Why booking your flight to Asia with a budget airline is always a gamble and how we significantly underestimated crossing the Singapore - Malaysia Woodland checkpoint at peak hour.
SingaporeThe most anticipated day of the year descends upon us and we are ready to go - the only thing we needed to do was to get to Asia by plane. What was meant to be an easy 12 hour day from Brisbane to Singapore turned into a 3-day (40-hour) conundrum. Everything had gone so smoothly, our bikes and belongings were meticulously packed and not over the limit thanks to my uncle's old-school market scales and remarkably, our Brisbane to Melbourne flight actually arrived early.
Things changed pretty quickly after we landed in Melbourne. From a tolerable 2-hour delay to a full-blown cancellation, we were left questioning where to stay with our two gigantic bike boxes overnight and when our flight would be rescheduled to Singapore. Also, we were worried about opening up our bike box for the second time for screening (we managed to borrow some tape at the airport, but didn't feel nice of us to use up so much of their tape for a second time). Although Jetstar messed up big time, they compensated us with free bike box storage and accommodation (meals included - yum yum in our tum tum). The following day we rocked up to the check-in counter at 9am for a 12pm flight and they still hadn't set up the check-in counters. We eventually checked in and the screening lady allowed us to check in the bike boxes without reopening it for the second time. Seated in the airplane, we didn't take off until 1 hour after departure time due to last minute 'engineering' fixes. In the future, 'Jetstari is no longer in the books for Lestari' - thank you very much, won't come again!
Touchdown in Singapore and the first quest begins - find a place to sleep! With the help of google we found that T3 in Changi Airport was the quietest place to get shut eye. On our venture over there from T4 (a separate building) we discovered this to be true. We ended up in a little corner of our own at the end of T3 near carpark B3 (in front of Curry Times). We eventually settled in by 12am and slept until 6:30am. We used the bike boxes to create a little privacy space and as you can see, I slept very comfortably.
Here are the reasons as to why we slept at the airport:
After a restful night, we walked over to the bike cafe, Hub and Spoke, to put our bikes together. The excitement was ramping up and it was feeling super real at this point - the trip was finally beginning!
The fact that our first ride was through Jurassic Mile made my heart beat out of my 'chesticles'. Without really thinking, we had breakfast, got no snacks for the road, and headed off on the bikes at 12pm - the hottest time of day under the Singaporean sun! Tash was wearing long sleeves pants and had worn arm protectors under her T-shirt, but I was so uncomfortable in my long pants in the heat he geared up in shorts and sandals! Naively, we set off and didn't think twice to reapply sunscreen after 3 hours. We did feel a little heaty at the end of the day.
The start of the ride had us feeling like a athletic demigods - amazing bicycle infrastructure and flat ground almost the whole way. The ride was filled with cool architecture and plants painted the city green, integrated within so many of the designs. We spotted a few different birds and lizards here and there but couldn't stop thinking about how much mangrove habitat and wildlife was lost in the advent of creating such a grand metropolis. Around the coast and within the inner city parks, people were chatting with friends, laying in the shade, on the benches, floors, grass and anything that was comfortable. We journeyed into the metropolis, weaving through Gardens by the Bay and the giant Merlion statue, catching glimpses of the Marina Bay Sands building and the floating bubble-like Apple store on the water (!?).
Out of the city, we hopped onto the old tramline repurposed into a rail corridor for pedestrians and cyclists. It was magical moving from the dense urban city to forests with buzzing cicadas. It was around 3pm when we had encountered an intense thunderstorm (but probably an average storm to your local Singaporean).
While taking shelter under a bridge we asked a couple locals how long these usually last. They told us it depends but, usually lasts from 30 minutes to several hours. We decided to ride in the rain anyway as we needed to cross the border to get the Johor Bahru before it got too dark. Boy oh boy was it a messy ride. Riding through the muddy waters of the corridor towards the bridge made my back looked like I had unleashed the bowel flood gates of hells upon myself.
Crossing the bridge itself was hectic. At first we didn't even understand how bicycles would cross over. At this point we still had no internet (as it would wasteful to only get a sim card for only one day), so we were stuck without the ability to google a simple solution (but that's the whole point of an adventure right!). We turned to asking strangers - as we came up close to the Woodland checkpoint, we were able to have our first snack at a small gas station. I seriously needed a top of sugar as the heat had sucked all the goodness and enthusiasm that I had so much of at the start of the ride. We were both muddy and sweaty, and my legs felt like jelly - I knew they would fail me soon if I didn't get any sustenance. At this point, the ride had so far felt like a joyride for Tash even with the bike fully packed and heavy, mainly because it was so flat and mostly paved. The attendant at the gas station told us that we would need to go up bridge meant for 'cars only' to be able to cross over to the motorbike lane. A dodgy manouvre, but a necessary one as we had missed our chance getting in that lane wayyyy back - we would soon forget this information as we ate our aches and pains away.
Cycling closer to the bridge we saw a big sign with "CARS ONLY" with back-to-back vehicles and police directing the traffic flow. Using logic, human intellect, and the power of two minds that were hungry, tired and hopelessly looking for a pedestrian crossing, we surmised this wasn't the way to go. We moved along with pedestrian traffic towards what we found out was a train station, and of course, we couldn't enter with the bikes. We were told by an attendant there that we must flow in with the motorcyclists - that should be safer than the highway of cars anyway, right?
We head off trying to find a way on to the motorcycle lane which seemed to stretch very far back. It took us a while of cycling around till we headed back to the "CARS ONLY" sign. BOOM, the memories of the gas station pitstop flash backed in Tash's head - the food had finally kicked in and her neurons were finally firing up again - she figured it out. We must ride up this bridge, ignore the police and claim ignorance if stopped. At the top of the bridge, we see it - the lane for motocycles except it was completely chained off the entire way. There was only one little unchained section free for us to cross, only problem was that we had to cross into a highway entrance lane in the opposite direction for about 10 meters at peak hour (5pm). Go early if you are smarter then us. With the power of hand signs and pretending to use the force, we managed to beg our way across the lane and then still managed to head into the wrong immigration line as directed by police at the top. Only with the kindness of strangers were we directed to a 'manual' traditional passport lane that wasn't just a screen prompting you to scan your QR code. But gosh there was a lot of confusion, gas fumes, and honking - surrounded by motorbikes. We would recommend if you ever do this crossing yourself to bring a mask and earplugs - unless you want to become a gas huffing superman (and superwoman) like us. Oh and don't do it at the end of a long ride when you're already tired and weak. I think adrenaline pulled me through this night here. It was actually a bit easier to deal with immigration on the Malaysian side but be warned you must cycle the highway into the city - we stuck to the left and I prayed to god (due to previous trips, Tash had gotten used to highway cycling).
We made it to our homestay accommodation at about 8pm and cycled at a humble total of 64.5km. Sleep washed over me in seconds as soon as I hit that mattress. Tash caught up with her cousin Fendy, who had been waiting at the guesthouse since 2pm, wondering when we would rock up.
Now we rest for 2 days, and plan the first 15-days of the trip that will take us from Johor Bahru to Kuala Lumpur. We are joined by Fendy (Tash's cousin) to KL and coincidentally another Canadian cyclist, Alex, for a couple days.
Exciting days lay ahead! Thank you for reading and if you've read all the way I hope we made you smile!
View the route:
Written by Huy and edited by Tash.
