25th August was a memorable day indeed since it was the first time I took part in a motorized treasure hunt. The hunt was organized by UMIC (or try http://www.umic.com.my) as part of its recreational activity. The event had a noble cause of channeling the proceeds to its community projects to help single mothers.

Well, back to the event. Our team consisted of myself, Then, Ananthi, and Guru. Only Ananthi had experience as a hunter before, so you can pretty much estimate our expectation and confidence level. Anyway, we took part more as support for the event rather than gunning for glory. I missed the briefing by the organizers, so had no idea what a tulip had to do with a treasure hunt, until it was duly clarified. Good thing I did not bring a bunch of tulips on that morning 🙂

Guru took on the driver role (it was his car anyway), myself the navigator, and the two ladies as the crew.

We flagged off from Safety Driving School, near Armada Hotel/Asiajaya, PJ at 8am, wearing our “bright” yellow competition t-shirts. It was a sight ripped off from Batu Caves during Thaipusam 🙂 By the way, we also got a bagful of goodies courtesy of various sponsors.

The hunt was confusing since it had many segments – solving the clues (riddles more likely!), collecting treasures, road safety questions, challenges (like shopping in a hypermarket for the items or acting out weird characters), and they even had apair of 3-piece jigsaw puzzle pictorials! It was a steep learning curve for the 3 of us and Ananthi tried her best to expose us to the complicated world of treasure hunters.

The first clue led us to Cyberjaya, where we had to use our acting skills to obtain the tulips and questions. From Cyberjaya it was a hectic 8 hour (YES, 8 hour) trip along Dengkil, Bandar Salak Tinggi, Bandar Baru Nilai, PLUS highway, Tampin, and then towards Alor Gajah and finally ending at Straits Meridian Hotel, Malacca.

We practically had to keep our eyes peeled open and try to process the information we saw along the roads all the time. We tried to answer as much as questions as possible, but ended up completing about 26 out of 40 questions only. Probably got half of that correct 🙁

We did not manage the time properly and had to rush to reach in time. Managed to reach the hotel about 5.05pm and handed in our answers and the treasures. After that, we checked in and relaxed until dinner time. The organizers then presented the answers. From what I saw and heard, I believe this was quite a tough hunt for beginners like me. Anyway, I was glad we got some of the answers correct. The winners were announced (top 10 places) as below:

1st place: Awesome Foursome (Capt Sundar, Rajes, Deepa, Rajiv) – 119 pts

2nd place: Riddle Raiders (Chew Seng Cheong, Lim Gin Lee, Chin Siow Chin, Loh Chee Kwan) – 114 pts

3rd place: Little Ferrari (Manivannan Velayuthan, Prabaharan Sukumaran, Liana Jacinta Gaganathan, Shobna Nair Kunjoo Nair) – 89 pts

4th place: Sivaji – The Boss (Kannan Ramasamy, Krishna Moorthy Ayadurai, Murali Puncharatnam, Tharmen) – 87 pts

5th place: Lanun Merdeka (Perumal Naidu Ramiah, Siva Kumar Ramayah, Malar Supramaniam, Lim Chuan Leng) – 85 pts

6th place: WD Hunters (Edward Raj Selvarajoo, Sanmugam Subramaniam, Theva Kumar Kailasapathy, Selveratinam Manickam) – 82 pts

7th place: Charlie’s Angels (Saravanan Arumugam, Kavita Branavasoruban, Subanandini Thuraisingam, Vanaja Pamela Arumugam) – 81 pts

8th place: Flying Dutchman (Thavaselvam Tesanggu, Premala Naidu Haridas, Sumitera Sena, Sheiila Rajj) – 78 pts

9th place: Info (Ong Jen Jen, Andy Yap Woei Wen, Irma Malyana, Lee Choon Ping) – 76 pts

10th place: Die Hard 5.0 (Nilamegam Maniam, Omantaram Kangarajoo, Sadishwara Rau Narayanasamy, Paramasivam Perumal) – 74 pts

The winners received RM5000 worth of Star Cruises voucher plus other goodies! Not bad for a days’ effort. Even though we did not win anything, I really enjoyed the hunt and we are thinking of participating in upcoming hunts in the future. It’s a good way to explore places and improve on your knowledge.

**update – Then has written on the hunt as well on her blog

As usual, the pictures can be found at Picasa, or just click on the slideshow below.