Stuck.

I was stuck at the Tuas Checkpoint for close to an hour during the journey to KL last Saturday morning and nope, it was not due to throngs of people rushing to Malaysia for weekend getaways or what-so-ever. Heck, there were even less than 20 buses in front of the coach I was travelling on.

The real cause, Mas Selamat bin Kastari, JI's leader who escaped from a detention center in Singapore since March 1st due to a "security lapse" (as quoted from Singapore Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng's statement during a Parliament session) is still on the loose, resulting really thorough checkings on the vehicles.

From what I can see, only one or two buses were allowed to alight passengers in front of the departure hall at any given time. More officers with MP5 have been deployed and K9 units were present as well. The whole scene is pretty intimidating. Also, your fingerprint will be scanned when passing through the clearance counters, something not required previously.

A waiting fleet of buses with a boring bunch of passengers.

If you ask me, it was nothing but a TOTAL nuisance for me having to spend an hour waiting just to cross over. I understand that all these enforcements are neccessary for the safety of all and stuff but then again, doing it at the expense of others just doesn't seem right to me no matter how I see it. Call me selfish but its MY time being wasted.

And I thought the word Efficient is supposed to be synonymous with everything Singapore. One thing I don't understand is, why can't the scannings be done in parallel, is there a limitation to that? The waiting time could probably cut by at least a quarter or more, my guess. Again, I need enlightenment.

Perhaps I can still be considered lucky as I heard from a friend of mine that his colleague got stuck for more than 4 hours waiting to cross over. That's really bad.