We eventually managed to get our
car out of Customs at Port Klang, after attempting to figure out the ridiculous
system whereby we are responsible for moving the container our car was shipped
in to its next location ie. hiring a truck to freight it to another port. Then
one of the officials tried to bribe us for yet more money, but luckily we’re
all really smart and don’t let anyone muck around with our finances, so he left
us alone and we were on our way.
We drove out of the port and with
only a map of South East Asia as a navigation tool, headed towards Singapore. The
compass was buried somewhere deep in the boot, but fortunately the Malaysian
roads are pretty well signposted and made quite a bit of sense. On the freeway
they actually don’t drive much unlike Australians – other than the odd
undertake and use of the hard edge as a third lane – so it was an easy start to
the driving leg of our trip. We stopped at a brilliant truck stop for lunch
where we found some funny cheap versions of various liquors. I bought a bottle
of something similar to Baileys, Ben got some type of gin and Denner found
something claiming to be whiskey.
We had our second experience of
the Carnet process at the Malaysian side of the Singapore/Malaysia border,
which was much more rewarding than our first experience in Port Klang. The
ladies in the Customs office were super duper and we had lots of fun chatting
to them while they sorted out our paperwork.
When we eventually arrived at the
Singapore side of things –there was a huge bank up and the weather was still
shocking - we pulled over at Customs to go and sort out our Carnet, at which
point we were asked if we had anything to declare such as alcohol or tobacco.
So out came our newly purchased bottles and suddenly they’re all over us asking
what belongs to who and if we’ve got anything else (we don’t). Tunkles being
the only one who didn’t own any illicit substances, waited with the car while
we sat in a dingy waiting room wondering about our fate. After about five years
they called us into the next room where we were ushered by a Customs Officer
into what I can only describe as a holding cell. The room was about 1m x 1m
with no windows and the sliding door was closed on us from the outside. It was
at this point that we started to worry.
The same Officer who had shown us
into the room returned after a few minutes and began with “The reason you’re
here is that you failed to declare taxable substances”. We almost spewed – we
had declared it! That’s why we were there in the first place! But as it turns
out, by pulling over to sort out our Carnet we had unwittingly driven into the
Nothing to Declare queue and therefore, technically, we had failed to declare
it. He went on to inform us that we were now liable for a fine of upto $10,000
each or jail. Surely not! But because none of us had been to Singapore since
being over 18, they would let us off with a warning. We did however have to
choose whether to pay the $200 of tax that was due on the three items, or have
them all destroyed. Considering we could make the purchases again more than
tenfold for that amount of money the decision was simple, but by this point we
were a bit fed up and wanted to know whether we could just do a U-turn and
return to Malaysia instead. Apparently this was Immigration’s call, not Customs
where we were, so Ben ran off to ask Immigration and returned with the good
news that we could. In the meantime Tunkles had been off organising the Carnet
in a separate building, so we were all running around frantically trying to let
Customs know not to proceed with the already started paperwork for destroying
the items, looking for the Carnet to have that process stopped or as it turned
out voided, and find each other so that we could communicate all these things.
Eventually we got it all sorted
out and our precious items were returned to us. We got back in Trevor and with
a very friendly policeman named Rahmon on a bicycle for a police escort, we
were able to cut all the way through the Singapore border crossing to do a
U-turn back to Malaysia. We had fair few bizarre looks at this point – I don’t
imagine it’s often that whilst waiting to drive through the Singapore border,
one sees a policeman on a bicycle being followed by an Australian 4x4 cutting
across all the queues and driving up one way lanes, eventually passing through
all the bollards to enter the other side of the border.
We were very happy to find the
same shift on duty at the Malaysian Customs office so we could hang out with
them again, and they were very helpful in drawing us a map of Jahor to help us
find some sort of accommodation.
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