When life gives you lemon…

You know what they say. So, here is my lemonade recipe.

Ingredients:

– lemons, such as when the bus driver tells you that you are at the right terminal, when in fact you end up 6km from the correct place.

– lime, such as no internet and no hotspot. (Internet changes everything.)

– sugar, because in fact the GPS function of the phone works whatever the state of the data connexion, and you had the foresight to download the map of Kuala Lampur on Google Maps to access it even without internet.

– water, because a bit of sweat (or a few tears from frustration and tiredness) will be shed.

Once your ingredients are lined up, starts with the lemons and lime. You are now in the centre of the Malaysian capital, unprepared because you were supposed to go straight from the bus to the ticket counter and from there to the correct bus for Malacca. You had a hostel near the bus terminal in Malacca booked for one night, the time to get your bearings and get a better located hostel for the following nights.

Because you like to be prepared, that reservation is fully cancellable until midnight, and indeed I cancelled it… once I had access to internet.

If I had had access to internet right off the bus, I would have seen that I had public transportation options to get to the correct terminal. (I didn’t even tried asking for the price of a taxi ride, the reputation of Malaysian taxi being what it is.) Still, thanks to GPS, Google Maps and the cashier at the nearby 7/Eleven, I knew where I was and where I was supposed to be.

So I ended up doing what I should have done from the beginning: I looked up the nearest hostel (Google Maps),walked there, booked a bed for the night, and I will go on to Malacca tomorrow morning.

(The picture was taken at the end of my visit to the Cameron Valley Tea Plantation.)