Singapore to Malaysia - Bus Travel
We reached the golden mile complex by 6:50 pm. All our formalities had completed by 7:00 pm. The bus which we had to board came around 8:20 pm. We had to wait for 40mins extra. They tried to send us into some other bus since it had free seats, but I insisted to board this bus which was what I booked for. Seethu pointed out that the bus shows 7:08 pm in the clock inside the bus. No wonder it came late.
Immigration Clearance
There was a long queue in the Singapore customs for both bus and people. Our bus queues for around 20mins to get to the point where they can leave us for customs check. I had rushed to a queue to get my customs check done. It took me few minutes to notice that everyone in my queue had red passports. Funny part is the queue was extremely fast because it was using an automated system but this was only for Singaporean passport holders. We had to change our queue to a manual one.
This was the Singapore customs check and there was more to come. We had to board the bus and move for some distance before we reached another customs checkpost and this time around it was from Malaysian governments. We could feel the difference. From posh marbled hall to a normal hall with tiles and faded emulsions. The customs officer looked at my passport and asked me where is the white card. I stared at him in amusement, he later give us arrival card to fill in. By the time we filled the card and came back to queue it was a long one. We has to carry our luggage when we left bus for clearance since my friend had lost his purse during one of his visits. One another friend had already warned of some card that we would definitely miss, which was the white card. I had overlooked it.
The scenery changed drastically, it was a well lit smooth road earlier and now it was bumpy one with very dark tracks with only the beaming halogens of our bus litting up the road. And I knew my first visit to Malaysia had begun.
Arrival
Forgot to tell you that we didn't get time to have dinner while waiting for the bus. Having trained to no food in trains ans buses in Singapore, I was hesitant to believe the fact that they really allow to carry and eat food in bus. Few times I ended up eating a bite from the sub that the lady in next seat was eating but in my dreams.
We reached Kuala Lumpur around 2:20a.m. We felt like it was a short ride and good that we decided to take bus. Maybe finding reasons for the decision I made as often. Kuala Lumpur looks more like India except for few sky scrapers that I could notice when I was in bus. We had got down at Berjaya Times Square with the crowd in bus and eventhough it was walkable we took a taxi driven by a Tamil uncle. He took 25MYR from us. He was mentioning about the double charge at night. Anyways I was prepared to get looted by my first taxi since I knew it is inevitable wherever you travel.
We got to our Hotel and did a check-in as indicated to them around 2:45 a.m. The lady had asked me to make full payment but I was not carrying enough MYR's. I paid her 90% of the MYR's I had and promised to pay the rest in the morning after conversion. She said they won't accept Singapore dollars. My hunger brought the craziness out again. After we got settled in the room, I went out to the 7-11 store which I had spotted when I was in taxi and bought everything my mind craved to eat. We had our first dinner at 3:00 a.m. and now going to sleep since I had to wake up at 7:30am for my first complementary breakfast here. Feels like browsing through my traveller's guide before my body switches off to sleep.
Breakfast - day 1
Browsed through 21 odd pages of my traveller's guide by Discovery Channel before getting lost in my sleep. Was feeling tired to walk up. Seethu managed to pull me off from the cozy bed around 8:30am. Took the lift to hit the cafe for free breakfast and anything free would be more enjoyed by the women. Seethu had quite a lot of choices like fried rice, egg, sausage and much more that I could not eat due to my mentally forced vegetarianism.
I got myself equipped with the fried tomato, beans baked in tomato sauce, bread-butter-jam, chocolate corn flakes, orange juice and black tea. Yeah, I know that is a big list for a breakfast. Now back in room, planning for the day ahead.
Day 1 - Morning
We started off with a visit to the historic heart of Kuala Lumpur after changing the currency to MYR. Unlike Bintan where we could get away with SGD, here it was only Ringitts.
Ignoring the hot sun, we decided to take a walking trail. As some of my friends might say, time to show off my sun glasses. We saw Masjid Jamek, Cathedral of virgin Mary built in 1800's and Central Market on our way.
The grand part of it was the Mughal touch that we could notice in the north part of India and some other states. The buildings on Jalan Raja were of historic importance. The thirst due to the unforgiving sun was immense. Had filled up my stomach with two bottles of 100+ on my way. We came to Masjid Jamek train station after the long and tiring walk. Decided to take a train to Jalan Bukit Bintang.
