Travel Tips: Bus Travel in Malaysia

Since I had my fair share of traveling by bus so I thought why not I share some of the travel tips I gathered through my experience. Might come handy for foreign tourists and students who might be away from their families for the first time when they entered matric/university this coming July. In the recent two weeks alone I clocked more than 24 hours being on board a bus. The bulk of it is the KL-Kangar trip plus the usual KL-Kuantan Trip.

1. Always buy your ticket at the counter! This is really important and must be remembered no matter how desperate you are. It's common to see at big stations like KL's Pudu to have pushers trying to sell to you tickets. They usually shouts the destination and chides you if you decline their offer. My advice: ignore them. They might charge higher or give to you a lousy bus. This especially true during peak seasons.

Instead go straight to your preferred bus counter and buy the ticket there. So, in case of any discrepancies or delays you can inquire at the counter. If you a first time buyer, just look at the destination names on at the counters. If you totally clueless I recommend going to the Transnasional counter - they sell tickets to almost all destination (especially from KL).

2. Shop around. Now, which bus is more comfortable? If you are adventurous you could try out different bus each time or you can simply observe the buses when you are waiting for your bus. For those who are in universities, you can ask your seniors. There are many types of bus - the plain one have 4 seats in a row, then the premium 3 seats in a row and the double decker. The first two might costs the same but the latter could be slightly more expensive by around 15%. Double deck bus are unsuitable if you plan to carry a lot of luggage as their cargo hold is rather small and there's no overhead storage compartments.

3. Buy early. You must be real lucky to be able to buy tickets at the last minute during festive seasons or real unlucky to find out you are given extra (read: lousy) bus. You must book early, some bus operators allow booking four weeks in advance. The minimum is usually two weeks for those who still use paper filing system. Some of you might figure out that only tickets to Ipoh and JB are sold out during Chinese New Year but don't be surprised that ticket to Kota Bharu sold out too. Malaysians don't care what the festival is about, they travel home if they have the holiday anyway.

Other peak seasons might occur nearing university semester breaks or school holidays. This is true especially if the town have a sizeable students population.

4. Be prepared. By law bus drivers must stop at least once during the journey so you can eat and pray. Sometimes, the stop is very brief or the rest area doesn't sell food. So you should prepare with your own packed foods and drinks.

5. Alternative routes. The ticket to your destination sold out? No problem - you can still hop on a bus that goes to a city beyond your destination. Say the ticket to Muar sold out, you can hop on the bus to Batu Pahat. But you must clarify with the counter of the route of the bus.

Sometimes it will pass through your hometown or be at the outskirts which you may have transport problem. And be sure to notify the bus driver and remind them. And don't fall asleep! My uncle once end up in Johor Bharu when he fall asleep and missed to stop at Pagoh. This method is only recommended if you have somebody to pick you up. Of course, this method is irrelevant to towns which borders Thailand or Singapore.

6. Alternative stations. Sometimes, a town might have more than one bus station. For example: apart from Pudu, KL have Pekeliling, Putra & Jalan Duta. These stations are smaller and only serve specific regions such as Pahang, East Coast & Northern respectively. I prefer to board at Pekeliling to go Kuantan as it is much less buy and nearer to the LRT. Keep in mind that your choices might be limited here though.

If your town station have limited outbound trips you might consider going to a bigger nearby town to get to your destination. For example Kangar might have limited bus so you can go to Alor Star to get more bus. Kangar-Alor Star are served by a commuter bus so it's quite convenient.

7. Be early! This is very important as you don't want to miss your bus and waste your money. And you might be pestered by your mum. :P A friend of mine had missed more bus in a semester than the rest of the class. Heh. This is also important in big stations like Pudu where you need to locate the platform or where the bus waits outside the station (especially for those double deck buses).

Ok, that's my travel tips for now. Hope you find it useful!

Madani at Perlis

Last Friday, Madani went up north to Perlis. Departing from Pudu at Midnight, the journey to Kangar took almost 7 hours with stops at Alor Star & Changloon. We arrived at around 6.30am. After subuh prayer at the bus station, we head to a nearby mamak restaurant for breakfast. You, might be wondering what we are doing so far away from our normal 'territory' eh? Well, two colleges at IIUM is having a community program at Kampung Titi Tinggi, Padang Besar, Perlis and they invited us to perform for the Cultural Night which is part of the Baktisiswa Program.



