Today was a hit or miss day, as it was time for me to leave Malaysia and y my luck with Singapore immigration.
I left the hostel at 1045h, remembering how difficult it had been to get to TBS in a good time, and was glad I had done so, as I got lost in Masjid Jamek station. This was helpful though as I now knew my way around the station for any future transfers that would be needed there. I made it to TBS on time, and got my ticket stamped as a boarding pass. I went to the shopand bought 4 sandwiches, and a stick of fish balls and a chicken sausage on a stick too.
The journey itself was mostly uneventful to get to Johor Bahru, and the driver waited for some time at a service station after we left the JB bus station.
We reached the first immigration check point, and this part was fine, as I was leaving Malaysia, so the exit papers were taken and my emergency passport stamped ccordingly. The crossing on the main causeway/bridge took a l ong time due to it being rush hour, and so it took about 40 minutes to cross from Malaysia in to Singapore area. At this point, we had to take all our bags with us, as per normal.
I filled in the Singapore arrival form, though as expected, the officer at the main place was unable to deal with me having an emergency passport, on top of the fact that I had to write on the paper that I had been forbidden entry on a previous attempt!
I was escorted back up to the interview and processing area, ad again interviewed about what happened with my passport, why I had been refused entry previously, and asked to show them what money I had.
After some 100 minutes of waiting and being interviewed, they finally stamped my emergency passport with the 4 days visa required, and I was taken back to the Singapore side to get on the bus.
As such a long time had passed, it was clear that the main bus that I had started on would no longer be there, so I hopped on a local bus to get to Kranji, with a view to getting the MRT to near the hostel.
I had no data on the local sim, so I couldn't contact Raine, who was waiting for me at the McDonals at Doby Ghaut station, to let her know I had made it through immigration.
When I reached Kranji, I cuoldn't find the EzLink card, so I bought a new one, then found out that the trains were not running at all, due to a signal fault in the whole area. I headed back to the bus stop and got on the free replacement shuttle to Yishun station, where I had been advised I would be able to connect to the free wifi service.
On the bus, when we got to Sembawang, the driver was being asked about where he was and given instructions, but he could not understand the instructions from the controller, and so just went about as he had initially been instructed.
At Yishun, I discovered that the free service was only available to people with a local sim, so I tried to locate it to put in the phone and discovered that I didn't have it with me - oops!
I got on the MRT anyway, and then had to get off a couple of stops later as that particular train stopped service at Ang Mio! More delays, but eventually got on the next train, and transferred to the line, getting off at Farrer Park near little india, walking to the hostel.
I made it to the hostel just in time, and nw on Wi-Fi contacted Raine to let her know that I had arrived OK. She had waited at McDonalds for as long as possible then gone home, but since it would have been too late for me to go there anyway that worked out OK.