Ever wondered what lies at the end of a particular bus route? In the first of a regular series, Jonathan Evans hops on the 170 on Queen Street – and ends up in another country…

Dark purple upholstery, cheapcall deals, notices in Malay… Here we are, crammed onto SBS Transit’s original causeway link. The 170 ranks among Singapore’s most cosmopolitan routes, gliding through Little India and Clementi, past Woodlands and Sixth Avenue – not to mention its terminus stop, the much-traversed border city Johor Bahru. I haven’t felt this white since I hung out in Hougang.

It’s Saturday and by Sim Lim Square the bus is almost full. In the back seat, I stretch my long ang moh legs out and watch the road ahead unfurl its pleasures. We pass the eye-poppingly avantgarde LaSalle College, and there’s a radical shift; the bus is now half-Indian and the subcontinental microcosm of Serangoon Road flashes past on our right. Then Little India becomes Big Europe as we enter another world entirely: the vast, leafy length of Bukit Timah Road.

Quelle différence: the fetchingly modern Alliance Française de Singapour, Spizza, Da Paolo, La Petite Cuisine. Outside a Balinese massage parlour a middle-aged Western man hands banknotes to a happy-looking young boy. Hold on, is this Singapore or Bangkok?!

The pastel-coloured HDBs in Bugis (where we started) stand in stark contrast to BTR’s whitewashed, penthouse-apartment towers. And if the birth rate is in decline, you’d never know; beyond Coronation Plaza there’s nothing but schools – massive, imposing, enormo-schools. Swankiness reaches new heights, literally, at Maplewoods, which resembles not so much a condominium as a luxury rainforest holiday village.

It’s not the loaded locals sweating it out on this bus, though. The 170’s the domain of Malaysians heading home, weekend shoppers off to JB for a cheap retail spree and migrant labourers. No one has alighted since Little India. We’re all heading for the border together, and suddenly the outlook has become altogether less predictable.

The concrete jungle’s given way to lush greenery and random attractions. The bizarrely named ‘Memories at Old Ford Factory’ museum and Bukit Batok Nature Park race past; Hindu temple Sri Murugan Hill rises over the scrubland like a phantasmagorical funfair sideshow. Most surprising is a mini-shanty town of ramshackle, corrugated-iron shelters. Isn’t that kind of thing banned here?

Now at Woodlands Road, lorries are backed up along the hard shoulder and going nowhere fast: we’re nearing journey’s end. We pass a huge ‘Heavy Vehicle Park’, presumably for truckers who gave up and walked the rest of the way to JB. Sungei Buloh’s mangrove swamps are up here too; so is Kranji War Memorial.

A new crowd piles on at Kranji. ‘Maximum capacity’? Pah! There’s always room for another straggler, cramming his frame between door and steps, his face into someone’s armpit. Behind me is a phalanx of motorcyclists as far as I can see; Malaysia’s the only way forward. I’m a foot taller and several shades lighter than anyone at Woodlands Checkpoint. The official smiles.

‘Are you the cook?’ he asks. I think he’s confusing me with irascible chef Gordon Ramsay.
‘If you tried my cooking you wouldn’t live to tell the tale,’ I reply. Suddenly the smile vanishes. He looks rather worried and ushers me through instantly. It was just a joke, dude, not a death threat…

Round-trip roundup: I’d set out at 5pm with $12.69 on my EZ-link card. I disembark on Dunearn Road at 8.50pm with $9.45. Three bucks for a four-hour trip spanning two countries? That sounds – awful pun alert – fare enough to me.