Last Wednesday I finally did something useful during my holiday here in Kuching. My cousin asked me whether I would be interested in taking part in The Amazing Coverage Race with Hotlink (what a mouthful...) as a marshal. Unlike the 'real' Amazing Race, where you get to go all over the world, in this version the participants only go from Kuching to Sibu. And since it's organised by Hotlink, the participants comprised members of the media and Hotlink dealers only. The main purpose of the race was to show off the fact that Maxis/Hotlink had FULL COVERAGE along the Kuching-Sri Aman-Sibu 'highway'. So for 400km all along the road you will see this.



Of course, here in Malaysia we like to give big names to everything. So the 'highway' in Sarawak actually looks like this:



And that is only at the good sections. At other sections it looks more like this:



Not to worry though; even if your car breaks down/tayar pancet etc, you still have liputan jelas from Hotlink to call for help! Too bad for Celcom and Digi subscribers though. Maybe the yellow guy will come and help you.

Since there wasn't any Phil Keoghan/Allan Wu host, they had marshals at all the stops to hand out the clues and make sure the participants didn't cheat. And since it is a Hotlink-promo event, the participants had to complete tasks such as photograph themselves at the pit stop and MMS to the organisers, record themselves singing Negaraku and MMS to the organisers, solve a riddle, write the answer down on the Hotlink paper provided, photograph the answer and MMS to the organizers, buy a Hotlink starter pack, register the number and SMS the organisers etc etc you get the picture. And just in case none of the team members had phones with camera and MMS capabilities, each team was provided with a Nokia N95 demo phone. People complain about product placement in the original Amazing Race; well at least they had variations to the products advertised.

My assigned stop, the Layar rest stop, was unique in more than one way. For example, it did not involve any SMS/MMS tasks. It was also in the middle of nowhere.





It was probably one of the easiest tasks too - we had to supervise the teams as they ate... bananas.





And even though the stop was somewhere between Sri Aman and Sarikei (ie nowhere), masih ada liputan jelas!



Since the crew had to set up at every stop, we left about 2 hours before the race started (which kicked off late as well). Figuring we had enough time on our hands, we took our time, even stopping to take photos along the way.



This apparently is the highest point along the 'highway'. And no that isn't our pickup truck, we had very nice and powerful Ford Rangers.

Even though we had a head start, the participants really gained ground on us, to the point that the leading team arrived at the last stop just 10 minutes after the crew had set up. So much for our extra 2 hours. Have you ever seen a Perodua Rusa drive at 140km/h on our little 'highway'? And our poor photographer, who started along with the participants in his Proton Waja, at the end of the day was 3 teams behind, beaten by two Avanzas and the Rusa. Ironically, the team with the Pajero finished last. But then again for the prizes on offer, it wasn't surprising to see why they were all in such a hurry:

1st prize - Acer notebook for each team member (4 persons)
2nd prize - Home entertainment systems
3rd prize - Nokia N77 phones
4th prize - Sony PSPs
5th prize - iPod nanos
6th, 7th, 8th prize - Sony DVD players

I wonder though what would Hotlink vendors and journalists do with a PSP?