SAUK AND TAWAU - YES, I WAS THERE!

I am trying hard trying to contain myself with all the excitement going around the country. With no newspaper to make myself busy, I can feel the void. I have never missed any newsbreak so far. At least with The Malay Mail.
The Permatang Pauh by-election and Saiful Bukhari's revelation the Masjid were among the breaking news any reporter would die for.
I have to be contented with memories of beautiful assignments which sent me everywhere.
The plane crash in Sabah (Sept, 1995) was one of the most exciting assignments. Not forgetting Sauk and the countless general elections I have covered. Of course, as a Malay Mail reporter, the style of reporting is never the same. While the other reporters are chasing after Ministers and Press conferences, we have to snoop around for exclusives.
When I was in Sauk (July, 2000) I did not sleep for over two days, simply because I did not want to miss the day action while the evening exclusives were a must as we were the afternoon paper then.
I was surprised and shocked when Boon Siew sent me to Sauk alone. I fulfilled the criteria of an all round reporter, I guess. I owned a laptop and a camera which were the most essential equipment considering we were somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
Our makeshift office was the local MCA office being renovated. No toilet and just a telephone line used by the Press Corps all over the world.
The toilet was the one in the nearby mosque, and you could see a beeline for it.
After midnight, the office was practically ours. As other reporters were sleeping, Harian Metro reporters and I used it like it was ours.
We had to stay awake the whole night looking for exclusives.
Every night, we scooped the rest except for one day when pictures could not be sent as the NST photographers had brought along the dongle, used to send pix to their hotel in Ipoh. They could not be contacted and we missed exclusive pictures that night.
But this lone ranger was later accompanied by non other than the MM crime editor, Lionel Morais. His arrival was jinxed. The rebels surrendered the same day.
But we stayed on until a few days later for follow-ups and later had a memorable photo session at the site where the policeman was brutally tortured.
A night stay at a hotel in Ipoh, one of its finest (though, I don't remember the name) and off I went home the next day.
After making a pit stop at Kellie's Castle, I went straight home for a good warm bath and an equally good night sleep before returning to office the next day.
As for the Tawau plane crash which killed 32 passengers and two pilots, I was hanging around in the office late at night when Azmi Anshar received a call from Mas saying there was a vacant seat for a reporter from MM. He looked around and there was me, waiting to pounce on the chance. It was a good several hours more for the plane to take off and so I made some enquiries about the accident over the phone.
Then, walked in Datuk Kadir Jasin who enquired Azmi our coverage for the day. I overheard him telling Azmi why there was a need for more than one reporter to Tawau (Eddie Chua) was already in KK.
I sneaked out of the office and switched off my handphone, just in case. Went home to pack my things and went straight to the airport, switching on the handphone once we touched down in Tawau.
A little bragging here, but the Mas staff who checked me in at the Airport, were surprised to see me.
One of them said Mas was in for big trouble as Badrolhisham Bidin would definitely snoop around for dirt.
Well, I got several and it was on front-pages of The Malay Mail for about a week!