On the way to Johor Bahru

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So plans were to catch the night train at Johor Bahru in Malaysia. Before going to the Zoo the girl at the Hostel in Singapore had phoned for us to the railways because we couldn’t do an online booking anymore… She told us that because of train problems there were no trains departing at Johor Bahru, but we had to catch a taxi to a station 150km futher a way and get the train there ( Kluang) . I had my doubts about this news, but what could we do about it??

We decided to get there around 19h anyway ( departing time of the train ) and then we would see what would happen.

So we hurried from the Zoo to the Hostel by taxi, picked up our luggage and continued to the bus station where we waited a bit for the public bus to leave to Johor Bahru. 18h we stepped up the bus, already then we knew we were not going to be there at 19h, but since the train didn’t drive anyway we didn’t care so much. So once at the border we had to get of the bus, all the luggage included and walk to immigration of Singaporean customs and clear passports.

Walk to bus stop again ,get on with the luggage, drive 1 km or so, get off again, and pass the Malaysian customs… You can imagine that we were happy this was done knowing what we our carrying around; 1 big luggage on wheels and big daypack for Stef, 1 big backpack and the stroller with Ask for Jesper, and each of the kids their own not so little backpack…

The man sitting at the customs ( a young guy ) was sitting hopping at his chair, sniffing his nose all the time, making lots of tic movements. Jesper and myself thought the same; he must be doped…

So now we walked to JB sentral station, when we got by the counter for train tickets, it was 20h15… They told us the train to the North had left. How could that be?

Next train to Perhentian was next day at 19h. We booked 4 seats, because the sleepers were fully booked, too bad. Kids where very tired from this journey and by the time we had the tickets ( Jesper had to find a cash machine first and that was also not that easy) it was 21h30. We still had to eat, so we got us some food at KFC- quite horrible. And then we headed to town in search for a room, luckily this went smoothly, except the crossing of the roads with the luggage and cars that don’t stop for pedestrians.

We slept in JB…instead of heading North to Perhentian

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