It had been a cooler day than most when Ibrahim and Zul met for lunch at the mamak stall in Lorong Changkat.
"I want to do something different you know, every day in town same same," said Zul sipping his teh tarik, "why don't we take the families out camping for the weekend, you know, somewhere in the jungle, TV Tiga always show such beautiful places in Malaysia."
Ibrahim broke into a coughing fit and ejected a piece of rice and chicken bone, which landed on Zul's sleeve. "What? Stay out overnight? Jungle? No Astro? What you mean? Hantu lah!"
"Yes, exactly." replied Zul, nonchalently flicking Ibrahim's recent oral inhabitant onto a plate on the neighbouring table.
Ibrahim thought deeply, he had never been out of town, but had often dreamt of the possibility of spending time with his family and some friends in that other Malaysia often portrayed on TV. "OK lah, we go, I would really like to relax and lepak with your family and mine. We can fish and the women can pack some food and cook, then we can lepak in the shade while the kids play."
So it was agreed. Zul sought advice as to the most beautiful area within 90 mins drive from KL, and come Saturday morning, with food, tarpaulins, food and tents (and more food) packed they set off passed Ulu Yam to Sungei Sendat Waterfall. There were now three families, the men erected the tents and some tarpaulin covers to fend off any rain, and the wives prepared the food, whilst the children played in the river.
It was a perfect setting, so quiet, so beautiful, and so peaceful, they all felt completely relaxed and happy with their choice and were looking contentedly forward to the rest of the peaceful 'back to nature' weekend, where they could bond with family and friends away from the rush of the city.
Suddenly as Zul and Ibrahim were preparing their fishing rods, one of the children shouted "Harimau!!" and an astonishing sight rolled into view. It was a blue lorry with a picture of a Tiger on the side. The lorry parked nearby, followed by more and more 4wd cars with Orang putih, Chinese and Indians in. Beer was laid out, dogs ran around, men and immodestly clad women were flocking around. Showers were erected - maybe they were going to witness a pagan naked orgy. (Must hide the women and children's eyes lah).
The run was set in a beautiful area, the hares had done a great job in choosing the site, however things started to go horribly wrong very shortly after 4:30.
The pack set off down hill, past a group of Malays camping, and across a very pleasant stream, a steep and slippery ascent followed at which a very wise Uncle Looi said "I'm not going up there" (there is no point getting older if you don't get smarter!).
Paper at this stage was hard to find, people were checking all over the place... even I decided to check, and, using hash wisdom, went up. Someone called on-on further up, but 5 mins later, the paper ran out, so again the pack spread out and was checking. I went up again...and up and up, I lost contact with the others who were presumably checking below me. Probably the hare would not waste the hill, and going down was not an option as it was very steep, thorny and slippery, so I stayed high.
Finding no paper, and enveloped in silence, I knew I was wrong so I descended to look for the stream which I would be able to follow back to the run site. At the bottom of the hill I found the stream and even better found paper and signs of the normal pack damage to the undergrowth. With some difficulty I managed to follow the trail, just me and the two dogs.
After half an hour I came across Peter (guitar Pete) going in the opposite direction. I was sure that I was right (and apart from the fact that Peter got home in a reasonable time and I didn't), I was.
I followed paper along some tough terrain down stream and over rocks until it stopped under a tree, not an obvious check as there were only two pieces of paper, but I figured a check it had to be. Now to be honest, I have become a bit unfit and I don't normally check much these days (down-down) so I looked all over the place to find the trail. The dogs got bored with me and chased each other round in circles, and finally disappeared.
Now I had two problems, I was lost, and I had lost the dogs. I spent the next hour searching for both trail and dogs, because I knew that if I went back without them my family would think I'd topped them, but I couldn't stray too far from the paper or I would be totally lost. Finally, with darkness approaching, at 7:30 I was relieved to hear the distant voices of the rescue party of Rob and Jerry.
The trail actually started within 60 metres of where it ended . I just couldn't find it (duh!) -AND THE COMIC DIDN'T FILL IT IN (b'std). So your very tired and exhausted scribe was escorted up hills and down (on his bum) back to the run site at 9:00pm, and was driven home with thorns and a dogless and tearful family.
Mary (aka spanking machine) came back the next day kindly aided by Chicken Head and Saru to help find the dogs. they went around the run in reverse direction twice (certainly couldn't do it forwards!!) and didn't find the dogs, Mary decided to stay until night fall and bought an ice cream from the Orang Asli vendor. Five mins later the ice cream man came back excitedly bouncing over the stones on his bike and said he had seen the dogs, .Ikut saya, ikut saya.. . So, all's well that ends well.
In summary, the hares chose a great run site, but were dumb enough to leave rekky paper out where it could easily be found, and so most of the pack got lost (23 not back by 7:00pm). It is a shame as setting a run requires a lot of effort, which they deserve credit for, and I believe the food was very good too.
Please note: The job of the comic is very important.
On-On
Weathercock (ghost writer for Spanking Machine)