Blogs from Melaka City, Melaka, Malaysia, Asia - page 28

I met Marcus in Melaka. He peered through the dormroom doorway and, seeing he had company, came forward to offer a friendly handshake and cheesy grin. From that point on, the usual onslought of traveler queries ensued: - Where are you from? - When did you arrive here? - How long are you staying? - Where will you go next? - What would you recommend around here? - How much does that cost? - How long are you traveling for? - What did you think of the last place? - What will you do in the next place? - How will you get there? - How much does that cost? And so on, and so forth. As our well tailored and familar conversation progressed, we discovered - rather unsurprisingly - that we were both headed to ... read more

Donning our walking boots again, today we ventured out for a bit of a mammoth trek about town. We started off by picking up an excellent streetmap for 2 Ringgit from the Tourist Information Office and then took a closer look at the gaudy pinkness of the town square. In the centre of the little square is an obelisk mounted in a water fountain and it's by this fountain that you can find a couple of locals hanging around an old handsome cab. Not the most obvious place to keep a couple of massive boa constrictors and a fully grown iguana you might think but that's exactly what the pair of rather shady looking blokes were touting - a chance to have a photo with one of these great beasts. Pay 5 RM and you get ... read more

Hello again! In answer to the age old question 'where are they now?' I can confirm the answer today is: Melaka. After a very quiet, chilled out 8 days in Kuala Lumpur, we hopped on a melaka-bound bus today and made the shorter than usual journey of just 2 hours. We're staying in a nice place called Traveller's Lodge and we know it's nice because we took some time to check out a neighbouring hostel, which turned out to be a bit grim and made us appreciate what a good choice we'd made in the first place! We did, however, downgrade to a smaller room as the one we were originally given had a really hard matress and I couldn't bear the thought of sleeping on that for our long stay here (when we tried to ... read more

Well, on Tuesday I got to add one more to the passport. Simon and I crossed the border into Malaysia, and got the bus up to Melaka. Nice enough little place. Lots of colonial history (Portuguese (who built a church among other things), Dutch (who modified the church among other things), and Brits (who used the church for storing gunpowder, among other things...)) Saw some of the sights, then decided it was basically too hot to keep tramping around, got on a bus, and came backto Singapore. Wednesday night Si and I had a boys night out, and got terribly, terribly drunk.... What do you expect when drinks cost $12 a jug (4 quidish), and Si knows the assistant manager who makes them significantly stroonger than usual?!!! Few more days to go, can't believe time's gone ... read more

Yesterday "Muar KL! Muar KL! Muar Muar KL KL! KL KL KL KL KL Muar Muar Muar KL!" - I'd have thought this was some incredibly strange birdcall if I couldn't see the small Muslim woman at Johor Bahru Bus Terminal screaming it outside the ticket offices. The terminal comprised of a long row of ticket offices for competing bus companies, fronted with an extsenisive, noisy and busy coach park, most of which was drowned out by this woman, who must be KKKL's greates asset. The ticket to Malacca/Melaka/Melacca etc (depending on preference, it seems) cost the equivalent of just over 2 pounds, and the coach turned out to be very comfortable and plush. Melaka is Malaysia's version of York: a small city with an extensive and colourful history that can keep a camera-wielding intellectual enthralled ... read more