KEMBARA ANSARA 3: CAN'T BE ANYTHING ELSE

PETALING JAYA 17 JAN 09: It must have had been quite an intimidating sight for the occasional hunter, to find that the Grand Slammers & Masters had turned out in droves today in support of the first open treasure hunt event of the year.

The good turnout could have been due to the end-of-season itch or understandably, fairly limited hunting opportunities in 2009. Many corporate companies have implemented or have announced unavoidable measures to tighten their belts in view of a global recession this year, and this may just pull the plug on some of the regularly featured events in our hunting calendar.

The morning started cheerfully enough, with the hunters exchanging customary handshakes and New Year wishes, before proceeding to engage in light banter while waiting for the rest of the teams to arrive. After a slight delay in the agenda and some wise words from the clerk-of-course, the teams set off on a 5 hour hunt around the streets of Petaling Jaya and TTDI (not before completing a Word Search cabaran in exchange for the tulips and questions).

Most of the questions dished out were pretty standard fare which did not seem to trouble the hunters too greatly. Not surprisingly two teams finished the hunt with more than an hour to spare. We would have too, had we not wasted precious time hunting in the wrong sectors mid-hunt (Our mistake but I felt that the clerk of course could have enhanced his tulip further by adding a whole lot more landmarks).

Nevertheless, one question did stand out in this hunt. Generally, when there are more than a handful of Grand Slammers & Masters prowling a particular sector on foot, it usually means that there is an atypical question to be found there. More so when they are seen to be holding a stick of cigarette or food in hand - which means that these hunters expect to spend more than a few minutes combing the signs! This was the case for this particular question.

Q: Can't be anything else but endless tea.
Ans: Rocket

A clue when well crafted with an occassional literal deception can, more often than not, throw off the hunters.

Endless tea = TE (ie. tea without the last letter).
Can't be anything else = the result after an action, in this case Double Jeopardy, literally taken to mean just that.
Rocket = Rock ET = TE (there is no other possible permutation to this anagram).

There must have been more than a few, like us, who were tricked into looking for signages having words like Unique, Only, Just and other synonyms that fitted the translation for "Can't be anything else". Although we did solve this in the end, many minutes were lost.
CoC 1 Hunters 0.

Purrrrr! I do have a soft spot for these type of out-of-the-box creativity.

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Kembara Ansara 3 Results
(full score: 100 points)

1st: Liew Kok Seng, Chong Foo Seong, Michael Pang, Teoh Cheow Teong (100)
2nd: Wong Chiang Chuen, Claire Chin, Julie Tan, Goh Teck Koon (98)
3rd: Alexander Hoh, Andre Teh, Rosemawarni Abd Rahman, Mohd Shahrin (96)
4th: Chai Koh Khai, Margaret Sha, Vincent Woo, Chong Voon Kiat (96)
5th: Sakthivel Marymuthu, Venkateswaran Nagappan, Buvanes Tharmalingam, Eeeswaran Kanesalingam (96)
6th: K Pavananthan, Shandra Dass, Hamidah Kasim, Fuad Dahlan (96)
7th: Chee Hong, Jan Er, Ee Wah, Jialing (92)
8th: Mohd Asri, Mazri Muda and team (92)
9th: Rajj Melambaran, Loh Chee Kwan, Haji Suhaimi, Tommy Ng (92)
10th: Muhammad Razif Ahmad, Gary Guna Sager, Darmataksiah Abai, Raja Zaen (90)