Have a little faith in Malacca

Because Cyberjaya has been really stale lately, I took a trip to Malacca with my travel buddy Dea Patz yesterday. We were hoping into Transnasional bus at 10 A.M in the morning from Putrajaya Sentral to Melaka Sentral. The travel time was 2 hours. It was so good to visit Malacca again. I used to visit Malacca quite often when my father was working in Dumai, so we travelled by ferry and sometimes we got scolded rudely because the shipmen--the shipmen? is there such a word to describe?--who thought that we were labour workers from Indonesia. That was unpleasant. 

Anyhow, I am going to share with you the detail of my travel. If you do not mind haha I hope this can be helpful when you are about to visit Malacca. I am going to write by a timeline.

1.00 - 3.00 P.M : Lost in Ayer Keroh

We arrived at 1 in the afternoon. We immediately booked bus ticket back to Putrajaya as soon as we arrived and it was the last bus and departing in 10.00 P.M. So, we thought we still have time to visit many other interesting places before we proceeded to our main destination (beside Jonker street and food stalls) which was Mahkota Hospital, to gather information to arrange our parents' medical appointment someday. The additional travel destination that we have picked was Mini Malaysia--ergh--you will find out why I do not fancy this place so much later on, or the subtitle might have explained a bit about that. 

So, we randomly picked a bus and hopped into it. We did not where would it take us, but we saw 'Mini Malaysia' written on the platform sign and it sounded like a good place to go. In KL, the intercity buses are called RapidKL and the fleet have the same look of very modern, nice and big. In Melaka, the bus' operator are Panorama Melaka and the buses' looks were very random, like extremely random. There were some which just looked as nice as RapidKL busses, but there were many that looked like Kopaja busses, and yup, we did hopped into one of the Kopaja busses, and we hesitated at first but we did challenged ourselves.

The bus trip costed about RM 2.30, and we had no idea where they were taking us. All we expected was we, sitting nicely there and hoping for the bus to stop at the correct destination. We were taken into less-crowded part of Melaka where there were food factory, shopping outlets, but still, it was a lively town. Until some random mamat babi--For fellow Indonesians, mamat is a expression to refer to a boy in Malaysia--threw paper ball to me. I was like I am going to blog about you, you jerk--and so, did I. Nevermind about the boy. I have taken care of him by goggling mad at him.

All we knew from the sign that we were heading close to the said location which was near Zoo Melaka. But for a moment, the bus moved too fast and we were actually passing the Mini Malaysia on our right. We were confused and we shared a look with the busman as well. He grunted, "Why didn't you say you want to stop, haa?" So, the bus was forced stop few meters ahead from the Mini Malaysia. Honestly, we did not know how to stop the bus. The bell was located on the ceiling ridiculously far from our seat so we did not want to bother to press it. It looked unfunctional anyway. So there we were, strolling down the road in Ayer Keroh, walking down to our God Knows where the hell where we were, literally dropped before Gerbang Selamat Jalan or End Gate of Malacca to somewhere we had no idea, as I called it . Maybe the drivers who passed along would be confused looking at these two chubby short girls wandering with their backpacks on.

Finally, we reached the gate. But then Dea said to me, "Ayu, read the red sign!"

I said, "which red sign?" pardon my impaired ability to locate and identify things, that's in my blood.  I didn't bother to read further but it said that the location was closed for renovation. The Lord was testing us.

We were stranded on the outskirt without map, and it was hard to find taxi nor bus. It was hard to even have a little faith to our vacation survival. But finally, a Chinese Uncle came with his taxi and offered us RM. 30 to go straight from there to Mahkota. It was quite costy but we agreed anyway, there were no other choice. But it turned out great though. It was the most unique taxi I have ever rode in. The seats were made out of leather and it was so vintage. The driver was very nice, despite of the language difference. I was happy about it, because we almost wandered to every street and road of Malacca, from the factory area to the real tourist area downtown. Later, Dea informed me that we were actually about to cross the boundary to Kuala Lumpur. Dayum.

