Those Kiasi and Kiasu Singaporeans!!!

Tuan Tuan, puan puan, encik encik and cik cik:
Fasten your seat belts and get ready for my super long rantings!!

After a nice and relaxing holiday in Genting ( even after losing RM 100+ to those one sen slot machine despite of winning the minor jackpot of RM 34 + from the Zorro machine where you see the coins keep dropping from the slot machine at 1.00 am ), as planned earlier off we went to Singapore for 3 days and 2 nits.

Before the trip I did lots of research to find the cheapest and most convenient in terms of MRT and also the bus from Genting that can bring us to the nearest MRT stop to our prepaid hotel of RM 160 per night. All these are to save costs since Sing $$ is 2.5X bigger than RM.

When we reached Genting , the first thing is to buy the bus ticket to Singapore and the only bus that stops at Lavender bus station from Genting is Transtar bus. We bought the bus ticket at RM 50 per pax and the earliest bus that leaves Genting is 11am.



On 12/12/08 at 11.15 am, we happily board the Transtar bus, with 10 other passengers, expecting to arrive Singapore at 6 pm the latest. After driving for an hour or so, without the consent of the passengers , the bus just stopped at one of the local products shop out of nowhere expecting us to spend $$ to buy ( maybe they get commission out of our spending), the driver left us there for 45 minutes!!. That is still alright because we can choose to buy or not to buy what we see.

Passing Batu Caves on the way

Then trouble started at the Yong Peng rest point.
@ Yong Peng


After we have a super late lunch at 3 pm there, on boarding the bus , we saw the driver taking pails and pails of water to fill up the bus water tank and then the driver just disappear for 45 minutes or so. we thought that he has went for his prayer at the surau. when he came back after 45 minutes only then we saw green liquid ( must be the coolant) coming out from the bus radiator. There are only 3 families on the bus. The first family that saw the green liquid was fast to react by telling the driver that they will broad the Grassland bus to Singapore. We are still in the dark of what had happened till we asked the driver what arrangement he was going to made for the 2 of us. He asked us whether we wanted to stop at Boon Lay bus station or not instead of Lavender Bus station. If we want, then we need to board the Five Star bus that will bring us down to Singapore. After much thought , we boarded the Five Star bus that was supposed to bring us to Boon Lay Bus station. Thus we very doubtfully sat in the bus not knowing where Boon Lay bus station is !! thinking who cares asal got $$ to call a cab to our hotel cos if we waited for that Transtar bus to bring us to S'pore ....don't know when it would arrive in S'pore pun!!

When we passed the Malaysian immigration at Woodland it was a breeze. We just need to show our passport and the custom officers there just waved us through. But hell broke loose at S'pore custom immigration. There was a super long queue that nearly reached the escalator and out of 16 counters for Malaysian and foreign passports only 4 are manned. ( no problems for S'poreans themselves though, since so many counters are opened for them and they can just tapped their passports on those machines too). Guess what?? we waited for 3 hours at the S'pore immigration just to get our passport stamped!!The officers in charge with walkie talkie treated us all like transparent and as if nothing happens and even the angmoh waiting with us are very very "tulan " with the immigration...imagine 3 hours at the checkpoint, barely moving 0.01 mm an hour!!!. The worst thing is.. when it is your turn , the custom officer took his sweet sweet time to chit chat with you , seeing the last stamped destination on the passport, like Manchester and Bali on our passport!!

Later I learned from my S'pore relative that while the officer was talking to you at the counter, they are actually scanning you from head to toes and from toes to head. True or not ..I also don't know?? What I know is pity the crowd that had to wait for a solid 3 hours just to get the passport stamped.

Okay , the story has not finished yet, on coming out from the S'pore custom, to our horror and dismay that Five Star Bus which should be called zero star bus #@*^%$# has left us w/o informing us at all and expecting us to look for our own transport to S'pore!!. I really pity those first comers to S'pore!!. We went to look for public transport on our own as we were fuming angrily!! We managed to find a causeway link bus that can bring us to Bugis that is the nearest to Lavender ( our original destination)

Hold on... the worst is still to come......... From Bugis bus station we walked to Bugis MRT and use MRT to go to Aljunied and walked to our prepaid booked hotel at Fragrance Ruby hotel in Geyland. Never mind about the red light district cos what we were going to experience is much worst than that red light district.

After all those traumas, on reaching the Fragrance Ruby hotel at 11.50 pm, 10 more minutes to midnight, the man in charge, Mr Anthony Pan, told us that my booking had been cancelled!! I said WHAT???. I asked why is it cancelled , he said it is the fault of my travel agency that I have paid up with. I never believe what he said cos I have always trusted Yana, my buddy at Borneo Exploration who has booked all my hotels and even my cruise for me and not only this year but also previous years!!I really don't believe all those shits from that Ah Pan!!The worst thing was that ah pan asked us to go and look for our own hotel since his hotel has been fully booked for the night and then ask me to ring Borneo Exploration tomorrow on my own to ask them why my hotel booking was cancelled!! Luckily I had brought my S'pore relative with me who told Ah Pan that we are going to launch a complaint to Singapore Tourism Board. On hearing that, he softened down and say he can spare us a room first but we need to pay him the walk in rate for the room first,then he will check for us what has happened to our prepayment booking the next morning and if it is the Fragrance Ruby hotel fault he will refund us the $$.

We paid up Sing$75+ and moved into this room at 12 midnight.






Next morning , on checking back with the reception, I found out that it was not the fault of Borneo Exploration at all , but Fragrance hotel's fault. I suspected that on seeing that we didn't check in so late , they have just cancelled my prepayment booking and let the room to other customers!! How can they do that ...don't they know what is prepayment booking...even if I checked in at 12.01 past midnight..they had no right to cancel my booking.

This whole experience really really give me a super super bad experiences on S'poreans!!Those real kiasu and kiasi people!!!!!

I have emailed Fragrance Hotel Group to ask for an official explanation and launched an official complaint about that Mr Pan..let's see what happen.They replied and said that Fragrance Hotel will give me an explanation as soon as possible.

As for Transtar bus , I have been to their S'pore office 2X, emailed them 2x but still no reply from them. Next course of action ...launch an official complaint to the S'pore Transport Department to tell them Malaysians are not to be bullied like that!!