Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Ipoh's Medan Gopeng meant to confuse?

I have mentioned before about a Brazilian friend who mentioned 'Gopeng' as the destination of his bus trip from Singapore, and my wife and daughter had to try Gopeng town first before Medan Gopeng, and found him asleep while waiting since 5 am. Then months later, an English couple came from LCCT on a Yoyo coach and we knew they were supposed to stop at Medan Gopeng. But unfortunately, either Yoyo coaches do not have the right to go into the bus station or they refuse to do so, the couple were left on the main road next to a makeshift taxi stand. Fortunately, being a seasoned traveller in Malaysia, Stuart realized the stop did not seem like a bus station, left Sarah with the luggage and went round looking for us in the station about 500 metres away.

Last Friday, at a funeral wake in BG, the deceased's sister came back from Johore Bahru by bus. She made arrangement with her other brother's wife to fetch her from Medan Gopeng. Her sister-in-law was unfamiliar with Ipoh, having worked in KL and now, Singapore, could not find her. They were in contact with the use of mobile phones. The name Gopeng confused them with the town and descriptions of McDonald and other landmarks did not help. It was unfortunate that she had to go back to Batu Gajah without her and the visitor had to take a taxi which costed Rm40!

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2 comments:

  1. Yes. To support that, Puduraya is renamed Pudu Sentral , further confusing it with Sentral. Is it Sentral Pudu or Sentral Brickfields? It seems like decisions are made without the poor public in mind.

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  2. Thanks for your comment. We have a Batu Gajah Sentral too, but a housing project and not our railway station nor our bus station.

    The old KL railway station is called 'Kuala Lumpur'! So passengers coming from the north will be greeted with an announcement, 'Next station, Kuala Lumpur'. Unless you have travelled before, you are likely to mistake it for the final destination in KL. I can imagine those who had arrangement with someone to pick them will have problem if they were to get off too soon.

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