Advertisement
After our wild adventures in Borneo we flew to Johor Bahru on the mainland. We only transited through this city so we didn't get to see much. It is a crowded but clean city and bus stations are full of touts. We have finally got some experience in handling touts at the bus station. We took our time walking down all ticket counters which are all packed together where the counters are literally a small hole in the wall. Took us a few minutes to find the suitable departure time to Melaka and of course touts always try to charge us double but they didn't get us this time.
When we arrived in Melaka we were greeted by friendly and non pushy people handing out fliers for hotels. One owner of a new hotel handed us a flier and the place did not seem bad so we went with our usual routine and planned to take the bus into town to check out the place; if it was not something we wanted then we head to another hotel around the area. This time the owner was driving a Shanghai reporter to see his place and while he was walking to
Mallacca/Melaka
camels in Mallacca his car the owner spotted us at MacDonald's. (yeah yeah, I (mazi) ate at MacDonald's, surprisingly it was our first in a few months to step foot in the Golden Arches!, but it was good and something different.) The owner offered us a ride to his place to see it for 5RM and commented that "there is no pressure to stay," we've heard that a few times now. 😊 He actually took us on a really nice short tour around town and showed us the good local restaurants behind his place. It was nice and we were looking for a decent bed to have a comfortable sleep so we stayed.
The first night there, we went to a local chinese restaurant. The food was great at this place but the service was so bad we were going to walk out at first. The menu was printed in chinese on the wall without prices. The waitress refused to come over to take our order so we went with what other customers were having, the table of guests beside us kindly ordered for us. When we wanted to order drinks the waitress ignored us so I went up to her and
tried to speak chinese to order drinks and made sure the meal was not too outrageously priced. We were avoided the whole time, our fish and vegie came an hour later. When we were about to pay I commented on the yummy dishes and she slipped a smile. Damn we were annoyed, if she wanted me to speak Chinese would have been fine but she avoided our table and not even give us a chance to speak. The next night we saved our belly space for Pak Putra, a restaurant famous for Indian. We ordered Tandoori Chicken and garlic naan. The food was so fresh and good we would have loved to go back again if we had another night in Melaka. Melaka is also famous for chicken rice balls with a side order of sliced chicken. The place we went to was not something to rave about but it was different. The chicken flavored rice was rolled into balls and served with steamed chicken with a drizzle of sesame oil on top, pretty tasty. This town was just full of good food!
Melaka seems to have two different spelling. We have seen it commonly spelt Malacca on T-shirts
Mallacca/Melaka
ready for a boat cruise and brochures so we are not sure which one to use. We will stick with Melaka for now! 😊 The ancient buildings in Melaka brings character and history. We went on a short boat ride up and down the river to enjoy the night lights glowing from the old buildings and the Ferris wheel. During our stay, there was an advertisement about a 'hop on and hop off' bus which sounded really appealing so we waited at the bus stop. There was supposed to be a blue line and a red line which is a double decker bus. We waited for 1 1/2 hours and saw four to five number 17 buses go by. It was nothing like the buses the brochure described but we thought we ask the bus driver on the number 17 bus if it was the 'hop on and hop off' bus, he replied "no" - and pointed behind him indicating it was coming. After a few more number 17 buses drives by we thought we ask another driver, we got the same reply. Well after the long wait we had enough and hopped on the number 17 bus and later realized ourselves that it was
the blue line. If the brochure was clear and stated number 17 as the blue line we would not have waited there for so long. The idea was nice to pay once and hop on and off to all the attractions but it just did not work out for us that day. We enjoyed Melaka for the food and enjoyed the characteristics of the town.
We headed off to KL from Melaka hoping to figure out visas for our other destinations. Al and Maureen kindly let us stay at their wonderful and comfortable place. We did not do too much in KL but researched our next destinations and buying flights for our next place. We got some RNR time and home cooked meals as well as enjoying our time at the Craft Centre painting more silk batik. After the craft complex it was hard not to go to the towers and get a quick snap shot at night. From KL we bought our ticket to Phuket and headed on to Thailand's island time!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.143s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 11; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0565s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Alanna
non-member comment
Mallaca or Melaka
Hi, I would like to correct u that it's Malacca. Haha I am not that sure, but I believe Melaka is a Malay way to adress that state while Malacca (English)