Blogs from Melaka City, Melaka, Malaysia, Asia - page 9

David here... We set off from the hostel after a light breakfast and jumped onto the next train out to the temporary bus station at Bukit Jalil. On the train a nice Chinese women warned us about the 'vultures' outside the station that try to sell you bus tickets. She advised us to ignore them and to make our way directly into the bus station itself to buy our tickets. Sure enough, as soon as we got to the LRT station, we were pounced upon, but not with too much vigour compared to say Hue for example. We got into the bus station and immediately got directed to a ticket booth with buses going to Melaka (13 MYR each) and we hopped on board our bus. The journey took 2 hours and was as uneventful as ... read more

Malacca. It is old Malaysia. Not the ultra-modern Kuala Lumpur, the capital. But Malacca or Melaka, with vestiges of its Dutch, Portuguese, Chinese and British influences. The place is so ethnically diverse -- the stuff that makes it legendary. And speaking of legends, Hang Tuah is one legendary warrior/hero who lived during the reign of Sultan Mansur Shah of the Sultanate of Malacca in the 15th century. Touted as the greatest of all the warriors or "laksamana" , Hang Tuah was known to be a ferocious fighter. Judging by the many shops, streets, restaurants and buildings named after him, Hang Tuah is obviously held in the highest regard in present-day Malaysian Malay culture. Since I found him to be the most well-known and illustrious warrior figure in Malaysian history and literature, I thought I should start ... read more

Since we had a blast in Perhentian Island, we decided to continue our journey... this time to Malaysian heritage city, MELAKA! I was in my practical training in an architecture firm during this time and the rest were busy working too so we agreed on a weekend trip. We thought it would be nice to travel by car this time so Ain agreed to drove her BMW!! We were all excited on that Saturday morning and they arrived at my house around 8.00am. 25th December 2010 We had to wait for Teyha's arrival from Klang, so me, Ieien and Ain went to have our breakfast in Bangsar. Awhile later, Teyha arrived and we fetch her at the comuter station and we started our journey right away. It took us only 2 hours to get to Melaka. ... read more

I found Melaka a nice little place, but it felt like a couples place walking around chinatown looking at the small stalls. I stayed 3 nights as I had time to kill before Singapore, but if you arrive early you only need to stay about 1 maybe 2. You can cover the majority of the city in a few hours. At the weekends they do have some little shows going on, friday night they had some hair, make up and nail show. It was some college thing. Waited for like over an hour, watched the first bit, watched the dancers in the interval then left. I'd had enough by then. I stayed at teh Discovery hotel which was kind of choatic but alright. The night entertainment they have is truly terrible. Some guy was playing on ... read more

Two days in the life of the traveller can a) be a very long time indeed and b) bring about remarkable change. 2 Dec 2010 We have now both settled in to Melaka. It is fair to say that I am somewhat more taken with it than Gregg which is in no small part due to the homeliness of Café 1511’s guest accommodation. It is just unbelievably peaceful here. There is a water feature in the middle of the building and the staff always stop to say hello and give us a smile. The room that we are staying in is small but spotless and well furnished and the shared bathrooms, although a walk down the corridor away, are also beautiful and immaculate. We had planned to have a bit of a lie in this morning ... read more