Kiwanis Treasure Hunt 2008

Oh! what a hunt! I set out to achieve the top 20 teams in the Kiwanis Hunt 2008. It was truly exciting—the roller-coaster fluctuations in optimism and pessimisism throughout the hunt, the thrill of solving the questions, the company of exciting team members, the well-organised presentation night. The Kiwanis Hunt is indeed a hunt worth joining!

Last Friday I flew to KL and then put up at Cottage Inn in Subang Jaya. That night I met up with my other team members, i.e. Julie, Teck Koon and Lee Quan. We had a simple dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant. Then we went on to paste the many advertisers' stickers onto Lee Quan's car—in the dark, by the road side. I meant to sleep early that night, but somehow I only managed about 4 hours of sleep, perhaps due to the excitement of my very first Kiwanis Hunt.

The next morning, I woke up at 4:32am. I freshened up and then walked over the a Mamak restaurant behind the Inn. There were 2 Indian guys who appeared to have been there for ages, with a couple of empty glasses on the table. At the other table were 2 boys, apparently watching a comedy movie on a cellphone. I ordered a roti telur and teh tarik. Then I rushed back to the Inn, checked out and then waited by the roadside. Lee Quan and Julie arrived a couple of minutes later. We went round to fetch Teck Koon and then headed out to the start control.

When we arrived there, it was still dark, but there were already so many cars all nicely lined up. There were master- and grandmaster-hunters in this hunt. From the beginning, it was clear that it's gonna be a very tough hunt for my team. But I had a modest target of being in the top 20 teams, although even that appeared to have been an uphill task.

The hunt brought us from the Klang Valley all the way to Damai Laut in Perak. After the flag-off, the hunters went through several nearby locations for the first few questions, but soon after we embarked on the long journey to Damai Laut.

Grandmaster Chong, the Clerk-of-Course for this hunt had an interesting style in his clues, but I will come to that later. As usual, I have a lot of things to say about his questions. To summarise, however, there were 40 route questions which comprised 33 regular questions and 7 bolded questions; 6 treasure questions; 2 crack-a-pot questions; 5 road safety questions (which carried no score); and 3 games known as K Events.

My team adopted a strategy of giving very little attention to the bolded questions, since they were obviously much tougher than the regular route questions as well as carried much lesser points. Hence we ended up solving only 2 of the 7 bolded questions.

We managed to clock in at the finish control without any time penalty. Then there was a long gap of a day before we were to know the results of the hunt. In the meantime, it was amusing how we went through the experience of gaining confidence and then losing confidence and then gaining confidence again and again when we discussed some of the questions with the other hunters. This continued up to the moment when our team was declared the winner of 14th position. I am absolutely thrilled and I'd consider it a significant achievement.

A few days of interaction with the master and grandmaster hunters, and the fun and many exciting moments with Teck Koon, Julie and Lee Quan were all worth it; and I'd gladly do it all over again!

This morning, we left Damai Laut shortly after breakfast. We stopped by in Bidor for lunch. Then we proceeded on to KL where I caught a bus to LCCT. The flight was a bit delayed. I couldn't wait to reach home. When the cabin crew announced that we're about to land, I was very happy. Then the plane slowed down and started descending; the landing gears came out and we approached the runway. Then we passed Terminal 1; we were already above the runway. Then a few seconds wait... and a few more seconds... still no touch-down. Before long, it was obvious that we were approaching the runway long. There was no way that the plane will stop before hitting the fence at the end of the runway. Then finally we felt the wheels touching the ground. And my heart raced, because we were already so close to the end of the runway. Suddenly the pilot revved up the engine again. The plane picked up speed and soon we were airborne again. There was a sigh of relief in the cabin. We were just lucky that there was still enough time to gain enough speed for the take off.

Another big circle in the air; another approach; and yet another long approach. Only this time the touchdown was slightly sooner than the first one. The plane came to a halt barely at the end of the runway. And again there was a sigh of relief from the passengers. We had landed safely after all.

I am so happy to be home again. I am very tired now and shall not be making my customary comments and hunt analysis tonight. I hope my many fans will be patient. My comments will come in over the next few days in separate threads. While I was in the plane, I have more or less shortlisted some of the questions—these are the threads I've planned:

1. In vs And

2. Of Nightmares & Restful Places

3. The Strikingly-Debatable Answer

4. Spiritual Question

5. Metalic Captain

6. The Elusive Swan