Day 3 – Singapore to Kuala Lumpur
A big part of my planning had always been to go to Malaysia. It’s just across a causeway so why not go to another country.
Originally I had planned to catch a train from Singapore to KL however they no longer do direct trains and having hours and hours of stopover between the 3 trains they now operate just wasn’t feasible.
Instead I opted to go by coach. There are many many many buses that make the journey each day and the only things differentiating them is the services they provide.
I opted to go with Transtar as they operate a “comfort” coach with single seats on each side of the aisle which recline and even have a massager built in (for the record I didn’t use it, or the built in TV/games or anything really).
I checked out of the hotel bright and early at 6am and got a taxi to the Golden Mile Centre which is where a lot of buses leave Singapore from.
After some confusion about where to catch the coach I finally found it and boarded.
The coach drives for almost an hour through Singapore before reaching the immigration checkpoint just before the causeway going across the Johor/Singapore Strait. Again this can be confusing if you’ve never done it before and most of the passengers flew through with their ID cards while it took me a little longer with my passport.
After going through immigration it’s back on the bus then across the causeway before stopping again at the Malaysian immigration checkpoint where they also scan your bags.
Here’s some photos.
And finally leaving Singapore and driving over the causeway into Malaysia.
Tuas Immigration Checkpoint
After the Malaysian checkpoint it’s pretty much freeway all the way to Kuala Lumpur. There’s toll stops every now and then and lots of palm trees on the sides of the freeway. Malaysia is a big exporter of palm oil.
From the top deck of the coach it was evident lots of truck drivers use their mobile phones while driving and motorbikes ride in the breakdown lane so they don’t get mowed down.
We stopped about half way between the causeway and KL at a Freeway service center near Jorak for a pitstop to use the bathroom and stretch our legs..
There’s not much to tell when all you see is traffic and palm trees and I slept some of the way so here’s photos I took along the drive right up to arriving in KL.
After arriving in Kuala Lumpur, the bus stopped off on the side of busy street and we disembarked. It took me a little while to work out my bearings and in the meantime I hit up 7 eleven for a cold cold drink.
I managed to flag down a taxi and gave him details of my hotel. He’d never heard of it. He headed in the general direction and still non-the-wiser dropped me off at the building next door to where I was staying. Not really sure how he missed it, it’s 22 stories tall with the hotel name in huge writing at the top, but anyway.
After check-in and getting a free room upgrade I headed up to the 18th floor to my room just in time for a huge storm to roll in. In my short stay, storms were frequent but didn’t last for very long. The wind was crazy and the lightning in the city was sometimes a bit freaky.
Being really tired after the early start and long trip I decided to stay in the hotel, order some room service. The views from the hotel window were a bit skewed from the storm but I still took some shots. The view from the hotel inside were more vertigo worthy. The hotel is more or less built around the outside of a massive courtyard (more on this later). Still, it was a long way down.
The room itself was very nice, and HUGE.
I found the Sky Lounge on the 13th floor had a nice balcony overlooking the city skyscape so spent a few hours sitting here. Unfortunately there is a huge building site just up from the hotel so views of the Petronas Towers are now all but blocked, but still there was some great views of the city and the nearby KL Tower. You can see a glimpse of one of the Petronas towers hiding behind a new building going up across from the hotel. It’s worth mentioning that while it looks nice out here, the humidity is up around 90% and it’s not that pleasant even later in the evening when you’re not used to the high humidity. With each storm that rolled in the humidity was worse but I still enjoyed my time sitting outside and listening to the sounds of the city.
The KL Tower puts on an awesome lightshow after dark, I took a few videos and have compiled them here:
Around midnight the lights go out and it was time for sleep.
Have You Seen?
Day 3 – Singapore to Kuala Lumpur – YOU ARE HERE NOW
Day 4 – Exploring KL and The Petronas Towers