Malacca 2011

We decided to catch the bus from the Golden Mile in Singapore to travel 184km to Malacca. To be honest traveling in this part of the world via bus is the most reasonable, the busses are amazing, they are extremely comfortable (about 2x more leg room than on a plane and one 10th the cost – only 24 Singapore Dollars) and you get dropped off in the city center. Arriving in Malacca (Melaka Sentral) all we had was a piece of paper from Hostel World, stating catch bus #17. At this stage Malacca looks anything but like a World Heritage site, but since our spirits were high we found this little bus and went with it. The idea was to stop at the Dutch Square, described as a group of red buildings… what could go wrong? Well nothing, arriving at the Dutch Square what initially seemed to be the end of the world turned out to be an AMAZING treasure. The history of Malacca is unique in the sense that the Portuguese, Dutch and British had all been there, leaving their marks. Extremely well conserved there was a mixture of cultures, traditions, smells, food, ethnic races, and of course buildings which are literally breath taking. We ended up staying in this little hostel on the river where we had everything. There is no walk like walking on the river side to get to a hostel. When we arrived at the hostel, there was a paper stating: Gareth, if you want to check in go and talk to Ben, the next door neighbor… Ben actually owned the local grocery store and was very happy to see us, meeting with a gracious smile. Our trip in Malaysia had begun with a smile. The next few days we enjoyed the Famosa Chicken Rice Balls, the Dimpling soups, the Museums, Temples, the Markets, and all the shopping, clearing invaded by Angry Birds phenomena. The day we left it was raining, but walking to the nearest bus stop was great. We caught a local bus which was not in the greatest shape, but still got us to Melaka Sentral where buying a ticket to KL was and cheap… 13 Ringgit to travel in a first class bus. KL here we come.