Three countries in one day. I ate my breakfast in Singapore, my lunch in Malaysia, and had my dinner in Indonesia. To top that, I was in the northern hemisphere in the morning and the southern hemisphere in the evening.
Instead of flying directly from Singapore to Indonesia, I decided to save $40-$50 and fly out of the airport next door in Malaysia. Too bad it didn’t go so smoothly and was kind of complicated:
- Take east west line subway
- Transfer to north south line subway
- Get on bus 170 blue.
- Get off and go through immigration to exit Singapore. There were long lines here that I wasn’t expecting!
- Get on another bus, cross the bridge over the river.
- Get off the bus, enter the Malaysia immigration. This one went a lot faster.
- Get on a bus again to get to the bus terminal. Well, I didn’t get on the bus because I didn’t see anyone else get on the bus. It drove away empty, so I assumed it was the end of the line or something. So I walked instead. And I walked through the city, through shopping malls, sweating the whole time, hurrying so I wouldn’t miss my flight.
- Finally at the station, take the Airport Express bus to Senai airport. Luckily I found the station on my own. On the way I changed my Singapore dollars to US Dollars and 10 Malaysian Ringgit. 8 for the bus ticket and 2 for some food. I walked up to some small place and said I want a plate of food for 2 Ringgit.
Then I took AirAsia from Johor Batru, Malaysia to Surabaya, Indonesia. I was the only westerner on the plane and I was the only person getting a Visa in the airport when I arrived. So I paid my $25 for the visa sticker and got in the country. I ignored the taxi drivers and I saw a big airport bus waiting outside.
The hostel I found had some instructions on how to get there using public transport, so I figured I’d give it a try. The conductor and driver understood where I had to go and helped out out. I got off the bug bus and then got on a minibus. And then he dropped me off at the correct spot. Then a local food vendor showed me the rest of the way to the hostel, which was in a house in a quiet neighborhood.
I found out I’m the only foreigner staying in the hostel. I had the dorm room all to myself. According to the guest book, I’m the 75th person to stay there in over a year. Surabaya isn’t a big tourist destination.