By Chong Shin Yen

THE two teenage girls took a taxi to their school camp in Lim Chu Kang at night.

They didn't count on ending up with a cabby who's afraid of the dark.

This was his excuse as he dumped his 14-year-old passengers in the middle of nowhere and drove off, leaving them to an ordeal that lasted 2 1/2 hours.

With only the light from their mobile phones to guide them, the girls trekked through a deserted dirt track in a forested area near Jalan Bahtera, off Lim Chu Kang Road.

When rescuers found them, the girls were sitting by the roadside in a daze, exhausted and traumatised.

Now terrifed of the dark, they have had to go for counselling.

One of the girls' mother complained to taxi company ComfortDelgro, which tracked down the driver and reprimanded him.

The mother, who wanted to be known only as Mrs Puan, told The New Paper that her daughter and a schoolmate had boarded a cab at Yio Chu Kang MRT station at about 8.45pm on 30 May.

They wanted to go to the Singapore Girl Guides Association Camp at Jalan Bahtera to take part in a three-day-two-night camp organised by their school.

The other students and their teachers had left for the campsite in the morning.

But Mrs Puan's daughter and her friend had to make their own way there as they had to go to school in the afternoon for another activity.

Mrs Puan did not want her daughter to be interviewed so as not to relive her ordeal.

But the teenager earlier told Lianhe Wanbao that she and her friend had felt uneasy about half an hour into the journey.

'The cab was travelling on a winding road when we felt something amiss,' she said.

'We asked the cabby if he was on the right track but he only smiled to himself and kept quiet.'

Just when the girls thought they were nearing their destination, the cabby reached the end of Jalan Bahtera. The road ahead was sealed off and there were no street lights.

Mrs Puan's daughter said the cabby then turned into a nearby dirt road, which seemed to be 'inside a forested area'.

Said the teenager: 'It was pitch dark and dead quiet. He then turned around in his seat and told us that he did not want to 'turn here, turn there'.

'He said, 'I'm afraid of the dark. Just give me whatever money both of you have and get out. I don't want to continue with the journey'.'

The girls were stunned. They did not know what else to do, so they obeyed him.

The fare meter showed $22.80. But the girls had only $21, which they gave to him.

'He told us that he would use the cab's headlights to shine on the track to guide us to the main road,' said the girl.

'We trailed behind his cab for a while but suddenly he drove off and was out of sight within seconds.'

The girls looked at the time on their handphones.

It was 9.15pm.

Frantic, they continued walking even as they called their teacher at the campsite.

After telling them to remain calm, the teacher went to the nearby Police Coast Guard (PCG) base to seek help.

Meanwhile, the girls continued on their seemingly endless trek.

'It was trees and bushes everywhere we turned,' Mrs Puan's daughter recalled.

'We didn't know where we were and we were unable to tell our teacher our location.'

They were bitten all over by mosquitoes. Everywhere they turned, there was the sound of insects chirping and frogs croaking.

Trembling in fear in the near pitch-dark night, they held on to each other's hands for comfort.

The teenager said the pair tried to keep calm by walking faster, but did not know if they were headed in the right direction.

Soon fear and a sense of helplessness overcame them.

'We kind of made out a dilapidated hut along the way but we did not dare to approach and knock on the door,' she said.

'I then told my friend that I saw two white shadows watching us from a distance. My friend also said that she felt 'someone' following her.

'In the end, we broke down in tears and started running.'

Rescued

Their ordeal finally ended when they reached the end of the dirt track and spotted a tarmac road ahead, believed to be Rakit Road.

Exhausted, the girls sat down by the road in a daze.

What happened after that was a blur.

The teenager only remembers crying and hugging her schoolmates after being reunited with them at the campsite.

Mrs Puan said the girls were found at 11.45pm by an off-duty PCG officer who had driven around the area in search of them.

'I only knew what she and her friend had gone through after she returned from the camp,' Mrs Puan added.

Mrs Puan said she had called her daughter that night as the girl was 'taking too long to reach the campsite'.

'The first time I called, she sounded panicky and said she was lost.

'She said she had alighted from the cab but assured me that she had called her teachers, who were looking for them.'

Not long later, Mrs Puan called her daughter again. This time, the girl told her that they had been found.

It was only after the school camp ended that she realised her daughter had lied to her.

Said Mrs Puan: 'The second time I called her, she was still lost but she didn't want me to worry.'

Mrs Puan was livid when she found out what the cabby had done.

'He shouldn't have been so irresponsible. He is an adult but even he is afraid of the dark,' said Mrs Puan.

'What about the two young girls? Wouldn't they be more scared?'

She said her daughter was so traumatised by the experience that she now sleeps with the lights on and had to see the school counsellor.

Her daughter also told her that her friend was badly affected and did not want to talk about the incident at all.

'I wish to thank the PCG officer who went to look for my daughter even though he was off-duty,' said Mrs Puan.

This article was first published in The New Paper.