The augbunnies decided to head across the causeway over the good Friday long weekend and we had an awesome time exploring the cafes in the Little India district, lots of great food and a really good time. Read on to find out more!
We made a fantastic decision to go to Johor Bahru on the Thursday afternoon before Good Friday to avoid the crazy crowds at the customs. Our past experiences have showed that waiting to clear customs can take up to an hour or more and if you are heading to JB by public transport, another long wait for the bus will be encountered.
Being East siders, our trip to JB was via the convenient bus at Queens Street, Bugis. Our preference is always to go with causeway link(yellow bus) as we find they are more reliable and the frequency of the bus is much better. Fare per pax is $3.30 and the journey takes around 30-40minutes to reach Singapore customs.
Being a weekday, clearing customs is extremely quick and we board the bus to JB where we get our passport stamped and start our adventure. The entire process to clear customs starting from Singapore takes around 15min which is extremely quick!
If taking an extra day of leave is not an option, I will recommend to pre book the train at Woodlands CIQ here. The journey takes only 5mins and there is only 1 customs to clear. Do pre book these tickets as early as possible as they run out really quickly. Cost per pax is $5
Ok, enough about the prelude to our trip, the first shopping mall that you will arrive at will be City Square. In this mall there are many eateries which are rather pocket friendly to the Singaporean wallet due to the favorable exchange rates.
WHERE TO GET SIM CARD
It is advisable to get a 4G sim card to stay connected and I will recommend the U mobile plan. The sim card cost 8.50RM and topping up 10RM will give you 1GB of 4G data for 5 days usage. This can be bought in the malls or at some of the mobile shops outside city square.
[UPDATE: This is also available at 7-11 convenience store in the same building where you arrived if you come by train]
Directions to JB Cafe
Our first stop will the cafes in the Little India area. You will need to exit City Square at the exit nearest to macdonals. Turn left along Jalan Wong ah Fook. You will need to cross the roads and will notice construction work at the opposite end of the road. Located the intersection and cross when it is safe to do so.
Head straight after crossing and you will noticed a run down mall. Do not enter but turn to your left where you will see an Indian coffeeshop. At the end of the coffeeshop, you will noticed an abandoned hut that looks kind of scary. There is nothing to fear but continue along the dirt path and walk past the hut.
Continue until the end of the road and you will notice an indian temple.
Turn right and continue walking towards Galleria mall. Before crossing the street to Galleria, you will notice a green sign saying JB Bazaar pointing to your left. Turn left in the direction and continue straight.
The first cafe that you will see is the RRR cafe which is also the place we stopped by for our afternoon tea session. Turning right you will noticed the replacement along with other cafes. Continuing straight past RRR, you will find Maco vintage. In Google Map, look out for Jalan Trus to get to the cafe area if you are a map person.
The RRR cafe is a cool, unconventional hippy cafe which served decent coffee and it was empty except for us on a Thursday afternoon, Its decor are instamgram worth!
After our tea break, we explore the area a little and hail a passing cab (lucky us) to bring us to KSL hotel which is our roof for the night. The taxi service in boleh land is notorious for not turning on the meter but do insist for them to do it. You will have better luck hailing a cab down the street rather than those that are stopping at taxi stands which will 100% offer a more expensive flat rate. Our journey to KSL cost about 10RM which is not too expensive.
We book the KSL hotel's superior room which is well spaced and quite comfortable for a couple of night's stay. Service can tend to be slow during busy periods and you will noticed loads and loads of guests at the hotel. The location right beside KSL city shopping mall was the key reason why we choose to stay here.
After some monopoly deal card games, we decided to head to KSL city for dinner. We had a Japanese feast with great ambience at Kinsahi. The food was not too shabby and the decoration of the place is really cool. The best part, we only spent around $37 for this awesome feast. Desserts are not shown.
We explore KSL city after dinner and our verdict was the mall was a cross between far east plaza in Singapore mixed with a neighborhood shopping mall. There were shops retailing clothes of the far east variety and also a cinema at the top floor. The supermarket makes it great to purchase snacks and groceries to bring back to the hotel and also massage shops to ease the soreness from shopping. The ladies will love the manicure shops which offers better pricing than our Singapore counterparts.
We did not fancy the movies and went to grab some Auntie Annes to bring back to our hotel. The specialty pretzels here cost RM 3.80 and in Singapore its about $3. It is about 3 times cheaper so it is definite a time to indulge. We went with the seaweed pretzel and the taste was no difference from Singapore.
We spotted a place hawking coconuts and we decided to buy 2 to go with our pretzel. The coconuts are skillfully "de-husked" leaving the white fleshy flesh. It was beautifully shaped like a ball and to consume the juice, you just need to give the flesh a hard poke with the straw. This makes it so much easier to consume the delicious fruit compared to constantly scrapping the get the flesh!
After supper we had a good nights sleep. Stay tuned for Day 2 of our JB trip.
Day 1 Itinerary
Singapore(Queen Street) - Johor Bahru CIQ
Johor Bahru CIQ - RRR Cafe (Jalan Trus, Little India area)
RRR cafe - KSL Hotel/City
Continued to Day 2 here
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