For a while I’ve been intrigued by the Chinese Transit Without Visa (TWOV) program that let’s selected nationalities transit at selected airports from 24 to 144 hours (depending on the airport). It is only available if you fly non-stop into and out of China. Passengers must have confirmed onward tickets to a third country (not the PRC, and not the country from which they arrived). There is a very good thread on Flyertalk explaining the rules.

Back in April, AirAsia announced that they would start flying from Johor Bahru (a few miles north of the Malaysia-Singapore border) to Guangzhou. This could be combined with a return flight from Guangzhou back to Singapore on Scoot and I would fulfill the requirements for the TWOV. I ended up booking the following itinerary:

AK1394 JHB2200 – 0200+1CAN

TZ127 CAN0345 – 0815SIN

AirAsia started promoting the new route with introductory pricing of MYR96 (SGD32) for the four hour flight. The return on Scoot ended up costing CNY418 (SGD87) including an annoying SGD10 credit card surcharge…

So for an overall SGD119 per person we booked our Guangzhou trip.

Maybe not the most direct transit through China that has ever been booked.

I traveled with a friend and our trip started out by taking a Malaysian taxi from Ban San St. Taxi Kiosk at Rochor Rd Friday evening across the border to Senai Airport north of Johor Bahru.

Senai Airport entrance

We were slightly worried whether there would be any complications at check-in since we did not have visas and the Guangzhou flights just started two weeks prior and probably there had not been many guys with an itinerary like ours. But we did not encounter any issues and spent the next two hours waiting for our flight. We arrived quite a bit early since traffic at the border is unpredictable on a Friday evening.

Check-in hall at JHB

Not too much action at JHB on Friday evenings.

Our ride to Guangzhou

The flight was a typical non-eventful four hour AirAsia experience and we arrived at an empty Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport on time. At immigration we were directed to the “Special Needs” lane and were processed without any awkward questions within a few minutes. Having a printout of your onward ticket does help! We hopped into a taxi and reached our hotel, the New World Hotel just a bit over an hour after landing around 3.30am.

The New World Hotel entrance

The hotel was in a good, central location and clean. We paid around USD63 and got a nice room. Would I stay here again? Probably. Was it a classy hotel? Nope. They sure did have a good photographer for their website though!

After sleeping in Saturday morning, we went out to explore the city a little bit. We started out with a temple around the corner from our hotel, the Guangxiao Temple (光孝寺).

Entrance of the Guangxiao Temple

Inside Guangxiao Temple

Inside Guangxiao Temple

Inside Guangxiao Temple

Inside Guangxiao Temple

Inside Guangxiao Temple

From there we walked through some back alleys to another temple, the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees (六榕寺).

Guangzhou back alley

Resident door signage

Temple of the Six Banyan Trees

Temple of the Six Banyan Trees pagoda

That was then enough culture for the day and we hopped into a taxi that would take us to Qingping Market, the place to go for agricultural complementary products and traditional Chinese herbal medicines (not that we were intending to buy either of these).

It was interesting but didn’t manage to capture our attention for more than half an hour.

Inside Qingping Market

Inside Qingping Market

Tea on sale

Our next stop was the Baiyun World Leather Trading Center, the place to go for… leather goods. We took Guangzhou’s modern subway system to get there. I did not take many photos inside this complex – for obvious reasons sellers were not too keen on taking photos.

Entrance of the Baiyun World Leather Trading Center

After the short night we started to get tired and decided to take it easy for the rest of the day. Trying Uber for the first time in China, we drop to the “Party Pier”. This area south of the Pearl River (or Zhujiang) used to the location of the Zhujian Brewery and has now been converted into a bar and club area. Quite well done.

Crossing the Pearl River on the Liede Bridge

The Canton Tower (广州塔) – completed in 2010 and currently the the third tallest tower in the world (595.7 m)

View of the Guangzhou central business district

The Party Pier

Former part of the brewery now converted into shops and restaurants

All restaurants have a Western twist… American steakhouse, American seafood, Mexican, Italian etc. We got ourselves comfortable at McRocky, a Western-themed steakhouse with nice views on the river.

Pearl River Cruise

At 9pm the Euro Football Championship game between Switzerland and Albania started which we watched.

Switzerland (1) vs Albania (0)

After the game ended around 11pm we ordered an Uber and headed back to the airport, getting there just before midnight. By now we were very tired and check-in wouldn’t open for almost another hour. Needless to say, it was not the most pleasant part of the trip while we waited for our 3.45am departure to Singapore.

Scoot has a program whereby one can bid for an upgrade to their “business” class. I consider it more of a premium economy however it is a signficant upgrade from the 3-3-3 configuration in economy. As on my previous Scoot flights, I bidded the minimum amount possible (around CNY350 – SGD74) and ended up getting the upgrade.

Gate A106 at 3am

Scoot’s premium cabin

Back in Singapore

We landed at Singapore over an hour early and as always were quickly through immigration. Exhausted but happy, we were back from our Johor Bahru to Singapore via Guangzhou trip and had managed to transfer through China without a visa.

Getting to Larkin meant once again crossing the Woodlands checkpoint and after my recent experience, I wasn’t too keen on that. And this time round things did go a lot smoother. After a non-stop bus ride to the border, we quickly cleared immigration on both sides and soon found ourselves at the Larkin Bus Terminal. From there it is a 15mins walk to the stadium. Unfortunately tickets cannot be bought online but they were still selling them at the stadium for either MYR30 (€8) for the grandstand or MYR10 (€3) for open seats. Naturally we went for the latter.

JDT vs Kelantan F.C., 18.04.2015

Fans tend to go to the stadium fairly early and when we got there around 90mins before kick-off, the stands were already quite crowded. It was quickly evident to us why it is worth to go early: inside the stadium barely any food was sold but outside there was a large night market for food and (original and original-copy) merchandise. After filling our stomachs and making sure we blend in with the latest fan gear, we entered the stadium. Malaysian hospitality was great and we managed to get great seats. The game started soon after a prayer and the singing of the regional anthems of Johor and Kelantan. The stadium seemed to be more or less sold out and there was also a large crowd of Kelantan supporters. The JDT fans kept completely quiet when Kelantan was singing their anthem which was a sign of mutual respect.

Food and merchandise before the game

Stadium view

The Grandstand

JDT fans

While last week’s 0-0 was not the most exciting game I had ever seen, this week’s match proved to be much better. Kelantan was up 0-1 after 10mins which was a bummer. However by half-time JDT managed to turn the game around and was up by 3-1! Needless to say the atmosphere was great and we decided to make our way over to the main block of JDT supporters, a large group that basically celebrates the team nonstop for 90mins.

In the main fan sector

Celebrating the 3-1 victory over Kelantan F.C.

We didn’t end up watching much of the second half (which was fine since no further goals were scored) but instead had a great time celebrating with the fans and trying to learn some of the Malay chants. We were all impressed by how vibrant the stadium was and at the same time completely peaceful. Since no beer is sold, everyone was completely sober – a sign for me that the ban on alcohol for some games in Europe shouldn’t necessarily dampen the excitement of the fans.

To give you an idea of what the atmosphere was like, here’s a video of JDT fans in the national stadium in Kuala Lumpur:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQiKIftRJjM

Getting back to Singapore was hassle free although it does take time. By the time we were back at the Larkin bus terminal around 11.15pm there were still busses across the border and although there are no queues at immigration at this time of the day, it wasn’t until shortly before 1am that we were home.

Great experience and highly recommended to any football enthusiast!