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Reply With Quote25th May 2009 SIN/JAHOR BAHRU TAXI
Up and showered by 6AM and standing at the hotel reception by 0605 explaining my dislike of my room to a more than helpful young lady – however, she couldn’t accommodate as the hotel was full. Oh well I thought, the bed wasn’t so bad after all...
My employee met me at 0630 and by that time I had decided to cab to Woodlands and work out from there what to do in regards to the border crossing. I hailed a blue cab and explained to the driver what we were doing and he offered to take us to the JB taxi rank for $45.
What a Godsend this driver was – he had all immigration documents in the cab with him, he organised another cab to take us onward after the JB taxi rank – great guy, needless to say, his mobile number was immediately stored and he was rebooked for the return from JB that afternoon and also the following day’s activity to and from JB again.
Exiting Singapore with the usual ease, we drove across the causeway into Malaysia to be greeted by the usual question and answer session through the back window of a cab. We were then told to exit the cab and follow the officer. Something was lost in translation and I had no idea what the ^&%# was going on until seated in a room with two nasty looking customs officers who thrust a sheet under our noses which printed in English clearly defined what was happening – we were being checked for N1H1 flu (swine flu) and at which point a questionnaire was given to us and our temperatures taken. Phew!
We passed, our passports were returned and the stern looking gentleman suddenly developed smiles and the ability to speak English and we were lead back to our cab – oh well, each country to their own...
We were delivered to the JB taxi rank where another driver was eagerly awaiting us to take us to a hotel in downtown JB where we were meeting our hosts for breakfast. We were quickly there and both of us were starved – we couldn’t wait ˝ an hour for our hosts so we dove into a breakfast fit for kings.
After meeting up with our hosts, we were driven to the facility where we were witnessing some testing (cutting edge stuff) at a secure government owned facility – again my passport was removed from my care (!) and kept by the security guards. Interesting they studied all the visas in my passport before issuing me a pass...
We left the facility mid afternoon for lunch at a roadside restaurant – me being me, I ensured I ate what I recognised, in this case rice and noodles and drank a couple of cold Carlsberg’s to wash it down. The others weren’t so careful and decided to sample all the local dishes. Thank God for potassium pills is all I can say! I think the thing here that put me off the most was the two mangy dogs that trotted around the restaurant (inside) while we were there...
Back to the facility and we bid our farewells to our hosts and waited at the guardhouse for our new found taxi friends to arrive to pick us up. During this time, my employee decided to sample the local produce – coconuts, direct from the tree. After a fruitless 10 or so minutes, one of the guards came and helped in his endeavour. Finally a coconut hit the ground and a machete appeared from nowhere and the coconut got opened.
After a taxi swap at the JB rank, we were quickly heading back into SIN. Exiting Malaysia was easy and entering SIN was a painful caused by an overly zealous immigration agent who had nothing better to do except scrutinise us. What didn’t help either was both of us were wearing company light blue denim type shirts and jeans – the border security guard was convinced we were seaman and it took a business card to ensure him we weren’t.
Mental note – stay out of lane 5 tomorrow!
Finally back into SIN, we partook in a couple of ales at the hotel bar then across to the Chinese market to a tea shop I knew existed there and sat and chatted with the proprietor over tea then purchased a new pot and setting from her. We then taxied to my favourite restaurant – DIN TAI FUNG for a feast of dumplings- ahhh I love DIN TAI FUNG...
Back to the hotel for a nightcap and bed...
Locals usually have a trained monkey for these purposes!!I have crossed this border many, many times, over the years altho. usually by private car....once by train as well...we all had to "de-train" at the Causeway! How much did the taxis cost door (Sin) to door (Jhb)?
Originally Posted by munitalP 
