My mate, W, and I briefly discussed and quickly agreed upon this trip a mere nine days prior to it. I quickly checked the hotels available online and finally (after missing out on a Baba-style accommodation by minutes) managed to book a room in a guesthouse by the river (note: there are LOADS of guesthouses by the river and around Jonker Street area).
We agreed to meet at Ampang Point on Friday afternoon and set off just before 3 pm. Traffic was quite smooth all the way - that was until we entered the crazy narrow one-way streets of the historical city of Melaka. We found ourselves stuck at Jalan Portugis - it didn’t help at all that the street hawkers were already setting up their stalls as early as 5 pm - and finally, mercifully, we got through and crawled our way along Jalan Hang Jebat (Jonker Street) before turning off a side street, entering Jalan Kampung Pantai, driving across the bridge and turning into the car-park at Jalan Laksamana, across St Francis Xavier Church. The guesthouse had told me there were some public parking lots along Lorong Hang Jebat where the guesthouse is but I didn’t want to risk being caught in a crawl again. And besides, it costs RM0.60/hour whereas the public car-park only costs RM2/day. We finally checked in at close to 6 pm and half an hour after the guesthouse called to find out where we were.
We left shortly after and set off to explore Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock and then a bit of Jalan Hang Jebat before turning into Jalan Tukang Emas and Jalan Tukang Besi and back to the night market at Jalan Hang Jebat.
There wasn’t much option in terms of halal dining so we walked to Medan Samudera to find dinner. Alas, the food court was closed, it being Eid and all. We then walked to Mahkota Parade and had dinner at the food court. Even then, not many stalls were operating and those that were, were either closing for the day or running out of food/ingredients.
We then checked out some stores and W ended up shopping. I didn’t spend as much as nothing much caught my fancy. We walked back to the car - got a shock when we saw the car as there was a lot of many bird poop on it - and walked along the river up to past Kampung Air.
I got up for no reason after 5 am on Saturday. Sleep refused to return. Anyway, we wanted to leave early this morning.
We left just before 7 and walked to Dutch Square. There was a small group of tourists there already. Then we walked up to Stadthuys and up to St Paul’s before going down to Fort Santiago. Then we turned back and went to the restaurant at Yellow Mansion Guesthouse. It had only gone past 9 but already very hot, humid and sweltering. We attempted to retrace our steps along the river bank like last night but it was just too hot.
We went back to the Jonker Street area and walked around before returning to the guesthouse shortly after 11 - and not before W had bought a pair of Fipper, some pineapple tarts and a painting.
We checked out just after 12 and went to deposit our things in the car. We then walked to Medan Samudera where more spending was done. Lunch was had at the food court on the first floor. We both had the local speciality - fish asam pedas. I had some edible snails too. I bought my lunch from the same stall as on my last visit but the food didn’t taste as good somehow. In fact I had a tummy upset later that day.
We left Melaka just after 2 pm. I had some kip and vaguely realised the heavy rain along the highway. I was too knackered to struggle to get up so W drove alone. We reached KL after 4.30 pm - there was heavy rain as we entered Klang Valley which petered out only as we approached the city.
That was my fourth trip to Melaka this year (I went to Singers four times last year. Wonder where I’ll be visiting next year?). Sadly I don’t have any travel plans for November as yet. Early December will be busy work-wise so a long trip would not be possible. A usual weekend trip 3D 2N might be doable though I have no destination as yet. Would welcome ideas. (But it’s school hols and I hate travelling during school hols as I hate the school hols crowds).
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Arsenal overcame a difficult week of back-to-back defeats with a late, late win over QPR. There were still murmurs of discontent because it was only QPR who are rooted at the foot of the table (FFS. They did draw with Chelshit earlier. And their goalie is pretty good. Really, there’s no pleasing everyone). Really, there’s simply no pleasing people. The ref had a bad day, not awarding us calls when we were fouled. He did get the red card call correct. And anything that makes Sparky unhappy makes me very happy indeed. What’s not to enjoy? We won, three points and climbed up the table. Sheesh.
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