• Best Nasi Lemak (9 MYR): Village Park Restaurant, 5, Jalan SS 21/37, Damansara Utama, 47400 Petaling Jaya
• Seafood dinner outdoors: Restoran Siu Siu, Lorong Syed Putra Kiri, Taman Persiaran Desa, 50460 Kuala Lumpur
• Hainanese coffee shop for breakfast: Yut Kee Restaurant, 1, Jalan Kamunting, Chow Kit, 50300 Kuala Lumpur

While our hotel was beautiful, we felt like we wanted to experience a bit more local kampung (village) flavor for dinner. We found just that at Warong Syahirah BBQ Seafood, as small street-side restaurant in the village of Tekek.

We were a group of eight and ordered a combination of fish head curry, black pepper prawns, grilled fish, jumbo prawns and then some more. All dishes were very tasty and made up for the typical halogen light bulb atmosphere. All in all we ended up spending a very reasonable MYR227 (€58).

Choose…

…grill & wait..

… enjoy the black pepper prawns

grilled fish

Everything at a very reasonable price

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!

After beautiful days on Pulau Tioman (more on that later), it was time to head back on Sunday morning. As written earlier, we only managed to get tickets for the 9am ferry. After the long queues at immigration on the way there, we didn’t mind so much anymore as it would mean we could clear earlier and hopefully avoid the worst.

Even though we had our tickets in hard already, we again had to be there an hour early. Not knowing better, we did so and did not regret it. There was already a long queue for registering on the boarding list. Once done, we had our boarding pass in hand and proceeded to clear customs (Tioman is duty free). Up until this point, it seemed to straight forward. And indeed it was too straight forward.

We had individual boarding numbers. In the boarding hall after a while (around 9am) they let people board. After a while boarding stopped for not apparent reason. After a while, word made round that until up to sequence number 116 would be boarded. We were in the 190s. So they proceeded to look for the people who were supposed to board but hadn’t. That took a while. The ferry left about 30mins late.

I’ll spare you on the details but to put it mildly, it was very poorly organized with not announcements (loud speakers weren’t working and neither were the TV screens). We ended up leaving 75mins late. Which of course meant, we missed our direct bus to Singapore.

As luck would have it, all buses to Singapore or JB were sold out. We ended up taking a taxi with another couple for 200 MYR. We reached the checkpoint by 3pm with little queues on the Malaysian side. Until we tried to get on a bus to get to the Singaporean side. Massive queues. So once again we walked.

Happy to see the low-key immigration checkpoint of Woodlands again after the long trips.

Luckily, from there on it was all good again. We were swiftly through Singaporean immigration and quickly managed to get a direct bus close to our hood.

The last leg of our trip.

All in all, the door to door trip took us 8.75 hours… not something we’ll repeat anytime soon.

On a brighter note: friends of ours had private transport arrange and left Singapore around 4am. They managed to catch the 6.30am ferry to Tioman and were having breakfast at the hotel by 9am…

So we made it to Mersing. Our ticket agent for the ferry told us to collect our tickets 1.5hrs before departure. We did not quite understand why but obliged after the hotel owner recommended the same.

Busy jetty on Friday morning

By the time we got to the jetty, the place was packed already (it’s a relatively small jetty with most services going to Tioman). Without going into the details, these are the five simple steps to get on the ferry with your booked and pre-paid tickets:

1. Find your agent and collect tickets
2. Queue to pay to for your conservation fee (it would be too easy if this fee was included in the ticket price)
3. Queue to have your ticket validated
4. Queue to register your name on the boarding list
5. Queue to exchange your ticket for a boarding pass

The 20 MYR Conservation Fee and 5 MYR Conservation Charge

In the boarding area it was disorderly… no anouncements. Some people holding on to purple boarding passes, with others having yellow boarding passes. Eventually it turned out that there were two ferrys running in parallel and the color of the boarding pass deciding which you are on. We were booked on the Bistari 1 and finally left Mersing around 30mins late.

Our ticket after having cleared the five steps to boarding and every step leaving its mark.

Tioman here we come!

The reward for not an exactly straight forward trip.

Good Friday – long weekend in Singapore! Flights to just about anywhere except Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta were outrageously expensive, so we settled on Pulau Tioman. Why not travel overland for once instead of flying and visit one of Malaysia’s most beautful island? Sounds good to me.

A hotel was quickly found. Transport was a bit trickier – there is only one ferry operator, Bluewater Express. But multiple agents sellting tickets it seems. After a big back and forth, we secured our tickets – 75 MYR return per person (€19). The schedule is not published until about a month out as the ferry is depending on the tides. Our outbound ended up being scheduled for Friday 9.30am, which was fine by us even though it meant a night in the coastal town of Mersing (the first buses leaving Singapore around 6.30am only make it in time for the 11am ferry).  However the return trip would leave Tioman on Sunday at 9am, which basically meant we would lose Sunday.

