This time, the team comprising Hakim, Hilal and Firdhaus shepherded by yours truly headed for Kertih in Terengganu.
Normally, this journey of just over 300 km would be comfortably tackled in a decent car in just under four hours. But this being a treasure hunt, the organizers laid on several hazards and detours plus compulsory tasks that doubled the time taken to complete this 2-day, one night trip to Terengganu.
For the trip, we took possession of Proton’s latest offering grandly called the Suprima – what greater grilling can it be subjected to than a stop-start journey that combines negotiating tiny streets as well as rocketing up to more than 160kmph on the much-policed highway to Gambang.
That dainty driving was down to Hakim who opted to drive into narrow internal alleys in Maran town in search of a packet of mini Quaker Oats with raisins.
The speedy dash was Hilal’s release from the confines of KL’s city streets as he threw caution to the winds in attempting to cover 20km in 20 minutes on pain of the team being disqualified.
Anyway; here’s my standupper at the start of the quest outside the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra building – most of us got up at 4am to be in time for the 6am “call time”.
The hunt started off with the first three questions located along Jalan Raja Laut and Jalan Ipoh easily solved. The third stumped us as the signboard containing the answer was rather obscure – but other teams got the answer and therefore who are we to question its validity.
The fourth question in Jalan Ipoh showed Hilal may be a buddingTreasure Hunter in early bloom.
The question – which made references to the Petronas corporate colour (green = hijau) and the part of a the human body in the face (lips). The answer was Kedai Haji Pilus. Why? Aided by an Anagram indicator in the question (all treasure hunters can spot one), one had to juggle the alphabets in H-a-j-i and P-i-l-u-s to get hijau and lips. If you don’t follow, consult Hilal! He reacted the typical way all first time Treasure Hunters do upon hitting the sweet spot – jump up with unfettered joy to whoops of delight that you were able to get into the Hunt Master’s (the person setting the questions) head!
All the while Hakim was doing the driving and he was no slouch in pushing the Suprima to the upper ends of its performance limits when he was told to push along if we were to finish the race within the allotted 8 hours without incurring any penalty.
He was flabbergasted when we appeared to “run out of gas” and wondered if 200km into the journey, still 20km short of our first pit stop at the Petronas MTEB plant in Gambang we still had enough “juice” to make it.
You see, give Hakim a car that’s anywhere over 1,500 cc, complete with fuel injection and safe in the knowledge there’s ABS, EBD and CPR (I made this one up), he’ll not spare the pistons from pumping away at some “over-the-top” workrate. With foot hardly off the accelerator pedal for most of the highway stretch, he achieved just over 200km on the full tank of gas with which we started the trip on Saturday morning with.
He nodded half-believing when I told him that normally, a full tank would take us all of 500km under less demanding driving conditions!
From Kuantan onwards, Hilal and Hakim swapped seats and that was where they were found wanting - this being only their second time out on a hunt.
To be fair, this was Hakim’s maiden effort out as a Navigator and reading the “tulips”showing which junction to skip or which fork to turn to takes some getting used to. Hakim will need a few more runs in the navigator’s seat before he gets it down pat.
This nearly had dire implications for the team when he decided we had to double back thinking he had misread the tulip. This would have lost us precious minutes but just as Hilal was about to make a U-turn to double back, I spotted the answer to the question we were supposed to have left far behind.
The question? SELF-CONFESSED CHEATER BESIDE SOMETHING ASSOCIATED WITH WATER. To the non-hunter this would be pure gobledeegook. The answer hit me immediately when I saw the shop frontage that shouted out loud – ICON OFFSHORE.
Self-confessed cheater = I Con? Offshore = something associated with water – get it? If you don’t, then you are not quite cut from the same Treasure Hunt cloth Hakim, Hilal and Firdaus are aiming to be!
Precious time saved, we dashed to the finish line with Hilal at the wheel. He showed his off-roading skills during the final leg, displaying the technique of getting round a long queue of cars at a traffic light junction by deigning to turn left but cutting back into the right lane by making a slight detour – naughty, naughty; but that slick maneuver got us to our finish line with seconds to spare!
Our finish line was the Petronas Chemicals Group ecoCare Environment Education Centre in Kerteh which is the company’s CSR contribution to mangrove forest conservation. The centre will be opened by the Sultan of Terengganu on Thursday and our presence – we were taken on a boat ride to see the mangrove forests for ourselves – must have set back the preparatory works quite a bit.
The results of the hunt is academic – though you would find our team posing with the winners’ cheque which we hijacked from the winners for a photo opportunity. Some news portal which shall remain nameless actually “LIKED” and elaborated on the Instagram picture, which fortunately was quickly taken down when Hilal learnt that the “hoax” and quickly alerted them to the painful truth.
What did we learn from this second hunt? That we are far from ready to fight for the major prizes. Maybe when Hakim has improved his Tulip reading and can team up with Hilal to work hand-in-glove, with Firdaus committing to memory some 70s song lyrics, then perhaps you will see us pose less blushingly as hunt winners in future.
IT must surely be a case of Yours Truly acting with Regal aloofness rather than the magnetism of the duo of Awani Anchors that a special individual in a kepok leqor stall in Kemaman has the pin up photo of one of us in his bedroom wall next to JB - taken while we were wolfing down four servings of satar.
