Singaporeans and Malaysians

Singaporeans and Malaysians who transited through the Woodlands Checkpoint from the Causeway on Sunday evening spoke of a mixed bag of experience, with 10 minutes to an hour spent at Malaysian Customs.

While Singaporean Harun Wasimon, 49, found the finger-printing process quite easy, with each person taking two minutes on average, his wife Nina Begum, 46, found it "quite awkward".

She experienced two rounds of errors before successfully scanning her fingerprints.

The couple and five of their relatives took half an hour altogether to clear Malaysian Customs.

Several commuters told MediaCorp of a vehicle tailback stretching one to three kilometres into Johor from the Malaysian checkpoint.

Malaysian security guard Morthy Veerasamy, 58, had to wait an hour at Woodlands before his company bus arrived to pick him up at 7.15pm.

The bus came from Pelangi in Johor and was caught in a jam stretching 3km, said Mr Morthy.

Commuters cited various factors for the jam.
A 35-year-old Singaporean, who only wanted to be known as Mr Chong, said he took an hour to clear Malaysian Customs while heading across the Causeway to pick his mother up at 3pm, due to a tour group ahead of him and the finger-printing process.

But the trip back into Singapore at about 6pm was smoother and took just 15 minutes, he said.