Camel Hunting in Petaling Street

PANDA-monium I never walk on Petaling Street the same way again. The memory of the hunt for the nonexistent camel in Petaling Street will be forever etched in my mind. It was on a hot and sultry afternoon…(erm, maybe not sultry but it was definitely blazing hot.) that we, the over 500 treasure hunters combed through Petaling Street, looking for the Famous Father to legless reptile. What reptile you said? The answer was POPULAR bookstore. POP = father; ULAR = snake in Malay; Famous = Popular. Geddit? That was one of the mind-boggling clues that we had to solve for the walk-a-hunt. We were also told to look for what a camel can offer us. Milk? Hump? Water? Spit? Camel shit? I was walking and swearing under the blazing sun up and down Petaling Street but I still cannot find the camel. It was later revealed in the answers presentation that nobody got the answer right as the billboard with the camel was taken off a day before the hunt! Bloody! We wasted so much time there to look for nothing! That was one of the highlight in the WWF Walk-a-Hunt. A refreshing walking event. Unlike Big Walk, we had to use our brain for this walk, not just leg power. No brain, no walk. We assembled at 7 am at Dang Wangi on Mother’s Day morning (HAPPY MOTHER"S DAY, MOM!). There were three of us in our team - BW, Hoon and I, proudly named our team - CSI - Clue Solving Investigator as a tribute to Grissom and the gang on CSI TV drama. Breakfast was provided - Nestle, Milk, Oat drink, a curry puff and a pack of fried beehoon. Then came the briefing session. We had to complete three legs in the event. 1) From Dang Wangi LRT Station to KLCC/ Avenue K 2) Ampang Park to Petaling Street to Maju Junction 3) Mall hunt in Maju Junction We had to buy 2 treasures, which we solved correctly - Tiger biscuit and Panadol! There was also a tab event where we had to match correctly the parts of the WWF panda logo strategically hidden in the LRT stations. There was more - a bonus questions - about the endangered species in Malaysia. We started the hunt at 9:00am. A tulip (walking guide) was given. From Dang Wangi LRT Station, we had to walk to Masjid Jamek LRT Station. Few question were found en route. From Masjid Jamek LRT station, we took the train to KLCC station where we had to solve more question and look for the pictorial clue in various shops in Avenue K. Incidentally, one of the shops where the clue was placed was not open for business on that day! From the KLCC station we had to walk to Ampang Park LRT station where we supposed to turn in the answers for Leg number 1. A new set of question were given at the Ampang LRT station. We had to make our way to Pasar Seni station. The tulip led us around Petaling Street. The tulip was confusing; we ended up in the wrong direction at first There were 3 Watson shops and 3 McDonalds in the same area and we didn’t know which one was the right landmark. Anyway, we managed to get back to the right path and continued our search for the non-existent camel which wasted our time. Then we took the STAR LRT from Plaza Rakyat to Sultan Ismail Station. We submitted the second leg answers at Maju Junction Shopping Mall. We only had about 30 minutes to complete the last leg of the event - hunting in the mall. Goodness! There were 4 levels to cover. So many question, so little time!!! So, we decided that BW to take the lower ground while Hoon and I cover the rest of the floors. We managed to get some of the answers by 1:00pm. If only we had let go of the camel earlier and spend more time in this mall…..