2012-01-15 1 103

Location

Open field along Jalan Timah, Pasir Gudang, Johor.

Participants

Plans

We'll be leaving around 10am, crossing the Malaysian border and catching a bus to Pasir Gudang from JB Sentral/Larkin/wherever, really. At Pasir Gudang we're just going to wing it, as long as we get there. Possible routes include walking about an hour to the hashpoint or taking a cab. If there's a bus, all the better! And along the way pray hard that the open field isn't on private property...

Expedition

My mum and I set out early in the morning around 10+ am, taking the bus AC7 all the way through Woodlands Checkpoint to the Johor CIQ complex. There we waited for bus service 224 that would take us to Pasir Gudang. Upon boarding the bus, I fell asleep and didn't wake up despite the driver's mad driving. We arrived at Pasir Gudang Bus Terminal around noon and decided to postpone walking to the hashpoint, instead walking around the local mall and having lunch first. It felt rather quiet for a Sunday.

After lunch, we started walking to the hashpoint. It was looking rather promising until we reached the junction barely 50m away from the bus terminal. The very nicely paved sidewalk stopped abruptly and from then on there was absolutely no pedestrian walkway along the roads. We debated about the feasibility of walking on the grass alongside. Nope. So we turned back and got into a cab that took us all the way to the hashpoint. The elderly driver was a little puzzled about our destination, and even more puzzled still when he saw that it was simply an open field in the middle of the industrial district. My mum simply hand-waved it away by telling him it was one of my eccentricities.

On the Google map it was hard to tell whether the area was fenced up or not, since the shadow that ran around the field could've been anything, really. I suspected that it was a fence, but when we reached the hashpoint I was immensely relieved to see that it was in fact an open football field. The dark shadow on the map was actually a really, really deep drain, the depth being almost equal to my height (1.54m). I carefully hopped over the drain and took pictures of the hashpoint. Border Geohash achieved!

On the way back we happened to board the same bus driven by the same driver. Mad driving all the way back, too...