AUG 12 — Fighting inertia has been a daily battle.

I already work from bed but the temptation to never leave it at all is always present and so I make myself go out, walk for far too long and, when possible, find a good pastry.

Last week I was attending an event at a hotel that was somehow central and yet remote, not very accessible if you rely on public transport and which needed me to take multiple trains and a bus to get there.

There was also far too much walking.

Sure, I could have just taken a Grab straight there but why would I pay RM30-50? I’d rather buy coffee or a good croissant.

Part of my very roundabout journey to get there (Google Maps has become rather useless public transport guidance-wise these days) was getting to the Semantan MRT and taking a bus.

This particular bus first did a circuit of Bukit Damansara before coming back to Semantan MRT.

I found it mildly amusing.

Yet a woman, whose Touch N Go card had insufficient credit, who had to get off the bus earlier, managed to get back on when the bus returned to the station but at a slightly different stop. 

Good for her.

To get to my destination I had to take the bus to Arte Hotel and then leg it another 15 minutes. 

At least I got to stop at Lacher Patisserie at The Met, which makes a divine cempedak flan.

It has the right amount of flakiness and a base of real cempedak pulp, not flavoured cream, but if I ever feel a craving I’ll take the MRT to the bakery’s outlet on Jalan Conlay instead.

Though I enjoyed my brief stop, it bothered me a lot that this particular spot in KL—despite a neighbouring conference and exhibition centre, as well as Matrade—was nowhere near enough for good transit.

It dawned on me then that this area had been designed by, and for, people who have always been driven around. Not driving, driven.

If you are not the one driving, you have little care for what you see on the way so long as you are taken to the destination. 

For some reason there aren’t even enough street lights at night despite a nearby many-starred hotel and being billed a metropolis, of all things.

Yet regretfully I will be returning to the area, just for The Met because apparently there is a very good fine dining Indian restaurant called Jhol.

Perhaps I will write about it next week.

This week I will wonder why, in this sprawling capital of this flawed and lovely country we call home, we have decided to still make some places just too annoying a destination — unless you are perhaps a little mad and really want some cempedak flan.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.