Blogs from Melaka, Malaysia, Asia - page 29

Our bus to Melaka left at 10am on 22nd July. It was only half-full, and we hadn't even needed to book. There was also a rule about not eating or drinking on the bus that luckily everybody seemed to ignore (it was a four and a half hour journey!) We had to go through a checkpoint on exiting Singapore, and another to enter Malaysia. The former was simple, but the latter involved the bus driver getting irate at me and Aaron because we took longer than everybody else because we hadn't been given the card that we were meant to fill in on the bus (despite having asked for one earlier). He decided we were having 'passport problems' though, obviously our own fault and nothing to do with him. We got through eventually, and carried on ... read more

Hello everyone. I'm in Melaka, Malaysia. I checked out some of the museums here and am enjoying the weekend festival they are having here. I'm going to spend a few days here before heading back to KL for the start of my journey back to Boise. Melaka is a small port city in the south. There are quite a bit of tourists from Singapore here. I guess people from Singapore get the month of June off or something. The festival is packed with street vendors and tons of people. It's a great place to get a meal for 3RM (1USD). We're staying at a place called the Sama-Sama Guesthouse, which is great. It is clean and has a cool atrium in the center of the building. There are hammocks!!! It's a nice relaxing place to sit ... read more

We had a brief moment of panic thinking we were going to miss the bus to Melaka as we left 20 minutes before our bus was due to depart. The taxi driver kept saying "oh, bus leaves at 10:30. Oh quick, quick - no time". Yes thank you we do realise that but quick might be a word but as an action it didn't really seem to be happening. Made it with about 4 minutes to spare. We arrived in Melaka and as the Lonely Planet predicted got accosted by a tout for Travellers Lodge, we had planned to stay there anyway so it wasn't too bad. It was a nice place, clean, tidy and had lots of nice amenities like a kitchen and fridge for storing food. After lunch we had to annoyingly go ... read more

We have now spent two days in Melaka. It is a beautiful place, a far cry from the hustle and bustle of singapore. We are staying in a lovely hostel with an inner courtyard smothered in tall and hanging plants, and fish ponds adding to the serenity. It's ace. Yesterday we ate at a buddhist vegetarian place where the food is free (although there is a donation box). There were a lot of people who seemed to really rely on the place and it humbled us to be there, with everyone there being so nice and some individuals taking the time to chat with us and others who showed us exactly what to o (it was confusing without this persons guidance! You went in, helped yourself to a plate, cutlery, rice, many many exotic dishes and ... read more

Having left the tackiness of Sentosa Island behind me I jumped onto a rather luxurious bus to Melaka, just a few hours across the border from Singapore. Arrived at the central bus station and was welcomed by a huge Tesco's. Hurrah! I didn't venture into it though as there are a lot more interesting things to see in this historical Malaysian city. Here comes the oh-so-important, but brief (I promise!), history bit! Melaka was the centre of the Malay world throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries until it was overtaken by the Portuguese, and other subsequent countries, Britain included. It is this presence of different nationalities taking power in Melaka that make it so interesting. Most of the tourist spots are located very close together around St Paul's hill where you have the ruins of ... read more