lorries & trailers tail back to mandai road




















with the more stringent check on all vehicles leaving singapore, the causeway jams have never been worse. today, at about 5.15 p.m. the lines of lorries, trailers and other long vehicles backed up all the way to the junction of mandai and woodlands road. initially, the big vehicles occupied only the left lane. soon, with impatient ones from the rear budging their way to the front and finding that there was no way forward, they formed another line to the right of the original.

as is typical of these malaysian drivers, when frustration got to them, they started blasting their horns. with police personnels deployed all over the island to look for the runaway terrorist, there was no one to direct traffic and to get the drivers to fall in line except a lone woman wearing an arm band and a volunteer, most likely one of the stranded drivers.

i have wondered why the search for the terrorist had been concentrated on the malcolm park, swiss cottage estate and dunearn roads area on the first two days. it was only on the third day, that they decided to extend the search to the bukit brown cemetery area. i thought that should be the first place to look for the fugitive. the proximity of the place to the detention centre and the nature of the place would make it a choice hiding place.

the sprawling old cemetery ground is almost devoid of people except for the ocassional joggers from the houses along lornie road and sime road. this somewhat eerie place sees lots of visitors only during the qing ming weekends. however, at present, you do see some people because there is some construction work going on along lorong halwa, a place which, in the past, was used for conducting driving lessons.

if mas selamat had made some prior arrangement, he could have made his way to the polo club to rendevous with his helper. another possible hiding and meeting place is the catchment area of macritchie reservoir, about 20 minutes walk from onraet road.