Vanessa and Ralph's good luck with cabs is apparently back, because they're actually the first team to make it to the mats and matting shop. There's a stash of clues sitting on a display of matting materials out front, and Ralph opens up what turns out to be a Roadblock. "Who's at the end of their rope?" he reads. It's leg ten; who's not? Phil explains that "India's southern state of Kerala is known as the land of coconut trees, producing almost 70% of India's supply." How nice for them. The we cut to the inside of a bare, barn-like structure, where two women are at work. Behind them, Phil tells us that the racers will have to use coconut husks to spin forty feet of rope "in this 50-year-old facility." That appears to be what the women in the foreground are doing. They've got large fabric pouches full of loose fibers tied around their waists, with lengths of rough twine stretched taut in front of them to some point off-camera, and they're slowly backing up as they're somehow transforming those loose husks into rope. I literally have no idea how they're actually accomplishing this.

After the racers have done it long enough to have produced forty feet of rope, they'll then have to wind four large skeins of completed rope onto one spindle to get their next clue. Why couldn't they have doubled up tasks earlier in the season, when they were already easier? In any case, Ralph will be doing this, primarily because Vanessa clearly wants him to. He picks one of the women who work there as his instructor, gets a sarong wound around his waist for some reason, and gets led through the barn as Vanessa expresses her confidence that he can do this. Inside, Ralph hooks a length of husks around a spinning eyelet to start the rope, with a pouch of more husks at his waist, just like the instructor next to him. "Steady hands," Vanessa adds as Ralph drops the pouch. I'm starting to think she's angling for my job.

Other Rachel and Dave get to the matting store, and Dave will be taking this one. When Art and JJ show up shortly thereafter, Art's in. Other Rachel remarks to Vanessa about how good Dave looks in his skirt. "Actually, Ralph is one of my few boyfriends that have not cross-dressed," Vanessa volunteers. As I've said before about Vanessa, she may or may not be kidding.