'Mazing Singapore Race 2004 - Race report by Victor

Event : The 'Mazing Singapore Race 2004

When : 30 Dec '04 (10pm) - 31 Dec '04 (11pm)

Start/End Point: Choa Chu Kang Community Centre

My Team : Ignominatus - Guozhang (leader), Chee Meng, Hazel, Me

Number of teams : 101 - 227 (??)

Weather : Totally perfect with 24 hrs non-stop rain + drizzle + squishy squashy mud!

Where we went : Many many places, but basically, we kept circling around from Choa Chu Kang to Jurong to Kranji to Clementi and back again for 24 hrs. Places we went to included Keat Hong Camp, Seng Choon Egg Farm, Jurong Frog Farm, Qian Hu Fish Farm, Kranji War Memorial, Lim Chu Kang Chinese Cemetry (in the night!), Jurong Birdpark/Garden of Fame, Asia Pacific Breweries, King Albert Park, Phoenix Garden, Tai Inn Temple, Kranji Sec Sch, Kranji Nature Trail, Sembawang Sea Sports Club, Sembawang Park, Jalan Kampong Chanteng in Bukit Timah, Musu Park and I dunno how many other parks we've visited.

Whom we met : Competitors from other teams, taxi drivers, lorry/truck drivers and bus drivers whole night/day long. It's amazing to see the different reactions of the drivers around when we asked for free rides and pretending to be super poor passengers, which we supposedly are by the way. There were these 3 taxi drivers who were all so nice to give us totally free rides to super far away destinations! I LOVE THEM! THANK YOU! The rest were idiots who tried to negotiate prices with us, esp this uncle who gave a 'discounted price' of $10 to travel from Jurong to Kranji! It was only late in the race that we learnt the 'art' of hitch-hiking from lorry drivers on new year's eve. Nonetheless, it was exhilarating travelling in the open space at the back with the rain drops hitting on your face! SHIOK! There's also this lorry driver who was so so nice to us to send us to seng choon farm. He did not know his way there, took many u-turns and wrong roads and in the end, made us so guilty for wasting his time home even though he was smiling so happily. *touched* Oh yeah, there's this bus conductor at CCK who's so funny! When we got off a bus at the CCK interchange, he immediately interoggated us to where our next checkpoint was. We got a rude shock at first before realising that he wanted to tell us the bus we wanted to hop on next was the last for the night and directed us to the bus driver! How sweet is that! Along the race, we also made friend with Mrs Ivy Singh-Lim, president of Singapore Netball Association, when we visited her Bolleywood Veggies farm in Kranji. We even ate in her restaurant before setting off to our next checkpoint. Haha! Oh yeah, Hazel got herself a new Godpa when we negotiated with an uncle at Jurong Frog Farm for him to send us to our next checkpoint. Was amazed at how Hazel turned on her charm and managed to get us a free lift on a posh Lexus LS430 and future jobs as chemist should we fail in NUS. Great job! Go, go Hazel!

What we did : Basically, we walked, ran, and begged our hearts out in this race like we've never done before. Walking has never been this shack! How in the world could I still run in the race?? In the race, we had to solve puzzles to reach the designated checkpoints. At the checkpoints, we also had to solve a puzzle/task to obtain a sticker to our Questaport, a card. The more stickers you have, the more checkpoints completed in the shortest time, the more likely you are the winner. However, my team was only out to enjoy the race and we simply chose our own checkpoints we wanted to go. Haha! We are not a group of rules followers. Rules are meant to be broken anyway. The 3 most memorable events were the jungle and forest treks - 2 in CCK/Jurong and 1 in clementi! It was really a test of our patience! In the 1st, we were like blind mice following a group of people up a jungle trek used by army people for route march. After walking for 30 mins, we realised that the trek taken was wrong only when we saw no concrete pathway in sight, unlike that mentioned in the map. Nice! And of all times, my digital camera had to drop on the harddened mud and split open like banana skin. Nice X 2! Luckily, we managed to trace our route back and continue our mission in time. In the 2nd trek, which was another jungle track from Kranji Sec Sch to Keat Hong Camp in CCK, my team literally used our wits and brains in the midst of the sleepy night from midnight till 2am to lead about 5-8 other teams out of the jungle. The trek was particularly sick because we stepped into ARMY SEWAGE towards the end of the trek and had to filter out other teams' nonsense rumours that there's no way ahead everytime we met road junctions. I'm so proud of myself and Chee Meng for being such great navigators and for being able to spot the red & white tapes which indicate correct trekking in the middle of the night when others could not. Haha!! In the 2nd trek, we had to weave ourselves in a super forested trek directly opposite Ngee Ann Polytechnic. Wow! My team din know there's a very old disused railway track that leads to Clementi Ave 2! But it was damn shit to trek in tiny confined forested space, in ankle-high mud + water, with heavy rain pouring, with policemen asking u to get off the trek 1/2way(they dun know there was a race!) and after 1 hr, the organisers said the checkpoint is closed. Well done! U can literally feel our hearts breaking! *crack* We did other cute stuff as well, such as grabbing bull frogs by their legs to transfer them into another cage, planting aloe vera plants, cut up coconut, fold balloon pigs (segmented pig in Guozhang's case...Haha!) and many other stuff...

