A 73-YEAR-OLD grandmother who went missing for almost a week while on a family holiday in Genting Highlands and somehow made her way back to Singapore and then was lost again, has been found.

Police called her family at 9 am on Thursday morning to ask them to pick up Madam Voon Chot Yin from the Tanglin police station.

A member of the public found her wandering in a daze along Kim Yam Road at 3.30am on Thursday and alerted the police.

Her family members immediately rushed down to the station and brought her home.

The family has not been able to find out from Madam Voon, who has mild dementia, what had happened to her over the past six days.

Madam Voon's granddaughter, Ms Susan Koh, who sounded very relieved over the phone, said her grandmother was not injured and that when Madam Voon returned to their Bishan home at about 10.30am, she started busying herself with her usual chores, as if nothing had happened.

The elderly woman's relatives had been frantically searching for her after she went missing while on a family holiday in Genting Highlands,

But her family says the immigration authorities' arrival records indicate that she had somehow made her way back here on Sunday - without her bus ticket or her passport and with less than $20 on her.

She had arrived at the popular Malaysian hill resort last Thursday with her son, his wife, their two grown-up daughters and his mother-in-law. The family checked into the First World Hotel.

The last time they saw the bespectacled grandmother was the following day, when they visited the casino.

Three members of the family returned to Singapore last Saturday. Two of them - Madam Voon's granddaughter, Ms Susan Koh, 29, and her mother, who wanted to be known only as Mrs Koh - stayed behind in case she showed up there.

The family said it got news on Tuesday from the Singapore High Commission in Kuala Lumpur that Madam Voon had returned to Singapore on Sunday.

When contacted, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) would only say that it is possible, under special circumstances, for Singapore citizens to re-enter the country without travel documents.

'Singapore citizens have the right of entry into Singapore. The ICA will first establish the citizenship status of the person and if we are satisfied he or she has not lost the status, we will accord the necessary clearance for entry,' said an ICA spokesman.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also declined to say much, but said it was helping the family on the matter.

Yesterday, Ms Koh and her mother returned home.

Ms Koh said all Madam Voon had on her was a shoulder bag with less than $20 in it, her senior citizens' ez-link card and what she was wearing - a black blouse, dark pants and sandals.

Mrs Koh said she, her mother and her husband were in the casino with Madam Voon last Friday. The older woman had a go at the jackpot machines. When Mrs Koh, a 54-year-old housewife, wanted to use the washroom at about 3pm, she offered to take Madam Voon as well, but the elderly woman said she did not need to go.

When Mrs Koh returned, however, her husband said his mother had gone to the washroom. But Madam Voon was in neither of the casino's two female toilets.

The family alerted the resort management, lodged a report with the Malaysian police and turned to the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) for help. They also combed the resort. The family contacted the Foreign Ministry here last Saturday.

The MCA told The Straits Times that since the incident made the Malaysian newspapers yesterday, three people had called to say they had seen Madam Voon.

A spokesman said two claimed they saw a woman matching the description walking along a road from Genting Highlands towards the nearby town of Bukit Tinggi last Friday at 5pm; another caller said she boarded a Bukit Tinggi-to-Kuala Lumpur bus on Sunday morning.

The family made a missing person's report with the police here.