M'sian man documents 4 hours of travelling from JB to S'pore with 2 children, wife & mother

Arduous journey.

Belmont Lay | March 19, 2020, 03:27 AM

A Malaysia man took to Facebook to share photos of his four-hour journey from Johor Bahru to Singapore on March 17 -- hours before the nationwide lockdown was imposed.

The man, Dennis Ng, who works in Singapore and typically lives here on weekdays, shared a post in the 新柔关卡路况情报站 Facebook group at about 1.20am on Wednesday, Feb. 18, after making the trek on foot southwards to Singapore.

His experience was not unique, as he and thousands of others made the same journey, as vehicular traffic had come to a standstill and the jam was backed up 7km.

But it was the first time, he said, that he had encountered the lesser seen parts of the checkpoint.

Started at 9pm

Ng’s journey began at around 9pm in Johor Baru.

Thousands of Malaysians were seen making the trek lugging with them many bags and luggage across the Causeway while walking.

The large amount of belongings they took with them was to last the two-week lockdown period from March 18 to 31, as many had planned at the last minute to reside in Singapore for the time being.

Ng wrote that he was accompanied by his wife, two children, and mother during the journey.

After they reached the Johor Bahru checkpoint, travellers were required to squeeze into a narrow tunnel and up a tightly-packed flight of stairs.

Even though the crowd continued to stream in, the bottleneck was at the immigration clearance.

The crowds had to queue up on the stairs and withstand the heat and humidity of being packed tightly together.

After making past immigration clearance, the next challenge was getting transportation in Singapore with throngs of people doing the same.

This was the eventual scene that greeted Ng and his family as they arrived safe but exhausted at their place of residence in Singapore:

In his post, Ng paid tribute to the other Malaysians who made the journey out of economic necessity, to continue in their jobs in Singapore, and get paid so as to pay the bills.

Ng also posed an interesting question, asking: "What if PM Muhyiddin reverses the lockdown decision tomorrow, how will everyone react?"

This proved prescient, as hours after the lockdown was in place, the state of Johor was contemplating reopening the borders with Singapore.