Bus Struggles and Jet Ski Doubles
I suck at catching buses. No, really. I suck with buses in general. Listen to the story of my weekend:
Friday morning: Jurong East MRT à Work
On Friday morning, I barely made it to work on time - it was raining cats and dogs, and I was running like a cheetah wearing stilettos and carrying pumpkins (a.k.a. I was trying but not succeeding). The 8 AM bus was just pulling away from the curb as I scrambled up to it and tapped the window for the driver to stop. I was drenched and fairly sure all my superiors inside the bus were laughing at me, but hey, I made it.
Friday: Theoretically, Singapore (SG) à Johor Bahru (JB), JB à Penang
I was responsible for booking a bus from Johor Bahru, the district in Malaysia closest to Singapore, to Penang in the north, and I failed twice with two different cards. I blame Visa's security restrictions (the thought of international ID theft prevention is nice, but it really worked against me here). My friend had to book it for me, and I'm very grateful that he did, otherwise none of us would have made it to our vacation destination.
Friday evening: Work à Jurong East MRT, Kranji à JB
As if hanging in limbo for several hours, running between lab and computer room trying to make plans and purify proteins at the same time, wasn't stressful enough, I missed the normal 5 PM bus from work back to mainland (mainisland?) Singapore, so I had to wait for the 6:40 PM bus. I couldn't officially do any lab work (and unofficially, I had packed away all my stuff in the -80 and couldn't timely thaw out anything), but my favorite PhD student let me stick around lab and ask questions about his project.
Luckily, I had brought all my luggage (ONE BACKPACK FOR THE LONG WEEKEND. WHO'S A PACKING BOSS NOW?!) with me to work, so I grabbed 6:40 bus, some dinner, and the MRT to Kranji. I just made it to the 170, which then took us across the border. We couldn’t get JB to Penang, so the plan was JB to KL and then KL to Penang. JB-KL was a midnight bus, so the plan was to sleep there (thus saving on lodging costs) and take our next bus early the next morning. Our JB-KL bus was TWO. HOURS. LATE. I’m sure there are worse things, but waiting 2 hours for a bus when you want nothing more than to pass out on the ground was pretty irritating in that moment. A little good company makes everything better, so we killed time until our bus arrived.
Saturday morning: KLà Penang
We arrived in KL around 6 AM, ate breakfast in front of a Hindu temple (and what a beautiful sound the temple bells are!), wandered around the city a little, then took our 9 AM KL-Penang bus. Unfortunately, the traffic was HORRIBLE, and instead of arriving in Penang mid-morning, we arrived at 4 PM.
That really killed our plans for the day, since every attraction was closed by the time we picked and settled into a hostel. We decided a walk around the city would be a good use of our time, so we walked around Little India towards the coast. We saw the outside of a blue mansion and a colonial fort (sadly, both were closed), then found a park to view the coastline. Georgetown is a port city, so there was no skyline except the one created by trading ships. Unique view. Then we made our way through Medan Lebuh Campell, or Cambell St. Mall. And let me just say - Malaysian street food is SO GOOD. We ate freshly cut guava and juicy watermelon off the back of a fruit truck; sweet corn and boiled peanuts from a street vendor; and Chinese herbal tea and almond/jelly wobbly from a tiny tea stall nestled into a side street. The last two weren't a huge hit for me, but overall, everything was delicious. We wandered towards a mall with Hritik Roshan's face on it, then back towards our hostel for the night. One of my friends was telling me, and I am inclined to agree, that Asian cities tend not to have a lot of grafitti or murals, but I did find this little interesting bit:
Sunday morning: Hostel à National Park
The next day, we got up early and went via the 101 bus to a national park. We took an awesome (easy!) hiking trail to Monkey Beach. Of the hiking trail, I must say - I felt like I was in Disney's "A Jungle Book" the whole time. Lots of dense greenery and vines. My friends call me "Princess" because I'm delicate or high-maintenance or something to that effect, but I managed to hike and keep up, so score 1 for Princess!
When we reached Monkey Beach, we had lunch and frolicked in the warm Malaysian water. I can't say enough about the beaches in Southeast Asia. They are beautiful and by far the most pleasant I've ever been to; I would go so far as to say they're magical. This one didn't have the clearest water, but it was perfectly clean and the perfect temperature. There is nothing I love more than just floating in the water and soaking up the sun.
We also tried – drumroll please- jetskiing! Or "Skidoo", as my Canadian friend calls it. I wish I had a picture of us on our aquatic vehicles, but we didn't think to capture those epic 15 minutes photographically. I’d rank that as one of the best experiences of the weekend.
There was a lighthouse at the top of a hill that supposedly takes 45 minutes of hiking to reach. We only had 30 minutes until it closed, so we raced up the hill. My friend made it up in 10 minutes, and a few more of us joined him 8 minutes after that. The view was worth the workout (I couldn't photographically capture that either, but pictures are floating around somewhere...). We then hiked back to watch the sunset from a pier in the national park:
Sunday evening: National Park à Hostel
We caught the bus back to our hostel (the bus actually overshot, and I caught this and led us back. Big moment for the Princess who once overshot a highway exit by 22 miles.), took the shortest showers of our lives, then caught a free bus to our ferry terminal. Then, for the first time in my life, I rode a ferry! We were awkwardly placed with cars though, which made me feel like cargo rather than a passenger…
Sunday night: Penang à KL
Anyway, we caught our midnight Penang-KL bus. This was uneventful, as most bus rides should be. We arrived in KL at 4 AM, so we ordered various varieties of roti pratas at a 24-hour restaurant and played cards til sunrise. The Petronas Towers were calling our names, so we trekked across the city to it. Pretty easy, since you can see the towers from anywhere in the city. And finally, I can partially cross this off my list:
Unfortunately, since it was Hari Raya when we visited, the towers were closed, so no view from the top. Even if it hadn’t been a national holiday, tickets aren’t sold on Monday, so there was really no way we would’ve climbed to the top that day. Still, the towers are impressive and the shopping was good, so I walked away a happy camper.
Chinatown called out to us next, so we picked up some souvenirs there and made our way back to the KL-JB bus.
Monday afternoon: KL à JB, JB à Kranji
This 3:30 KL-JB bus had a little more interesting ride in mind for us: it broke down shortly after our first snack break, so all the guys had to get out and push the bus. It spluttered to life again after that, so - good job, manly men! J We made it back to JB (and consequently, SG) later than intended but were still able to catch the MRT home.
Alright, so out of all the buses I took this weekend, I only missed one. Eight out of nine isn’t such a bad success rate.
Again, good company makes everything better, and I will definitely miss these people. I like to think we’ve become a tight crew over the last few weeks, so for those of you reading – hit me up when you’re in California, son!
P.S. This post brought to you by Neha missing the 5:30 PM bus again. So 8/10. Still good…
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