Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year 2014

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Geo: 2.21594, 102.253


I was pleased to arrive in Melaka a day early as I thought it was going to be Christmas Eve before I arrived, but the road down was great, it was an enjoyable journey and I loved being back out on the road. I managed to find my accommodation down by the river and it turns out that I'm not far from the main Jonkor Street tourist area which is nice and after check in I decided to take my bike for a service in a bike shop I passed on the way in as I desperately need new brakes plus the gears/chain etc. needs a good clean - first things first!

Discovery Guest House is great and I manage to get lots of information from the staff of places to visit, where to eat and drink, and of things happening over Christmas and New Year. Melaka is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and actually reminds me a lot of Penang with the Colonial houses and unique streets and has many places of interest to visit from the forts, churches, temples, mosques and clock towers to the river, the revolving gyro tower which is a first in Malaysia and offers 360 views over the city, fancy 5*hotels to basic rooms, fancy bars and boutiques to small local places so plenty to see and do... should be fun! One of the first things I notice unique to Melaka is the heavily decorated bicycle rickshaws, filled with flowers, lights and ribbons and equipped with boom boxes which blast out all sorts of sounds, they look pretty heavy to cycle so it's just as well Melaka is flat... I'll need to have a shot while I'm here ha ha!


My first venture out takes me along Jonkor Street and the weekend market, the street is lined with stalls selling everything from antiques to durian puffs and is a hive of activity. The market is on every Fri/Sat/Sun and has some fab food stalls at one end where I head to sample the seafood in the Chinese area, they have everything from mini crab, oysters, scallops and mussels to fresh fish, sushi bars, local noodle, rice stalls, fruit stalls, strange colored drink stalls and much much more... There are tables with tiny stools laid out and almost every seat is taken which is a good sign, and everything is made fresh as you look on, lovely.

The market is full of stalls selling everything from fancy chopsticks, kitchenware, clothes, gadgets, phones, jewelery, souvenirs, cards, hats, sunglasses, toffee, jelly, chips etc. etc. they have street artists with one man putting his hand through a coconut (yep 'through' a coconut!) and people singing or dancing and entertaining you as you wander along. It really is fascinating and needless to say I end up visiting the market many times during my stay in Melaka. Once I got my bike back I had a cycle round and was amazed to find a superb floating mosque right on the Malaka straits... strange no one even tells you about it and is one of the most fantastic mosque I've seen.

Christmas Eve brings me down to Joe's Honky Tonk bar for a proper turkey dinner and I was pleased to meet him and his wife Jill (who have pretty much adopted me), some of their regular customers and another stray like me, Alvin, who has recently started working in Melaka and is nice company. The fabulous turkey dinner was finished off not only with trifle but also Joe's home made mince pies which were delicious, and a visit from Santa no less!!! The evening takes on a proper Christmas feel when Joe and Jill entertain us with Honky Tonk piano and some Christmas singing which was a perfect end and I've made some great new friends into the bargain.

Alvin invited me to join him on Christmas Day for a full buffet type dinner at the Ramada Hotel which was extremely kind of him and we joined two of his work colleagues who were fun company. This turned out to be more an elaborate 'banquet' type affair, I couldn't believe the amount of different foods available, not to mention all the individual deserts... I had to try the fresh salmon, oysters, mussels, and the blue cheese... and that was just to start! This was followed by some turkey, beef and lamb with all the trimmings, brussel sprouts mmm... roasted, mashed and boiled spuds, carrots, green beans, Yorkshire pud, chipolatas and I'm over the moon. After a break the deserts were tackled and I have to admit that I managed two, one being a trifle (well it is Christmas) and the other a fancy concoction served in a cocktail glass, followed by another visit from Santa! OK and now in true Christmas fashion 'I cannae' move', we retire to the bar area and have our first drink of the day (because you couldn't have anything in the dinning area) of a bailey's with ice... perfect! This was an unexpected Christmas treat and I can't thank Alvin enough for his kindness and company which made it truly a Merry Christmas.

I have toured all around Melaka taking in the Jonkor Street area, the Colonial streets and buildings, the Chinese temples, the Mosques, the Dutch Square and surrounding area, it really is a lovely place and I have to admit I like it much more than Penang. Alvin joined me on much of my exploring as he's fairly new to Melaka, many places he hasn't been yet and our first visit was out to the Colonial parts of Melaka, followed by a rickshaw out to the Menara tower which I had to have a try of, and spun the owner round the block with him telling me to 'slow down' ha ha! The tower was fab with an impressive view over the city and out to sea, you can see for miles around, we also went on the river cruise which took us an hour tour of the river with some impressive bridges and painted housing on the way out to the Pirate Adventure Park. We are the only westerners on board, I enjoy this, watching and learning other ways and cultures with all the other ladies wearing headscarves.

Most evening are spent watching the sunset over a beer at Joe's place by the river which is lovely although it normally turns into an all night with Joe and I and company heading round to the Tofu Bar after hours. I meet loads of people at Joe's place, with my best buddies being Alvin who I've toured around with, Jerry an American frisbee freak and quite a character, the handsome Peter from Denmark who strangely has the same eyes as me, Peter Subway the fabulous piano and guitar player who Peter and I have become firm friends with as well as many others. Although I can't remember everyone's name we had fun nights with an older German couple who played the trumpet, another talented honky tonk player also from Germany, a local girl singing who was fab, and other talented individuals, there's always something going on so if in Melaka, go and visit Joe's Honky Tonk Bar and say 'Hi' from me!

We also have fun at the Discovery Cafe and have quite a crowd some nights with Peter and Peter and other friends and we take to celebrating New Year with cigars... that Peter was a bad influence on me and even had me puffing away! There's nights of air guitar going on and funky moves coming out of us which is fun with great company and I thoroughly enjoy it all. Ringo's is another favorite spot which is up on Jonkor Street and one of the nights Peter and I meet many Chinese celebrating New Year which we join in with leading to other groovy moves ha ha. I really enjoy Melaka mainly down to the company and many friends that I've made while here although a lot of the tourist come and go, a few stay around for a bit longer.

I get into a routine of meeting Joe for a beer around lunch time in Discovery and Wendy cracks open a Tiger for me for breakfast (normally we're out late)! Joe takes me to local food malls as well as local restaurants and kindly took a few of us out to see another piano player one night as well as friend's bar... he calls me to see if I've eaten yet and a few times I joined him and Jill at a great restaurant 1693 for fab seafood chowder, the impressive Case del Rio for steamboat as well as popping by the Honky Tonk for one of his impressive New Zealand burgers, he really does look out for me and is such a character... fun days!

Peter and I head off to Capitol Satay one night and I was so impressed with our timing as the queue was just disappearing and we ended up with a seat straight away, apparently you can be sitting outside waiting for an hour to get seated so I couldn't believe out luck. This was a fun experience with neither of us really knowing what to do initially, we just took our cue from nearby tables and after the satay soup was put in place we went to pick our satay sticks which ranged from all sorts of veg we couldn't put a name too, to chicken, lamb, all sorts really and had fun cooking up our grub!

All in all Melaka was so much fun not only did I stay over Christmas, but New Year too and despite a return to KL for a few days I don't think I actually got round to leaving Melaka for around 3 weeks all in!

I've got so many photos, non particularly great but gives you a feel of Melaka and the people I met... fun times. Melaka will apparently quieten down now until the Chinese New Year at the end of January which I have been invited back for but realistically I need to get my butt back in the saddle again... it's been fun 😊

Chinese New Year 'Year of the Horse'!

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Photos

Majid Selat Melaka
On the Melaka Straits

Casa del Rio
I had dinner here one night with Joe and Jill