Say one thing for Singapore. Say their public transport is awesome.

Hands down. In a head to head competition. I reckon only Japan could rival Singapore's efficiency. Imagine how easy it is to get from one place to another. Just plan your trip ahead of you, know which bus or train to take and you're all set! It's that easy. And the best thing about it is, you DO NOT NEED TO DRIVE!!!!!!! yeah!!!! freaking yeah! hahaha. In my books, it's nirvana. I LOVE trains, commuting, walking, exploring. It just adds that little extra something when you travel. Of course, I tried a few journey planners, one is transitlink's journey planner, Singapore's own National Transportation Authority devised it and the other is the SMRT website's Network Map. Came in handy more times than I can count. But the ultimate journey planner would have to be streetdirectory.com

Since arriving here, I've taken the plane, the train and the bus to go to and from Singapore. Boy did I have a lot of fun. I'm a certified master at immigrations and bus stops now. haha! Since I've run out of ideas of what to write and don't have that many pictures, which is a pity, I'll just put in a mini review of Singapore-KL, bus, train or plane?

BUS

The bus stop I chose was at this place called the Golden Complex. As usual, planned my journey and made sure to jot in down in my iPhone notes. Went super smooth. I arrived about 1 and a half hours earlier than the departure time. I only had to transfer MRT lines and walk to the complex, which was near the Nicoll Highway MRT. Good thing was, even in the dark of night, I was still safe walking on my own. The place was super seedy. There was a full blown night club with bouncers at the entrance. Yikes! The buses had a huge albeit narrow parking lot where they'd arrive one at a time and park parallel to each other. I had to get my sahur someplace halal. Talked to one of the girls wearing hijab and found out that the hawker stalls were right on the opposite side of the road and to get there, you had to climb two stories worth of stairs, walk across the fly-over and down the endless flight of stairs again! I was desperate since I'd miss my sahur otherwise. You know what I did? Being the super woman that I am, I lugged my 'stewardess' bag that had my macbook in it and my super heavy shoulder bag up the impossibly long stairs WITHOUT breaking a sweat. Now that's testament to how useful all that strength training was! Barely huffed or puffed too. *Now that's pushing it, haha, probably had to catch my breath for a second or two in between landings* and then I had to go through the whole process again once I'd bought my sahur. Even with all my missed workouts, I still got to fit in some exercise.  My bus, Sri Maju, was the most good looking bus. (purple y'all!) It arrived about 45 mins before departure. No hassles, only thing was I woke up about 2 minutes before reaching Petronas Sungai Besi Toll. Talk about a close shave huh? 

TRAIN

The thing about trains over long distances is, their tickets tend to get snapped up in no time at all. Especially close to holiday season. I had to (or rather mom had to) bend over backwards to book me a 1st class coach on the train. I found the KTM website really cumbersome to use. The e-ticket system kept coming up with server errors, so it really put me off. But mom had no trouble when it was her turn to book. In the end, I was booked on the top bunk with some girl on the bottom bunk. On the day, the girl didn't show up so I totally conquered the bottom bunk. The coach was pretty cool, had its own bathroom, TV set, and I got a free banana cake and a bottle of water. BUT. The overall impression I got of the place could be summed up in one word: RUN DOWN. It was obvious that KTM spent little or no money on maintenance of these coaches, which is a real pity since taking the train to Malaysia could be a serious tourist attraction. I was really saddened by the state it was in. It was clean, don't get me wrong, but everything was really, really old. The TV wasn't working and the cup holder mounted on the wall for the bottom bunk was totally useless since the whole thing was non-existent. The air-cond didn't seem to be working properly too. I got a little claustrophobic sleeping on the top bunk coz there were no windows, so boy was I glad when that girl didn't get on the train! haha. The journey took longer than the bus. About two hours longer, and the bunk orientation kinda forced the passengers to lie down which was kind of a bummer since I wanted to sit up and watch SNL on my macbook but it wasn't really comfortable trying to twist myself into a sitting position. Maybe coz I'm tall?

PLANE

One word of advice. No matter how early you think you are, you're never early enough!

Singapore is equivalent to an overseas destination so check-in time has to follow overseas protocol, as in 2 hours early. By the time me, mom and dad arrived at the airport, we were just in the nick of time boarding the plane! There were endless queues and inspections we had to go through until we could pass to the gates and it was kinda like a waking nightmare trying to maneuver in the LCCT. Add to the fact that I had sports equipment that had to be checked in through its own bay and boom! 8 minutes to boarding! Phew, I was just glad we made it! Of course, the time it took us to fly to Singapore took less than an hour so huge time savings there. And the rest is history.

So, my verdict would be

comfort: bus

convenience: train

time-saver: plane

It's always a compromise isn't it?