Singapore to Senai and back?

[jpatokal]

I've become quite enamored of Air Asia's cheap-cheap flights around Malaysia and now Thailand as well, but getting to Senai airport in JB remains a major pain, especially since I live in Jurong oh-so-close... but without a car. Here's the list of options as far as I know, in increasing price and convenience:

• MRT to Kranji, Causeway Link bus to Larkin, change to second bus to Senai. Very cheap (RM5 for the buses), very time-consuming (2+ hours) and a major hassle with luggage.
• One taxi to Woodlands, cross Causeway on bus, immigrate and grab a Malaysian taxi to the airport.
• In reverse: grab a taxi or bus from Senai to Komtar in JB, charter one of the cabs allowed to go to Sing (RM36), give the driver a nice tip and he'll take you home instead of Rochor Rd.
• Arrange a dual-cab ride with Comfort Cab: one taxi in Sing, one in JB, handoff at gasoline stand, total cost S$60. Haven't tried this yet, does it work in reverse as well?
• Book an official Senai Airport "limo" (cough) at +60 7 599 1622, picks you up anywhere in Sing and takes you anywhere in Sing, door to door... but for a steep RM 160 one-way, twice the price of your average early-booked AA flight!

Rumor mill also says there are illegal taxis around, but fares are around S$60 one way and some won't take ang mohs because we're a red flag to Immigration officers.

So am I missing any options? I'm seriously thinking about setting up a Senai-SIN carpool site...!

[Joshua]

Ipatokal

Good idea. sounds enterprising to me..don't think many people have given that thought..

[prodigy]

I've become quite enamored of Air Asia's cheap-cheap flights around Malaysia and now Thailand as well, but getting to Senai airport in JB remains a major pain, especially since I live in Jurong oh-so-close... but without a car. Here's the list of options as far as I know, in increasing price and convenience:

• MRT to Kranji, Causeway Link bus to Larkin, change to second bus to Senai. Very cheap (RM5 for the buses), very time-consuming (2+ hours) and a major hassle with luggage.
• One taxi to Woodlands, cross Causeway on bus, immigrate and grab a Malaysian taxi to the airport.
• In reverse: grab a taxi or bus from Senai to Komtar in JB, charter one of the cabs allowed to go to Sing (RM36), give the driver a nice tip and he'll take you home instead of Rochor Rd.
• Arrange a dual-cab ride with Comfort Cab: one taxi in Sing, one in JB, handoff at gasoline stand, total cost S$60. Haven't tried this yet, does it work in reverse as well?
• Book an official Senai Airport "limo" (cough) at +60 7 599 1622, picks you up anywhere in Sing and takes you anywhere in Sing, door to door... but for a steep RM 160 one-way, twice the price of your average early-booked AA flight!

Rumor mill also says there are illegal taxis around, but fares are around S$60 one way and some won't take ang mohs because we're a red flag to Immigration officers.

So am I missing any options? I'm seriously thinking about setting up a Senai-SIN carpool site...!

who do you suggest would do the car pooling service? wld u mean a 'match making' service to those who can provide the service and those who require the service?

setting up the site seems alright, mind sharing how to go abt with the above?

[jpatokal]

prodigy, yes, that would be the basic idea. Logged-in users can post that they're offering rides or that they want a ride, and then anybody browsing the site can see the "ads" and make contact.

I was poking around this morning to see if there are any sites offering services like this for Singapore (nope), or whether there is any open-source carpooling software available (nope), so I'd pretty much have to roll my own; not exactly rocket science, but reinventing the wheel seems a bit silly. Also, there's not much of a profit margin in this, since there's no reasonable way to extract money from the parties involved, so it'd be pretty much a public service -- unless AirAsia / Senai themselves are interested. Maybe I'll drop them a line.

[jpatokal]

Banged up my little toe badly enough last Thu to stop me from heading anywhere for the weekend... and so I spent my time hacking up the afore-threatened carpool site with PHP and mySQL instead. The result is here:

http://218.186.70.13:8080/

Or, if you want a more memorable address at the price of pop-ups, here:

http://fly.to/senai

Not pretty, and still under construction, but should be more or less functional; please try it out and tell me ([email protected]) if you find any bugs, want any new features, etc. Try 14 Feb 2004 to see some test data.

One feature that would be nice: allowing hidden mail addresses so people can mail you without publishing your address... but I haven't gotten around to setting up a mail server yet.

[Baradwaj]

How reliable are the Malaysian taxis from JB to Senai Airport and how much would they cost ? I am catching a flight to KL at 8.40 a.m and what time do I have to be at JB (after immigration) to catch a cab early in the morning ? Also availabilty and willingness of cabbie to get me to Senai so early in the morning ? Any idea ?

Would be grateful for any useful comments ?

[jpatokal]

Reliable? Shouldn't be a problem as long as you get a real taxi, not one of the pirates buzzing around right after the checkpoint... a trip to Senai is a good fare, I imagine any taxi would be happy to take you.

As for timing, Air Asia requires that you check in 45 minutes before your flight. It's half an hour plus to the airport and traffic outbound should not be a problem. Get to JB two hours before your flight leaves and you should be OK.

A shame the direct bus service from Lavender MRT has been stopped -- but if it was illegal it was just a little stupid of AA to advertise it on the front page of Streats.

[loobylu]

i will be flying back and landing in Senai at 11.20pm next tuesday.. just wondering if the buses from senai to larkin, larkin to singapore will still be in operation?

Also, will it be difficult to get a cab from senai to singapore? I'm just afraid the cabbies will jack up the price becos it is so late.

any thoughts?

[dot dot dot]

JP,

I think you left out one other option though: Go to Queens bus terminal near Golden Landmark hotel / arab street, there are the special cabs at a counter, they will drive your to JB centre for 8 Sing, there you change directly to another cab that will bring you down to Senia for another 30 ringgits. These prices are for the cab, not per person.

Way back to Singapore is just the same, vice versa.

Eric