In August of 2005, the haze that drifts across Malaysia from neighbouring Indonesia smothered KL, Malaysia's capital where I live, like never before. Schools were closed, people fell ill, and visibility dropped to a dangerous 300m!

This seems to be an unfortunate annual occurrence but is normally never this bad and never lasts more than a few days. When, after a week of being cooped up at home, news spread that this devastating haze was going to continue for the foreseeable future.

I took things into my own hands. I donned my scuba tank, filled with fresh, filtered, compressed air, and headed out to my favourite jungle-walk - I just needed to get out of the house.

People I passed on my scooter, smiled, gave me thumbs up, and some even took pictures with their phones.

Before I knew it, someone had sent a picture of me on the road to a local paper, someone there recognised me and gave me a call: "Can we get your story?"

This act must have struck a chord because before the day was done, I'd been interviewed by several local and international papers, as well as the BBC, as news of this act of '''defiance''' against these man-made environmental conditions spread like the fires that started this whole light-hearted absurdity on the first place...