Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Driving and GPS

It's already 10 pm, I am sleepy and tired (more like exhausted) - alone in this hotel room in Kuala Perlis. The music from the live performance is blasting away - lucky it is not directly on my this side but I still hear them - and it's still raining - it's been raining cats and dogs the whole day....but I feel that I still need to pen this down.


After the workshop was over for the day, I asked my colleague whether she wanted to go out with me - as I wanted to look for some cashews to bring home. She then suggested we asked the receptionist about Padang Besar. Since we were told that the shops there normally closed at around 6.30pm - and it takes around 1hr to reach there - well, what the the heck - it was then 4.30, we can still make it!


So off we went...my first time driving to Padang Besar. There is always first time to everything! Driving on trunk roads - with kids riding bicycle and youths on motorbikes (mind you, no helmet) - was not easy. Alhamdullilah, everything went well, until we noticed that Mr Garmin kept asking us to turn to junctions that were different from the road signs. We double checked the destination - which was set to Shopping Arcade, Padang Besar - but Mr Garmin insisted that we use the Kaki Bukit route. Finally we came into a junction, with the signage showing Padang Besar to the right and Mr Garmin asking us to turn to the left! We turned to the left, but the road looked deserted, and a bit scary!

That's it - I made a u-turn and followed the signage instead. Finally we came to the hiway - the hiway that is familiar to me - since Me Hubby uses that road every time we head to Padang Besar! And you know what, during our drive in that (correct) road, Mr Garmin showed that the road does not exist !!!

What say you ? Morale of the story - you cannot trust Mr Garmin 100%. Need to balance them with road signs, gut feel,etc. Probably Mr Garmin needs to be updated as well!

Imagine our shock to discover that (on our way back) it is sooo...much easier and nearer, if we were to use the roundabout at Kangar town...it was a straight road to Padang Besar...hu..hu...


Well, I looked at it positively - I got to do some sight seeing (yeah, right!) and I had the opportunity to sharpen my driving skill...he..he...


Anyway, we finally reached Padang Besar around 5.30pm (it took us 45 mins - back to the hotel) and found the arcade to be deserted. Most of the shops were already closed. We quickly purchased our cashews and pistachios. And out of guilt, I bought some dresses and shirts for the kids, brooches for the maid and my colleague bought shirts for her hubby and family. At least the long journey (sesat here and there) felt worth it - since we got to do some shopping...he..he..he...

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