Sunday, May 30, 2010

Eco-Challenge part 4 - The journey in a nut shell

I left on Friday morning at 7am for my bus which was scheduled to leave at 9am. I've made my ticket purchase online and had my e-ticketing receipt as proof with me. Took an LRT to the Bukit Jalil LRT station and walked across the road from there to the temporary bus station. Stopped by at the kedai runcit on the way for 2 Snicker bars.

Upon arriving at the temporary ticketing counter, I found out that there was no electricity. It was already 8:45 and to my horror, electricity was still not up yet. At the counters, the agents were already issuing manual tickets to walk-in passengers. I went up to the counter and asked again and they just told me to proceed to my bus with my e-ticket proof and board the bus. Thankfully, there was a Transnational staff member who was standing next to me who asked me to follow him and he took me to the bus and asked his boss to acknowledge my ticket. The boss was even nicer to explain the situation, apologize and allowed me to board and told the bus driver to ensure that I have a seat on board with no issues.

I thanked God for their kindness and for not giving me any issues on the matter. Since I didn't have a proper seat number, I sat on the single seat at the back of the bus on alert to make way if anyone comes over to sit there. As i've guessed, a malay girl came to claim her seat with a proper ticket with the seat number on it. I quickly moved over to the 2-seats next to it. When the bus took off, the back row was only filled with 2 people and since no one came to claim my seat, I had both seats for myself. Excellent for leg space I thought and i slept all the way through the journey.

I was supposed to meet Sumi at the bus station at about 3pm and my bus arrived shortly after she arrived. Met her as planned at the Mersing bus station. Upon asking around, we found out that the jetty was about 500 metres away from the bus station and our ferry was leaving at about 4smtg. WIth ample of time in our hands, we decided to grab some food. We walked from the bus station to the main road, and came to a row of shop houses and restaurants and even a Public Bank!


While Sumi went to withdraw money, I waited by the side of the bank with a few police officers who were in the lookout for some pick-pocket guy who escaped them.

What more security can one ask for?


The safest bet for food we could think of was KFC which was 2 doors away from the bank. It was about 38 degrees hot by this time so air-cond was a good option. We had some burger, fries and drinks at the fly-infested place but no further complaints as we didn't have any stomach problems after that & the toilets were also clean. Beware when walking up to the upper floor or the toilets as the steps are rather steep and narrow.

After recuperating from the extreme heat, we continued our journey and continued walking towards the jetty. We were supposed to meet the travel agent there as well. As we were reaching the jetty area, our agent spotted us and called out for Sumi. Good guess I thought. After a brief introduction, we proceeded to her office to collect our ferry tickets, accomodation tickets and settle outstanding payments.

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