Blogs from Melaka, Malaysia, Asia - page 2

Budicek 7/15,konecne ranna hygiena,pobalenie sa a odchod na vlak zo starej zel.stanice Kuala Lumpur na Bandar tasik selatan zastavaku,je to piata zastavka. Na perone som sa pre istotu opytal ci nasadam na spravny vlak,jasne,ze nie,moj isol az o 5 minut. Vlak bol prazdny. Na ranajky som si este pred odchodom dal klasiku nasi lemak. Na bus stanici Terminal Bersepadu Selatan bolo vsetko perfektne znacene,som si pripadal ako na lestisku. Na velkej digitalnej tabuli som kukol odchody busov do Melaky,isli dva o 9/00. Vybral som sa do prveho okienka,cena 9r,zobral som to bez toho aby som isiel zistovat dalsiu cenu. Tetula chcela odo mna este moje meno,co mi napisala na listok,Listky su tu na meno ale nikto to nekontroluje. Meno som jej vyhlaskoval,,moja blba anglina skomolila moje moeno na Juarem. S listkom som siel k nastupisku,najskor ma ... read more

Today we departed KL for a city in the south called Malacca. A colleague from work had recommended we visit this city as it has a very interesting historical background. Malacca was invaded by the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British and the buildings in the old city show different architectural features depending upon the period in which they were built. Malacca is a 'quaint' city with cobbled narrow streets and is small enough that you can hear the Qur'an readings from the Mosque all around - this brought back very fond memories from my childhood! Our hotel is beautiful, an elegant room with a four poster bed, set off a pretty courtyard... Looks like it'll be street food for us again!?!? Baileys bit: The bus terminal in KL is ... read more

Today we arrived in Malaka. I haven't had any time to look around yet, but I can already tell there is a difference. I think I might miss Singapore a bit. Don't get me wrong, I am very excited to get to explore Malaysia. I just was starting to feel confident in Singapore. I knew how to get around and i knew where to eat. I think I am also going to miss the bathrooms. When I was packing for the trip I read over the items we were instructed to bring and I started to get nervose. I wondered how bad the bathrooms would be that I'd need to carry my own toilet paper and hand sanitizer. I wondered how dirty and mucky it would be that I'd need tons of pills and medicaiton for ... read more

Fate is similar to a game of chess; an unseen and unknown opponent makes a move and you decide how to react. And so it was when I was made redundant from my government job of more than 12 years; it was my turn to move a chess piece. Challenges such as these provide opportunities – you can let the situation control you, or you can control the situation. As per usual, I chose the latter, and thought the best response to this challenge was to head overseas – a path that gives me both clarity and knowledge. The only way to realise such extended travel was to become homeless, and with only a few weeks between the confirmation of redundancy and the ability to use my Singapore Airlines Krisflyer points for a free Business Class ... read more

Headed down for a short weekend gateway with my loved one, just a short 6 hours bus journey from Singapore. Stayed near the riverside and the iconic Jonker street, which we basically spent most of our time wandering around and looking for interesting things to get. Managed to try the 'legendary' chicken rice balls in which Malacca is famous for. Well, it is definitely within expectations, especially for a chicken-rice-lover like me, though I have heard friends who aren't impressed by the standards. But any stall along jonker street will bring you a decent plate that will make your lunch/dinner more than filling. A thing to note though, by 6pm-ish, the stalls that open during the day starts to close and pushcarts and night stalls started sprawling out from seemingly nowhere (lol) and before we knew ... read more

Ok so the bus wasn't too bad and we actually made it up to Melaka in 4 hrs and we did it with the pissin rain style again. First impressions as we drove into Melaka were not good. The outskirts of the city are pretty run down and the taxi guy who dropped us to our hotel had to untie the rope on his boot to open it up. When we arrived downtown to our hotel everything started to pick up. Hotel is much nicer than what we had in Singapore, the only issue is that they are doing it up at the moment so when we got into our room it stinked of paint. The smell was gone after a day so instead of getting high on the fumes we hit the town for a ... read more

I took the bus from KL to Meleka which was straightforward and only took a few hours, you then just transfer onto the local bus 17 to go into the centre of town. Melaka was an interesting little town, packed full of culture from all the colonial periods and was a really good break between the big cities of KL and Singapore, it kind of reminded me of the Brighton in comparison to London as it is a small, metropolitan town with a some markets and riverside cafes. The history of the town is fascinating and has Portugese, Japanese, British and Chinese remanents and went through 6 countries during the colonial period. The town was based around a central red square left from the Portugese era and then you can just potter around the town for ... read more