It's the journey not the destination, silly

Yeap, that's what we told ourselves when we decided to just get tickets from Tanjong Pagar Railway Station to Johor Bahru! I wanted Val to experience what a real train ride would be - something noisier, gruffer, and tougher than those slick subway trains in Singapore. Plus, this station will close down in July 2011, so I thought we'd better get a taste of history before it's gone. But I didn't really want to go far cos nobody else had time for an overnight trip. So we decided to just try out this short journey for the fun of it.

Val absolutely thrilled to be so close to a real choo-choo train.

I emailed the KTM people (callcenter@ktmb.com.my) to ask for a schedule, and they so kindly emailed me the schedule. But please don't take this at face value, always check again because train schedules do tend to change.

>>>>>> EMAIL FROM KTM CALLCENTER

Good Day!!!

Hereunder the train schedules:-
Singapore - Johor Bharu

Express Rakyat ( ER 2 )
Depart 0800hrs and arrival 0912hrs

Express Sinaran Selatan ( ES 12 )
Depart 1300hrs and arrival 1418hrs

Express Senandung Sutera ( SM 24 )
Depart 2230hrs and arrival 2355hrs

Shuttle Train No 62 ( 0845hrs / 0954hrs )

Shuttle Train No 64 ( 1845hrs / 2002hrs )

Johor Bharu - Singapore

Express Rakyat ( ER 1 )
Depart 2002hrs and arrival 2110hrs

Express Sinaran Selatan ( ES 13 )
Depart 1539hrs and arrival 1641hrs

Express Senandung Sutera ( SM 25 )
Depart 0542hrs and arrival 0700hrs

Shuttle Train No 63 ( 1219hrs / 1335hrs )

Singapore - JB - Singapore is considered as a short distance journey.Ticket must be purchased direct at the ticket counter within 12 hours before departure date only.



We got to the station at about 1130am, a little early just to buy tickets cos you know, we're kiasu like that. Plus it was our first time buying tickets there. The KTM Espress 12 tickets were SGD13 for adults - Val got in free but he had to sit on my lap of course. We had lunch at the station's coffee shop - which had seats right next to the rail. No fences nothing. Yup so you can see them as prime gallery seats or rather perilous ones! If you have unpredictable kids, keep a close eye on them and sit further inside.


Val's Godma See Yiing who so kindly obliged to come along!

At 1250pm, the gates opened and we went through a small Malaysian immigration post (yes, strangely we clear Malaysia before Singapore, and there is NO stamp only that white immigration card that you MUST NOT lose) and then got onto the train to locate our air-conditioned cabin No. 1. We had the first row of seats which gave us plenty of leg room and a nice table too. We were palpably excited - okay, it was probably I more than anyone else! I was just so stoked to be on the train again, my last ride was about 4 years ago when I went up to Taman Negara via an overnight train.



The whistle blew and we were off! The train left the station slowly, chugging along, gathering speed gradually. It was absolutely fascinating for the boy, who was perched excitedly on my knees looking at the tracks beneath.



Soon, we were whizzing by, and scenes of rustic (read= untidy, overgrown bushes, dilapidated and abandoned houses, some still made of wood, broken cars, rusty machine parts, and quaint looking neighbourhoods) Singapore sped by. I kept my eyes wide open - as if to absorb them all in, to keep my visual memory of a Singapore that will soon no longer be. But wait, all this is really still Malaysia's land right? I find the idea of Malaysia within Singapore so intriguing - it was as if time had stopped along these tracks. (This reminds me of an exciting walkabout in Singapore I did with a history professor from NUS who led me to the graves of old sultans and a patch of cemetery that still belongs to Malaysia nestled inconspicuously within a HDB estate, but more on that another time!)

For the first 35 minutes or so, we had a tour of Singapore and then we reached the Singapore immigration where we had to disembark to get our passports stamped. With a kid, it means we had to wait in line, unlike Godma who breezed through the automated gates. :( Then we were back on the train, and it began CRAWLING, inching towards Malaysia. When it stopped (rather uneventfully - what were we expecting? Bells and whistles and people shouting JB! JB! JB! ???), we just kinda sat around wondering what to do next. Nobody else was leaving, and then slowly, we gathered, "Shit, it's our stop!" We quickly scrambled out and arrived at Johor Bahru Central stop at about 2pm. Haha. imagine if we had not alighted, maybe we might have gone on to KL!


Val hamming it up for the camera - he was on a high especially after arriving in JB.

At JB Central, we decided to buy the return ticket first and chose the one at 339pm.The KTM Espress 13 from JB-Singapore only cost.............MYR5!!!!! Yes, that's like SGD2.50 when we paid SGD13 to come! The next train at about 530pm was a shuttle, and that would have been............... MYR3!!! Cheaper than taking a bus. So we got our tickets, and went shopping at City Mall or something like that, the mall closest by.

Even though the mall is no different from Singapore's, Val was really on a high. He could sense that today's outing was very different. It was like a multimedia sensory assault on him or something.



Finally, after a quick one hour shopping and ice-cream eating, we hopped back onto the train to go home. The immigration was a nightmare - they opened the gates only at 330pm, and they took forever to process the relatively short line. Those on the train coming down from the North must have waited a long time for us. Plus, we found that the immigration officers had stamped some people's passports with the wrong dates, adding to the delay.

Going up the KTM 13 this time was slightly different. We had NO designated seats. Instead it was a "buffet" you just scramble onto the train to look for empty seats - we had to go all the way to the end where the non-air conditioned seats were. But that suited us fine.



Finally (after what seemed an eternity), the train left the tracks and gathered speed, whizzing towards Singapore where we had to disembark AGAIN, get our passports stamped and go back on again. The good thing was that many people left the train at the Woodlands stop - preferring more modern transportation - while we stayed on, so this time we were able to find lots of air-conditioned seats. Very quickly, in about 15 minutes, we were pulling into Tanjong Pagar and hearing the announcement in Bahasa Melayu welcoming us to Singapore and entreating us to take KTM again.

I can't quite remember exactly what time we arrived, but it must have been about 5pm at least. So we were glad to have taken the earlier train back.

So there, this was our day of bo-liao train ride to nowhere and back.