So today, we headed back for Singapore. We had a few more things to buy, including the kitty food we ordered last Friday. We got an email yesterday that it was ready for pickup. We were at the bus stop at 0800 ready to catch either the "worker" bus(comes just after 0800) or the regular bus that comes about 0830. The "worker" bus showed up just after 0800 but told us that they were going a different way and couldn't take us to the bus stop at Geleng Patah where we catch the bus to Singapore. So we just sat and waited and about 0830, bus #LW7 showed up. It takes a bit longer to get to Geleng Patah but at least we would be on the way. The LM01 goes there also and normally shows up at 0845. Just after putting our money in the collector box for the the LM07, along comes the LM01. The driver gave us back our fare and we took off running for the LM01 bus. As I was running along the side, he closes the door and pulls away leaving us just standing there. RATS!!! Back on the LM07 and off we went. A few minutes later, the other riders left the bus at the next stop. We took off again, only to pull into a coffee stand where the driver gets off for his morning coffee break leaving us alone and waiting on the bus. About ten minutes later, he returns and off we go for the main station in Geleng Patah. As we pull into the station, the CW3 bus we had planned to catch for Singapore was leaving the station. We'd just missed it. It didn't appear to be our day for catching the right bus. We waited a short time and another bus showed up and off we went. Now we were moving again. In the end, it only took us an hour to get all the way to the train station in Singapore. The fastest trip so far.
We boarded the train for the Lavandar station heading for Marintech again. I needed a couple of stainless steel thimbles so I could do a reinforced eye splice in a couple of ropes we use for anchoring. I also needed a bunch more of the insulated male/female plugs I need to complete the job on the wiring for the fans inside Zephyr. We bought that and some rigging tape that is a stretchy silicone based tape that gets wrapped around fitting to cover and seal the fitting from the weather and salt water. Along the way, we found a hardware store where we stocked up on sandpaper. We need to do some work on the teak cap rail and top of the hull that's covered in teak.
With the electrical fitting, stainless steel thimbles and the tape in hand, we headed back for the train. I'd thought about going back to the store that sold us the new VHF radios and getting a new stand alone speaker and some wiring and see if I can make the old radio work. With some work, that would allow us to have another big radio in the cockpit as I'm about to remove the old GPS unit that is out there as it no longer works. A good place to install it. I changed my mind as we knew we were going to have some heavy cat food to carry back so it may have to happen on another trip.
We made it back to the main bus/train station in time to have lunch. We'd found out that there is a Chili's restaurant in the shopping center and wanted to see about having ribs for lunch. When we saw the price for a rack of ribs was $39.00Singpaore($31US) we decided on a different restaurant. Not sure what a rack of ribs runs back home but $39 was well past our price range when we can get an excellent meal for well under $8.00 ringgits.
We picked up the cat food and headed for the bus station with 34 pounds(two 17 pound bags) of food for the kids. Not the easiest thing to carry. We made it to the bus station and caught the 1500 bus for the trip back to Malaysia.
We arrived at the bus stop at Geleng Patah just before 1600 only to find that the next bus to the marina was at 1700 so we opted for a "red"cab(they are the cheapest).
When we got in the cab, the driver took off but didn't lower the fare flag that starts the meter. When we told him to do so, he told us it was not a meter trip but a flat $25 ringitt fare. Sorry, that twice the normal fare. We told him to drop the flag or stop. He stopped and we got out. No other driver would take us and there were at least 5 other cabs just sitting there. If they don't drop the flag on the meter, they can keep the entire fare as though it never happened. How to cheat the company you work for. We'd had the same thing happen during one of our trips to Johor Bahru last week when they wanted $50 ringitts to take us back to the marina. In the end, a driver did finally took us with the fare ending up at just $24 ringitts. I paid him $30 for having the guts to break from the other driver and taking us. This time, no other drive came forward and we decided to hike up the hill to town and see if we could find another cab. We found a cab stand with another 6 cabs all waiting in line with the first one being one of the blue cabs whose fairs are normally twice what they are for the red cabs. Not one of the drivers would take us under the meter even though it says on the side of their cabs that they were metered cabs and no haggling was allowed. In the end, since we were quite hot(it's in the mid 90's) we got them to take just $20 ringitts and off we went knowing full well that we could have made the trip for about 12 if they had used the meter but they weren't going to budge.
When we got back to the boat, I placed a call to the "red" cab company offices and they wanted to know the numbers of the cabs that refused to take us. Since I didn't copy down the numbers, there was nothing they could do. In the future, we'll take down everyones number and report them to their company. Don't screw with us when we are hot and tired. We'd read about Malaysian cabs before so it was no surprise them doing this to us. After all, we are rich foreigners there to be taken advantage of. As I got in the cab, I even told the other drivers that they were robbing us in what they were charging.
Tomorrow, fix Puff(our dinghy) and make the connections for the GPS to the new VHF radio. I know more jobs will come to mind.