Top Gear Malaysia Treasure Hunt 2008

The start

It was the first time for Top Gear Malaysia magazine organizing a treasure hunt. In total there were 49 teams that participated in the hunt. I heard that they actually had to cut some of the teams off due to limited place. Our competition number was 34, so I think we got in at just the right time... :-) The start-off point was at the Regalia Business Park, USJ...and we didn't have to get up that early to reach the place. The briefing was...er...brief, because we all went into action from the get go.

The first challenge was to get us through to the sectors, remember - this is a long distance treasure hunt, time is of the essence. That took us through the North-South highway, and we used the time to scan through the questions as well as figure out the treasure answers. It was funny inside the car because we all came out with all sort of answers without knowing whether we could actually find the correct answers or not. The Ipoh section wasn't that bad actually, although we did have the usual Macam-Macam Adaaaa moment, we usually stumbled at the start of the questions. Once we did a turnaround and started again, that's when we finally saw the answers to the first 3 questions, and off we went to the other sections. It was a nervy start for us as usual...

The missing girls

Okay, here's where we debated on why we performed the way we did after the hunt ended. In this section of questions, we knew what to target for the answers...one of the the questions was "Sounds like the Hips don't lie girl"...easy, right? we should be looking for Shakira, or Sakira or Shadira at the very least...No such luck. We went up and down the street...got out of the car...went up and down again, but there were no answers. We took a look again at the question, and it should be a straight forward question. But we didn't find the signboard anywhere. After we wasted time looking for it again and again, upset as we were, we decided to move on to the next section. Everything went well until another answer we couldn't find. Easy question: "Hamilton's race on a following" and something about feet. Find something with and F & I or F & 1 in the signboard, plus look for maybe a shoe shop. Easy right? Nope. Didn't see it from the car. There was only a few shops there and the only one with F & I was Nafisa; which was a ridiculous answer if we were to take it. Beside Nafisa was a shop displaying a banner "Kedai Kasut, Jualan Penutupan" or something...We suspected that this might be the shop they meant, with the banner covering the actual signboard. So off we went to cross the road and have a closer look. And inside the shop, there was a small sign displaying "Fiona...Shoe Accessories" or something...Ala...senang je, but if you can't see it, you can't answer it lor...

Anyways, we got that one right...I think the other teams also saw it when they went closer, so there were no complaints. But the "Shakira" answer they gave free points, because the signboard came down before the hunt started. Should've at least told us that, would've saved us precious time. Which is the debate in our team, which was time management...if we knew that the signboard didn't exist we would've went straight on to the other questions and saved us some time.

The time, the time...!

Time management...that's important in hunting. Especially in this type of long distance hunting. Because you have to take into account the travelling time in between sectors. By the time we got to the final sectors, I think we were pressed for time, and just went through all the questions without even stopping to discuss it. It helps actually when the questions were a bit easier towards the end. It didn't help that we rushed to write down the answers and left out a few details in the answers which caused us points. Oh dear...

When we got to the finish station, there were several teams already there, and I believe we were penalized 1 point for being 7-8 minutes late? But that's not the end of the hunt, because there was a final task to be done - which was Challenge 2, and it all had to do with the November issue of the Top Gear Malaysia magazine - which was one of the treasure items the teams are supposed to submit. I think we did okay to answer 5 questions (?) in 4 minutes although we did have our usual nervy moment - "it says here page 12, turn to page 12...!why aren't you turning to page 12??!...err, it is page 12..." haha...

In the end, we finished 12th overall, winning the four of us a "fragrance" each from Ferrari (this year dapat bau kereta, next year menang kereta pulak lah...haha)...in retrospect, I think we could've done much much better. If not for some errors in writing down the answers, we would've scored more points. On why we had errors in writing down the answers is simple: time management. That's important, and if we improve on that I think we can start winning some serious stuff...hahaha, how I wish...

The place where we slept...

Paradise Sandy Beach Resort...sounds grand eh? A lot of potential, but could've done much much better. The minus point on Farid & DQ's part was that their room wasn't ready by the time we checked in. And the fact is the check-in time was 3pm, and we arrived at the hotel around 6pm. That's 3 hours for them to prepare the rooms, and they must have known the teams are coming in that day to check in. And the lifts? It took forever to arrive! And there were 3 working lifts! Okay, okay...Enough with the negative points, the positives are...The room was actually fine for a one night stay. The food was okay, the beach was nice although we didn't have time to appreciate it fully. The pool was small but nice enough for us to enjoy about an hour of swimming.

Overall, I think the hunt went well for all of us. Of course the organizers (Time-Out Solutions) are old hands at this, so it is expected that it went quite smooth. Out of all the treasure hunts' C.O.C, I enjoyed their hunts the most. Challenging questions, even more challenging treasure questions and the way they handled the answers and results sessions were always enjoyable, and funny too.

Looking forward to the next treasure hunts!