Well with a slight hangover, I woke around 8am and my brain was wide awake – but my body (head) was in pain! Haha – that will teach me. Anyway, I eventually got up, had a shower, eat some brekkie and drank some refreshing Earl Gray tea, and before long the headache soon went away 🙂 This long-weekend, the last Bank Holiday before Christmas, I decided to go to Melaka (or commonly known as Melacca).
The Busy Woodlands/Johor Border Area
I finished packing, checked I had everything and headed off to the MRT to Nicholl Highway MRT to pick-up the bus at 11.30am. It was a painfree journey (like most of the journey’s around Singapore) and the StarMart Express Bus arrived right on the dot.
Boarding it, I took my seat (number 1 – and no that wasn’t the driver’s seat!) – and we soon head off around Singapore heading northward.
Before long, we reached the Johor–Singapore Causeway and this means we had reached the Singapore/Malaysia border – the obvious sign was the queues of vehicles on the road at the border junction – actually, I guess before Saturday late-morning (rather than Friday night/Saturday early-morning) the traffic was lighter than expected.
Another StarMart Express Bus at the Border Control
We headed off to the slip-road reserved for Lorries, Buses and Taxis, and stopped off at the Singapore side of the border, where they checked everything and let us through. We bordered the bus again and went across the Causeway (the no-mans land) before we entered the Malaysian side of the border. At the Malaysian Border Control, we went through Immigration and Customs and re-bordered the bus – again, very swift and painless. We then rejoined the highway going north towards Melaka.
The coach driver literally put it foot down, and there were stretches of road where he was actually exceeding 120kph (exceeding 75mph) – ergh especially when the maximum for coaches was meant to be 90kph – lol! Well I had my seat-belt on, so had to grin and bear it (ha)! Seeing the driving on the roads, I guess this approach was normal, there was tailgating, weaving, using the hard-shoulder for over (or under) taking, and basically a lot of aggressive driving – and this was even when we were passing an army convoy 🙂
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- The Army Convoy – which we overtook at over 120mph 🙂
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- The bus driver did put his foot down!
The journey lasted about 4 hours, as we arrived at Melaka Central Bus Station. The next bit was to find the local bus to the Dutch Square, as the system was a bit chaotic, but I looked up at the bus route map, and worked out the street that I had to arrive at, and eventually managed to find the correct bus – Bus Number 7 – my lucky number 🙂 And the cost – well RM1 🙂 Nice – definitely the cheap way to travel, and it was an enjoyable journey (well a taxi would cost Rm15 – so I’ll settle with that saving!)
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- Bus Central – ergh the local buses were ‘interesting’!!
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- No air conditioning on these buses!
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- Relaxing on the bus – well it was only RM1!
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- Interesting decor within the bus…
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- Our bus arrives at Dutch Square
I think I’ve survived the journey – and the key thing, I’ve now arrived to start my Melaka (aka Melacca) adventures – yay!