What we ate/survived on : We did not really eat much along the way. Let's see we only had 9 small packs of crackers, 12 or so energy bars, 1 bottle of vanilla Coke, 2 cans of tuna, and 4 500ml bottles of water for the entire 24 hrs. Oh yeah, but with the money we had smuggled, we actually had time and money to pig out from 7-11 and Bolleywood Veggies, though most money was spent on taxis, something which I regret the most. It's not worth it to let them take away your prescious money. Along the race, during the tasks, I managed to gulp down (drink!) 6-7 raw eggs at 1 shot in Seng Choon Farm, thanks to the other teammates who din dare to try and a few fried beetles near the end-point. Additional fulfilment brought on by the race. Through the race, I was glad we pushed on each other to continue with the race, especially Guozhang. I was impressed by his abilities to think decisively where and what we wanted to do when most of us were only thinking of the bed and comfort of home. It was pretty good that we had set out a purpose of the race, that is to enjoy ourselves, so it was a nice excuse whenever things got a little tougher. Through the 24 hrs, the stupid lame jokes that we encountered also pulled us through the tough boring times. So laughter does work on people's mental and works well to combat sleepiness afterall! So does companionship for each other when times are down!

Complains : Oh man! There's full of it in this section but I won't detail everything here. I am still wondering how come people can blatantly drive from 1 checkpoint to the other and the 'guardians' do not catch them in the race? That's super unfair to teams who race on legally by using persuasive skills to hitch rides! Darn them! It's 'mazing singapore race that we are racing in the competition, but how come it's only the areas of Choa Chu Kang, Kranji, Clementi and Jurong that we have been brought to?! I was so hoping to go to Bishan(home ground), Bedok, Changi, Buona Vista, Geylang and other nonsense areas. So bloody disappointing. Y dun they call it the 'Mazing West Side Race? We were postulating that this happened because it's Choa Chu Kang Community Centre who is part of the organisers and it's a scam by them to promote CCK to the participants. How scheming! *Evil* Some of the trails were reused from last year. As there were participants from last year too, some of them went straight to the end of checkpoint without going through the trails. That's so bloody unfair to people like us, who went thru rain and mud and tonnes of mental pain, to see competitors so dry at the checkpoints! *grr* There is this group whom we super detest and am still trying to find out who they are. It was in the dawn period and we, along with about 5 groups, were walking along Sungei Gedong Road heading towards the cemetry for the next checkpoint. We were so happy to see a trans-island bus 175 and were happily flagging to stop. However, this group of ass, think it's team 111, told the bus driver not to stop for us and zoomed the bus past us at the bus-stop to our horror! *Basket* Swear words immediately flew out from everyone's mouths, cursing and swearing as hard as we could to that team of pple! *How evil they are* The competition was also not organised. The checkpoint timings were insane and was only planned for sunny days. I bet the organisers did not expect 24 hr rain and all the plans were screwed right to the core. Yeah, one thing, did they also know that there was a fresh fallen tree in the forest trek? We had to climb trees and such just to get round the huge fallen tree. Got our bloody butts muddy, which puts us into super disadvantage because no taxis wanted to pick dirty passengers up. Also, the checkpoint was closed strangely after the 1 hr forest trek and we had no choice but to skip it!!! Wat a bloody waste of time!! Tell us if u r closing checkpoints soon so we can aviod that place lah!! So dejected when that incident took place! Ok, enuf of complains here. No one like complains, it's better to hear happiness ard, and I'm out of ideas to write. Haha!

Injuries : Mental jam to all our heads right now! Can't really think of things now except in clues and puzzles. Haha! *lame* I can bet my teammates are all now lamenting about full body aches expecially in the leg and feet area! Chee Meng, u better take care! This is one 'garang' guy who persevered on with the race, despite his feet being all red & blistered. My hats off to you! It's also a pretty nice sight to see Guozhang using his medical skills to bandage up Chee Meng's feet. So funny! There's also some minor cuts and abrasions suffered during the forest trek, but otherwise, everything's fine. My feet is still pretty numb and sore, having gone through slight hypothermia. Hopefully I can feel my feet soon!

Pictures : Not that many - http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeoMmbJs1bvbA&notag=1