of you; and 2: Are you ok after running into the tree?

  1. It was interesting to watch the episode and see how little of the footage was used. We were recorded virtually non-stop through the entire leg and so much happened that will never be seen. We struggled with sleep deprivation, heat exhaustion, and cultural confusion… but we had a blast! There was a moment in the floating market at sunrise that we just stopped and looked around. It was unlike anywhere else on earth.
  2. I have watched the shot where I run into the tree many times now and enjoy it a lot. I think it was a ‘tree’mendous way to end! Julie feels bad ‘leave’ing me stumped. Running into things is something I have become accustomed to.

A few other random thoughts:

  • It was Hot! We were told it was around 50 degrees with the humidity – we had no air conditioning and little shade. Production was very good at providing us with fluids .
  • Julie helped Stephane with his ducks and tried to help him finish, but Stephane was unable to continue and told Julie to go on without him. We were in second last place and had to keep moving, but it was extremely hard. We had become very close with Stephane and Antoine and it was extremely hard to see him suffer – those two are even more amazing in real life than on the show.
  • We did well catching the other racers and finished the coconuts just after Steph and Kris – putting us around 3rd or 4th at the time. We ended up getting lost as no one knew where the Mekong Lodge was and we were sent to the Mekong Resort – 7km on foot out of the way. We stayed with Ann and Tanya who were amazingly strong. Both our camera crews had to stop and be swapped out for new ones as they themselves were too impacted by the heat and their heavy gear. We ended up jogging / walking around 25km that day.
  • After the race ended we had a day to enjoy the pool (where we found the lens to my glasses the next day), eat wonderful Vietnamese food and rest before starting out for the 4th leg of the amazing adventure.

Thanks for all the support! Stay tuned next week for a pretty unique dining experience – a bat, a plate of fried bugs, and live coconut worms!

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