bus ticket & bus conductor

continuing our exploration of small towns in johor, today we took city bus service 39 from the same bus stop outside the post office on jalan ibrahim to masai. was surprised to find out that they still issue bus tickets - not slips of paper - on some buses in johor bahru. (in the 60s, our tay koh yat's bus tickets were printed on slighter thicker paper.)

got another surprise on the return trip to city square: the bus had a driver and a conductor; no, not driver-cum-conductor but two persons. i think a number of the local commuters were also not used to this system because when they first boarded the bus, they wanted to pay to the driver or to slot the money into the machine.

this was not our first trip to masai, though. we had driven to masai last year and from there we went on to explore kong kong fishing village. this trip we disovered that there was a small chinese cemetery outside the town.

if you work in singapore and spend your money in malaysia, you will surely save a substantial sum of money. our lunch for two, at masai, which consisted of tofu, fish, vegetables and soup, together with two glasses of chinese tea came up to rm$9.60 (s$4.30 at today's exchange rate).