Malaysia here we come

 Yesterday was our last day in New Zealand. Kev had to go back to the Coromandel which is a shame but unavoidable. It did mean that we had LynNZ to ourselves. Dave, Lisa, Crispy and me took Her on a day out to Auckland and Davenport. We haven’t been to Davenport for over 20 years so it was a great treat for all of us.we took the ferry from Pine harbour to Downtown jetty and the swapped Ferries onto the Davenport shuttle. A beautiful ride across Auckland harbour. It’s a fantastic service and gives some of the best views of this great city. Davenport is very much Southport transposed to the South Pacific. Wrought iron walkways and cute little shops lining quaint tree lined streets. The major difference is that the coastline and harbour are electric blue seas lapping golden sand bays. Not miles of endless sandbanks and cold grey Irish Sea waters that at low tide you need binoculars to see.

It was a great day and finished off with a curry in a little Indian restraint in Pukekohe. We said our temporary goodbyes to Dave and Lisa. They too go down to the coromandel for a few days before returning to Blighty. LynNZ was picking us up early to take us back to Auckland international for our onward flight to Singapore.

This morning LynNZ as promised picked us up and delivered us to the airport. Goodbyes and fare thee wells exchanged we made our way to the terminal. It’s not too bad as she is bringing Kev to Crispy central in July for a few weeks so we will soon see them again.

The flight was pretty much on time and an uneventful ten hours saw us back in Singapore.  Immigration cleared and we were back on the metro. We swapped lines to the North South line and soon alighted at Woodlands. The station for our connecting bus to Malaysia. This has been a rushed change of plan due to the Indians getting fractious over the dreaded COVID bug and we are winging it on our onward travel. I usually research in depth any border crossings or long distance stretches of travel but this is mostly on the hoof.  By the time we reached the woodlands border checkpoint we had been awake and travelling seventeen hours. The border crossing was certainly an adventure. We came out of the metro and found the bus stop, bus 950, to Malaysia. The queue was huge. A long line snaking it’s way back and forth across the car park. It occurred to us that the time was our enemy. It was now  six pm and hundreds of Malay that work in Singapore where all trying to get home. Fortunately the buses are regular and within half an hour we were crammed like sardines on a bus heading for the border control. No photography is allowed so I was unable to take any pics. The bus stopped amidst dozens of other buses at the huge checkpoint station, hundreds of passengers alighted and headed up a single staircase to passport control, it was chaos. We had no idea what to do so just followed the line. At the top of the staircase was the passport control. A line of automated machines. Again huge queues formed and we were buffeted along. We were the only foreign travellers and to be fair the local people were very helpful. Crispy when travelling and tired does not do queues so our transit was expedited by her expert Queue jumping skills.  Once through the machines again we went down stairs to another huge queue. This time to get back on the bus. The whole process took just over an hour. The poor guys that live here and work in Singapore have to endure this experience twice a day everyday. The bus then took us less than a mile over the bridge to Johor. We again alighted the bus only to find that we had to repeat the same process again but this time for Malaysian immigration. Another hour of our lives we will never get back saw us ejected onto the streets of Johor Bathurst, Malaysia.

It’s a huge modern city. Big wide roads and towering offices. Our little hotel, the Ciq hotel, is in China town so I dragged out the phone and followed the directions I had been given, 

We walked for ages to try and find it but at every turn came up a blank. It had either been moved or we had been sold a flanker. After another hour walking aimlessly around I bit the bullet and called them. The young guy was as helpful as he could be but with the language barrier and us not knowing where the feck we were to allow him to give us directions he decided to come and physically get us. 

It turns out there are three CIQ hotels here in Johor and not one of them anywhere near the directions we had been given. We had walked in circles for over an hour. As soon as the young guy appeared he took us direct to the hotel, a good 20 minutes from where google assured us repeatedly that it was. By this time we had been travelling and on the go over twenty hours and Crispy was nearing exhaustion meltdown. She’s not good when she’s tired bless her but she never grumbles. Straight to bed and to our slumber. It’s a small basic hotel but good enough for a launch pad into our Malaysian odyssey. The neighbours next door were a little noisy so after a few minutes Crispy was out of bed and hammering on their door like a drug squad officer explaining in polite terms what she would do if they didn’t “shut the feck up”. They took the hint and all was quiet. They must have been warned. Don’t mess with Crispy if she’s tired or hungry. 

A great nights sleep and we’re back on an even keel… tomorrow we shall explore the delights of Jolor …excuse any grammatical errors were a wee bit tired.

Bare and Crispy signing off Jolor, Malaysia