MELAKA (MALACCA) - The Final Part

continuation from Part III

Satisfied that we'd had our fill of the capital, it was time to continue south to Melaka or Malacca. Our sailing date was nearing - March 9th beckoned and we'd still got Singapore to get to. A lot of the buses continue straight through to Singapore and it felt so good to see the city listed on street signs - our last point in Singapore was within a day's travel - we'd almost made it.

Melaka sits on the south-west coast of Malaysia, a city with a turbulent history of Portugese, Dutch, British, Japanese, British (again) and finally Malaysian influence, going back over 600 years. Like it's northern neighbour of Penang, it was well located for nations vying for strategic and commercial influence over the region - hence it's frequent changing of hands. The dominating landmark of the Melaka Fort up on the hill overlooking the town is well worth a visit - fortunately saved from destruction by the British (it posed a formidable fort) when Sir Stamford Raffles stepped in and managed to save at least the entrance. Inside the fort were several gravestones going back to the 1600s, including one with a skull and crossbones, making the mind race imagining tales of piracy on the Melaka Straits. Some were for families with English names and we wondered about what kind of a life they must have travelling from Britain, with nothing to prepare them for the heat and the alien life of the tropics.

In the town square is the old Dutch Christ Church - bright red and dating back to 1753 it still welcomes worshippers today. It sits in the town square, opposite the Dutch Stadhuys Building - the former residence of the Dutch Governor in the 17th Century. This building houses an excellent town museum where a guide took us around, giving us an insight into life in Malaysia and particularly Melaka - and how the different cultures have intermingled and thrived.

Whilst walking around, it's impossible to avoid the cycle rickshaw drivers, plying their trade and hoping to transport you anywhere you want. Normally it's good fun to do at least one ride somewhere, but these offered something special. I'd never seen such pimped rickshaws as I did here. They were covered in garish tinsel - pinks, yellows and greens, with flashing lights and car radios providing the entertainment. There was no way we could miss a ride in one of these so we jumped in and were whisked along in a surreal journey through the streets of Melaka, to the strains of Guns and Roses "Sweet Child Of Mine". What naturally follows is the "up-sell", so we booked the chatty driver for a tour of the town the following day. He turned out to be a great guide and took us to a traditional Melaka house and out to sample the health-giving waters of a nearby spring, but perhaps best of all was the ride in his rickshaw, slicing through the traffic like only rickshaw-drivers know how.It was then back to the hostel to make a halal-based sandwich and to plan our onward journey.

The following day it was time to leave and head south again for our last stop in Asia - Singapore awaited. It felt funny getting on that bus - it marked a significant journey in a melodramatic way. Asia had been so much fun and our last country was coming up, before Australia, but we knew further adventures lay around the corner and as we pulled into Singapore, the heavens opened and we hit a tropical rainstorm. Lightening flashed around the skyscrapers as we crossed the bridge into the city, jumping into a cab and on our way to see Cherry, a friend from home. The cab took us past the port and we craned our necks, looking at the gantries that we'd next see from our cabin window in a few days' time. We arrived at a very plush condo to be met by Cherry's smiling face waiting for us - a lovely welcome after another long day. We stayed with Cherry for 5 days, enjoying the hospitality and lifestyle that this city has to offer. Whilst Cherry worked,the next day we headed out to see the famous Singapore landmark of Merlion Park - a curious statue of half-lion, half-fish that has become the symbol of Singapore. I had long planned a couple of Singapore Slings to mark the end of the Asian leg and it wasn't long before we all made our way over to the Long Bar at the Raffles Hotel to sample the traditional monkey nuts (you are obliged to throw the shells on the floor like a bizarre ritual), washed down by a Singapore Sling. (It was so good, we visited twice!). Cherry made us feel very welcome at her home in Singapore and took us up the Asia Tower with the highest nightclub and bar in town for an amazing night-time view, whilst working our way through the various cocktails on offer! We hit the town a few times in Singapore, anxious to leave Asia with a bang but it was as our stay was coming to an end - ready to finish it off with a visit to the Ministry of Sound, that the shipping agent told us that the boat was due to leave for Brisbane a day early.

We were packed and ready to go - Cherry managed to get back from work in time to wave us off as our cab arrived and whisked us away to the huge port. We were taken through the gates and after having our pictures taken and documents checked, we were driven to the side of the biggest ship I've ever seen. It towered above us as we unloaded our bags from the car and as the cab disappeared into the maze of gantries, we made our way up the stairs to our transportation to Australia, completing my long-held dream of getting to Australia without flying.

I hope you've enjoyed this blog - it's rather longer than normal! Anyway, the next one will cover

Australia - from the Great Barrier Reef to the desert town of Birdsville. Bye for now.

Texts and photos in this posting are copyright of Andy Horsman - Andrew Horsman. Click this link for more adventures of Andy Horsman.

