My reason for staying another night in KL was in order to visit Malacca which is around a two and a half hour journey down country but I’m assured is a well worth visit as very interesting and very colonial.
To be able to make the most of the time we would have in Malacca Mick thought it best to leave on the 9am bus. In addition Pete wanted to do a video chat with Mick and I, him and the girls sometime while I was in KL and this morning seemed to be the best time, in addition, because I hadn’t planned very well in advance the hostel where I was staying had no beds available for the last night so I would have to move somewhere else, in addition, I had a really bad night for some reason and ended up with just four hours sleep.
So we had arranged a video chat over Skype with Pete at 7.30am, the time difference between him and us is 16 hours and as far as Skype were concerned this was almost on their limit, I mean, of course it’s not but as far as ease and quality were concerned this time, you would have thought so. We had the usual ‘can you hear me are you there’ conversations, of which Kate soon got bored of and went off to play. Natalie hung around better but I think more because she was on daddy knee rather than wanting to chat! We even tried to go with goggle chat at one point but neither of us had downloaded it so we attempted a hurried version before returning to Skype. After several attempts we finally managed to have a chat with Pete and Natalie and Kate came back at the end to say bye! It was great to see them and chat and fun being in another country with Mick and chat to them.
We had a good 15 min chat before we had to sign off and I had to hurriedly move my stuff to the hostel office for safe keeping until after we got back from Malacca and make a bit of a dash to the bus station.
We were in plenty of time but once at the bus station it turned out our bus wasn’t able to get into the station and was parked somewhere else, the only problem here was finding the ‘somewhere else’. After waiting in the wrong place for 10 mins we saw our bus and hopped on board, it was a double decker coach which was a treat and which also afforded us a pretty much unrestricted view along the journey of all the palm-oil plantations on both sides of the road, in some places for as far as the eye could see.
Mick enjoying the views on the journey down (don't think hes gonna thank me for this one!)
Malacca was once under Dutch control as well as English (although not at the same time!) and is a world UNESCO site, it has some great architecture and a lovely little fort and church on the top of a hill. It’s great coming somewhere like this with Mick cause he knows all the history behind it all and knows his way around almost blindfolded.
The church at the top of the hill and a Chinese temple
After visiting the fort we headed for a bit to eat and a coffee at which point I remembered I had no accommodation booked for that night and no flight booked for the next day, but hey that was ok cause just yesterday I boug
ht a local SIM card just for this reason, first I managed to book the room without too much trouble, next though came the flight. When I called Air Asia back their flight had increased by RM235 which made the flight £40 more than it was the night before!!! This is apparently due to less than 24 hours before departure! You would think working in the travel industry I would have this kinda info all wrapped up by now......mmmm it appears not, how totally annoying! Oh well, all was not lost cause I still had Malaysian Aiways number. Or at least I thought I did, it seems the number they list on their website isn’t actually valid, well that would have been too easy I guess.
So the options were like this, I could book for a flight with Air Asia for the Wednesday and pay the lower price or I could try and get to an internet cafe and book with Malaysian Airways for slightly more than I was hoping. In the end I opted for the latter and after wandering around trying to find perhaps the only internet cafe in Malacca I booked a flight for 2pm the next afternoon. I think Mick thought I was mad, to be fair at times I think I’m mad but hey in the end I’ve got a flight to Borneo and a bed for the night. With all that sorted out we headed into the town of Malacca and the Chinatown area which was very colourful still from Chinese New Year and very interesting with some great little shops dotted around. To finish off our visit we headed off to a little river side cafe for a coffee and a coke before heading back to the bus station.
It’s been a long day but an interesting one and we now had a two hour journey to get back to pick up my gear and head to the new hostel. The bus from the bus station to the centre of Melaka took 25 mins in the morning, in the afternoon it took almost an hour so we had to dash through the station to buy some tickets after standing in a long queue and jump on the bus, we weren’t the only ones in this position but I doubt the bus would have waited if the queue had been much longer.
The journey back was through a pretty heavy thunder storm and took just over two hours. We then needed to get a bit to eat and get my gear. By the time we got to the new hostel it was 10.30 pm, we had been on the go since around 7am and we were both shattered. I was hoping for a good nights sleep, instead my room was a dorm right at the front of the property facing onto probably the busiest street in the city which never sleeps nor do the lights ever seem to go out.
I’m hoping Borneo is going to be a little more quieter, I don’t mind rainforest and wildlife sounds but all night parties I think I can give a miss for a while.
A trishaw decorated with flowers (they're all over the square here although Mick didn't fancy a ride!) and the fort in Melacca
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