Now, first thing first - how we do get there. The five of us are basically clueless about Perlis and my last visit here is almost 5 years ago. Luckily, my mother have a friend here - Hj. Riduan who worked at Kangar Hospital. So I gave him a call and told him that we need to go to Titi Tinggi. I need to pass the souvenirs my mother packed for him as well. Cutting the story short, he arranged for us taxis to get there. Pak Man drove the taxi leisurely at 70km/h to arrive at Titi Tinggi in 30 minutes. That allowed us to enjoy the scenery - and a change from our usually hectic pace to go to shows.

We put up at Mr. Hasbullah's house which is near the community hall of Kampung Titi Hilir. Titi Tinggi is comprised of two villages - Titi Tinggi Hilir & Ulu. Both of them are rather near to each other. After getting acquainted with our gracious host, we knocked ourself to sleep. Well, sleeping aboard the bus is not the same as sleeping at a house no matter how comfortable is. BTW, the Durian Burung double decker bus we took really are comfortable. We are left to make ourself at home while Mr. Hasbullah and his wife went out to buy fish to cook laksa.

I woke up first and get bathed. Only then I awaken the rest of the team. Meanwhile I took some pictures of the surrounding. By the time we get ready, the laksa is ready as well. Never resisting good food, we sit down and enjoy the laksa. Thanks a lot makcik! It's already noon, and she said lunch is still coming up after Friday prayer.

The mosque is situated at Titi Tinggi Hulu and our host is particularly concerned when we said we are going there on foot. We assured them not to worry and off we go along Federal Road No. 7.



Well, it seems that the villagers never walked to mosque especially not all the way for Hilir to Ulu. People gawked at us, pressed their horns. Heh, we must be really odd. For the villagers, the distance is rather far but for us who constantly walk about the city it's normal. IMHO, walking from one end of Mid Valley to the other is further still.

We must be high of Titi Tinggi Oddity Meter - we are the only one who are not 'dressed properly' for Friday prayer. Which means t-shirts and pants instead of baju melayu and sarongs. Heh, we travel light so ditto baju melayu.

As promised, there's a hearty lunch after Friday prayer. The menu is kari ayam kampung dengan pisang, ikan pekasam, ikan bakar and ulam. Yummy! We had lunch together with the participants of the foster family program which is Shidee, Musa and Jebat. At first, I had no idea who Jebat is when being told by our host - to my surprise it's actually Azizul, my classmate for Internet Application last semester.

After Asr, it's time for sound check at Titi Tinggi Hulu community hall. It's situated at the centre of a vast paddy field with a single narrow, windy road as the only access. The committee members and villagers are busy setting up the tents and preparing the place. The sound system arrived at 6.30pm, just before Adil arrived from Langkawi. We took time until dusk to set up the system. On our way back to our host house we crossed the paddy field instead of the long windy road. It saved substantial time to get to the van which picked us up. Unfortunately, I slipped into the mud a bit and forced me to walk barefooted halfway. That's certainly something to be remembered.

After Isya', it's time for the event. Villager thronged the 'island' in the paddy field. I'm amazed how they managed to park their vehicles in a limited area and still have space for the audience. The performance kicked off with Nasyid performance by Nur Ihsan from Kangar Hospital. They put up a good performance with songs from Raihan, Rabbani, and one original song. Our host told us that they are related to Ustaz Amaluddin. Next are a variety of performances from the school children and the villagers. When it's Madani's turn it's already past 11pm, which is surely are the bedtime of the people there. Some of the old folks are already half-asleep but nevertheless Madani still give out their best. The songs for that night is our own 'Janji Setia' and 'Keluarga Bahagia' and 'Hijrah' from Nowseeheart.



Despite that, some villagers are still up to do some more performances which dragged the event to midnight. Oh, my... Back at our host house we had our supper and then went to sleep. A good rest is vital as we are heading back to KL the next day.

Certainly, this event is rather exhausting but it bring it's own joy to us being somewhere different, a different set of audience, meeting up new people. And performing at an 'island' in the paddy field is an appeal on it's own as well.