Malaysian Travels By Andy Horsman

Looking through the Travel Blog to look for content for my MyBeautiful Malaysia Blog, I found this very interesting Travel Journals by Andy Horsman on his journey in Peninsular Malaysia. His journal covers Kota Bharu, Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Cameron Highlands and Melaka (Malacca). Once I found this very interesting article, immediately I emailed Andrew to ask his permission to republish his travel journal and he replied "Thanks for your email requesting permission to republish my blog. That's fine - but please credit my writing and photographs (if you use them) in your blog. I'd also be interested to see your blog as I love Malaysia - so let me know when it's done, please". So, Happy Reading and for Andrew, thank you very very much.

Malaysian Travels By Andy Horsman - Andrew Horsman

Well this is it - almost a year on, I'm finally writing a blog from Blighty! It's been an amazing trip but to be honest, my feet haven't really touched the ground since arriving back home. I've spent the time since, visiting friends and relatives (still more to go!) and have just got back from a cool camping trip in Dorset with friends from Hampshire. So it doesn't really feel like I've returned to any sort of normality yet - we've even fitted in a weekend trip to Ireland visiting Danielle's family, and we're soon to return in a couple of days! So in the time since my last entry, way back when we arrived into Australia by boat, we've helicoptered and dived the Great Barrier Reef, been to a footie game in Sydney, travelled the Aussie Outback for a month in my little tent with some great Aussie friends and arrived back home via a few days in Auckland.

In my last blog, I skipped the Malaysia and Singapore entry to get the Singapore to Brisbane boat covered, so it's back to Malaysia, one of the most diverse and interesting countries on the trip, where I'll start now.

Danielle and I had walked across the border from Thailand and after having been fined $6 each for overstaying our Thai visas, we found a group of blokes hanging around in the darkness, all of them ready to drive us to the nearest town of Kota Bharu. We jumped in a cab and off we went, into the night and the bright lights of Malaysia. After settling into the journey, my gaze settled on the front passenger seat where I spied some large, oblong shapes that scuttled off when we hit a pot hole.

They soon returned and I realised we were sharing the car with some huge cockroaches. Now then, should I have told Danielle about our fellow passengers, or not? Well, I decided not to, and I reckoned it was safer to pretend I hadn't seen them (ever the brave sort!). After all, we were now stuck in this dingy car for another hour and there wasn't a lot we could do about the long-term residents. Instead, I jiggled my legs up and down to scare them away from the back of the car. The thought of them running up my bare legs and beyond didn't appeal, but it wasn't long before Danielle said she thought something kept tickling her legs. Nonchalantly, I replied that everyone knows it's best to keep moving to wave away the mossies and that's what I was doing... .

The next day we wandered into town, having checked into Zeck's Traveller's Inn not far from the centre to have a think about our plan to head to the Perhentian Islands. These are reckoned to be amongst the most scenic in south-east Asia as they are apparently largely unspoilt. I say "apparently" because we never got to see them - it was only the start of the season for the islands and they had been deluged the day before by a tropical downpour and our feeling of "let's give it a miss" reached critical mass when we reconciled with the fact that we'd spent the last month or so on beaches and had had our fill of sand. Ahh, the hard-life, eh?!

Kota Bharu proved to be a great introduction into Malaysian life. In southern Thailand we'd seen more Islamic-dressed women but here it was the norm rather than the exception and there seemed to be a different air on the streets.It felt far more relaxed than anything we'd felt in a long time - it wasn't something tangible, but rather an air of friendliness, with people smiling as we passed and giggles and little calls of "hello" from school kids. As we negotiated our way through the streets, 2 college girls with clipboards came up to us and asked if they could chat. We found somewhere quiet to sit and they told us about life in Kota Bharu - they were doing a project on foreign visitors to the city and were keen to know what we thought of it, especially as it was Visit Malaysia Year. Whilst we chatted, we told them about our trip through Asia and after swapping email address we headed back into the melee.

We spent two or three days here before heading west to Penang. It being Chinese New Year, nearly every bus was full and it wasn't until a stranger was recruited by a bus worker to take us to an alternative bus station that we eventually found a couple of spare tickets leaving the next day. Amiable Zeck from the guest house drove us to the station where we had a spicy meat and egg brekkie before departing on the 8 hour bus trip across country. The bus took us over the central mountains and eventually to the western coast where we crossed the bridge at Butterworth and into Georgetown, the main town on the island of Penang.

I had visited Penang 15 years ago on my first big backpacking trip so it was good to get back to a place that I really enjoyed the first time - and I was pleased to see that it hadn't changed toodrastically. The same, quaint old streets are still there, with Chinese clan houses and shopssquashed together in a hotch-potch jumble that adds to the welcoming feel to the town. There are a fair few western tourists here and some definite long-termers who you seem to bump into in every easy-going Asian town, as cycle-rickshaws took around older couples as well as groups of backpackers along the twisting streets.

