The Reality of Bus Travel in Southeast Asia | Malaysia to Singapore

The Reality of Bus Travel in Southeast Asia | Malaysia to Singapore

[Music] So today we’re visiting a brand new country. We are taking the overland journey from Malaysia to Singapore. We’re a bit nervous if this is our first ever overland border crossing here in Asia, but hopefully everything’s going to go to plan. Either way, we’ll be taking you with us every step of the way and showing you what it’s actually like traveling by bus here in Southeast Asia. Thank you. So, it’s 6:00 a.m. now and we have just got a grab to the bus station. We have picked up our tickets. Um, we’ve booked our tickets online um through 12GO Asia, but if you do that, then you still need to go to the counter when you get here to print your boarding pass. They don’t accept on your phone, so you still have to go to the counter. At most bus stations, you have to pay some kind of fee. It does vary. It’s normally between around.7 and like two ringit per person. I’ve always had such great experiences at Malaysian bus stations. There’s normally so many facilities, shops, cafes, and places to sit. Um, but we’ve got about a 30 minute wait now before our bus arrives. So, one thing to note about the journey from Malaysia to Singapore, basically a lot of buses to Singapore seem to book out quite early. So, if you are planning on doing a bus journey to Singapore, we’d recommend booking your journey at least a week in advance because most other buses have been fine to book last minute. However, this one we went to look about 3 or 4 days prior to our journey and a lot of the best times were sold out. So, leaving at 11:00, arriving at 3, so the midday journey. So, that’s why we’re up at 6:30. So, it’s just something to bear in mind if you are planning on getting a bus to Singapore. All the buses seem to be roughly the same price. So, it’s not to do with expenses, it’s just to do with convenient timing for you. [Music] We’ve just made it into like the departure area. So, make sure you get to this part quite a bit before your bus is ready to leave. So, here’s a few things we bring when we’re traveling on buses anywhere in Southeast Asia, regardless of where it is. So, always have a little bag full of like some snacks and some water cuz depending on the journey length, they don’t always stop. So, make sure you have enough food and water. Also bring a warm jumper because sometimes they put the air con on really high and it can get quite cold. And also download some form of like offline entertainment whether it’s on your phone or something just cuz most of the buses here don’t have Wi-Fi. Even if they say they have Wi-Fi, they don’t necessarily have Wi-Fi. So when booking your bus, it’s always worth double checking the views. Um, we kind of didn’t do that on our last one and ended up with an awful bus with no seat belts or anything like that. So, we did for this one and the reviews are flowing. So, we would always recommend being one of the first on the buses cuz sometimes this area can fill up quite a lot. So, just make sure your bag is in there secure. So, try and get on there first. Most of the buses you reserve seat so it doesn’t matter too much when you actually get on. So, let’s go see what the inside’s like. [Music] That’s very nice. This is probably the nicest bus we’ve been on, actually. There’s so much space. Um, it’s three seats, so you get extra space. Um, load of leg room. So much leg room. The seats recline. Um, they are in like a slightly more reclined position than I personally like, but it also will mean that I will sleep on this dress. Um, but yeah, really nice bus. very clean. Apparently, there’s Wi-Fi on board as well, which sometimes is advertised and doesn’t actually work. We’ll give it a go. [Music] So, I’ll give you a little seat. We’ve got super comfortable sleep. There’s also like a footrest which can come up as well as one here that can come down. We’ve got air con which we can adjust ourselves. There’s lights and dimmer and then got some information here. Apparently for the border crossing we have to have our Singapore arrival card which we’ve done. Um you can’t have any chewing gum. You can’t have any gums. You can’t have any tortoises. Um you know which are obviously all in the same lines. One thing that’s worth noting is that on Malaysian buses, it’s against the law to have toilets on board. So, make sure you go to the L before you go and at any stop that you can just go because you never know and there’s no toilets on board. Apparently though, if you do need the L, if you talk this to the driver, they’re normally more than happy to stop you anyway. And there’s also some USB ports on the seat in front so you can charge your phones on the way. So, we are because our bus departs at 6:30 in the morning and we’ve been up since quart 4. I don’t think we’re going to be doing much on this bus other than sleeping. Um, but it’s useful to have. We’ve just pulled away from the bus station. They’ve turned all the lights off, so hopefully people can get some sleep. But it’s about a 4-hour journey to Singapore. So, the next stop we’ll see you is at the Singapore border where hopefully everything goes nice and smoothly. [Music] So I think we’re getting closer to the Singapore border now. There seems to be quite a bit of traffic um heading towards the border. So just something to be aware of that there will probably be quite a bit of traffic. So one bit of advice when booking transport especially buses in Southeast Asia for a lot of the places especially capital cities there seems to be multiple like the drop off destinations. So for example in Singapore you can either be dropped off in the center or there’s some that I saw that were dropped off at like the actual border place rather than like in Singapore itself. do a little bit of research prior and make sure you know where you’re going because you don’t want to end up having to buy a taxi once you’re there. So, we’re about half an hour away from the border from Malaysia to Singapore, I believe. And we’ve just had a little stop just to be able to stretch our legs. There’s a toilet to go to. There’s no