The train system was different from the tap and go system of Singapore. This was more like Tokyo, where we put a ticket or card the system to enter. We had to take connection monorail from Hang Tuah station. I felt like having a sub from subway which had dragged me to Bukit Bintang. I was able to locate Subway without any problem. After two footlong subs which costs us about 24MYR, we moved to Bukit Bintang plaza and other shopping malls over there.by this time Seethu was getting a bad headache due to the hot sun and my foolish decision to start the day walking. We later took a train to Plaza Rakyat and back to Hotel for a quick nap before heading to other locations in the evening.
Day 1 - Afternoon
Guess I have overslept again. My afternoon nap was more than what I have wanted for a rest. Maybe my legs were fainting itself without letting me know so that my false cachet be intact. I have decided to give myself a break in this vacation from my office and others. So sleeping few extra hours was never an overkill.
We got ready around 6pm and hit the road again for another long walk. This time towards Little India and Chinatown. We were fortunate enough to find an Indian vegetarian hotel which was more than enough for an illustrious dinner.
I felt Kuala Lumpur was a small city. Not sure whether it is the colossal Watch Tower or gargantuan Petronas Towers which makes me feel so. Wherever we went these two were always in the vicinity with the clouds.
We commissioned ourself into buying something from the overly crowded Petaling street market. As desired I bought 4 jerseys. 3 for myself and 1 which Ramu asked for. I was captivated towards the two German jerseys and bought into Portugal jersey as for the words of the shopkeeper knowing the fact that in that reddish color I would be no different from a dolt.
Once again my camera who is with me for last 4years was doing his job irreproachably. I had packed his food in the form of 4 fully charged energizer batteries. But by night 2 of them were too jaded like me. I had to put them to recharge at night so that they be fit for my Sunday outing. My charger had an adapter which didn't suit the Malaysian plug points and couldn't find a suitable adapter anywhere nearby. Feel like listening to good old malayalam songs. Maybe I should take a bath, listen to one and doze off without wasting much time hoping for a better Day 2 in Kuala Lumpur.
We reached the golden mile complex by 6:50 pm. All our formalities had completed by 7:00 pm. The bus which we had to board came around 8:20 pm. We had to wait for 40mins extra. They tried to send us into some other bus since it had free seats, but I insisted to board this bus which was what I booked for. Seethu pointed out that the bus shows 7:08 pm in the clock inside the bus. No wonder it came late.
Immigration Clearance
There was a long queue in the Singapore customs for both bus and people. Our bus queues for around 20mins to get to the point where they can leave us for customs check. I had rushed to a queue to get my customs check done. It took me few minutes to notice that everyone in my queue had red passports. Funny part is the queue was extremely fast because it was using an automated system but this was only for Singaporean passport holders. We had to change our queue to a manual one.
This was the Singapore customs check and there was more to come. We had to board the bus and move for some distance before we reached another customs checkpost and this time around it was from Malaysian governments. We could feel the difference. From posh marbled hall to a normal hall with tiles and faded emulsions. The customs officer looked at my passport and asked me where is the white card. I stared at him in amusement, he later give us arrival card to fill in. By the time we filled the card and came back to queue it was a long one. We has to carry our luggage when we left bus for clearance since my friend had lost his purse during one of his visits. One another friend had already warned of some card that we would definitely miss, which was the white card. I had overlooked it.
The scenery changed drastically, it was a well lit smooth road earlier and now it was bumpy one with very dark tracks with only the beaming halogens of our bus litting up the road. And I knew my first visit to Malaysia had begun.
Arrival
Forgot to tell you that we didn't get time to have dinner while waiting for the bus. Having trained to no food in trains ans buses in Singapore, I was hesitant to believe the fact that they really allow to carry and eat food in bus. Few times I ended up eating a bite from the sub that the lady in next seat was eating but in my dreams.
We reached Kuala Lumpur around 2:20a.m. We felt like it was a short ride and good that we decided to take bus. Maybe finding reasons for the decision I made as often. Kuala Lumpur looks more like India except for few sky scrapers that I could notice when I was in bus. We had got down at Berjaya Times Square with the crowd in bus and eventhough it was walkable we took a taxi driven by a Tamil uncle. He took 25MYR from us. He was mentioning about the double charge at night. Anyways I was prepared to get looted by my first taxi since I knew it is inevitable wherever you travel.
