[JasonCEC]

This happened to me in the jungles of Indonesia.. [0] I literally followed google maps and rode my motorcycle into the jungle.

It started off a reasonable road and quickly became dangerous and then deadly. I rolled down the mountain side with the motorcycle and got very, very lucky that I was only mildly hurt (on top of the brutal sunburn I got on the ride). I ran into the local village (more like hobbled) and the first two people didn't believe that anyone could be stupid enough to do that (pantomiming because no one spoke English). I needed to find a teenage boy before anyone thought it plausible.

Happy to live to tell the tale, and I certainly won't be following maps blindly anymore.

[0] http://www.cultofquality.com/index.php/2018/02/on-glory-and-...

[PopeDotNinja]

Just yesterday I see drove onto a Google Maps recommended muddy dirt road road (like a dumbass) with my rental car just in the Mexican jungle. I thought I could make it, until I couldn’t. I got stuck in mud about 5km, walked through mud to the highway, and learned all about hitchhiking in Mexico, and asking locals for help getting my car unstuck. Good times.

[Tostino]

Had very similar fun in Costa Rica with my rental car and amazing Google Maps directions. Seems like a pattern.

[paulmd]

Reading through this whole discussion thread it looks like the pattern is that Google Maps data is super sketch for anywhere that's not the continental US.

[cerved]

I believe it's fine in Sweden

[PopeDotNinja]

Hehe.

In September, I was in Hunza, northern Pakistan. The mountains are so tall, like 7k to 8k+ meters tall, I couldn’t even get a GPS lock most of the time. Even with a downloaded, offline map, it Google Maps was less than useless for navigation (still worked OK as a “paper” map).

[baybal2]

Happened to me in much same way in Malaysia, when I went there on a holiday from Singapore using a bike of my coworker.

It was a surprise to get into such thick jungle so close to civilisation.

Though, I myself though I will never get into such a stupid situation, and probably those two thought of the same.

As somebody who spent childhood in Russian far east, I think wasn't even told not to fare into forests for it being so obviously dangerous as shown by lengthy necrologues in style "Ivan Ivanov 1980.1.1 went to forest on 2000.2.2, never returned, presumed dead"

[andybak]

That's a great story and worthy of a post on it's own.

I've forwarded it to a few people. It's also made me slightly sad about being stuck in the UK lockdown for at least the next few months. I love South East Asia.

[tomcam]

Amazing story, and if your profile is current you have one of the more interesting jobs on HN.

[JasonCEC]

It is, and I think I do!

We're doing well despite the pandemic; its been interesting to see how adoption of machine learning in consumer research has been accelerated during COVID because its no longer possible to gather lots of people together for tastings.

[Noumenon72]

How did the "they asked for nothing in return" work out? Maybe in their social currency being able to say you helped someone generously is worth more than some money?

[adamjb]

Central Javanese culture is intensely non-confrontational so you can't really read anything into it.

[bavell]

Rough lesson to learn first-hand but it probably won't be forgotten anytime soon! Glad you made it out okay.

[skibbityboop]

Cool blog post, thx for sharing. Typo in it: "So I road my motorcycle into the jungle"