Oh yeah, the members who went for this event are Adil, Zaki, Ashraf & Haziq as singers while Ashraf Jr. & I served as crew. Looking forward to return to Perlis someday! And our highest gratitude to our gracious host Mr. Hasbullah and his family for their hospitality.

Maulidur Rasul Marathon

Phew! The recent Maulidur Rasul had been very hectic for all us in the Madani team. With three events to be covered scattered around Klang Valley it's a record number of events in one day for us. Our day started in the at midnight. We just finished of surveying the condition at SMK Sri Aman and have some discussion with the organizers. Then we had a late dinner at 'German' stall at Petaling Jaya. The makcik still remembered us even though our last visit was almost a year ago and she still give us discount. Thanks a lot makcik.

Back in Keramat, we still can't hit the beds. Several things need to be sorted out, such as designating drivers, songs, and other small stuffs. As the teacher requested a Raihan song I looked up for the lyrics online and gave to the singers to practice. Meanwhile Farid the Co-Manager readies to pick up Aie at Puduraya. Next I prepare the minus one and minus two CDs. I load up minus twos from Madani and minus ones from Nowseeheart. Added some Saujana minus ones for good measure as well. I got to sleep earlier than the others (as usual) and set the alarm.

Around 6.15am we woke up after around 4 hours of sleep. Aie had arrived although his bus was late one hour and only arrive at 4am. He managed to get some sleep aboard the bus so he's not that groggy and pretty much alert. As we had two events that requested nasyid performance at 8.50am we had to split the team to two teams. Each team have three singers, one technician, and a manager cum photographer. For SMK Pandan Indah we send Kamal, Haziq, Adil, Acap jr. and Farid. Zaki, Acap, Aie, and I went to SMK Sri Aman. Juz is already in PJ so he just walk over to the school.

At PJ, our PA system provider is already busy setting up the equipments. The father and son team recently helped us a lot and we are very happy with them as well.



The event started later than scheduled and delayed for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile at Pandan Indah their event went on time so by the time we started the performance at PJ the other team had already packed up and headed towards PJ.

After a string of selawat songs the event is passed to the speaker and we headed to the canteen for our break. Just as we are about to dig in the breakfast provided the other team propped up at the door. My, we must been real late or those guys had been driving real fast. (I suspect the latter though).

The breakfast served is Nasi Lemak - nice but not really suitable for singers. No complaints from my boys though and they walloped it clean.

The organizers requested several songs such as Doa Perpisahan from Brothers and Keluarga Bahagia from Saujana. We almost had to perform Mawi's Seroja when it turned out the speaker wants to play a cassette and unfortunately our PA system provider didn't bring any cassette player. Fortunately, we do bring a cassette player (although we almost forgotten about it) so that saved us.



For the next round of performance Madani sang out Guruku, Buatmu Ibu, and Light of Love from our own collection. Keluarga Bahagia from Saujana, Hijrah and Damai from Nowseeheart. Plus Doa Perpisahan from Brothers. For the first time ever we performed with live piano music for Buatmu Ibu. Zaki played the piano and the rest sing it out. That proved to be well-loved by the audiences and Zaki particularly got special attention at that time.

With so many songs, it already like a Madani concert at SMK Sri Aman! Those singers doesn't mind the numbers though - with a good setup and complete members their 'feel' is at the max. Add that with a receptive audience (male singers at girls school - go figure) they almost didn't want to stop singing!

But of course, such a performance is particularly taxing on the stamina so all of us went kaput once we got back at Keramat. Having a good rest is vital, another performance is coming up at night.



Our night at UiTM is pretty much normal - just performing two songs at the beginning of the Forum Perdana. But we do have a fair share of snags - inadequate microphone which is thankfully resolved when the UiTM do have extra and our techies took over the control panel at Dewan Sri Budiman. And quite embarrassingly, we left a pair of baju melayu behind so Kamal had to be the odd one out wearing shirt and blazers.

We wrapped up our day with dinner at section 2, Shah Alam. Bleary eyed and exhausted it didn't dampen our spirit. It been quite a while since all six singers is available and we are looking forward for great things to come.

Perlis, watch for us this Friday! :)