From Chinatown, we moved out of the city to the 105 m. (344 ft.) Mt. Faber (actually just a hill), the highest point in the southern part of Singapore and a frequent tourist destination.  Located near the Bukit Merah planning area in the Central Region, it overlooks the Telok Blangah area, and the western parts of the Central Area.

Formerly known as Telok Blangah Hill, it was renamed after Capt. Charles Edward Faber of the Madras Engineers.  The hill’s slope includes a tower that is part of the Singapore cable car system.  Here, we had a panoramic view of Singapore Harbor, the Central Business District and, over the  horizon, the islands of the Riau Archipelago of Indonesia.

After breakfast at the hotel, we left on our city tour ( RMG Tours Pte. Ltd., S$21 each).  A surprise was our first destination – the bustling Serangoon Central Wet Market along Serangoon Rd. (Little India’s main thoroughfare), well stocked with the freshest vegetables, meat, fish, spices, etc.  and surprisingly fly-free.

Merlion Park

From Serangoon Rd. we made a short photo-op stopover at Merlion Park which houses the 8.6 m. high, 70-ton statue of the merlion, a mythical creature with the body of a fish and the head of a lion. The statue, made from November 1971 to August 1972 by the late Singapore sculptor Lim Nag Seng, was installed on September 15, 1972 at the mouth of the Singapore River, with the Anderson Bridge as its background.

In 1997, the completion of the Esplanade Bridge blocked the views of the Merlion from the Marina Bay waterfront.By then, its original location was also no longer the entrance of Singapore River. In 2002, the statue and its cub were relocated, from April 23-25, 2002, 120 m., to the current Merlion Park, fronting Marina Bay, where it stands on a newly reclaimed promontory in front of the Fullerton Hotel.

Singapore Customs and Immigration Office

Upon arrival at the Queen St. Bus Terminal, I took the SBS (Singapore Bus Service) Transit’s service 170.  These public buses provide one of the cheapest and most reliable form of transport directly into the heart of Johor Bahru, across the causeway over the Straits of Johor, from Singapore. The Johor-Singapore Causeway, completed in 1923 after 4 years of construction, was partially destroyed in 1942 during World War II, to prevent the Japanese army from invading Singapore. However, it was rebuilt once the Japanese had captured the island.

Very popular but terminally congested, the causeway is crossed by buses, trains, taxis and cars and is normally jam-packed on Friday evenings (towards Malaysia) and Sunday evenings (towards Singapore).  However, it was the Qing Ning holiday (similar to our All Saints Day) and the bus queue was very long going to Johor. Seeing the traffic, I decided to alight from the bus and just walked towards the Singapore Customs & Immigration Office at Woodlands for the necessary departure clearance.

A second crossing, between Johor Bahru and western Singapore, was open on January 2, 1998. Known as the Tuas Second Link, it is much faster and less congested than the Causeway and  is used by some of the luxury bus services to Kuala Lumpur.

I also decided to just walk the whole 1 km. length of the Causeway to the Malaysian side.  It seems I was the only one doing so. Along the way, I noticed, aside from the huge traffic jam, the huge water pipes as well as the railway track between the two sides of the Causeway. I was dripping with sweat by the time I reached the other side.

In December 2008, immediately after the opening of the new Johor Bahru CIQ complex, crossing the Causeway, on foot, from Singapore to Johor Bahru was officially forbidden by the Singapore authorities. Once you have cleared Singapore immigration at the Woodlands Checkpoint, you have to take any of the public or private buses waiting at the bus bays downstairs to cross the Causeway. There is always a Singapore police officer stationed at the staircase entrance to the Causeway to prevent anyone from crossing the Causeway on foot.