like shops or anything to get anything from. There’s a couple of vending machines over there, but nothing like significant. So, make sure you do bring your own stuff. But yeah, it’s just nice to be able to get off, stretch your legs a bit, and be outside. So, the stop lasted about 10 minutes, so make sure you don’t hang around for too long. That means the next stop is going to be the border. So, we’ve just come to the Malaysia border security. Unfortunately, there’s no filming, so won’t be able to do much, but we’ll let you know how it goes after. Just passed through security. It’s huge in here. It’s like an airport. We did not expect that. Super smooth, super easy, though. If you got like an e passport, you can just go through the gates, but we needed a stab to get into Sandacan. Um, we need to be stamped out of Malaysia. So, they were more than happy to do that for us. When you get out, you will see platform A or platform B. All the coaches go from platform A and then more like the smaller local buses go from platform B. Now let’s get back on the bus. We have missed the bus. You can take Singapore bus. Go inside the Singapore. Okay. So the driver has just briefed us on the Singapore crossing. We have to take all our bags off. Everything plastic bags, everything from underneath the bus. Everything has to come off with us. We then go through the checkpoint. The bus is going to wait for half an hour. If we miss that bus, we can either get on one of the local buses to take us down to Singapore itself. It’s only about 20 minutes, 30 minutes. Um or we can wait for the next bus of this provider um show my ticket and get on that instead. Fingers crossed we don’t miss it though. So one thing that was quite funny is at the Malaysian border where there’s the A and B bit you could tell who the locals were cuz they all went straight to A whereas all the people who clearly aren’t from here we all stood around for a bit had no idea going. One person went to B. So we all just followed and then went down and then saw our driver on the other side waving at us. So then we all came back up and all the locals were still already on here and it was all the tourists who had to come back on in like the walk of shame. So if you are getting a coach, make sure you go to a not B. Just had our first go to Singapore. So we made it. We got through security, through passport control, and we are back on the bus, the same bus that we started on. So that is a success if you ask me. It was very much just like an airport. Like you go through passport control. It was the e-gates. Someone not naming names got stuck at his for ages because apparently he doesn’t have thumb prints. You go through the security gates and then you go through you queue up and then you have to put all your bags through a scanner. You pick them up, you leave, you get back on your bus. Pretty simple really. You’re not allowed like cigarettes or ecigarettes. Vapes are banned in Singapore completely. So don’t bring those in. Um, and if you got cigarettes, there was a bin to like bin them before you went through the bag scanners. So, and you also want chewing gum. Chewing gum is banned here as well. So, welcome to country number 17, Singapore. It should now be a 20 to 30 minute journey to the center. So, it’s not far at all. It’s a very small country. Um, one thing to note is that once you cross the border, the Wi-Fi suddenly seems to no longer work. So, if you need anything downloading or accessing the internet, either make sure you’ve got um a SIM card and need or download it before you reach the border. But when we get to the city center, when we’re off the bus, we will let you know exactly how much this entire journey cost us. So, we’re about 10 minutes into the journey and it’s just started raining. So, it’s a good start to Singapore. [Music] So, we’ve just arrived in Singapore. We’ve dropped our bag off at our hostel. It is an amazing place to stay, but we’re going to do another video on that. So, the bus here was just over 4 and 1/2 hours, which was slightly longer than intended, but there was loads of traffic. And the whole journey only cost 16 pounds each which is not gonna lie much more expensive than other buses in Southeast Asia. Most buses have only cost between 2 and3. So this is a lot more expensive. However, the comfort levels were just amazing. So if you are planning on doing a journey from Malaysia to Singapore, a bus is definitely a great option. So compared to flying that £16 is hardly anything. You’re looking like four, five times the price minimum for that journey. And you don’t need to check in for 3 hours early. You don’t need to sort out all your bags. It’s really simple, really straightforward. And you get dropped off at the heart of the city, which is just amazing. It took us 10 minutes to walk to our hotel. So, if you are on a budget and want to get from Malaysia to Singapore, the bus is definitely the quickest, cheapest, and easiest way to get here. So, if you found this video useful, give it a thumbs up and subscribe so you don’t miss the rest of our Singapore activities. [Music]

Bus travel in Southeast Asia is often cheap, simple, and… a little unpredictable.
Today we’re going to show you exactly what it’s like taking a bus from Malaysia to Singapore — one of the most popular (and affordable) overland routes in the region.

We’ll take you with us from the bus terminal in Melaka, through immigration and customs, and finally into the heart of Singapore.
Whether you’re backpacking, on a budget, or just curious what border crossings are like here — this is everything you need to know.

🎒 Featuring tips for bus travel in Southeast Asia
🚌 How to cross the Malaysia–Singapore border
💡 What to expect when taking long-distance buses in the region

Chapters
00:00 Intro – The Reality of Bus Travel in Southeast Asia
00:43 Bus station & Getting Tickets
01:33 Tips for Travelling by Bus
03:41 Inside the bus
07:34 Immigration + Border Crossing
10:07 Arriving in Singapore
10:57 Final Thoughts

#malaysiatosingapore #southeastasiatravel #bustravel #singaporetravel #malaysiatravel #traveltips

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