Traveling from Singapore to Malaysia
It was an easy journey with a hired driver
We spent a few days in Singapore just before Christmas 2023. This is a look back at that time. You can read the preceding post about Singapore here.
The real reason we were in SE Asia was to spend time in Malaysia as a potential country to consider living in. And, while we enjoyed Singapore and would definitely visit again, it was expensive and it was time to move on after just a few days. We arranged for a driver to take us to Kuala Lumpur, about 5 hours by car north of Singapore. We were so happy not to have to get on another flight after the long journey from Rome!
Before checking out of our hotel, the girls and I headed over to a nearby cafe to pick up food for the road.
We got picked up around 11:30am/noon and piled into a super comfortable mini-van with leather seats for our journey to KL. The only other border I’d ever crossed by land was the US-Mexico border (San Diego-Tijuana). We weren’t sure what to expect, but we’d heard it was fairly easy. The wild card factor was how many other vehicles were also trying to cross. Since it was midday on a Thursday, we were hoping it wouldn’t be too bad.
Indeed, it wasn’t. But crossing the border was a two-part process, unlike from the US to Mexico, which is the only other land crossing I’d done (I’ve done that one a number of times). First, we left Singapore, receiving an exit stamp in our passports, which the driver collected from us and handed to the attendant at the window.
Then we drove across the Johor Strait, where we went through Malaysian immigration. It took 10-15 minutes to go from the front of the “exit” line in Singapore to the back of the “entrance” line in Malaysia on the other side of the bridge. And in total, it took 45-60 minutes to navigate the entire immigration process, most of which was waiting in lines of cars. Fortunately, we never had to get out of the van.
After that, it was smooth sailing all the way to KL! The highway was mostly flat and fairly straight. We had some rain showers here and there, but nothing of note. I still found it novel that we were driving on the left-hand side of the highway.
And then around 5:30pm, we saw the KL skyline on the horizon:
It’s wild to me how cities seemingly appear out of nowhere, when just “over there” there was virtually nothing! Anyway, our driver got us to our apartment with no issues and we were off and running for our 3-week adventure in KL! I’ve already written some about our time in Malaysia, but I still have more to document and look forward to doing so, including our time in Penang.
Have you done a border crossing by land (car/bus/train/on foot)? Where and what was it like?