We got to our Hotel and did a check-in as indicated to them around 2:45 a.m. The lady had asked me to make full payment but I was not carrying enough MYR's. I paid her 90% of the MYR's I had and promised to pay the rest in the morning after conversion. She said they won't accept Singapore dollars. My hunger brought the craziness out again. After we got settled in the room, I went out to the 7-11 store which I had spotted when I was in taxi and bought everything my mind craved to eat. We had our first dinner at 3:00 a.m. and now going to sleep since I had to wake up at 7:30am for my first complementary breakfast here. Feels like browsing through my traveller's guide before my body switches off to sleep.
Breakfast - day 1
Browsed through 21 odd pages of my traveller's guide by Discovery Channel before getting lost in my sleep. Was feeling tired to walk up. Seethu managed to pull me off from the cozy bed around 8:30am. Took the lift to hit the cafe for free breakfast and anything free would be more enjoyed by the women. Seethu had quite a lot of choices like fried rice, egg, sausage and much more that I could not eat due to my mentally forced vegetarianism.
I got myself equipped with the fried tomato, beans baked in tomato sauce, bread-butter-jam, chocolate corn flakes, orange juice and black tea. Yeah, I know that is a big list for a breakfast. Now back in room, planning for the day ahead.
Day 1 - Morning
We started off with a visit to the historic heart of Kuala Lumpur after changing the currency to MYR. Unlike Bintan where we could get away with SGD, here it was only Ringitts.
Ignoring the hot sun, we decided to take a walking trail. As some of my friends might say, time to show off my sun glasses. We saw Masjid Jamek, Cathedral of virgin Mary built in 1800's and Central Market on our way.
The grand part of it was the Mughal touch that we could notice in the north part of India and some other states. The buildings on Jalan Raja were of historic importance. The thirst due to the unforgiving sun was immense. Had filled up my stomach with two bottles of 100+ on my way. We came to Masjid Jamek train station after the long and tiring walk. Decided to take a train to Jalan Bukit Bintang.
The train system was different from the tap and go system of Singapore. This was more like Tokyo, where we put a ticket or card the system to enter. We had to take connection monorail from Hang Tuah station. I felt like having a sub from subway which had dragged me to Bukit Bintang. I was able to locate Subway without any problem. After two footlong subs which costs us about 24MYR, we moved to Bukit Bintang plaza and other shopping malls over there.by this time Seethu was getting a bad headache due to the hot sun and my foolish decision to start the day walking. We later took a train to Plaza Rakyat and back to Hotel for a quick nap before heading to other locations in the evening.
Day 1 - Afternoon
Guess I have overslept again. My afternoon nap was more than what I have wanted for a rest. Maybe my legs were fainting itself without letting me know so that my false cachet be intact. I have decided to give myself a break in this vacation from my office and others. So sleeping few extra hours was never an overkill.
We got ready around 6pm and hit the road again for another long walk. This time towards Little India and Chinatown. We were fortunate enough to find an Indian vegetarian hotel which was more than enough for an illustrious dinner.
I felt Kuala Lumpur was a small city. Not sure whether it is the colossal Watch Tower or gargantuan Petronas Towers which makes me feel so. Wherever we went these two were always in the vicinity with the clouds.
We commissioned ourself into buying something from the overly crowded Petaling street market. As desired I bought 4 jerseys. 3 for myself and 1 which Ramu asked for. I was captivated towards the two German jerseys and bought into Portugal jersey as for the words of the shopkeeper knowing the fact that in that reddish color I would be no different from a dolt.
Once again my camera who is with me for last 4years was doing his job irreproachably. I had packed his food in the form of 4 fully charged energizer batteries. But by night 2 of them were too jaded like me. I had to put them to recharge at night so that they be fit for my Sunday outing. My charger had an adapter which didn't suit the Malaysian plug points and couldn't find a suitable adapter anywhere nearby. Feel like listening to good old malayalam songs. Maybe I should take a bath, listen to one and doze off without wasting much time hoping for a better Day 2 in Kuala Lumpur.
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