Blogs from Melaka, Malaysia, Asia - page 23

After 2 days of hectic Eid celebrations (13 hours of feasting on the 1st day!) we finally loaded up the car, escaped Kampung KL and drove the 1.5 hours down to my birthplace - the historic and newly-anointed World Heritage City of Melaka. It's been years and years since either of us has visited Melaka and sans Sprog we were on our usual Mission To Eat! We checked into the lovely and recently-restored Majestic Hotel on Jalan Bunga Raya Pantai - just across the road from the Melaka River with colourful picturesque Malay kampung houses lining the banks on the far side. The Majestic is all creams and cool greens, original tiled floors with polished wooden stairs, shuttered windows and exceedingly polite service. I love how there are jars of traditional sweets and cookies (my fav ... read more

I think the stifling heat and humidity of Kuala Lumpur have finally caught up with me, since I have been feeling really drained. Since the rain has been coming down in heavy bursts all afternoon, it seems like a good time to lay low. Craig and I are on vacation for the Idul Fitri (end of Ramadan) holiday. Roughly a week ago, we flew from Semarang to Singapore. The flight was a breezy two hours, but given the differences between the two cities, they seem to be on different planets. The majority of our coworkers have never once set foot in Singapore. A trip to the small, yet ritzy island is difficult to save for on most Indonesian teacher's salaries. I have to admit, it was great to spend a few days basking the luxury of ... read more

hi everybody. we're in the melaka at the moment, a really pretty town with probably the best food we've had so far, a mix of malaysian, chinese, indian and indonesian cuisine. we left kuala lumpur on thursday after watching most of the ireland match on wednesday night. the match started at 1 in the morning but the pub closed up at 2.45 with about 5 mins left. we were quite upset and no matter how much pleading we did the people working there wanted to go home, oh well at least we didn't miss any goals. melaka is a really cool place, very laid back atmosphere with friendly people. on our first night here we met an english guy called michael from york out drinking with his malaysian friend sam. the next day was sam's birthday ... read more

Yeah... no go on the original plan. No buses going to the east coast until monday at all, nothing all full. So yesterday I had to turn around and go back to the bus station that is near the hostel and decide what to do. Which was reverse the direction of travel and go to Malacca/Melaka on the southern, western coast. Melaka and Georgetown together make up one World Heritage Site, which is very unusual since they are in two different places. I wonder if there are any more WHS like that. I still had to wait 3 hours to get on the bus because these buses were also very full, i feel lucky I got a seat at all. Its quite a hectic place that bus station, with a bunch of people running around with ... read more

Day 43: Port Dickson to Melaka Thanks to our windowless room we pressed snooze on our alarm for an hour and a half, until 9:15. We'd noticed that we'd been needing more and more sleep. Stopping by an internet café, we discovered that we’d already received approval of our Australian work-holiday visas! (The visa is called that because the Australian government hopes that travellers will come work, and then holiday in Australia, thus spending the money they have made in the country, before departing.) The response and acceptance came within ten hours! I guess Australia really is desperate for workers, particularly English speaking ones. And we were prepared to wait weeks! We were going to Australia and we were very, very excited! All of a sudden! What a change in plans! A whole new adventure! Perhaps ... read more