8 Hours in Johor Bahru

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Today Paul and I left Singapore for Malaysia where we will split up. Staying in Singapore was a lot of fun and a good starting place for the whole Asian adventure. Paul is headed to climb some mountain in Asia. He says it is the the tallest mountain in SE Asia... I'll just take his word on that. I am headed to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. I am going to take a night train from Johor Bahru to KL and it will only cost me the equivalent of about US$12... For a bunk with air conditioning... For a seven hour train ride through the night. Isn't that something? I'll let you know the quality of the train but I've heard it is a pretty good way to go.

I could have taken the same train directly from Singapore, but what would have been the fun in that? I would have missed hours of transit across the border through customs (I think the trains have different customs procedures than people on foot/buses). Also, it was much cheaper to take the public transit across the Singapore-Malaysia border and then buy my ticket here in Malaysia because the Malaysian rail system has this great scheme where they charge the same amount for a ticket in the kind of money of whichever country you board the train in... this means I would have paid twice as much with the US dollar being worth different amounts in exchange to ride from Singapore because they would have charged like 38 Singapore Dollars as opposed to 38 Malaysian Ringgits.

So Paul and I hopped on the metro rail system in Singapore (he lives right near the Commonwealth station) and rode it to the Kranji (I think) metro station where we caught a bus that took us across the causeway into Malaysia. You'd get on the bus and it would take you to the Singapore customs where you had to get off and go through and have your passport examined. Then you'd get back on the bus (or a like numbered bus... they were steady going through) and it would take you to the Malaysian customs building where you would get off again and go through the process again. Then you'd get back on the bus and continue on to this huge bus depot (Larkin?) in Johor Bahru (JB).

At this bus station I had my first McDonald's of Asia. It was a successful ordering attempt as I got my cheeseburger plain like I like it. I also had a coke and wasn't thinking about it having ice in it... hope the water is okay here... This is where Paul and I parted ways, with him going to the airport on one bus and me heading towards the train station on a different, very, very old city bus. It took me way around town (I think JB has like 800,000 people or so) to the train station. The bus driver dropped me in the middle of a busy 3 lane road that was like bumper to bumper traffic and told me to cross all the lanes... I felt a little like that episode of Seinfeld where George is trying to save the Frogger game machine by navigating it through the lanes of traffic (just like the game operates I think). Fortunately, I fared better than George in Seinfeld and made it through the traffic unscathed. At this point I had decided to take an earlier train that wasn't through the night so that I could see some of the countryside. This was because it was still EIGHT hours till the night train was to depart. We ended up here in JB a lot earlier than I expected because Paul is a dork and thought his flight was late at night when it was really at 4 or 6 pm... haha. So, I make my way to the ticket window and end up having to take the night train anyways because the earlier ones are sold out. So here I am with 8 hours to burn in this city that my guidebook (Lonely Planet) basically calls a trash-hole (not quite their words, but you get the gist). That guidebook is crap-help for this town... What does one do here for 8 hours? I did about 2 hours of reading in the FREEZING train station before I finally decided to explore the 'hood. Don't get me wrong, I was very thankful for the A/C as it has been very hot. We are not that far from the Equator here and it is very humid.

Crossing the road from the train station I found a mega-mall... it was just huge, like with 5 stories or something. There were many interesting things in this mall... a Kenny Rodgers chicken place... an American Idol style singing exhibition or something... and lots of stores with knock-off or rejected / outlet quality designer goods. It really cracked me up to see not one but two different Texas shirts (one in the UT-Austin colors/style and one with a texas flag)... and in a store called "Reject" no less. Their words not mine... :) Also there was "Thomas & Guys" a knock-off of the Toni & Guy salons in the US. One thing I've noticed both here and in Singapore is that when there are models they are almost always very light skinned, like almost white. I'm not sure if this is because light skin is in or what.

There is also an internet cafe in the mall, which is where I'm typing this from. I'm signing off now... to explore some more and then back to the train station.

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