Sixth job as tourist guide - Singapore-Malaysia Genting Highland transfer

Today is my sixth job as tourist guide - Singapore-Malaysia Genting Highland transfer job. Due to today is Thursday not a weekend, both the Singapore and Malaysia Customs checkpoint is not congested. Singapore tourists reach Sultan Abu Bakar Complex – Malaysia Second Link Customs at 7.05am. After check-in to customs and clearance procedure for all Singapore tourists and headcount done, we depart to Malaysia Genting Highland. The bus we take for this trip is a first class luxury coach, the highest standard of bus categories. This type of bus is only available in Singapore.

First Class Luxury Coach

Firstly, our bus move towards GP Sentral Bus Terminal which is located at Nusantara, Gelang Patah for petrol fill up.GP Sentral Bus Terminal is launch and entering into operation early this year February. At the time we reach there, I only see 2 buses stop there and can’t see any passenger waiting there. Behind GP Sentral bus terminal is a development of a block of condominium called GP Prima Condominium. According to bus driver, the GP Prima condo project look like stagnant, the height of the construction remain the same for quick long period of time.

GP Sentral Bus Terminal

After petrol fil up, we continue our journey to Genting Highland. We take a resting and toilet break for 25 minutes at Pagoh R&R (Rest & Repair) around 9.20am. Within this part of journey, the weather is cloudy with small rain at certain section of road. Our next stop for toilet break is Gombak Toll Plaza at the time of 12pm.

We reach our destination-Genting Highland at 1pm. Some Singapore tourists alight at First World hotel, while majority of them alight at Genting Resort hotel. We stop at B5 bus terminal at Genting Resort hotel for about 45 minutes before receiving the return Singapore tourists into the bus. After all return Singapore tourists headcount done, we depart to return back to Singapore. On the journey back to Singapore, we has 1 stopover at Malaysia native products shop near Batu Caves for Singapore tourists to purchase Malaysia famous local native products. Bus attendance collect the packaged dinner meal set here which will be provided to Singapore tourists later on the journey back. After the Batu Caves native products shop stopover and return back to coach, I start to take order for muachi and famous Muar otak-otak (also known as Muar otah for Singaporean) from Xiao Mei otak-otak shop which is located at Yong Peng. With the order received, I send sms to Xiao Mei otah shop for the information of quantity to purchase, type of otah flavor, and the time for collection.

We reach Yong Peng around 6.20pm. We go to Ming An first for Ma Ti Su collection. There is a Singapore tourist said the Ma Ti Su, or Beh The Soh / Beh The Saw, literally translated as “horse hoof biscuits”, or some people called it Heong Paeng by Cantonese language is freshly baked, fragrance, crunchy and very nice. She requested me to order for her. After taken Ma Ti Su, we drive to Xiao Mei otah shop for otak-otak collection which is located within few meter distance. After otak-otak collection, bus driver told me that the bus real tyre is puncit and need to get tyre replacement by tyre shop technician. We search around the Yong Peng street for look for heavy  vehicle tyre shop but couldn’t see such shop. At the end, bus driver depend on his past memory drive towards a smaller road to find the heavy vehicle tyre shop, however we still can’t found it although it suppose to be located there. Bus driver ask the youngster playing football there and the youngster point to front cornet shop said that the heavy vehicle tyre shop is just in front and the shop is just close. Coincidence the tyre shop owner is driving car towards our bus direction and the youngster immediately tells bus driver that the person inside the coming car is the tyre shop boss. Bus driver waved his hand immediately to stop the car and tell the tyre shop owner the bus tyre need to be replaced. The boss return back to his shop and call back his worker technician who is about to leave. It is really fortunately part out of all the misfortune. If I am not going to Ming An to collect Ma Ti Su, bus driver wouldn’t step out from bus to top up cash card and realized the real tyre puncit, and if we are reaching the tyre shop a little bit later, the tyre shop would be close and the owner left. Due to current school holiday peak season period, travel agency bus is fully deployed with no spare bus available, and if the bus continues to drive at normal speed in the highway, the tyre will be exploded. We finish replaced the spare tyre at 6.50pm and reaching Sultan Abu Bakar Complex – Malaysia Second Link Customs at 8.10pm.  

