The Teluk Ketapang Story Part 10: Factual Inaccuracies In The Newspapers

Although six SEVEN mainstream newspapers carried our story, only one got their facts right - Guang Ming Daily. As such, this post will address the inaccuracies of all the newspaper reports.

Let's start with Kwong Wah Daily [PDF] since it's the worst culprit of them all. They claimed we were lost, physically weak, was there to conduct research and even got our gender wrong. As you know by now, we didn't lose our way in the forest at all. We were also not physically weak and in fact, surprisingly still very strong after all the strenous hiking and trekking, experiencing more than six hours of torrential downpour and not sleeping at all! There were three males and two females in our group but they reported four males and one female. You just can't find worse reporting than that!

The Teluk Ketapang Story Part 09: The Reunion

As the boat approached the jetty at Teluk Bahang, we could see our families, friends, villagers and pressmen waiting at the beach. Of course it was an emotional moment for some of us especially those who had waited and worried over us for one whole night but the reunion had to be cut short as we had to talk to the police first since a police report was made as suggested by the park rangers.

The Teluk Ketapang Story Part 08: The Morning After

As it approached 6am, I heard the sound of whistles and people shouting. I wasn't sure if it was just my imagination or the search party. I related this to my friends and some did hear it, some didn't. As the rain finally stopped, we ventured out to the beach. I saw a spot in the forest which was illuminated by light. Instinctively, we started shouting and sending signals using the flash of our cameraphones and digital SLR. There wasn't a response so we stopped. Maybe it was just some aliens and thier UFOs.

It was daybreak and bright enough for us to hike back. We decided to wait awhile longer in case they sent a boat out for us but looking at the strong waves, they would probably not be able to land on the beach safely. At 7.45am, we decided to hike back and left them a message on the beach to let them know we were there and were on our way back to Teluk Duyong.

The Teluk Ketapang Story Part 07: A Night Like No Other

We kept ourselves occupied for the night talking and joking around. We had predicted the attention we would be receiving in the press once we got out, so no surprises there. We just didn't expect six dailies to carry the story and to actually appear on page 3 of a mainstream newspaper. Aspiring politicians would kill for that spot! Although this was probably my fourth/fifth time being featured in The Star and second in the other dailies, I didn't actually expect the article to be featured so prominently! Target for next year: Front Page news! :P

We also made plans for any eventualities during the night. We tried to signal some deepsea fishing boats but to no avail. We tried searching for mobile networks but even the 'emergency calls only' network didn't work.

The Teluk Ketapang Story Part 06: Welcome To Hotel Ketapang

It was still raining a little and the winds were blowing very strongly. We quickly put into motion the finding of a suitable location and building a temporary shelter for us to camp for the night. We were quite fortunate that the strong winds had uprooted a sea almond tree (pokok ketapang, hence the name of the cove). We broke off it's branches and used its leaves to build our bivouac. Since the cove is quite a popular spot for hotel guests due to its serenity and exclusivity, there were plenty of rubbish we could rummage through to find anything useful to us such as styrofoam boxes.


The front of our bivouac made of branches and leaves of the sea almond tree