1 and a 1/2 days back in Batu Pahat

My brother's convo was on Sunday and since I could rush back in time to attend it, I did. And I ended up going back to Batu Pahat for the shortest time ever, 1 day and a 1/2.

Strictly speaking it was longer than that... I was back in BP by Saturday evening in time for dinner and came back to S'pore by Monday morning, slightly before noon. Could have gone back on Friday, but I decided to linger around at AIESEC Singapore's Jumpstart! event for as longa as I could coz I am after all in the AIESEC NTU committee.


Anyway, the last time I went back to BP was sometime in late June / early July I think... before the Gunung Tahan trip and before the World Choir Games in Xiamen trip. Considering that it has been only about 2 months +, I'm amazed at how much BP has grown.

First of all, when the bus reached the Air Hitam highway exit, there was a sign that said: "Carrefour Batu Pahat: Akan Dibuka" (Carrefour Batu Pahat: Opening soon). Well, I knew all along that Carrefour was being built in Batu Pahat, but as I had not seen the building, I didn't know how far they have proceeded. This time I got to see it and it's almost completed! Wow... This should really make the retail scene in Batu Pahat more interesting. I foresee more people from Kluang, Yong Peng and Air Hitam travelling down to Batu Pahat in the near future.

There is this space between the Projet petrol station and a Chinese primary school where a row of shops and other buildings were razed by a fire a few years ago. The last time I went back it was a construction site and piling work was being done, but I had no idea what was to be built there. This time around 3 storeys of a building were already up and a signboard in front announced: "Batu Pahat Mall". Based on the "artists' impression" drawing on the signboard, it was a shopping complex with 2 apartments (or office blocks, I dunno). That's amazing... coz there hasn't been many big projects in Batu Pahat for quite some time, no constuction of tall buildings, and no new shopping complexes (BP has only 2 main ones; The Summit and Wira Court).

This also kinda signals an expansion of investments/projects etc. to the more suburban areas. There has already been significant growth in Parit Raja town, which has and will be further fueled by the expansion and increasing intake of Kolej Universiti Tun Hussein Onn (KUiTTHO). The scale of the projects are huge and many of the projects focus mainly on residential houses and shophouses. The BP-Kluang link has long been an important development corridor, and there are lots of industries and industrial parks along the way. Major corporations that have invested here include Fujitsu and Sharp. Air Hitam, which borders the North-South expressway has a new township plan; Sri Gading (in between BP and Parit Raja) also has a similar plan if I'm not mistakened. All in all, amazing growth!

Other stuff that I've noticed... More bus companies are servicing between BP and JB, such as Causeway Link and Transnational, but apparently it's still not enough. I reached Larkin Bus Interchange in JB at 3.15pm and the earliest bus ticket I could get was 5.45pm. It wasn't like this last time... I wonder what has spurred the increase in travelling frequency of the passengers. KKKL, which I usually travel with, has even bought double decker buses (however, not sure if they use it for the JB-BP route).

I had a surprise when I alighted in BP... I heard a bunch of Vietnamese speaking! Omg! I guess the 'crazy' growth has spurred more foreigners to work here. Last time it used to be mainly Bangladeshi/Indonesian workers.

And that ends my report on the latest developments in BP. Haha...