We visited the old Chinese clan house of Khoo Kongsi, still a home to members of the same Chinese family for the past couple of hundred years or so. Whilst a major tourist destination in Georgetown, it's still possible to avoid the odd group by hanging around long enough to take in the ornate gold decoration and smell the incense swirling around the lanterns, then watch Buddhist visitors paying their respects. One room has a number of plaques detailing past clan members - a memorial to the past and a link for current members to their forefathers.

After a day exploring, it was time to do our second favourite activity - eating. Penang spoils for choice with a mixture of Malay/Indian/Chinese/Baba-Nonya food and the covered food court just off the main drag means you can graze at your leisure. When we were there, the sound of clinking cutlery and food being ordered was drowned out by deafening fire crackers, lit in long strings and signalling the entrance of the dancing, gyrating pair of Chinese dragons. Chinese New Year was here and signs proclaiming Gong Xi Fa Cai were everywhere, from shop windows to stickers in cycle rickshaws. Everything that could be was coloured red - a lucky colour in Chinese tradition. Even the abundance of cultures in Malaysia did little to dampen the Chinese spirit - signs were up in traditional Malay and Indian shops and homes. The government took the opportunity of congratulating its nation of encompassing so many cultures as one nation, with posters on billboards and messages in newspapers.

Whilst dragons danced and people cheered, we soldiered on and tucked into various servings of nasi lemak and barbecued fish. The stalls served pretty much any food you could imagine and as we wandered with our plates, a couple of locals waved us over to join them at their table where we chatted into the evening about the New Year celebrations.

The next day we caught a bus over to see the Kek Lok Si Temple, a tall pagoda that dominates the surrounding skyline a little way out of Georgetown. The bus dropped us off a short way away and we followed the crowds of mainly locals to the entrance. The pagoda is situated on the top of a hill and as you start to climb, you’re enveloped by a plethora of hawker stalls selling everything from mantelpiece models of the Petronas Towers, Visit Malaysia t-shirts and fake English football jerseys (which Danielle joyfully took advantage of!) and little wooden Buddhas. Voices beckon you in offering big discounts and prices seem to drop as you step past, whilst their neighbours take over as you make your way, slowly but steadily up the steps and out of the claustrophobic clamouring. The path opens up to a pool filled to the brim with turtles and fish in some rather murky looking water. As a sideline, more hawkers sell what looks like cabbage to feed to the turtles and fish, and the hungry residents clamber over each other in a slow motion feeding frenzy, munching on the green leaves until they slide over the slippery shells and disappear into the depths.

Beggars line the path up to the entrance, some with families of young children, some alone - old women and men sitting with plastic cups of change, until you finally appear at the top. A large group of people is waiting at the top and as we made our way through it, we notice a man painting names and messages onto yellow, clay tiles. For a small donation, you can give them your name and they’ll paint it onto the tile, ready to be placed on the roof of the temple. I visited here about 15 years ago and did the same - but strangely couldn’t find any tiles in situ this time! Needless to say, it didn’t stop us getting our names immortalised.

As we wandered amongst the temples, Chinese lanterns swung in the breeze - coloured yellow, orange and bright red. Thousands of Buddhas line the paths adorned with reverse swastikas, their peaceful gaze looking out over the faithful as they make their way to pray, mingling with us

camera-toting tourists. Something undeniably relaxing about Buddhism makes it presence felt yet again - despite the large numbers of people watching or simply standing, where there should be noise, people would pray and appear oblivious to what was around them.

After sitting for a while and taking in the view of the city from the pagoda, we slipped past the hawkers and out to jump on another local bus to take us back into Georgetown. Near our guesthouse on Love Lane (it became clear how this road got it's name, whilst walking through it at night) was the Penang National Museum which gave a useful insight into the history of the island - from the first settlers to the rule of the British and onto the decline of the influence of the island on international commerce. It also explained the different ethnic groups that make up Penang - the Malay, Chinese, Baba-Nonya (Chinese/Malay) and Indian.

Texts and photos in this posting are copyright of Andy Horsman - Andrew Horsman. Click this link for more adventures of Andy Horsman.

My Beautiful Malaysia - The Profile

My Beautiful Malaysia

Malaysia is a fascinating nation and a tropical paradise situated 7 degrees north of the Equator in the heart of South-East Asia. Not too big a country in the world map with lands of approximately 329,758 sq. km, Malaysia, with Peninsular Malaysia on the tip of mainland South-East Asia, and Sabah and Sarawak on the island of Borneo has lots to offer. Malaysia is indeed, the heaven for nature lovers. The National Park of Malaysia, also known as the oldest rainforest in world, is a must visit for adventurers. Other than the National Park, there are many other reserved parks in Malaysia which house the variety of flora, fauna and distinctive species of wildlife. Pulau Perhentian, Pulau Redang, Pulau Langkawi, Pulau Tioman, Pulau Sipadan and many other islands are another attraction in Malaysia. Nature lovers from all over the world have been to these islands and many are coming back for the second time, perhaps many more times with their loved ones and friends.The climate is warm and humid throughout the year. Temperatures are around 30°C during the day and 22°C at night. Light, cotton, cool and casual clothing is recommended all year round.

