回家篇 (Bus)

By: Richie (BATCH 6) 

Bus Tickets

Comparing to plane tickets, bus tickets are much more affordable.  

The bus that you are going to take are normally Perdana Express and Mutiara Express. Personally, for me, I prefer Express Perdana, it is more comfortable as I believe most of you far away from home is going back by night bus, so you are going to sleep in the bus.

For each break, students are allowed to go back on Thursday 4pm onwards. However, for night bus, the departure time is usually around 8pm-11.00pm. So, you will need to settle your dinner on your own, either eat outside of college or eat maggie inside college.

Now, we’ll go to Ticket Buying section.

1.     When and where to buy bus tickets? How to know the tickets are on sale?

About one month before each break, the bus ticket seller will come to the college to sell the tickets. So, there is no need to go out to buy them.

Notices will be pasted in front of HEP or you will be informed by JPPs or ketua praktikum. The notice looks something like this:

As you can see, the counter will be opened for 2 or 3 whole days, you can choose any free period or break to buy your ticket.

My suggestion is to have a representative for each place to buy the tickets. For example, there are 4 people from Penang, so, there is no need for 4 of them to queue and buy the tickets separately as it would be a waste of time, 1 people should be enough. Plus, you can surely sit together in the bus, it’s safer this way.

But if you are lazy to queue up to buy tickets, you can always buy your tickets online.

2.     How to buy?

Once you have total up the amount of tickets needed, prepare the money (Refer to ‘how about the price?’) and queue up at JPP room in HEP to buy the tickets.

The seller will need these information:

i)      Where are you going?

ii)    Which bus station you prefer to depart from? (For more information on bus station, kindly refer to ‘Where is the bus station and how to go there?’ )

iii)   Which bus company you want?

iv)   How many seats?

v)     How would you like your seat to be arranged?

* For your information, both Perdana and Mutiara Express are double-decks,   
   so you can choose which deck you want. However, the lower deck is usually
   full, so you will most probably sit on the upper deck. Don’t worry, sitting
   upper deck is same with sitting on the lower deck, its safe.
* The arrangement seats of both Perdana and Mutiara Express is shown in the
   picture below. For girls, due to safety reasons, it’s better to sit in pairs. If
   you are from a group of odd numbers or travelling back alone, you may
   consider seating the single seat.

After that, you pay, get your tickets and wait impatiently to go home!

3.     How about the price?

The ticket price is almost the same for both Perdana Express and Mutiara Express.

Below shows a list of bus ticket prices. However, it may vary from time to time, especially during festive seasons such as Chinese New Year or Hari Raya Aidilftri. If there are any places that are not stated, you may try to search it up on the internet.

Destination	Price for One Way Trip Ticket (RM)
Penang
Butterworth	38 - 40
Penang Island	40 – 43
Kedah
Alor Setar	38 - 40
Kulim	38 - 40
Sungai Petani	32 - 35
Perak
Ipoh	38 - 40
Selangor
Klang	48 - 50
Shah Alam	46 - 50
Kuala Lumpur	43 - 45
Putrajaya	48 - 50

** For your information, you can also buy a two-way ticket provided the ticket
     returning back KMKt is released at that time. (You may ask the seller to confirm
     whether the tickets are released or not.) The price of a round-way trip ticket is
     double the price of the one-way ticket, no discounts.

4.     How does the bus ticket look like?
The picture below shows a bus ticket and how to find your bus, so that you don’t get on the wrong bus.

5.     Where is the bus station and how to go there?

The stations that you are normally going to depart from are located at Kok Lanas (the best), Ketereh or Melor (If you are from Ipoh, this will be the only station available for you, based on experience in 2019). Here are some pictures of the bus stations.

Kok Lanas Bus Station**Suggested

Kok Lanas bus station, located at the road opposite to Rainbow Ice Shop. This bus station is brand new, just started operating at the end of 2018. The best option available among all bus stations.

Ketereh Bus Stop (Around 5 km from Kok Lanas which is about a 10 minutes ride)

The pictures below show the front view, back view of the bus stop and the exact location of the bus stop.

     

                     Front view of Ketereh bus stop.               Back view of Ketereh bus stop.

                                                    

Melor Bus Stop

The building on the left side of with 2 blue signs is the bus stop.

The right side is the bus stop of SMK Melor.

Kota Bharu Transnational Bus Station (around 40 mins)

 Exact location of the bus stop

Ketereh Bus Stop located oppposite to Masjid Omar Abdul Aziz (Masjid Ketereh). This bus stop is not that good compared to the one in Kok Lanas and also not as safe as Kok Lanas. But it is still ok if there are really no more options.

As for Melor bus stop, I’m sorry to say that I have never been there personally, so I’m unable to give you the picture of it. But according to the feedback given by those who went before, it is the worst bus stop among three, as is dark without any street lights and small. So, it’s best not to depart from there if you are given a choice.

Kota Bharu Transnational Bus Station is quite dark outside but there is a small indoor space for you to sit. You can get some supplies from the 7 eleven too.

Lastly, to go to your respective bus stations, you can either:

1.     Book the van service provided by school ** Suggested

2.     Contact Maraliner bus (you may get the contact number from HEP)

3.     Take a grab

6.     When to get down from the bus?
The bus will stop at respective stations and announce where are you currently, so be aware of the announcements and don’t miss your stop especially if you are a deep sleeper.

7.     How to come back KMKt?
If you are planning to come back to KMKt via bus, the process if the same. It is best to put your choice destination as Kok Lanas, as it is the nearest to KMKt.

If you are taking the night bus, you will most probably arrive Kok Lanas early in the morning (4-5am), the grab fee at that time would be quite expensive. So, if you want to, you may ask the bus to drop you of at Econjaya so that you may go to McD to have your breakfast before going back to KMKt by bus.

If the amount of people going back to KMKt is big or maybe the whole bus is just KMKt students, you may request to the bus driver to straight away drop you guys at KMKt but of course, extra fee will be charged, maybe around RM 4-5.

So, these are the things you will need to know if you are planning to go back by bus. If you are short of money, taking the bus is always the best option available.

Finally, going home is always something to be excited about, but please be careful throughout the trip and take good care of yourselves. At the same time, made memories on the way, trust me, you won’t regret it. Lastly, have a safe trip home!