We got up good and early, as we knew today would be a long and likely tiring day, starting out with a small breakfast buffet with mostly local fare, then packed up the car and made arrangements to leave it in the hotel's parking lot until our return late this afternoon. We crossed the street just in time to catch a yellow Causeway Link bus, but not before have an interesting chat with a middle-aged woman who was selling something. She helped explain how much the trip was, and that we should hang onto our tickets because they were good for the return trip as well, which surprised me, but, hey, we're on a learning curve, right? The bus finally got moving, and in about 45 minutes, we reached the first checkpoint. It was here we started to learn about the process. We disembarked the bus, went into a building, went through some kind of scanner, then moved back out of the building and got back on the bus. Then we crossed the causeway, stopped at another building and disembarked, stood in a long immigration line, that fortunately moved quickly, then to a customs line, which also moved quickly, once again left the building and climbed onto another bus (with the same number, CW3) that then took us to the train station known as Jurong East. From there, I changed some Malaysian Ringgits into Singapore dollars at a row of food and money-changing stalls, we analyzed the subway listings for a while, then bought the tickets we needed, found the right platform, and headed downtown. This all took over 2 hours, so we knew we'd need to give ourselves at least that much time on the return. Thirteen stops later, with Hubby gasping at how much had changed since his last visit here in 1962, we disembarked at City Hall, flowed into an underground mall that stretched as far as the eye could see, and followed the signs to the Suntec City Mall, which is where we believed we could pick up the HopOn bus. Just as we reached the end, and weren't sure where to go next, we headed up the last escalator, and lo and behold, there was the exact place we were looking for! We bought our tickets and were soon on the bus, toodling around the city. Hubby regaled me once again with stories of his nights in Little India and Chinatown, and high tea at Raffles Hotel. He was particularly disappointed in Raffles, as apparently it used to have acres and acres of green lawn surrounding it, giving it a truly palatial appearance, but now, the entrance was right on the street, with no yard at all, not a trace. The entire beach area had changed as well, and it was explained on the bus narration that many acres of land had been reclaimed from the sea to extend the island, so "Beach Road" was now half a kilometer from the actual waterfront, whereas when Hubby was here, it truly did run along the edge of the beach. I'm sorry to say, his disappointment was profound, so little of what he remembered existed any more. When the tour returned to Suntec, we decided to stay on (well, actually, they made us get off and then get on another bus) and stop in Little India for a meal, then hop back on again and get off at City Hall a few stops later to pick up the train back to Jurong East for the trip back to Malaysia. As we walked up the streets of Little India, once again, Hubby was disappointed. What used to be food stall after food stall had now become jewelry store after jewelry store, with a few sundry stores thrown in. We eventually found a nice little indoor restaurant, crowded with families, and we joined them for a very nice meal. Just as we were leaving, it started to pour with rain (very typical for the afternoon in the tropics, of course), but we made it down to the bus stop before it really poured. Twenty minutes later we were on the bus, and not long after that we reach the City Hall stop. By now it was after 3:00, and we thought we were in pretty good time, but several more things delayed us. We had no trouble catching the subway back to Jurong East, then I made the mistake of converting all my Singapore dollars back into Malaysian ringgits, because when we went to get back on the Causeway link, believing the tickets were good for the return (based on what the woman had told me earlier), we were turned away, saying we needed to buy new tickets. When I offered them ringgits, they insisted we needed Singapore dollars! Even though the bus carried passengers both ways, they would only accept Singapore dollars on the return trip! Okay, fine, so I go back to the money changer and change back enough ringgits to get 8 Singapore dollars, but of course by then that bus had left, and we had to wait 20 minutes or so for the next one. Then we started the whole journey in reverse, except that the Malay side turned out to be much slower and less efficient in processing folks through, and instead of a nice big air-conditioned building like in Singapore, we had several busloads of hot, sweaty and wet people crammed into an old, un-air-conditioned building (except for one short blast just as you come through the door), and it took us twice as long to get through. Despite leaving Singapore by 4:00, it was after 6:00 by the time we went through all the border requirements, and another 45 minutes to get back to the hotel. By the time we got the car out of the garage, the sun was going down, and it was dark by the time we reached the Kota Heritage Hotel in Kota Tinggi 45 minutes later. It turned out to be a rather dingy old hotel in a dubious part of town, but it was too late to do anything about it, so we parked on the street in front of the hotel, crossed our fingers and hoped for the best. The room itself was clean enough, but a little musty smelling again, but the AC worked well to eliminate that. The shower had no curtain, and the TP dispenser (with little squares like we used to get in grammar school) went empty after the first use. Thank goodness I had the wherewithal to bring a spare roll with me from the campervan trips! Came in handy right then! Anyway, we were so tired from the long, hot day, we weren't out of bed very long, and as soon as the temperature in the room was cool enough, we crawled into bed to let the night take us away from the day!
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