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https://garage36.wordpress.com/2017/04/03/no-school-quite-like-the-old-school-retro-havoc-2017/

RIP to those who died, condolences to the families. Must be even harder during this holiday period. http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/muar-bus-crash-kills-13 For those driving up, drive carefully and stop for rest / shut eye if tired. I wonder if buses fitted with seat belts could have saved some lives in this case.

Lost control and hit the divider. Sad end for the the year. - See more at: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/transport/story/two-dead-two-seriously-injured-muar-car-crash-20141230#sthash.O380k2nW.dpuf

thinking of going to pontian or muar for a short 2 day 1 night get away............cannot find much information leh...........anyone familiar with these two places can give some advice and recommendation please.........like a good hotel to stay for the night............what to do or where to jalan jalan..........what are must see in the area.........anywhere good local food............thank you many many......... :D

Hello All, I'm planning a day trip to Muar to have some yummy durian...can anyone tell if let's say I drive around 110km/h to 120km/h....roughly takes how long to reach destination ??? By the way....going by 2nd link morning 9am. Please shear some experiences for those who has drive there before.....many many thanks...

Peninsular Malaysia is a great place to travel and do some motoring. Some would do motoring for sightseeing, some would do it to reach their holiday destination, some for the thrill of driving and some for food hunting. I know of some friends who would hit the Causeway or the Second Link in Tuas early in the morning for some fishball noodles at Yong Peng or for some Biryani Gam Rice in Batu Pahat. Both towns are located in the neighbouring Malaysian state of Johor. One other Johor delicacy that is worth mentioning is Asam Pedas. Asam Pedas is a spicy fish stew-like dish made with tamarind (asam) fruit juice. Now without sounding too much like Gordon Ramsay the cooking process involves soaking the pulp of the fruit until it is soft and then squeezing out the juice for cooking the fish. Various vegetables such as brinjals, lady fingers and tomatoes are added. Fish (such as mackerel or red snapper) is added to make a spicy and tart fish stew. It is important that the fish remain intact for serving so generally the fish is added last. Note that there are various styles of preparation, the Johor Malay version, the Johor version by the local Chinese and the Baba Nyonya (or Melaka) version. I won't go into detail as this isn't Now enough with the cooking lesson and on with the article. The thing with asam pedas is that it usually is difficult to find properly tasting ones like those you find in traditional Malaysian households of the races mentioned above. One nice place to try asam pedas and soak in some rustic rural Malaysian environment is in Parit Jawa in Muar. Muar is a town that is located on the North-Western Tip of Johor and close to Malacca. It should be about two hours away from the Causeways and you can take the Pagoh or the Yong Peng North exit and make your way towards Muar. Parit Jawa is located on the Muar-Batu Pahat trunk road and is one of the older settlements in the state of Johor. You can even find pre-war shophouses (photo above) lining its small town center. So once you reach Parit Jawa you will see signboards pointing the way to 'Medan Asam Pedas Parit Jawa'. The local council has basically seen the demand for freshly cooked asam pedas and has actually built a food court specially catering for asam pedas. And what makes Parit Jawa a pretty good place to have asam pedas is the fact that it is a traditional Malaysian fishing village. This means that the fish is extremely fresh. The asam pedas food court is located right beside a fishing village complete with a water lock (for irrigation in the nearby crop plantations), fishing boats all lined up and an authentic Malaysian village (kampung) environment for you to soak in while eating some fish stew. I was there on a Johor state public holiday and only some of the stalls in the food court were open. I'd recommend the 'warung' or stall under the name' Mak Pon' for pretty authentic Malay style asam pedas. I am sorry I didn't take any pictures of the actual dish as I was pretty captivated with the fishing boats and all. I was thinking about being in a scene of the Deadliest Catch (albeit a very tame and localized version without the rough seas and all) as I was more enthralled about the boats and water lock. It must be the kid in me being more interested in machinery and engineering stuff and all. So what did I drive throughout this trip then? A Suzuki Swift 1.5automatic with about 55,000km on the clock. It felt beautifully taut on all the roads it encountered. On a couple of occasions I let it stray to beyond 160km/h and it felt solid at those higher than average speeds. On the B-roads around Muar, namely the Tangkak to Muar road its suspension deftly handled the bumps and undulations. Its 185/60/15 tires may not have the grip of the slightly wider 195/50/16 tires of the Swift Sport (it understeers earlier and isn't as snappy like the Sport) but if you learn to drive within its limitations it is a pretty great hatchback for B roads. The beam axle at the rear felts nicely tied down and the sideways movement that you often feel in cars with this sort of rear suspension is very limited. It must be the fact that the car's overall weight is only slightly above 1,000kg so there is a lack of inertia compared to larger beam axle equipped cars like, say the Latio hatchback or the Pug 308. Bombing down the sweeping corners and twisties that are also full of undulations in a very well made little hatchback shows that it isn't necessary to have an extremely powerful or fast car to enjoy motoring. Of course it'll help if you do, but if you cannot afford all the power and speed, then there is always a small Suzuki to fall back onto. Let's hope that the next generation Swift drives as well as this one.

