http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking...-town-20131227

Back in the late 1980s, Mr Terry Liew, a Woodlands resident, found it nearly impossible to find a cab driver who would send him to his home.
Said Mr Liew, 46, who was then a navy regular in his early 20s working at the naval base at Pulau Brani: "I remember I was so mad I asked one cabby why no one wanted to drive me home.
"He told me if he went to Woodlands, he would never get any passenger on the way out."
To many, the suburban town in the north, which derived its name from the rubber tree plantations in the area when it was a kampung, has always been ulu (remote in Malay), rural and far away from the rest of the population.