Meeting Mr Wright



Before there were a gazillion travel and lifestyle shows on TV and the Internet, Ian Wright was the man we looked forward to watching every single week on Discovery channel. 

My first encounter with the world's most famous traveller then actually took place in the loo of the Sheraton Imperial Hotel back in 2001. Definitely wasn’t the kind of first meeting I had imagined. But it quickly got ‘normal’ as Wright and us press people were ushered into a seminar room for a group interview.

Scruffy and bubbly, what you saw of him on TV was what you got in person, which made the interview pretty easy ‘cos he gave good and long quotes. The dream interviewee. He was as sporting when it came to the photo-shoot. Wright chomped on a rambutan skin and snaked his way through some plants, just for the benefit of our cameras.

A couple of years later, Wright returned to Malaysia and I got a one-on-one with him, this time at the magnificent Mandarin Oriental Hotel.

His energy was endless, and the interview was another easy one to do. Again, he was quite the sport when it came to the photo-shoot. Although our time was up, Wright was more than willing to find the perfect bush for us to snap this particular shot…

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