Chinese New Year is a time for nearly everyone to stop work and enjoy a little. This is actually very true when it comes to celebrating this festive occasion in most large cities, Singapore included as well as cities around Malaysia like Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru, Georgetown, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu. You can actually see people closing shop for at least a week and things in the cities mentioned above slows down to a crawl. Everyone either goes back to their hometown for the family reunion dinner or decide to take a holiday. When it comes to reunions, small towns are instead packed with families and things aren't as peaceful as it seems in these small towns. The roads are packed and people from out of town are everywhere to be seen. And unlike in the city, shops are open to cater for this. I was in and around Muar, Johor on New Year's day and the next day and the town was packed. The North-South Highway was packed but surprisingly smooth flowing and by 10.00am I was in Muar town on the first day of the Year of the Rabbit. I exited via the Tangkak exit from the North South highway and thoroughly enjoyed the fast sweeping corners on the secondary road into town. Having a stock riding car on skinny tires somehow works very well through all the undulations and potholes (due to the excessive rains that the state of Johor has been having recently). It was fun and from Tangkak, it'll take you about 15 to 20 minutes to reach Muar, if traffic permits. The other interesting thing about Muar aside from the architecture is food. And the thing I truly like about Muar is that this is the only place where you can have satay for breakfast. Even on Chinese New Year's day. But anyway, Muar is a place where satay is part of breakfast, lunch and dinner and since satay is usually a Malay specialty, there were two or three stalls open selling this good stuff. It is also the only place in the whole of Malaysia where they also serve fried banana fritters with a soy sauce based chilli paste (sambal kicap in Malay). Almost everywhere else fried banana is eaten plain, or with ice cream but here in Muar you get to eat it with something hot and spicy. I had these for tea on New Year's day. I have to say small towns really capitalize on the festive season as you still get to eat out over there. In fact, I also noted that cell phone shops, some apparel outlets and the 'mamak' or Indian Muslim restaurant/stalls were also open to capitalize on the holiday crowd. This was some crowd actually, as on day two of the New Year the town was jammed on some streets. Check out Jalan Haji Abu (Haji Abu Road) on the second day. This road could be considered the 'Chinatown' of Muar. It was slightly jammed with people buying lunch and other stuff. The cars you see around Muar were from everywhere, you see a convoy of two cars bearing Perak state plates, cars from Selangor, Kuala Lumpur (the Federal Territory) and cars from Singapore too. Some of these out of towners actually treat the town like their own, double parking and doing u-turns where they're not supposed to do so. Tsk, tsk, tsk. I suppose being in a small town during a period where most shops close is a blessing. I get to eat good food almost all the time. I was down for a family gathering where lunch was Beryani Gam, a traditional Johor way of preparing Beryani Rice (beryani rice with mutton, chicken or beef in gravy, boiled egg all mixed together with the gravy and with dhal stew and mixed vegetable acar). Dinner was also Beryani leftovers. So basically New Year's day was food heaven for me. Of course, small town nights are less interesting. Everything slows down after 10.00pm. Check out the photo of Jalan Haji Abu around 10.00pm below. And as for driving, the roads around Muar are a fabulous place to drive. The main toll free road from Muar to Batu Pahat as well as the roads perpendicular (as well as some side roads) to it are fantastic drives. Jalan Sri Tanjung is one good example. It is straight with some sweeping bends and ends at the junction where you can also head towards Parit Jawa to the right and onwards towards Batu Pahat or left (which could also bring you to Batu Pahat or Yong Peng). You can also catch a glimpse of the local 'wildlife' too and beware if any of them cross the road as you're driving by. But what I really like about this stretch of roads from Muar to Batu Pahat are the undulations, especially when there is a small bridge built to cross all the canals criss-crossing the area. 'Parit' in this context means canals, hence locales like Parit Jawa, Parit Bulat, Parit Punggor around Muar and also Batu Pahat. You see, with a stock riding car or one that's not ridiculously lowered it is actually ridiculous fun to drive around here. Some of the humps caused by the small bridges are quite severe. You can actually imitate a WRC jump even traveling at around 90-100km/h. This is something fun at speeds that are slightly less ballistic

Thief leaves trail to own home Wed, Mar 04, 2009 The Star/Asia News Network MUAR, MALAYSIA - A thief left a trail of black oil that leaked from two generators that he stole from a farm to his house about a kilometre away near Bukit Bakri. Farm owner Chia Kok Guan, who found his generators missing on Sunday morning, asked his workers about the machines. His Indonesian workers told him that they heard a vehicle entering the farm at about 2am on Sunday but did not know what had been stolen. The workers were shocked when told that two generators were missing from a hut in the farm and after checking the surrounding area they saw a trail of black oil on the dirt road. Chia followed the trail which led to a house about 1km away and lodged a police report. When policemen arrived at the house at about 6pm, the thief had fled. "But we managed to find the generators near the house," said Chia yesterday. Meanwhile, police have taken the two generators to the police station as evidence and launched an operation to track down the thief. The Star/Asia News Network

WARNING: NOT SAFE FOR WORK and KEEP VOLUME LOW

check this out, quite hilarious and true actually. and the corresponding interview by taiwan news http://youtube.com/watch?v=VwybYRJ86zA