Expanding AINNA’s operational footprint meant we were in the Klang Valley almost every week - site surveys, integration sprints, client workshops, partner reviews, and live system handovers.
Some days ran dawn-to-dusk. Some trips stacked two or three days back-to-back.
We hit KL, Subang, Shah Alam, Gombak, Bangi, USJ, Hartamas, MATRADE, MITI, PPAS, Sunway Resort, SME Corp, EXIM Bank, and plenty more.
Skip a session and you miss a firmware update, a new API pitch, a partnership lead, or a regulatory shift. So we showed up.
Over that stretch, I think we sampled every tier of accommodation - no-star motels up to five-star hotels. Some nights came out of our own pocket; others were covered by the organizer.
If I tallied it, we’ve probably checked into hundreds of hotel rooms. Homestays? Easily more than twenty.
But out of every way I’ve spent the night on the road, my favorite is still… sleeping in the car.
The locations are all over the map.
Various R&R stops, lots near toll plazas, beside mamak stalls, by a lake, in any parking spot that felt safe - even once on Lorong Haji Taib, right next to a police station.
Sometimes we rolled in late and had another program the next morning. Rather than burn time and money on a hotel for a four-hour nap, I’d lay out the mattress, stack the pillows, and turn the SUV into a rolling ops bay.
I can’t fully explain it, but choosing the car over a hotel always gives a different kind of rush.
Probably because I’m wired for the field, not the lobby.
I’m lucky to run a diesel SUV. The fuel penalty for keeping the aircon on is tiny - around eight hours usually costs less than RM10 in diesel.
The small cabin cools fast. Some nights I woke up cold.
Sleeping in a vehicle has real risks - ventilation and exhaust being the main ones. I always leave a window cracked and make sure airflow is moving.
Still, for me, the experience has a feel that’s hard to put into words.
Maybe it’s because my head lives in deployment mode.
I’ve camped more than a hundred times, including once at a mountain summit with no other hikers around.
That’s probably why, even after sleeping in every class of hotel and resort, if I get the choice…
sleeping in the car still delivers a satisfaction that a five-star hotel struggles to match.
When you’re out building systems in the real world, luxury isn’t what you remember. You remember the route, the constraints, the odd places you parked, and the stories that came with them.
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no-star motels up to five-star is the part I would forward to my boss.
This is where i’d lay out the mattress finally makes sense.