Assorted Ravings of the Slightly-Weird

Weekend Update!

This time, I'm really just wasting time. My computer has apparently been infected with tons of spyware so the help desk has remoted into my regular PC to try and stem the infection. While waiting, I thought I'd blog about our weekend trip to JB.

For those not in the know, Singaporeans like to go to JB for 3 main reasons:
1) Golf
2) Cheap food
3) Get cheap petrol (petrol prices in M'sia are artificially low because of heavy subsidies by the government)

Cast of characters:
Me, my sister (J), my brother-in-law (K), sister's friend (C), another of sister's friend (L) and sister's friend's husband (L2).

On Saturday night, we went to JB for the second and third reasons. Right from the start, there was an ominous feeling hanging about when C, who had come up with the idea in the first place, revealed that she had a vague idea on where to go and no idea how to get to that vague destination. Luckily we had one map (a pretty crappy map but it did show our destination) so off we went.

When the convoy of 2 cars got to Woodlands at 1800 we were greeted with the mother of all jams. Ok I exaggerate. The jam coming back was the MOTHER of all jams. This one was like, the auntie. By the time we got to JB, which was probably about 4 km away, it was 1930. It took us one and a half hours to clear two checkpoints situated about 2.5km apart.

You see a lot of funny things on the bridge to the Woodlands checkpoint.
1) There's a river of motorbikes. I kid you not. The number of motorbikes on that bridge is astounding - on one single lane there are at least 5 motorbikes side by side. And the fumes, they're strong enough to knock you out. Or at least induce hysterical laughter. We were laughing so hard at inane jokes that all the motorcyclists were staring.

2) There's always one or two guys on motorbikes who either are trying to save petrol or have had their bikes conk out on them, because they're pushing their bikes all the way across.

3) People get off at the weirdest places and I don't know where they disappear to. There were people getting off motorbikes at various points along the bridge, and after that I didn't see any sign of them. I was reminded of the classic PC game Frogger, and maybe they were trying to leapfrog on to various motorbikes?

4) There's always a couple of idiot a-holes who try to cut the queue by using the motorbike lane on the bridge and then trying their darndest to cut back in. So, all the cars on the right lane always try to squeeze as close as possible to the car in front, to block off any such 'attacks'. Kudos to C and K for not letting anyone cut in front or in between us.

On another note, can someone please explain to me why there are two ways to get to the checkpoint at Woodlands? There's a bridge on the RHS and then another lane on the LHS. The LHS is supposed to be for trucks but we saw plenty of cars there as well. Which way is faster?

So finally we got past the SG immigration point, and then K's car started acting up. It stalled at least 5 times on the bridge and I had visions of us getting out to push the car across. Geez. The lesson here: Never try to drive a car that is older than you across to JB.

Finally, we arrived at our destination, Taman Sentosa. Having no idea where to go, we decided to eat at various roadside stalls. For those crazy/bored few who are inspired to go after reading this entry, from the main road you turn right into Jalan Sutera and on the LHS it's all Muslim food while on the RHS it's all Chinese food. We ate at both sides, but I think the Chinese food looked more yummy (plus there was no language barrier on the Chinese side).

Later checks with various friends revealed that we had unwittingly landed ourselves in one of the toughest neighbourhoods in JB. Apparently, we were extremely lucky not to have gotten car-jacked, robbed or pickpocketed.

After that, it was time to head back again and this time around it took us slightly over 2 hours to clear the checkpoints. Fender-benders abounded and people just kept trying to squeeze their cars into 3 lanes. (BTW the 2 lanes on the RHS head to Pusat Bandar, while the 3rd lane from the right is the fastest lane thanks to a design flaw at the M'sian checkpoint.) It was a relief to finally get back onto the BKE and head home.

Our journey probably was no longer than 30 km each way but here's a breakdown of the time we spent.
Getting to Woodlands: 20 minutes
Going from SG to JB: 1.5 hours
Getting to Taman Sentosa: 20 minutes
Eating: 2 hours
Getting back to the JB checkpoint: 40 minutes
Going from JB to SG: 2 hours
Going back home: 20 minutes

Priceless: NOT!

As for the food, I thought it was fairly ok. Probably not worth driving in all the way but it was quite yummy. We had barbecued stingray, cockles, mussels, squid, rojak, mee goreng, nasi goreng, otah and some porridge. That plus drinks came up to 70 ringgit for the 6 of us.

On the other side of the road we had some dimsum and dessert. The ice kacang was particularly yummy; really finely shaven ice and some additional ingredients like peanuts gave the ice kacang a nice crunch. There were also various stalls selling very yummy-looking laksa, prawn mee, BBQ chicken wings and fried mee hoon kuey. If I ever dredge up the enthusiasm to endure a 4+ hour journey I'd try all those out.

Posted by scrabbyfoo at October 11, 2004 11:01 AM