Southward Bound

We had to attend two weddings of relatives, my side, in Johore Bahru. We will always try to attend these weddings as on these occasions we normally get to meet relatives some of whom we don’t meet for a long time. In deed, at one of the weddings we caught up with a distant relative who used to frequent our house when he was still a student in the early 80’s and have not met him since!!

We took this opportunity to go across to Singapore and spend some time with the family of Ram’s nephew living there. It is also the Christmas and year end holiday/shopping season and most Singapore shopping centers will have sales on. The last time we went to Singapore was maybe about 5 years ago.

There were a number of ways for us to go across the causeway. One was to drive the car, for which we will have to pay toll, car entry surcharge, 24hrs parking fees etc. etc. plus wondering which turn to take every interchange we come across as it has been ages since I drove a car in Singapore. Another was to take the train with exorbitant fares and infrequent service. Yet another was to take the bus but will have to get down twice for immigration checks, once in JB before entering the causeway and the other in Singapore on exiting the causeway. Bus fares are cheap but there is the hassle of getting off the bus and on again into the next bus lugging baggage and belongings through immigration and customs. That thought threw us off that option. We settled for the cab then. There will be no need to get out of the car for immigration checks and if lucky for customs too, which was the case for us this time.

The causeway linking JB with Singapore is only 1.5km long. We left the house in JB at about 10.00am. but only managed to clear immigrations and customs checkpoints at both ends of the causeway at close to 1.00pm. There was a very long queue of vehicles getting across, understandably so, as it was the holiday season. The cab driver told us that this queue was not so bad when compared to certain times where the journey across would take double the time we took, phew!! The journey from the Singapore end of the causeway to the taxi stand in Rochore Road, Singapore took about 20 minutes!! From there we took the MRT (mass rapid transport) train to Pasir Ris where Ram’s nephew lives. We took about 5 hours to travel from door to door, a distance that would not be more than 50 kilometers. Longer than the time it takes us to drive from JB to KL!!

Ram’s nephew was at work when we arrived at their house and only his eldest daughter was at home. Lucky enough, as otherwise we would have to wait for them to return. After a quick wash up, we went out for a late lunch at a restaurant in a shopping mall close to their house after which we went browsing in the mall.

After dinner, a lovely home cooked meal prepared by the eldest daughter, another of Ram’s relative living in the same area came by and took us in her car to her house. This is the first time we visited this relative’s house, the first time I met her too although Ram knows her and have met her many many years ago. Apparently it was also the first time that Ram’s nephew and family have met her. Ram has many relatives on her maternal side, most of them living in Singapore and many of whom Ram have not met for a long time. It will be quite daunting to try and locate all of them. I always get confused when trying to identify who is who amongst the relatives and would always refer to them as the Singapore clan!! How come the family is so big? Ram’s step father, a successful business man in his time had, including Ram’s mother, four wives (that we know of!!), maybe even more!! All the wives have children and grandchildren, and are now in the fourth or fifth generation. Although Ram has no blood relationship with ‘the clan’ as Ram’s mother married her father after the death of her first husband, these family members maintained contacts with Ram’s mother and her children and they were close. Some of them looked us up whenever they come up to KL. So keeping tabs of who is who is really a task for outsiders of the family like me. Ram and I spent the rest of the night talking to her nephew and family of the big Singapore clan, passing on a little bit of family history that we know of to them. I have previously written about this and I thought then that I have something to write about. I think I will have to start somewhere and write, and at the same time try to glean more information from the elders of the family lest the information is lost with them in time. Where do I start?........ hmmmm …… I feel ambitious but I feel lost too in the information maze of the family…….

MKI Ramblings Unlimited
Petaling Jaya