We arrived in Melaka after again dropping locals outside their houses, but we arrived at the main terminal and had to take a local bus to our hostel.
Our first impressions of Melaka as we walked through little alleyways and along the river to find our hostel were really good. On our first evening we went for a local speciality dinner, chicken rice balls, which was really enjoyable, although there wasn't much to it for a speciality, really just balls of rice with a different texture, almost like potato. Afterwards we wandered around the weekend only night market and found they had better quality of goods here, and we ended up buying a couple of things. Sunglasses for me, I've already broken three pairs and I hardly wear them, and Stacey has been nagging me for chopsticks for when we ae back home, so we finally got some here.
We also saw a man who was breaking world records. Malaysia are obsessed with world records and this guy's record was something to do with breaking in to a coconut with one finger. It sounds quite bizarre, believe me it was very strange to watch. He made quite a performance out of this and after we saw him break it once, hung around for a bit, only for 20 minutes later nothing more to have happened. We're not quite sure what the point of this is, but we can see he'll have a crooked finger for the rest of his life. After, we walked back to our hostel.
The next day was really warm so went for a few short walks, always sticking to the shade, and explored the old and historical part of the city. There were quite a lot of old buildings from when the Portuguese, Dutch and British settled in this area.
On our final evening we went to a satay restaurant where you get to pick the raw food you like, and then cook it yourself in a pot of satay in the middle of the table. We'd heard you can queue for an hour or more to get a table, but luckily we managed to get one in 15 minutes. We mostly stuck to chicken as we weren't sure what most of the other things were. It was really nice though.
We really enjoyed our two days in Melaka, and the whole of Malaysia in fact. It's somewhere we would really like to come back to one day. We've found the people really friendly, the food good and cheap, and it is less touristy and has more character than Thailand.
The next morning we got up early and got a bus to Singapore.
Our first impressions of Melaka as we walked through little alleyways and along the river to find our hostel were really good. On our first evening we went for a local speciality dinner, chicken rice balls, which was really enjoyable, although there wasn't much to it for a speciality, really just balls of rice with a different texture, almost like potato. Afterwards we wandered around the weekend only night market and found they had better quality of goods here, and we ended up buying a couple of things. Sunglasses for me, I've already broken three pairs and I hardly wear them, and Stacey has been nagging me for chopsticks for when we ae back home, so we finally got some here.
We also saw a man who was breaking world records. Malaysia are obsessed with world records and this guy's record was something to do with breaking in to a coconut with one finger. It sounds quite bizarre, believe me it was very strange to watch. He made quite a performance out of this and after we saw him break it once, hung around for a bit, only for 20 minutes later nothing more to have happened. We're not quite sure what the point of this is, but we can see he'll have a crooked finger for the rest of his life. After, we walked back to our hostel.
The next day was really warm so went for a few short walks, always sticking to the shade, and explored the old and historical part of the city. There were quite a lot of old buildings from when the Portuguese, Dutch and British settled in this area.
On our final evening we went to a satay restaurant where you get to pick the raw food you like, and then cook it yourself in a pot of satay in the middle of the table. We'd heard you can queue for an hour or more to get a table, but luckily we managed to get one in 15 minutes. We mostly stuck to chicken as we weren't sure what most of the other things were. It was really nice though.
We really enjoyed our two days in Melaka, and the whole of Malaysia in fact. It's somewhere we would really like to come back to one day. We've found the people really friendly, the food good and cheap, and it is less touristy and has more character than Thailand.
The next morning we got up early and got a bus to Singapore.
I will also be very careful about the meat, you never know what they can be. I'm not the one to experiment with food. I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed your stay in Malaysia!
ReplyDeletePS - I dreamt last night that one of your stops are Cape Town, how boring!