Since we had to get to Mersing Thursday evening, we had to go for a transport option from Johor Bharu across the border, since the busses from Singapore don’t depart after noon. We opted for the last bus leaving JB at 7pm that should get us into Mersing by 9pm. Smooth sailing I thought. And 15 MYR (€4) per person was tough to beat.

The first mishap happened when my bus that was supposed to take me to JB did not show up. A call to the hotline revealed that it was cancelled. Makes sense to cancel it on one of the busier travel days. So public bus took me to Khatib, followed by the MRT to Marsiling. This was where it first started to show that I wasn’t the only one headed to the border (not that I was surprised). A short bus ride to the Woodlands Checkpoint and I was jointed by hundreds of travellers headed north. By now it was 6pm, so still 90mins to go until my bus would leave.

But by the time I had cleared Singaporean immigration, I knew the bus would be gone. Not only was the immigration queue nearly 30mins long, but then the next queue to catch a bus across the strait was even longer. We ended up walking the one kilometer across. Not something I would necessarily recommend. Malaysian immigration was fairly quick and we were soon on a bus to the Larkin Bus Terminal, hoping we could catch another bus to Mersing. But as expected the last bus for the night had left.

When going by public transport it is always important to have a Plan B. In this case our Plan B was to take a bus to Kota Tinggi, ca. 100km south of Mersing. Soon enough we were on a bus and reached Kota Tinggi by 10.30pm after a 90mins bus ride.

5.80 MYR to Kota Tinggi (€1.50) for a 90mins bus ride… certainly not overpriced

Here we faced the next problem: the last bus to Mersing had left. And we did not have a Plan C. Not wanting to spend a night in Kota Tinggi and take chances to miss our ferry the next day, we had not choice but to getting to know the local taxi mafia. Starting out with 180 MYR, an 80% mark-up of the normal price, the driver generously settled for 150 Ringgit – a mere 50% surcharge. Our negotiating position was rather weak, hence soon we found ourselves in a beat up Proton and on our way.

Exhausted we finally arrived at our hotel, the Muara Inn (which I would recommend for a short overnight stay) by 11.30pm.

Lessons learnt:

1. Avoid crossing the Woodlands checkpoint on the evening before a Public Holiday
2. If you can’t avoid it, cross in a private car
3. If you still have no other choice, bring plenty of patience, factor in lots of buffer before any connecting buses and bring a Plan B & C.

Stay tuned for the ferry ride from & to Pulau Tioman… as that was a story in itself as well.

Mersing Jetty

Without going into details, I think Wikipedia gives the best summary of what the dish is all about:

The name literally translates as “meat bone tea”, and at its simplest, consists of meaty pork ribs simmered in a complex broth of herbs and spices (including star anise, cinnamon, cloves, dang gui, fennel seeds and garlic) for hours.

The restaurant we went to is called Yeoh’s Bah Kuh Teh and is located in the Publika Shopping Centre. To give you an idea how away from downtown it is, we ended up taking a taxi from the Petronas Towers which brought us to Publika (northwest) in around 20-30 minutes.

We tried the soup and dry version of Bah Kuh Teh and unanimously agreed that we prefer to dry version.

It was a dish that most of us had previously not known and likely would have never tried, given that it is apparently mostly sold in restaurants advertising their “pig’s organ soup”. We were told there were no pig’s organs in our soup… And while we might not be 100% sure, I still recommend to give Bah Kuh Teh a chance, I found it very delicious.

Yeoh’s Bah Kut Teh @ EAT Food Village (Publika Shopping Gallery)
Solaris Dutamas, 1, Jalan Dutamas 1, 50480 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia
Tel: +60 17-500 6634

Yeoh’s Bah Kuh Teh at Publika Shopping Gallery

Our favorite, the dry version whereby the broth is reduced to a thick gravy

Dry Bah Kuh Teh along with a soup

The “classic” version

We didn’t need to search for long until we found the ABC Restaurant. And with ABC being an abbreviation for “Always Best Choice”, we knew we were in the right place.

ABC Foods Corner

Our order consisted of Butter Chicken, Chicken Khorma, Chicken Tika Masala, Palak Paneer along with bunch of different Naans. None of the dishes disappointed, in fact all were outstanding. I let the photos speak for themselves and recommend this place for good and cheap Indian food.

Naan selection

Naan selection and chicken dishes

The three chicken dishes along with the paneer

The bill for four persons (€23)