Straight to Melaka/Malacca

Another day almost entirely on transport, but this was much more enjoyable on a coach with some pleasant conversation with a stranger, very nice scenery and comfortable seating. The romance of bus travel, in fact.

On the Buses
Having got picked up, we snaked our way through Penang's main island to make our way to Butterworth and that in itself took one hour. After that, we were on the road with a single stop for a "comfort break". The gentleman sitting next to me on the coach (although he was almost lying with the level of recline, and not that close as the seats were pretty wide) did actually strike up conversation with me. He was travelling with his family (young son and wife were seated in front) on his way to Melaka having visited his daughter and we chatted about stuff I can barely remember. He did tell me that the hotel I was going to stay in was rubbish though and recommended a friend's hotel... Again, I was dubious.

The other thing I remember was that when he asked where I was from, he was taken aback when I responded with "London". He said

"but you don't have brown hair."

Which is the first time I have a had a hair based response to my answer. He didn't even ask where I was really from, just why I didn't have brown hair.

Once I got to Melaka bus station, I needed to get a cab to get to the town proper after a recent move to take the bus station outside of the city (this is a silly concept and is a real problem with public transport provision in certain countries - see the "parkway" concept for train stations in the UK) which was fairly harmless.

Once I reached the hotel, I was informed by the hotel manager that my travelling companion (TC) had arrived and was waiting somewhere nearby with a friend of hers (rz3¹) so I joined them. They were very close after all. As was everything else. We were having a drink by the river and then, after that, I said I would like to see around - maybe go into the centre. This was met with the answer that we were in the centre right now.

Melaka was pretty small and the next morning, I went and had a quick look around before breakfast (with TC and rz3) and then we went to Little India. It was little. I let TC and rz3 do what they wanted there and I went back to have a look around. This was a common theme and so when we met again for lunch, we split up again after going to some kind of Portuguese village (which, even the taxi driver said was not worth it). At this point it felt that Melaka was not really the place for me so I decided that I would go to KL a day earlier and so organised that but there was still some time to go to the pedestrianised zone (in torrential rain) for some food and chat.

After that, we all returned and went to karaoke - that is a good way of enjoying yourself wherever you are! The song selection was a little ropey but fun nonetheless.

To be fair to Melaka, I had a good time while I was there (thanks to TC and rz3) but it is not the kind of place I would normally want to spend multiple days - I think it would be ideal for a day trip (although the hotel was also very nice).

I was off to Kuala Lumpur the next morning, but karaoke can always keep you awake.

Melaka 2013 - click for photo album

^{1. rz3 is "rendezvous 3" and continues my numbering from Singapore.↩}