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As my dear friend Nizam survived the Paris Metro, I too managed to survive the causeway albeit with a major faux pas. Vehemently, it is not entirely my fault for missing the autopass stage of the journey. The immigration guy told me to move forward and the customs guy said its up ahead, the signage had its yellow arrow pointing forward. Before I knew it, I was out on the highway in the land of the Merlion. Nary a sight for turning around.

Few phone calls later confirmed that the autopass is mandatory not just for moving around but more so for parking. We asked and looked all over to solve the matter. Most Singaporean does not even know what it was - can't blame them, they don't drive. Even the Post Office were not sure. By the time someone suggested to go to their road transport department or whatever, its already too late.

We had to cross the causeway back into Malaysia and was nearly fined for entering without the autopass. Weird, they let you through then fine you for not having something that you were supposed to have before going through. However, the lady was reasonable and nice and let us off as apparently our car was not in their system. Turns out, the autopass can only be bought at the entry point. In between the immigration and customs checkpoint. Wouldn't it be easier to issue it at the immigration counter itself ? Or at least have proper signage or directives for all first time entrant instead of one big sign that says "Have your autopass ready". How the hell are you supposed to have it ready if you don't even know what the thing is.

Its annoying and really is out of character for such a systematic and modern city such as Singapore.