Being the tightwad that I am, I chose the longer route over the more expensive route. I figured that if I took a cheaper bus from Tanah Rata to Kuala Lumpur at MYR 35 then take another bus from Kuala Lumpur back to Singapore, it will still be cheaper than the MYR 140 for a direct bus to the Singapore they were selling at Tanah Rata. The bus ride from Tanah Rata to Kuala Lumpur was uneventful, it didn’t make any stopovers but it might as well have since a lot of Kuala Lumpur residents seem to have decided to head back to the big city after the holiday.
There were times that the bus slowed to a crawl but at least it was still moving. The bus took around 4 1/2 hours to get to Kuala Lumpur. Here it made two stops, the first one was at KL Sentral. It has been a while since I was last in Kuala Lumpur, and I was impressed at how much it has changed. I was contemplating getting off the Kuala Lumpur Sentral and make my way to Puduraya, the bus station I was using back then. But I remembered that the lady selling the ticket mentioned this wasn’t stopping at Puduraya, saying “no more Pudu”. I took it to be I can’t get off at Puduraya. So I hung on while the bus slowly made its way out of Kuala Lumpur, much to my confusion. I was concerned that the bus was moving further and further away from Kuala Lumpur and moving on to another city. I might end up in Penang or something!
No such thing happened, as the bus stopped at a place called Bukit Jalil. Apparently, the bus terminal at Puduraya was shut down and temporarily moved to this place. It is at a parking lot of a stadium. There was a large tent where the ticket offices are. I got a relatively expensive ticket to Johor Bahru, no direct buses were available. My ticket cost me MYR 45, significantly more than I expected. I guess it is to be expected since everybody needed to get back.
The bus took forever to come though, the blazing sun was already scorching hot and tempers were already flaring leaving the ticket guy fending off irate passengers. Their pathetic excuse for a bus shelter is packed with people and the setting sun was already making the shelter useless. An hour and a half after the scheduled departure of our bus, another bus arrived and we were instructed to get on. It was a four seater bus, which I thought was expensive for something that cost me MYR 45. Can’t really complain now, since I needed to get back to Singapore as soon as possible.
The bus took five hours to get back to Johor Bahru because of heavy traffic on the approach to Johor State. Fortunately, there was still a bus heading back to Singapore from Larkin bus terminal. There was hardly anyone crossing that border at 11 in the evening. Finally back and very exhausted from a whole day of travelling, I got a cab and head home.
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what time is the last bus to jb from bukit jalil
that is something i never got to find out. the bus station in bukit jalil doesn’t have any electronic timetable but at the time of my visit, there were buses leaving even as late as 11 and 12 midnight. my guess is that there will be a bus leaving as long as there are enough passengers. your bigger problem will be getting there since it is not exactly very accessible. this might not be applicable either as the new bus terminal might have already opened.