ANDY AND ANA MELACCA, MALAYSIA. 5 JUNE 2014

Melacca

We arrived at KL main bus station hoping to catch the next available bus to melacca to complete our cross country travel that day.  Luckily the bus terminal at KL is like an airport and was easy peasy, next bus 3.30pm and we bought our tickets for only 10 ringgit each (£2)!

On board the cleanest bus either of us have ever been on and we took just over 2hrs to reach malacca. Once at the main bus station we then hopped onto a local bus into the centre of town.

Our bus dropped us off here, welcome to Melacca (or Melaka)

The picture that makes all the guidebooks - Christ Church Melaka in Dutch Sq

We arrived in Dutch Square and walked to our guesthouse for the next few days. The place was a great find and we had a double room with shared bathrooms. The lad who checked us in was a little odd, he tried just a bit too hard and then went completely the other way. Anywho we were glad to have made it all the way from the rainforest to the coast in one day. That evening we checked out the river front and grabbed some local eats at a very ex-pat looking place.

Andy rewarding himself after a long days travelling

Me rewarding myself too!

See the resemblance?

The bright light in the distance is a bicycle rickshaw but it's been pimped Tim Westwood style - boom!

And theres more where these came from...

Melacca was colonised by the Portuguese, Dutch and British throughout it's history and all the influences are still around today. Melacca is also famous for its Peranakan culture (Nonya and Baba - women and men), the coming together of Chinese and Malays. Making for an exciting place to visit and eat!

We wanted to get acquainted with town so set out for a look around the immediate area. We knew we'd be doing a local walking tour the next day so didn't want to cover too much ground.

Another monitor lizard hanging around town

Laksa and rendang for breakfast, tasty but maybe a little too early for such a big meal

We popped into this church which is actually subsiding and got chatting to one of the volunteers who invited us to mass...

Dutch or red square open for business, I heart Melacca t-shirt anyone?

Melacca selfie

That evening was the start of the walking street market down the infamous Jonker Street. Jonker St is the main tourist drag in melacca and has tonnes of restaurants, shops and coffee houses. The market was heaving!! Friday night and it felt like everyone in the world had descended on Jonker Street. We walked our way through the hundreds of stalls which at times felt like a gauntlet! In the evening Chinese temples were turned into Karaoke houses and shops turned into dance halls and to top it off they have a massive stage at the end of the market where anyone and everyone can get on stage and sing! They even have their own pink-dress-carrier-bag-man a la Southsea Bandstand!

Hello from Jonker Street market

Chinese temple by day, karaoke hall by night.  This guy hogged the microphone big time.

Dance troup doing their thing, was great to watch and we were even invited to join in!

The main stage, the guy to the left is Melaccas version of pink-dress-carrier-bag man in Southsea.  He was there all night each time we went and was dancing his night away.  Oh and Malaysia loves a bit of Mister Potato - as does Roony 

New favourite snack - pineapple tarts... We didn't buy this one but reckon we ate the equivalent weight in pineapple tarts whilst in town

Don't be fooled, some of these are savoury... Everyone else but us knew that.

'Carrot cake' Malaysian style.  It's also called raddish cake too regardless of what it's called we love it and have eaten alot for dinner since :)

The market would be on for the next few nights so we would pop by again.

Up early the next day and we grabbed breakfast before joining in the local tour provided by the tourist info centre. About 20-25 of us met at the town centre and went on a 2hr tour with a very energetic and camp guide. He took us around the main sites and have a great overview to the history of Malaysia and Melacca. At the end of the tour we got chatting to an American guy called Jonathon who we joined for a post tour drink (along with a Canadian guy). Jonathon is travelling around Asia and off to China in a few weeks, was a lawyer in the US before coming away and an interesting guy to chat to.

Our tour guide and group

Hindu temple, just down the rd from the Mosque and Chinese temple. Malaysia seems to be a pretty peaceful place for everyone

Mosque

Inside the Mosque, very peaceful and ornate surroundings

This shop sells paper items which you can buy and burn as offerings for the dead. I watched a Gok Wan programme with this in a few years ago so knew all about it already, thanks Gok ;p

So you can buy a paper version of ANYTHING, exhibit A - sexy undies to burn. 

Chinese temple

Unsure why I'm smiling as whilst I was listening to the guy it was mostly a grimace. This shoe would've actually been worn by a Chinese woman in the early 1900's, quite sad to learn more about feet binding but also very interesting

Post walk cendol (iced dessert made with crushed ice, jelly and fruits)

We'd treated ourselves to a laundry wash as we were running low on clothes that were not covered in jungle and mud! So picked those up and headed back for respite. We'd decided to head for a swim to make the most of the outdoor pool whilst in town. Upon arrival it transpired that Andy wasn't allowed to swim in his board shorts and for 'hygiene' reasons had to borrow some speedos in order to swim... So I went for a swim whilst Andy headed off fully clothed ;)

Swimming in a public pool was chaos! 50m pool, swimming lessons at either end and people trying to swim 50m up-and-down with others swimming the 20m across the pool! Arrggghhh! I didn't know who was coming at me and when, so went for a 30minute swim as best as I could and hopped out.

Back to the night market for dinner and to try a few new things we'd spotted the previous evening. We then stopped along the riverside for a few drinks before heading back to the ranch.

Spicy, spiral sliced, spud, snack aka potato on a stick

Enjoying a drink on the river...

with him

Amy, the cards were a great purchase

The following day we took ourselves to the Portuguese settlement part of town. This involved quite a long walk on a Sunday to find that pretty much everything is closed, bar peoples houses. So we sat on the side of the Straits of Melacca for a bit and then headed back to town. We stopped by the malls that dominated a large portion of the town and enjoyed a little bit of aircon, newspaper and some puzzles (yes I'm edging towards my 30's, can't you tell!).

Look whos waiting to greet you :)

Pretty much all that we saw at the Portuguese settlement, behind me are the straits of Melacca

After a long days walk we treated ourselves to a 50p massage... I'm a little unsure but...

Andys all over it :)

Back to the night market again, bit quieter this evening but still pretty manic along Jonker street. We headed back along the river to a different bar for cards and a few drinks before saying our farewells to Malacca.

The next day we packed and made our way to the central bus station to catch our bus to KL. All easy peasy and we were in KL within 2hrs 30mins.