I went to Muar, Johor during the first day of Hari Raya with my ex-school mate. We took KTM komuter train from Port Klang Station at 7.15am. The journey with komuter train is indeed boring and long. It takes three hours (we missed a train in KL sentral and have to wait for another 30 minutes) for us to reach Seremban station. We have expected this situation since there 28 stations between Port Klang and Seremban.
As we reach Seremban at 10 am, we have planned to buy bus ticket straight to Muar. But to our disappointment, all the bus tickets to Muar has been sold out. It is a silliest choice for us to have a vacation during Hari Raya and the biggest mistake is that we didn’t book any tickets at all. With out any choice, a bus ticket seller advice us to go to Segamat first then change another bus to Muar. We accept the advice and our journey continues. What we didn’t think is the distance between Segamat and Muar is actually quite far. Looks like I have to study back my geography lessons. The journey from Seremban to Segamat takes about two hours as not highway route to Segamat. We reach Segamat at 1pm. The bus ride is actually not bad as I have chance to see place that I never been before like Gemas, Tampin, Pedas, and Rembau.
As soon we reach Segamat, we broad a bus to Muar. We were quite shocked with the bus fares from Segamat to Muar, RM6.10! The we start thinking that our journey still quite far. This proved true as the bus will go through areas such as Jementah, Tangkak, and Gunung Ledang before reach Muar. We then reach Muar at 4pm! From there, our friend fetch us to buy delicacy and then go to his house to bath and rest (9 hours journey). His house semi-D house is quite spacious. At first I quite concern whether we will cause inconvenience if we stay at his house and plan to stay at hotel. Since his house has an empty room, I think it is ok.
At night, we go to a restaurant in Bakri to try out its foods. The restaurant is full of people and we have to wait for 20 minutes before we get a table to sit. Many customers look like they are from Singapore. There we ordered the famous ‘Ikan haruan’ bihun. The taste is sour and the fish meat texture is soft and nice. Other dishes like Yam meat, roasted chicken, spicy tauhu with onion and spicy squid are not bad. Only the roasted chicken is quite regular.
On the second day, we go to eat dim sum for breakfast. There got a lot of variety to choose from. Some dim sum I never see before. Among dim sum are: black pepper pau, lotus leaf glutinous rice, stewed meat pau and variety of siew mai. Each of us (4), order different dim sum and each dish we separate it to four pieces. So, each of us can try each dish in the shop.
After the breakfast, we went to Gunung Ledang to see the scenery there and have fun at the waterfall area. The bottom part of the mountain is easy to climb. Just like climbing 25-30 minutes of stair. The waterfall scenery is spectacular but as usual, some parts are polluted by rubbish (ugly side of Malaysians). Many people bring food up to the mountain just for picnic and some of them didn’t clean the place after eating or throw rubbish into dustbin. If the trend continues, maybe next time, Gunung Ledang won’t be a nice place to visit anymore.
In the afternoon, our journey continues to Panchor. At first, I don’t even heard of this place. Of course, this place is very remote and far away from the main road. We went there to taste its prawn and seafood. The prawn is quite large and the taste is quite natural. The prawn is not heavily salted and it is fried. Then the seafood sup with yam is also tasted quite natural.
At night we went to Parit Jawa to eat its roast sting ray and crab. The roast sting ray is delicious but a bit too spicy. That day is my first time to try crab and the experience is bad. I wonder why some people like to eat crab whereas it is so difficult to eat (I prefer prawn. Hehe...).
On the third day, we have went to the Muar food court for breakfast. There we try the fried oyster, chee chong fun (filled with char siew), chai pau and fish ball mee. After breakfast, we went to Tanjung Emas for sight seeing. My school mate and I went back to Klang after we visit Tanjung Emas. Tanjung Emas is just like Tanjung Harapan in Port Klang and the only difference that I can see is we can view Muar city from Tanjung Emas whereas Tanjung Harapan can’t. But in Tanjung Harapan, we can view many large ships and cruise ships. The journey back is much better as it only takes five hours. I learn a lot of new places during this trip and I get to know that many parts in Malaysia which are still not developed. Thanks a lot to a friend who brings us around during two days trip in Muar.
The moral of the story is always plan for a trip and book bus ticket early especially on festive seasons.
