Blogs from Melaka, Malaysia, Asia - page 18

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri 2009. Hari raya is one of the biggest celebration in Malaysia. Normally, muslim people will take long holiday to celebrate it. Including me. I'm off from TravelBlog for a week. Every year I celebrate aidilfitri with the samething. But this year was so special, because I go to ride the bot at night with my mum and auntie. With only RM10 per person, we enjoy our ride for 30 minute in Sungai Morten. The view at night was so cool. With a lot of beautifull light along the river, we can see the traditional Malacca house. Sorry for the picture quality, because I take it from my cheap phone camera. Sorry for the terrible write up. I'm not a good writer/blogger or photographer.... read more

05 September 2009 - 09 September 2009 After having spent more money than we anticipated in Singapore, we got up early on Saturday morning to get a train to Melaka on Southern coast of Malaysia. We had decided that due to missing the bus because of a delay in immigration on our entry into Singapore, we would opt for getting out of the country by train (we hoped this would cause less hassle.) As it turned out, Immigration exiting the country was quite straightforward, as we exited Singaporean immigration at the train station and entered Malaysian immigration at the border. 1 hour, and after everyone on the train had cleared immigration (would have been nice if the bus could have done that on the way into Singapore!) we were back on our journey through Malaysia. As ... read more

We got a bit turned around during our tour of Malacca’s old quarter and weren’t entirely sure how to get to our next stop, the antique and curio district of Jonker Street. Given how small and centralized Malacca is, I’m not entirely sure how we accomplished this. I blame the disorientation on Red Bull and constantly looking through camera lenses while walking around. In any case, we decided to avail ourselves of one of the lavishly decorated trishaws which are ubiquitous in the Town Square. Covered with wreaths of flowers and often blaring pop music from oversized radios, the trishaws themselves are as much of an attempt to attract the attention of tourists as the drivers themselves, calling out destinations and prices to all who pass by. We found a cluster of trishaws an... read more

Melacca, Malaysia. By Paul A port city. Melacca is a port city on the west coast of Malaysia. It’s a historically rich city. If you take a look at a map, you’ll see why. Melacca sits right in the Straits of Melacca, a shipping lane through which everything going between Indonesia and China and India, the Middle East, and Europe used to have to go. Ships would hop from the Spice Islands (Indonesia) and China to Melacca. Ships would hop from India, from Arabia, and from Europe to Melacca. The two major monsoons, coming from India and through Southeast Asia, converge on Melacca. It’s been a major port and shipping route forever. A mixture of cultures. First the Indians came. So there’s a deep well of Hindu culture here. Then the Chinese, with Confucianism and Taoism. ... read more

So we arrived from KL with Ade and Ellie in around two hrs. Was pretty uneventful apart from the very untimely flash flooding and storm!! So we get out of the bus and we have to run for shelter at possibly the most depressing bus station I've ever been in. Usual hassle from taxi drivers with their special"white and raining price". After a while we realized that the rain was not going to stop and so the boys went off to get us a cheaper ride and came back with a very friendly chappie in tow. We embarked on our endeavor to all pile into the same cab with all of our gear (there is never enough room for 4 backpacks!) and ended up pretty uncomfortable and then really wet also. The driver thought that my ... read more