I was rather feverish last night and couldn’t keep to my plan of wanting to go over JB early for Deepavali. However, after a restful sleep, I woke up feeling rather alright, although not in full health. Body was still slightly warm, but only just a little bit. By then, it was already 9+am. I thought, what the heck, just go over.
From the internet check on the causeway camera via One.motoring, the situation didn’t look that bad. The checkpoint was still quite smooth. So after doing the necessary morning routine, we reached the checkpoint at around 10am.
The first stretch leading into the Singapore custom was still quite alright. However, the moment we got on the bridge, the jam was more than half a bridge long, and we were in for a long queue. So it was that it took a bit more than half hour to clear the 0.8km bridge. Clearing the motoring madness, we headed for Danga to see if we could get a bite there. By now, D was grumbling about being hungry.
Nice and clean duck rice stall
But most stalls were not opened in Danga, and we decided to head north to find another foodie joint. We saw a few interesting places, but I missed them mostly as I couldn’t filter out in time. We finally ended up at a quiet stretch of shop houses somewhere in skudai, which had a duck rice stall. Food wasn’t too good, but perhaps it was due to my slight fever. However, it did the job of replenishing our strength. Along the way, I passed a sign pointing to Senai Airport. From my GPS, it was just around the corner. I thought why not to check out the place as I had not been there before.
Senai Airport
Distance from airport to other places
From the outside, the airport was quite “senile” and nothing much to look at. But walking into the departure hall, there were plentiful of shops, some well known like Dunkin Donuts, Coffee Express, Famous Amos etc. We grabbed some snacks, visited the toilet and went on our way.
Everyone is taking pictures with these blocks. I better too
Inside aisle of the shopping stretch
Pretty shop, isn’t it?
Donuts! Couldn’t resist
Trickly to get a shot of this, without triggering the door open sensor
Definitley fruity. The colors are very inviting
The control tower
Leaving the airport, I drove up north, thinking to head for Ayer Hitam. Although I had been there by bus some years back, I hadn’t driven ther before. However, along the way, I decided to detour after seeing a sign for Gunung Pulai. By that time, I was generally quite tired of the busy traffic and wanted to get out of the jams.
Some weeks back, I had gone up Gunung Pulai via the other direction to check out the reservoir. However, that was more of a drive around the base. This entrance here looked like it would bring us to Gunung Pulai itself. We drove up and reached a sort of recreation park area. But the car parks were all full. Interestingly, the road continued upwards, and I was quite curious as to how high it would go. From GPS, there was a long road leading to the centre of the green patch on the map.
Road to G.Pulai
Mountainous road
Man on bike is the ice cream man
Monkey. Lots of them, but they are fearful of humans. Scattered when I came near
The proper park entrance
There were scores of people trekking up. Even an old auntie with a walking stick :O
Braising myself, I drove up the steep and windy road. At times, it really looked impossible to bring my car up. I was mostly on 1st gear. But after some scarey turns and narrow roads, we finally made it to the top. A biker stopped us halfway to inform us that at the end of the road, will be blocked by a sentry and was not passable. Alrightly then, we stopped a little before the very peak, which was marked by 2 tall antenna towers.
My Pica catching its breadth
You can imagine the steepness of the road from this
About 600m, according to my GPS
Leaves are strangely joined together
I surrender
Camera just refused to focus on the “snail” like plant
A little view from here
One of the twin tower
The air is fresh
Yipee! On top of the world
Darkening skies
Bottom up view
We got out of the car to explore around. From that height, the air was already cooler and was quite pleasant. Unfortunately, the view was rather obstructed by the tall undergrowth, and there wasn’t any strategic position to get a decent view. From that height, we could see a little glimpse of JB town itself.
Coming down, we headed for Jusco planning to catch “Bee movie” perhaps. But reaching Jusco, the place was swarmed with cars, and parking was impossible. I decided then to head for Perling Mall as there was another cinema there. But reaching there, Cinema at Perling was showing all Tamil shows, it being Deepavali. My girl was quite disappointed at not being able to see a show. To compensate, we let her had some fun at the arcade.
Looking at my GPS, I noticed a little road that leads to the sea, along the 2nd link way. At that spot, it would be opposite the restricted area that was designated for army training at tuas. Thinking to detour there on the way back, I plotted a route from my GPS right to the spot.
Detour to the seaside
New roads
Crossing the toll, I made an exit to Nusajaya. The road was rather new, and evidently the whole area was undergoing some kind of development. In fact, some of the roads not even in my GPS. From the looks of it, it would be a nice place once they are done. Part of the road, was rather broken, and my car had to limp on its 4WD mode to get to the destination.
See the Singapore Army restricted area sign across the sea
The rickety jetty
Room with a view
Cat having an afternoon nap
Construction on the way out
But we finally made it and came to a small fishing village. The place was quite nice, but since it was low tide, the sea was retracted quite far away from the shore. There was a rickety jetty which I tried to walk. But going halfway, I decided that my life was more important. Fishing might be possible, but it was rather rough.
From there, we backtracked to the expressway, and reached the petrol kiosk before the final toll at around 7pm. All in good time. Traffic at tuas was smooth as expected. Incidentally, I noticed that the Malaysian checkpoint at the 2nd link way looked infested with migrating birds. There was so many of them, that they really raised a din in the otherwise sleepy checkpoint. But the officers there didn’t seem to mind at all.
