On Friday we went to Malaysia to try and find a hiking trail in a jungle nearby - it's been almost 6 months since our last hike in NY (Harriman State Park). This was a big mistake, as everyone else who owns or rents a car on this island went along with or just before us - Diwali is a Hindu holiday and is a national holiday in Singapore.
You get stopped both ways between Singapore and Malaysia for some reason - in Singapore to pay a toll (both ways), and in Malaysia only for immigration purposes - on the way out it seems only keep count since they check an exit voucher that you receive on entry. We got out of Singapore no problem, but we waited 4 hours crossing a 2-mile road in-between countries. This is called the Second Link - basically a bridge between Singapore Island and Malaysia and a small stretch of road in Malaysia before you get to the Kompleks Sultan Abu Bakar immigration checkpoint. I am not spinning or exaggerating. 4 hours. Stop & go, bumper to bumper, for approximately 2 miles. The only saving grace was that we packed lunch and some fruit and water, and that our car came with a built-in DVD player and TV. Still, how many times can you watch Toy Story and 100 Favourite Hebrew Children Songs? We got into Malaysia at 5pm (we left very late, around noon, so shame on us, but we did not want to hike 12-2pm). Since it was getting dark we decided to head to the nearest fishing village for crab dinner.
There were some interesting points along the way, like when we reached the toll booth right after the border and we didn't have MYR (Ringgits) to pay for a Touch & Go toll card. And when Connie made me stop in front of a house in some village near Mt. Pulai that we were driving through, in order to buy soy milk from a woman standing in a booth in her front yard (the proverbial Malaysian lemonade stand). Dinner at High King Seafood Restaurant was forgettable, except for the setting - it is situated at the end of a road that leads into a ferry terminal - where you can take a boat to Pulau Kukup. The restaurants and shops along this road (this short stretch of road pretty much makes up the entire village) are all built jutting out into the water on top of stilts, and from High King you have a good view of the mangroves of Pulau Kukup just off-shore. When we got there the tide was out and you could see salamanders splashing and crawling in the mud below. By the time we left the tide had come in and it was water all the way back to the road. We had some fried leafy greens, oatmeal-battered fried prawns, fish slices in brown sauce, and sweet butter-fried crab.
Things are relatively cheap in Malaysia - we bought slices of watermelon (red & yellow), pear, pineapple, papaya, and some unidentified mango-like fruit for ~US$1.50. And dinner (fish, prawns, and crab + 500ml bottle of beer) was ~US$22. After dinner, we did a little shopping (alas, they ran out of bootleg Toy Story 3 DVD's) and drove back home across the double border - another exciting episode when Connie drove through customs without stopping eliciting a super-thorough search of the car while we waited shame-faced nearby. But it only took 2 hours total from Kukup (fishing Village) to get home - what I had originally expected for our outbound journey when we left home in the morning.
Driving to Malaysia, check.
Hiking in Malaysia, TBA.
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