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Well, it was the long weekend and Rick and I decided to spend our first real exploring time in Asia on a short trip to Melaka in Malaysia. We hired a car, booked a hotel online and off we went on Good Friday, with our trusty one page map of Malaysia, which we (bravely/mistakenly - take your pick) were going to use to navigate our way via the scenic route to Melaka. We were told that 3 hours should see us there from Singapore, depending on the line at the border (which can be a long wait at times) so we generously gave ourselves 4 hours, so we could take our time and relax on the drive.
After a very brief wait at the border we zoomed down the freeway, looking for the correct exit to take us to the more scenic route along the coast. Rick decided that the first exit looked good enough, as we soon learned that all the signs were in Malaysian - did we think of that????? We motored down many roads seeing many Leisure Parks (like our country resorts), and then we realised it was the same Park seen 4 times!!! We only lost an hour doing this, and Mr TomTom got us on our way in the right direction pretty quickly.
A quick pause for your first Malaysian lesson:
Awas - Caution (seen a lot on signs at the side of the road)
Terima Kasih - Thank you (for giving us directions)
Di Mana - where?
Now, back to our saga. We had a great drive, saw monkeys running across the road, lizards (only one met an early death), cows and chickens. The houses are all brightly coloured and built on stilts, for the ever present threat of flooding. We made it to Melaka in 5 hours and then had to find our hotel.....
Needless to say our map of Malaysia wasn't going to cut it, and after an hour of driving around looking at signs and trying to work out where we were, let alone where we were going, I braved the obvious and asked a local for a helping hand - and directions! Within 10 mins we had pulled up outside our hotel and were checking in.
Now let me tell you, we weren't trying to go flash on this weekend, so we booked three star - and now I know this varies from country to country - our room was fairly large, nice comfy bed and a TV, but it was a bit dirty and smelly. The smell - I couldnt get Rick to see how smelly it was - until Saturday, when walking back to the hotel we realised that our hotel was right next door to the local sewage treatment plant!!!! (see photos) After we picked ourselves up and wiped the tears of laughter from our faces, I was banned from picking hotels for awhile.
The town was great - lots of Dutch, Portugese and English history alongside the Malaysian, and a mixture of foods, culture and architecture. One of the churches is the oldest Dutch church in Asia, from the 16th century. There's a famous street called Jonker St which has heaps of cheap souvenirs and junk, and a great st nearby called Heeren St which has antiques and galleries. We walked a lot and explored lots, but we want to go back and do some more. All in all a fantastic town for a weekend away. Our trip back was half the time (3 hours) as we took the freeway all the way back, and even it was a lovely drive through Palm Oil plantations and mountains.
Only 2 more weeks now and Nicky and Rebecca will be over for a visit as well as Jane - we're really looking forward to seeing them all. Rick is staying in Singapore for a couple of weeks because of meetings with managers from Denmark, then he's off to Thailand in April. Love to all at home! xxx
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