Ming An Ma Ti Su

Ma Ti Su or Beh The Soh, Beh The Saw, Beh The Sor literally translated as “horse hoof biscuits”. It is also called Haeng Paeng, literally translated by Cantonese dialects as “fragrance biscuits”. Ma Ti Su is a traditional Chinese pastry. Ma Ti Su at Ming An is freshly baked. You can feel the fresh and crunchy flaked biscuits with maltose filling. You still can feel the warm if you eat on the spot. The location of Ming An is Lot 1523, Batu 1/2, Jalan Muar, 83700 Yong Peng, Johor.

 Ming An Ma Ti Su

First Class Luxury Coach

First class luxury coach is an 18 seated double decker bus. The bus upper decker has 14 seats plus 1 last row of middle seat dedicated for tourist guide, and the lower decker has 4 seats with a mini kitchen familiar to airplane mini kitchen at the behind of seats. First class luxury coach seat can be adjusted to be like bed for passenger tourists to sleep comfortably and it has the massage chair functionality. Besides that, every first class luxury coach seats installed with a small LCD panel with pre-installed entertainment with the categories of movies, music, kids movies and games. The coach also provides on-demand video. Not forget to mention, like flight attendance, first class luxury coach has bus attendance to serve food and drinks for tourists.

Coach Mini Kitchen

Transfer Job - First job as Tourist Guide

Today mark the first day of my new career as Malaysia Tourist Guide. For the very first time I got my first job after attained tourist guide license. It is exciting and highly anticipated period. It is a transfer job from Singapore to Genting Highland. Thanks for recommendation from my tourist guide course classmate Winnie and chance and guidance given by Mr Ho, Wendy, Ms Neo and bus driver Mr Jo.

Long queue at CIQ Sultan Abu Bakar Complex - Malaysia Second Link Customs

Customs and Immigrations checkpoint at CIQ Sultan Abu Bakar Complex already packed with Singapore tourists and excursion bus when I reached there at 6.30am. About 7 plus, the queue for the clearance of customs already lined up to the corridor. It proves that Malaysia still attracts many Singapore tourists despite the haze hazard. Among the places of visit, Genting Highland tops the list in the tourist arrivals. According to government statistics, tourism is the 6^th major income contributor to our GDP. During last year of 2014, it contributes 14.9% or 161 billion of GDP, with 27.44 million of tourist arrival and generated 72 billion of revenue.

Excursion bus at CIQ Sultan Abu Bakar Complex - Malaysia Second Link Customs

Due to congestion at Singapore Tuas Checkpoint and Malaysia Customs and Immigrations Checkpoint at Sultan Abu Bakar Complex, the bus depart at 6.30am from Singapore arrive and depart from CIQ Sultan Abu Bakar Complex at 8am. After bus arrive at CIQ, I approached the bus, introduce myself to the bus driver, take the bus plate number card and stand outside the exit of CIQ to direct the tourists the direction of the bus where it stop. After headcount, we depart to Genting Highland. Again, for the first time I use microphone to introduce myself as tourist guide and short announcement to Singapore tourists. Due to nervous, it is little bit unorganized. The announcement includes the excursion bus plate no, bus driver name, myself as tourist guide, a warm welcome to Malaysia, 2 stopovers along the journey, 6 hours of journey distance to reach Genting Highland, and also to keep the bus clean, fasten the seat belt are recommended for safety concern, and adjust the seat the its original state whenever bus stop for break. This is a double-decker bus with 40 seats.

We have stopped at Yong Peng for 25 minutes for lunch break and 10 minutes toilet break at Sungai Besi Petrol Station, KL. Every stopover followed by short announcement and headcount. When reached First World hotel and Resort hotel, the time is about 2pm. I felt so surprise to receive a small tip from a Singapore tourist. It is really out of my expectation especially it is my first time, my announcement is not so smooth and it is just a transfer job, not a guided tour. It is a big encouragement for me. Due to return pick up point is only at Resort hotel B5, I repeated the announcement about 30 minutes earlier check-in at Resort hotel B5 counter.  A simple clean up has been done during the transit between First World hotel to Resort hotel after first batch tourists drop off at First World hotel.

