Spontaneous Short Trip

Our trip to Muar is actually quite a spontaneous short trip. To me, it is an adventure. Why? It is unplanned and KY actually loves the idea of an unplanned trip. Even though it is back to our country but we have never set foot at that part of Malaysia and the place is..... Muar.

We woke up at 645am on 6th Dec. Got dressed and headed to Causeway checkpoint. We were stucked there for about an hour plus due to the long weekend break, most Singaporeans were headed out of Singapore to Malaysia.

We arrived JB at around 1030am and took a cab to our rented car's office. The rental costs us RM180 per day (24 hours usage). We were so excited. KY drove the car because I am afraid that I could not get used to the car in such a short time. Honestly, I just wanted to seat back and relax. We headed for Muar. As we were driving, we got through 2 tolls which we had to pay RM1.70 and somewhere about RM3. Hmm.... tolls in Malaysia are nuts, charging us all the time. I did not feel that we were using a toll because we could still see houses on both sides of the road.

Anyways... we finally reached the actual North-South Highway toll. Haha.. pretty excited. We drove for an hour plus. KY drove quite fast, at about 130km per hour. I was pretty worried because we rented a Wira and not a car with airbags. So.. you can feel how worried I was. There wasn't a heavy traffic but there were many cars to slow us down. Bottom line is, we were both excited. Somehow the excitement turned out to be a weary one because we still did not see the Muar signage after driving for quite sometime. So I had to make a call to my eldest brother and asked him if we were on the right track because he drives frequently to JB from KL. So he is pretty familiar with the highway. Well, we were on the right track but just have to keep our eyes open and be attentive.

Finally we saw the sign Muar. Yay... we are finally there... The toll costs us about RM18. After exiting the toll, we followed the directions to Muar. We drove through a long stretch of road that headed us to Muar but we still did not see the town. Dang.. another 30-40 minutes driving. Gosh.. I never knew Muar is so hard to go.

Finally we reached Muar. Muar is a very small town but is quite advanced compared to others because it has semicon industry to create job oppotunities for the locals there. It has Giant supermarket too. For a small town with such business popping there, pretty good.

The central town of Muar.

The bus station of Muar.

The turn that leads to the town.

Riverview Hotel, where we stayed. Only RM89 per night.

America boutique, where sells all the shoes you want in Muar.

HSBC in Muar.

Sultan Ismain bridge. This bridge links to the other part of Muar.

Giant in Muar.

ST in Muar.

After driving around in Muar for almost an hour. We decided to have our lunch. We took our lunch at around 2plus, almost 3pm. Well, we were not that hungry because we took some chips in the car. Haha...

Refreshing chinese tea.

Fried Kangkung with belacan style.

Deep fried squid. Highly recommended to friends to taste them.

Chilli Squid. Another recommended food to try.

Assam Fish, the signature dish.

Well, I will not recommend friends to taste this because it is too sour for me but I do know some friends who loves sour good (I think you know who you are.. wink). I would ask my friend to try this if she ever stop by in Muar.

After our lunch which actually ended at around 4pm, we drove around Muar town again. Haha.. we pretty much cover the whole town for 20 minutes and decided to head for Malacca town, my own hometown. Yay...! It took us around 30 minutes to reach Malacca town. You can tell how near both towns are. I manage to visit Unitele (KY's uni). I manage to visit my mom too. At about 6pm, we decided to head back to Muar because we want to try the famous otak-otak that we have planned to have it for dinner.

As we drove back, I manage to take some shots of my town while in the car. It was raining heavily when I was at mom's place.

See how bad the jam is. This Shell station is just outside my home.

Cross junction of Semabok.

Thompson Music centre.

This is where I used to have my music lessons after mom bought me a piano for my 16th birthday. I remember uncle Thompson will come to my place every weekend to give me music lessons. My first music lesson was when I was 16 years old. Haha.. that old eh.. but when I got the piano, I could play musics for my family and they were shocked. Haha.... I can say I am talented at hearing music then trying to play it out on the piano. The music lessons that I tookd was to brush up my skills in reading notes, which I can do so but slowly. I had a crash course of Grade1-3 within months. So, you can imagine how slow I read the notes (some people call it tauge).

At this time, we were already heading towards the road that will lead us back to Muar.

The turnin to Muar, and here end Malacca trip.

The grey sky on the road back to Muar. It was going to rain at this area, unlike Malacca town it was already raining at that point of time.

120 km/hr. This is how fast KY was driving but he was driving faster than this but I kinda nagged at him for driving fast.

Here we are, back in Muar and we are stucked in a jam.

Cars at the back of me, all waiting to move.

This is me.. cam-whoring around.

The stationed cars in front of us.

I guess it was a traffic light that caused the jam, and here it showed that the traffic is clear.

Temple in Muar.

I find this shop has quite an eye-catcher advert. Unfortunately, we didn't stop by to taste it.

The comfortable room. It has all the basic needs that is required but I hate the pillow because it is hard like stone. Funny thing is, I snored like a pig.

The furniture that is placed in the room. Haha, my mom's place has this. It is the same furniture. I miss this furniture.

After reaching the hotel and freshen ourselves, we walked to the hawker centre near the hotel and had our dinner. I did not take any pictures because I was too tired and too busy enjoying the Malaysian food, which we can never have such food in Singapore. It was a haven place for nice food. We ate quite alot of otak-otak, sate, oyster (I took the egg mostly) and plenty of sugar-cane drink. Yummy.... I want to have these kind of food in Singapore....

After dinner, we took a stroll to the nearest 7-11 and bought a bottle of water and went back to the hotel. I rested and took my shower. KY rested too but went out soon after when his friend called. I stayed back to watch TV, and dozed off.....

Our journey heading home. The highway is pretty clear of cars.

The beautiful sky on a sunny day.

Spoke too soon of a sunny day? Haha.. I did some settings in the camera to get a better picture of the sky.

Not so heavy traffic. Almost reaching JB town.

Overall, our trip was a delightful one. We spent about RM560 in total. Not a bad trip because we manage to spend our time at 3 different towns. The trip back made us save a little on the toll (costs us about RM12) because we took the old way and this led us to pass-by many small towns in Johor. Amazing because we could not have discovered these small towns if we took the highway. At first we were quite worried because we still could not see the highway but eventually we enjoyed the journey, particularly for KY because he could speed faster and not get caught by speed-trap.