Blogs from Melaka, Malaysia, Asia - page 24

So, on Wednesday we journeyed to Malaysia. It was a very nice coach - comfortable air-con journey! As soon as we crossed the boarder there were cows and goats just rocking about at the side of the road! When we arrived in Melaka the heat was intense! Less humid than Singapore but it felt hotter. We got on a local bus to take us into town. It was a total rattletrap and was packed full - we had backpacks on knees. Made for one sweaty journey! Arriving in the town square we realised Malaysia was going to be totally different to Singapore! Now we really felt like we were abroad! There were taxi/trishaw drivers everywhere shouting at us trying to get our business and monks too! Although they didn't shout. Melaka was a real preserved historical ... read more

My time in Malacca picked up a bit-was a bit dreary after having seen so many museums. Next day I walked around Chinatown and wandered into a temple with Taoist, Confucionist and Buddhist shrines. I started chatting with the man at the desk about religion and he quizzed me on my Buddhism and since I scored 80-90% correct I walked away with not one but two books on Buddhism! He said one of them is really hard to get outside of Asia. I wandered back to the hostel not knowing what a colorful crowd we'd have there that night: the owners and 2 British brothers who've been there awhile, 2 trishaw drivers one of whom has the most beautiful trishaw in all of Melacca, a street vendor who sells atop the hill without a license, and ... read more

Having checked the bus situation the day before we were in no rush to leave Kuala Lumpur. Checking out at 11.30 and slowly making our way to the Pudaraya bus station we sat down for a large breakfast before hopping onto one of the hourly buses to Melaka. We arrived after only a few hours on the bus and headed straight for the old town to find a hotel. In the afternoon we enjoyed our favorite pastime, wandering around. Feeling that Melaka didn't hold enough interest for two days of exploring we opted to leave for Singapore the next day. In the evening we walked around a great night market and ate some tasty food and then retired to a bar to settle in for an evening of drinking with quite a few buckets of beer ... read more

Tre dager i travle Kuala Lumpur var nok. Lørdag formiddag, 21. juni, gikk turen videre - til Melaka, cirka 150 km sør for KL. Vanskelig å få bussbilletter i helgene (mange malaysiere drar på turer), så vi tok like godt en taxi (kostet cirka 500 norske kroner). Silje og Christine er fortsatt med oss, og koselig er det! Vi oppdaget raskt at Melaka er en sjarmerende by, der kinesere, indere og malaysiere - og deres religioner - lever side om side. En svipptur innom Wikipedia ga oss disse opplysningene om byen: "Melaka ble grunnlagt av kinesere som stasjon for krydderhandelen (særlig med pepper) med Molukkene. Den utviklet seg raskt til en blomstrende handelshavn der blant annet arabere og indere og kinesere samhandlet. Frem til 1400-tallet var byen nærmest en kinesisk handelskoloni. Deretter var byen sete for ... read more

Traveled by local bus 4hours north, stopped off at the best road side stop. We stayed in China Town and found this had the best vibe of all of Melaka. From here we decided to go to Paula Basir which was described as a romantic island, white sands and clear beaches(lonely planet and accommodation).....after another local bus ride we hit the jetty. Rich called ahead to book for 3 nights...lets just say we had a lucky escape... we managed to get the last boat back from the island to find two more people waiting to cross...luckily we warned them..it turned out to be a sacred deeply religious Islamic place (thanks to a guy who had traveled 7 hours from Singapore with his family kindly explained this to us...so they let us go after many questions about ... read more