Multi Cultural Society

Malaysia is a multi-racial country with a population of approximately 27million which consists of Malay, Chinese and Indian as well as other races, all coexisting in harmony. There are also people of other nationalities studying, working and doing business in Malaysia. Bahasa Melayu or Malay is the national language but English, Mandarin and Tamil are widely used too. Islam is the official religion but Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and other major religions are freely practised.

Malaysia’s Economy

Malaysia today is an advanced nation with first class infrastructures and facilities. The nation is progressive, peaceful and is being led by a ruling party which is represented by all races. The unique blend of ruling formula formulated by the National Front Collision Party has ensured the continued growth of the nation. As a result, the people of Malaysia receive high quality of education and good health care services. Combining the success factors above, Malaysia has become a heaven destination for investment. Local businesses, ranging from the simplest sole proprietorship to multinationals, alongside international multinationals have been prosperous in their business ventures in Malaysia. This is evident from the resilience of the economy in the aftermath of the financial crisis in 1997. Despite the fact that Malaysia is a developing country, the sound financial management and swift action taken by the Government have directed the nation towards a seamless recovery without international aids.

Malaysia is a leading exporter of manufactured products such as semiconductors, audio-visual products, electrical goods, rubber-dipped products and oleo-chemicals. Malaysia is also one of the world’s largest producers of palm oil, natural rubber, tropical timber, cocoa bean, pepper and petroleum. Malaysia is spearheading the Information Age by promoting information technology aggressively. It has embarked on telemarketing, on-line information services, electronic commerce and digital broadcasting through the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) vision. The nation also has embarked on the development of heavy industries and is now producing its own national cars, which has penetrated nearly 80% of the domestic market.

Today, Malaysia is the 17th largest trading nation in the world and based on the 2003 World Competitiveness Yearbook, Malaysia is ranked as the 4th most competitive nation among countries with a population of 27 million and above after United States, Australia and Canada respectively.

Food & Accommodation

Malaysia is a food paradise with a great variety of food ranging from Malay, Chinese, Indian, Thai, Indonesian to Western Cuisine. There are also international fast-food chains operating side by side with thousands of roadside stalls and food bazaars. Accommodation such as college hostels, apartments, residential houses and condominiums, is readily available at affordable rates and is within the vicinity of the institutions. Places of Interest and Shopping Malls make Malaysia is a fascinating country. Situated in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, are the Petronas Twin Towers, currently the world’s tallest twin building, and the Kuala Lumpur Tower which is Asia’s tallest concrete tower with a height of 421m. Beyond the capital city, one can also experience traditional village life and enjoy pristine beaches and tropical jungles. Sports wear or equipment, casual clothes, stationeries, groceries and other items can be bought at great discounts from night markets, mini markets, shopping arcades and hypermarkets.

The latest feat accomplished by the nation is the Berjaya Times Square shopping complex, standing majestically as the largest architectural structure in both Asia and the world that was simultaneously built and completed within one phase.

Being a safe and visitor friendly country, Malaysia is the best destination for shoppers. Some of the biggest shopping malls in the world are found in Malaysia, for example, besides Berjaya Times Square we have Mid Valley Megamall, the KLCC, Bintang Walk and many others.

Well Connected Services

Malaysia is well-connected in terms of transportation and communication within the country and the rest of the world. The Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) provides world class facilities and services. It also hosts airlines from and to every corner of the world. KLIA was voted as the World's Best Airport (15-25 million passengers per annum) for two consecutive years, in the 2005 AETRA awards and 2006 ACI-ASQ awards.

An efficient internal public transport such as the light rail transport (LRT), public buses, and taxis are available for students. There are also medical, banking, telecommunication (fix and mobile telephone, internet cafes) and postal services easily available at towns and cities.

The latest addition to these facilities is the Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT). The Low Cost Carrier Terminal is specifically built at KL International Airport to cater to the growing passengers of the Low Cost Airlines, especially the passengers of Malaysia's first 'no-frills' airline, Air Asia. It is located 20km away from the KLIA Main Terminal Building (MTB). Construction of the LCC Terminal was on a fast track basis beginning June 2005 at an approximate cost of RM 108 million. With this latest addition of facility, it makes travel to and fro and within Malaysia becoming cheaper without compromising the quality of service. The passengers have more alternatives to choose from, either normal conventional service or ‘no-frills’ service.