Friday September 25, 2009

I TOOK a flight home from Gold Coast, Australia, to KLIA and the journey took 7-hours. It then took me six hours to get to Kuala Selangor from KLIA by public transport.

It was the first time I had taken public transport from the LCCT terminal to Kuala Selangor (I usually park my car at the LCCT terminal when I have to take a flight).

There is no direct bus to Klang from the LCCT. A taxi will cost me more than RM250, which is more expensive than my trip to Brisbane from KLIA, which only cost RM220.

Hence I took a bus to KL Sentral. From there, I took a cab to Klang Station and caught a bus to Klang.

From Klang, I took another bus to Kuala Selangor and then another bus to Tanjong Karang, which is about 13km from Kuala Selangor. It took me six hours to reach home.

The transport system in Klang is a mess. The bus did not go to Klang Sentral (I heard it is being abandoned). After getting down from the bus in Klang just before the bridge, I was told to go to the 7-Eleven shop on the other side of the bridge to take a bus to Kuala Selangor.

Can you imagine me dragging 7kg of luggage looking for the 7-Eleven outlet to catch my bus? Where is the bus station in Klang now?

Buses were parked everywhere. It was an ugly sight to see passengers rushing here and there to catch their bus.

This part of Klang looks like a cowboy town. I just could not believe my eyes. It was much better in the 80s. At least there was a North Klang bus station, where my friends and I used to meet up to go shopping.

What happened to the promise to give us a better transport system?

I have been living in this part of Selangor since 1980. It is really a shame that the public transport system in this area has not improved after nearly three decades.

I remember I used to wait no more than one hour to catch a bus from the school where I was teaching to the small town of Sekinchan where I stayed in the 80s! Now it is common to wait more than one hour to catch a bus!

That is what my children have to endure if they choose to take the bus.

Selangor is supposed to be the most developed state in the whole of Malaysia. The journey by car from my house in Tanjong Karang to the LCCT terminal is slightly more than one-and-a-half hours.

Just imagine, it took six hours to travel by public transport from the LCCT terminal to Kuala Selangor and Tanjong Karang which are two coastal towns in the northern part of Selangor in the year 2009.

SERENA,
Tanjong Karang.

This article is a verbatim copy of the original article from The Star.