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Published: March 9th 2009
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On the Street
just walking along the street and this is in among the Tshirt shops and ice cream sellers
We are now in India, and there is a lot to be reported on that, but, just to tidy things up we need to make mention of Melaka. Unfortunately we were only able to spend a few nights in Melaka in the southern part of Malaysia but it was not a time that we want to risk letting be swallowed by the Indian experience - which is promising to be spectacular.
The original, original plan had us spending some time in Melaka staying in apartment of a friend from Darwin. This plan had to be changed and, now that we have experienced Melaka, that is unfortunate. We needed to stay for a period in easy striking distance of an Iranian Embassy. We had been led to believe by our agents, iranianvisa.com, that we could confidently expect that the magic Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs number would be available and we would be able to collect a visa. The applications went in over 6 weeks ago, apparently complete. There may have been a knock back but we were not told. In any case we were led to believe there would be no problem if in picking up the visas in Malaysia.
Morals are Important
A lot of signs catch your attention. This one advertises something that Malaysia is into a bit Not so. It looks as though the agent has not delivered and there is little likelihood of them delivering and that we have done our 30 Euros each. Of course, the real issue is that we wont be able to get into Iran at this part of the trip.
And the other reason that we are pretty down on the iranianvisa.com is that they have mucked up our plan to have a longer time to spend in Melaka. It is just a two hour bus ride along an expressway that flows, for the most part, through manicured gardens and lawns, from Kuala Lumpur to Melaka. We had booked through the net a place called the Kota Lodge which looked pretty good. As it turned out, when we climbed off our bus from Puduraya in KL at the very modern Melaka Sentral bus station and shopping mall, the first bloke who approached us about coming to his hotel was the proprietor of the Kota Lodge. He was a nice man, quite unlike the normal hotel touts that hang about bus stations and did nothing to put us off the place.
It turned out to be a nice, clean place
Not Cyclos
Here they call them something different but it doesn' t seem to matter. They only operate for the tourists. with all of the facilities in an excellent location and with staff that made us feel like very much at home. The fact that some of the staff had connections with Japan, as do we, had an immediate effect and Pat had to immediately start using her long neglected Nihonggo - which she did very well IMHO.
We wandered out the night we arrived and found water - real sea water in a real sea. The Straits of Melaka in fact. They have reclaimed a considerable are of land and have set up a sea wall along with various amusement actitivies and some open space. There are also a lot of new apartments built there, flash ones.
In need of a feed we were told to go around the corner. Did so and found the best tandoori ayam I have tasted. In fact, the consensus was that this was the best tucker we had found in Malaysia to date. The experience of the food was not adversely affected by the storm that arrived as we were about to be served. We simply picked up our tables and chairs and moved under the awnings and away from the roadway.
The Plaque
Queen Vic was wonderful once but now the fountain is trained on her as though with 40 spouts of water. It looks like .... they don't much like her anymore Alas, the only difficulty was that there was no alcohol for sale. (I would not like you to think that this was a major problem but it is somewhat galling that Malaysia has found puritanism in the last decade.)
Next day it was off around the old city wandering through the tourist precinct. Being of an age where we consider that daylight is the natural time for humans to be up and about, we were a little early for the shops on our first move through the streets of the old city but there were those amongst us that found some reasons for pause in our perambulations.
Hit the Ethnograpraphy Museum in the Old Quarter. I have this probably ridiculous view that most museums provide you with much the same as all other museums - tools that pretty much everyone has developed at some stage or other, paintings and assorted art work (some providing an indication fo the level of frustration felt by the artist or his - always his - sponsor), examples of the strange clothes they wore in those days and a bit of information that is, at times, handy for answering questions at quiz nights.
On Top of the Hill
near the cathedral. Hot enough so that the long strides had to be put to one side for the day Given my low expectations this place was pretty good. We were taken on a walk through the history of the place. The Portugese took over for 129 years. They were not particularly nice colonists and gave the locals a terrible time. The Dutch then took over for a couple of hundred years. They were more reasonable colonists but it is hard to believe that the locals liked them all that much and then they were replaced by the British who were there until the Japanese arrived during WWWII.
Melaka has taken the work of the colonists and is making as much of it as it can. The old quarter is Portuguese, Dutch and a bit of English. It is a very easy place to walk around. The history has been presented in a reasonably easy way. Nothing too dramatic or angry. Pretty laid back all round.
The sights of Melaka are OK but it was the people we met that made the place. The Kota Lodge people made it a memorable place to stay. The only restaurant we have returned to had workers who would inspire any cook to jealousy and the place we had breakfast was excellent
Roti Canai
This bloke cooked up a great breakfast with a big smile and all for less than a 3 dollars for the lot of us with coffee. with friendly people who looked after us well.
Getting out of the place was interesting for us. We decided we wanted to see the Portuguese Kampong. This is a bit of a distance from the Old Quarter but that is no problem. They have these Blue Line and Red Line buses that circulate on fixed routes around the key points of interest in the city. We jumped on a Blue Line bus - it happened to be red but we are seasoned travellers and not put off by such things. Made it to the Portuguese Kampong, had an interesting walk around for 45 mins and headed back to pick up the bus at the appointed place to pick up the bus on the hourly circuit. No bus. No problem. It is only 12 noon and we have til 2.00 to get to Melaka Sentral to catch the bus to KL. 1.00 comes and there is a level of twitchiness in the ranks. Bus arrives 15 minutes later and proceeds not to follow any apparent route on the way our to Sentral. Stops to pick up fuel. Other passengers are becoming frantic. Not us. We are seasoned travellers and are
Hosts of Kota Lodge
Two half Japanese ladies who had a great time speaking Nihonggo to each other. already working out how we will catch a later bus. Eventually, after skipping a few stops we make it to Sentral at 3 minutes to 2.
This is a nuisance, even for a seasoned traveller. Do we sprint for the bus - not having a clue where in this building of many floors and areas where we might sensibly spring too? Do we accept that we have missed it and kick back and look for a bar? Answer - there are very few bars in Malaysia that serve alcohol at anything like a reasonable price and there is unlikely to be one in the Sentral building. We sprint - or rather we sort of quickly hobble - and we make it to the appropriate bus with 5 minutes to spare. Their clock is slow, or ours is fast - who cares? Off to KL.
We could have spent a lot longer in Melaka and, possibly, will do so but, in the meantime, we suggest that others consider spending longer than a couple of days in this friendly, laid back place.
As the title implies, this is a catch up. We are actually in Mysore in India at
Kota Lodge
This was a lovely place and very friendly. the moment. We have had a packed few days since we hit India and I haven't really had much chance to write anything or find an Internet that can cope with the loading. Now sitting in the lobby of a flash hotel paying 100 rupees to log in to their wifi for an hour. More as soon as I can write it - and cull the over 500 photos down to 21 for the next post.
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