Sometimes strangers give more love than you've ever known: How Taiping became my home... (for some time)

My second visit to Taiping (I'll write about the 1st time soon ) was not planned at all.
But then again, maybe that's one of the uncertain certitudes in life that best things come unplanned?

I was getting ready for some travels or freelance sales work from a base in Penang when, after a very pleasant albeit brief pedicure & manicure excursion, I suddenly fell very sick... seriously sick, so sick that the following day I barely could leave my bed & 'eat' more than a bottle of orange juice a fellow hotel guest who happened to be a bit though cutely overi-nterested in me  (which, as nice as he is, when your head explodes & you think the view of the dirty hotel wall will be your last one in life, 
is slightly more than infuriating... )  in his over-interestedness agreed to bring to me
(thank you A. I'll never forget it! :) .

I had a business / music meeting to attend, and I still wonder how on our lovely planet Earth I made it to that meeting as every step on that scorching pavement was a huge effort & it was not clear until I made it to the next step whether I would collapse or not. It was mega-sweet-and-short, in contrast to my excruciating wait for it (my meeting-ee was 45 minutes late),  but I was assured " everyone falls sick in Penang at that time of the year". This was my third time sick-time in three months, however, only 4 weeks after I was treated at Penang emergency for acute attack of tonsillitis. Not good, not good at all, I thought.

My options were limited: stay in that dirty hotel room, or? Well I was simply not able to do much more: whether I liked the, on a rough estimate, at least 15 year old hospital green of the walls & variety of noises waking me up at 7 am or earlier even though this was apparently " one of the quiet rooms" or not, I had to lie down and rest, until the worst went away... OR, a tiny light bulb managed to start flashing in my brain despite a headache of the century, go to Taiping, a town I barely knew, a town I have not seen much of, but a town I was kindly invited to in a text from J. a day before this horrible sickness started, to " rest a few days if I ever wanted to".


Somehow despite tons of cactuses growing in my throat with every second, I managed to make a call:

" J. I was wondering.. I am quite sick, could I really come to Taiping now?"

" Of course, you are always invited, take the bus and come" was the answer.


Survival instinct can change us into heros when we are biggest wimps! :)  The next day: I packed my bag, I asked how to get to the bus station, I crawled out of the hotel, I stopped the bus, I begged someone to show me the way to the pier, I got on the ferry, I got on the bus, I waited at the station until Y. collected the palest of me & brought 'home' to Taiping.

And then complete strangers took best care of me & brought me food & medicine & kind words just to make sure I would get better.

Sometimes the best things come unplanned, sometimes we think we know all when life surprises us more than we could plan.

Thank you Taiping.