WP MPs & residents, take makan tour: ‘It was simply great to be back in Malaysia again’

By all accounts, both residents and Workers’ Party MPs had a wonderful time last weekend at Bekok, where the food was the main attraction.

As Mr Dennis Tan (Hougang SMC) put it, “It was simply great to be back in Malaysia again with our dear residents, having durians, makan, shopping and having good fun together!”

And for Mr Leon Perera (Aljunied GRC), “The highlight of our trip today…DURIANS!”

Workers’ Party chair Ms Sylvia Lim, Mr Perera’s fellow Aljunied GRC MP, was also in attendance.

“We have been looking forward to this trip for weeks!” Mr Perera wrote in the first of several Instagram posts about the trip, which was held on Saturday (Jul 16).

“And we’re off to JB for our One-Day Bekok Johore Makan Tour! Together with a few busloads from our Paya Lebar constituent, we started out early this morning to make our journey across the causeway.”

The Aljunied GRC Facebook page wrote that 14 buses filled with residents, WP volunteers and members converged by chance at Second Link at Tuas.

Five of the buses came from Kaki Bukit and East Coast, and the other nine arrived from Hougang.

It appears to have been the first trip taken for the “annual durian pilgrimage” after Covid travel restrictions were lifted, but other similar trips are already being planned.

After the buses met, everyone partook of “a slurp-till-the-last drop breakfast of abalone & seafood kway teow soup.”

“A chance meeting, thanks to the long queue over at the Malaysian side. And we met again on the way back home!” reads the Aljunied GRC Facebook post.

“KB & EC residents and their friends, mainly from the East had their revenge makan-together & shopping spree, starved by the long hard Pandemic days. Wish we could have more buses but we were restricted by the restaurant seating in Pengerang,” it also says, adding that a three-day, two-night Bentong – Kuantan holidays in October is also in the offing.

Mr Tan thanked all the participants, especially the organizers of the event, while Mr Perera shared photos of the noodle factory they visited “where we get a glimpse of how these handmade noodles are produced fresh daily.”

In another post, he wrote, “And the highlight of our trip today…DURIANS! You can see from the happy faces how much we look forward to this moment. Crossing the border to savour this much-loved tropical fruit makes the early morning journey less ‘thorny’ indeed.” /TISG

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