A Gentleman's Weekend in JB | Danger, Abandoned Buildings & a Very Private Meeting
- Bobby Stryker
- Jun 7
- 2 min read
Every year, 17.4 million Singaporeans cross the border into Johor Bahru. 397 will not make it back the same.
I went anyway. On business.
This latest episode of Stryke of Midnight takes me across the Causeway for a weekend in the city that Singaporean aunties on WhatsApp have declared the most dangerous place in Asia. And while the statistics are real — property crime up 12.4%, a tycoon snatched from Puteri Harbour for a RM20 million ransom in October 2024 — the JB I found was something else entirely.
The Stay
Base camp was KSL Resort. Comfortable, unpretentious, and positioned perfectly for what we had planned. The kind of place where you check in, drop your bags, and get on with business.
Speaking of bags — I brought along the Hook & Albert Twill Weekender Garment Bag, which the internet has been falling over itself to recommend. The internet, it turns out, was wrong. Despite glowing reviews that I now suspect were rather generously incentivised, the bag did not keep my suit wrinkle-free. I show the evidence on camera. You can judge for yourself.
The City
JB gets a bad reputation it only half deserves. Yes, it moves differently to Singapore. Yes, the edges are rougher. But there is an energy here — a rawness — that Singapore traded away somewhere along the way. We drove through streets most weekend visitors never see, past an abandoned building that served as the venue for our business meeting with the International Adventurers' Club.
No further details will be provided about the meeting.
Puteri Harbour
The second half of the trip brought us to Puteri Harbour — the gleaming marina district of Iskandar Puteri, and as it happens, the same neighbourhood where that RM20 million kidnapping took place in October 2024. We arrived unbothered. Jules was characteristically unimpressed by my attempts at dramatic tension.
Here we found one of JB's most atmospheric and least talked-about private clubs — the kind of place where, during the week, members of the Johor Royal Family come to conduct their affairs quietly. Jules and I settled in, talked about the new Swatch x Audemars Piguet collaboration, debated things to see and do in JB beyond the usual tourist circuit, and generally behaved as though we were not in the supposed danger capital of Southeast Asia.
We also made a stop at Vahson's — a very different kind of shopping experience for a very specific kind of man.
The episode closes with a look at my Dunhill White Spot cigar case and the kind of quiet reflection that only a weekend away from Singapore can produce.
Watch the full episode below.
Johor Bahru is not what the WhatsApp groups say it is. But it is more interesting than most people give it credit for. Go. Just go prepared.
— Dr Bobby Stryker
President, International Adventurers' Club
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