3.00 PM - 6.00 P.M : Mahkota, Sightseeing and Food

Mahkota Parade is a complex in front of Dataran Pahlawan that consists of mall, hospital and hotel and I admire the mastermind behind all of these. Many Indonesians are seeking medical treatment in Melaka, if you wonder, how many? There are so many! As we visited the hospital, the staffs were fluent in Indonesian and they had provided chartered transportation, accommodation and all for forthcoming patients from overseas, or specifically from Indonesian, and there was a special directory written in Indonesian--not Bahasa. As we discussed, we thought that Mahkota has a very huge promising business. It is located in one complex which is very near to tourist spots in Melaka. Let's say if the patient's visitors need to kill some time, they could go to there, plus it would be near to their hotel which is located in the nearby area. Kaching! 

From the hospital, we were moving to Nadeje Patisserie that was located in the Mahkota Shopping Complex. It was easy to spot because it was locate at the front of the mall and distractive enough by the glittery banner and the long queue! It was ridiculously long but it was worth it. It took us 30 minutes for a take away. The famous cake in the patisserie is the layer cake or crepe cake. We ordered Berry Berry Strawberry Crepe cake and Chocolate Strawberry ones. Although, I am hoping in the future that the patisserie would train their waiters to be faster. Anyhow I liked the Berry Strawberry one (which was Dea's) because it was both sweet and sour, mine was okay. I was fooled by how it looked haha.

Before the crepe cake, we had our lunch nearby at Newton. We had Laksa, Dry Mee and Fried Tau Foo. It was okay.

Later on, we climbed the Menara Taming Sari to see the whole view of Melaka hundreds feet above the ground. It was indeed fascinating. I had been to the tourist attraction before, so that was my second time. It was RM. 20 per ride. The view was magnificent because we went during sunset. It would be so romantic if we had boyfriends on our sides... hiks. After that, we went to walk around the Dataran Pahlawan and walked way up to the St. Paul Church and I think I had few ideas in my mind for another short. It had a great view look of ocean and the town as well. You just could not miss the unique pedicab with Pitbull music from the speaker, it was just mindblowing how awkward is that. What you will love from Melaka are the ancient Portugese red buildings and churches.

6.00 P.M - 9.00 P.M : Jongker Street... and more food!

Here comes the most awaited attraction! The Jongker Street!

Jongker Street is also known as Hang Jebat. It is a typical asian market that sells everything you could dream of. It was an absolute paradise for shoppers. It reminds me of Chatucak Market in Bangkok and Ladies' Market in Hongkong. I thought that Chatucak was the best market ever, but I guess, it is now a tie! Alongside the crowded road were also shops that sells outfits and foods, one of store that we visited was Jongker Gallery. We visited the first Jongker Gallery stall that we saw, but later, we found many JG stalls as we walked further. But the first stall had the best selection of clothes, bags and accessories. Screw Forever 21 and Topshop, this shop is for the win. The clothes have nice designs and I just could not stay away from the fitting room. The items were irresistible. They were all in pastel dark color, drapery models and vintage--totally me! Did I mention that they were all affordable? No items cost over than RM. 80, averagely they cost around RM. 49.90. Move on the next store, I found a very adorable yellow converse which I am in love with! 

After wandering around, we finally tasted chicken rice ball at Famosa. For me, eating chicken rice ball was kind of disappointing because I thought they will stuffed shredded chicken inside the rice ball, but in fact, it was only a rice ball and tasted similar to lemper and ketupat. But it was not bad though. We also stopped for fruit candy, which was very nice! I liked the rock apple or the kiamboi as we called in Indonesian. The fruit candy was actually a sugar glazed mixed fruit stick and it tasted like heaven. I stopped for popsicle and egg tarts too, too bad that I was kind of full easily and some of the food sold were not halal, so I could not each as much as I expected to. At the end of the street, the locals, mostly Chinese, were singing karaoke on a big stage and I found it very interesting. Malaccans know how to have fun!We reached home at one in the morning. I hope there are more exciting journeys like this to come! 


Just have a little faith in you and start wandering around!