After tourists alight at Resort hotel B5, the return tourists already waited there for our bus. We have our quick toilet break and paycheck collection at the bus counter office, and then proceed back to our bus to do headcount in the bus and proceed to heading back to Singapore from Genting Highland. According to bus driver, this kind of situation frequently happen during the peak season like school holiday and long weekend holiday. Again, I introduce myself to these return tourists, short announcement about bus plate no, bus driver name, about 7 hours of journey back to Singapore, 2 stopovers at Batu Caves Malaysia local product shop and Yong Peng station for dinner break, keep the bus clean, fasten the seat belt are recommended for safety concern, and adjust the seat back to original state at every stop/break. For the second time, I make this announcement more smoothly.

About 1 hour later, we reached the Batu Caves local product shop. There are excursion buses already there to let their tourists buy the native local products. Local product shop here does provide free meal for tourist guide and bus driver. Due to not eaten anything yet since early morning except Melilea Organic powder during the time bus moving down from Genting Highland Resort hotel to Batu Caves, I move directly to the meal room for my lunch. May be because the free meal this time is curry chicken, the rice there are nothing left and another rice cooker is just about start to cook the rice, visible easily the water and the uncooked rice. I simply stroll inside the shop and taste the sample food provided free by the promoter inside. 

20 minutes is lapse just like a glimpse of eye, I opened the bus entrance door and let tourists return back to their seats. After headcount, I proceed to the local product shop office to collect the commission. It is 20% of the total sales of the local products price. It shared among the bus drivers and tourist guide. Although very little the commission for this time, I feel happy to have such extra income. For freelance tourist guide without EPF, no guarantee of job assignments and competitiveness, commission is really the lifeline and the driver to attract individuals to become a tourist guide. It is a win-win situation between the shop, tourist guide and tourists. Shop owner can operate their shop at remote location for cheaper cost and without advertisement, tourist guide acts as sales person to bring in customers for them, and the tourists get to buy the local products without needed to search for the native local products shop which they may be unable to do it during their tour due to time constraint or the location/places of visit. It is indirectly promote our native local products to tourists and increase income for the shop operators and at the same time added the products variety for our tourism products. Most of the time, tourists buy the local products from the country of visit as souvenir to give to their friends and family, relatives and company colleague as souvenirs of the trip.If our native local products are good, it will indirectly bring in recurring tourists and their surrounding people, creating a ripple effect to our tourism boom.

After bus took off from Batu Caves local product shop, I took a paper and start to take order for famous Muar otak-otak and Muar mochi. The Muar otak-otak comes with 6 flavors: fish, prawn, sotong, fish head, crab, la la. Muar mocha comes with 3 flavors: red bean, durian and chocolate. Muar otak-otak is very famous across Malaysia and Singapore. It is a must try if you are visiting Muar or Yong Peng. Surprisingly, I get zero order. Haha, a fail salesperson for Muar otak-otak and Muar mochi.

After another 3 hours, we reached Yong Peng station and have our dinner there. Finally I have a proper meal to eat. Few bus drivers are eating inside and I am the only tourist guide. Thanks to tourist guide title, first time in my life to eat free meal in such area.

We approaching JB CIQ Sultan Abu Bakar Complex at 8pm. I make a short announcement and informed the tourists to no need to bring together the luggage for customs clearance at Malaysia customs side, but they need to carry out all their belongings and luggage for the customs clearance at Singapore Customs and Immigration side Tuas Checkpoint.

After all tourists alight to customs for clearance, I move around the bus to adjust the seat leg rest to its original state and the seats to its original state if I know the seat are unseated. Then, I proceed to customs clearance exit waiting area to direct the tourists to the bus. Once the headcount done, I informed the bus driver and farewell to him to mark the end of my full day duty of transfer job.

I changed my cloth to normal T-shirt, cross over to another customs point and wait for my bus to heading back to my home.

Food of Thought:

1.       First time in a new environment, new career or new job can always making people nervous. Most importantly we improve over the time, learn from mistake and keeping upgrade our skills and knowledge.

2.       Social skills are very important especially in service line like tourist guide. It let us to communicate effectively to related party so that it creates a pleasant and comfortable atmosphere, message are delivered clearly, questions and requests are respond accurately and on time.