Why put them in a convenient place, like, say, on the highway...oh no, that would be way too easy....[maniacal laugh]. One has to work for their petrol! We eventually managed to find a load of petrol stations lined up (they always seem to be in at least pairs!) in a town just off the highway. So after a 30 minute petrol-stop and a belly full of Oreos we were back on the highway with Muar set in our sights.
Now, back on the highway, petrol stations were the least of our worries, it's the driving; well, other drivers on the road to be more specific. My goodness it is scary out there! At one stage, all within the space of a minute, we had somebody undertake us to cut in front just before they hit the car in front, then somebody undercut us on the hard shoulder, followed by somebody literally one metre away from our boot, bearing in mind we are travelling at 100kmh! It is a constant onslaught of undertaking, overtaking, speeding, tailgating, mopeds darting all around, swerving and hard shoulder driving - quite stressful to say the least. After 3 hours on the road it was a relief to arrive at our destination: The Golden Lake Hotel. For RM73 it was absolutely fine for what we wanted - I would recommend as a nice pit-stop in Muar before heading up to Melaka.
We arrived around 8pm so immediately sought out some dinner. We found a local restaurant called "The Arabian Curry House", which, um, served Malaysian food....it was lovely stuff though. We had Roti Canai, Dahl, Briyani rice (that is the right way to say it), Cauliflower curry and two drinks for around RM20 (that's just over 3 pounds). The food was lovely as well, all fresh and cooked to order. With our bellies full (again) we headed back to the hotel for an early night.
Due to our early night we were up bright and early and decided to grab some breakfast at a local café across the river: The Elephant Bean Kopi. This was a great little find: probably the best coffee I've had since I've been in Malaysia. Served with a couple of nice pastries it all went down a treat! After this we had a little wander before heading back to our hotel - I think we were a bit of a novelty in Muar as we got many many "Good mornings!" and stares while walking back across the bridge. All good fun though!
Great little cafe - really good coffee too!
We were back on the road for a our final leg to Melaka (not quite as crazy this time as we were on a smaller road). We were staying in a small guest house called Driftwood, located on the outskirts of town - a great little find on Tripadvisor. Sylvester welcomed us into his home and gave us some tips on how to make the most of our time. We headed out on foot to explore the delights of Melaka. Here's a quick summary if you don't know the history of Melaka: it was originally one of the busiest port towns of South East Asia, bringing many goods to the shores of Malaysia from India and Europe. Then, the Portuguese occupied the port town seeing the potential in the town, shortly followed by the Dutch, then the British, with it eventually being handed back to Malaysia after Independence. This has created a rich architectural and cultural history in the town, with multiple areas dedicated to the previous occupiers. Our accommodation for the night was in the Portuguese quarter, where people still speak Portuguese and run Portuguese restaurants. We didn't get a chance, but they are apparently very good.
Having wandered around for an hour or so we thought we'd have an early lunch. Sylvester (our host) recommended a good Baba-Nyonya restaurant called Makko (Baba-Nyonya is a term used for the descendants of mixed Chinese and Malaya race). They have a very specific type of food that is extremely tasty. At 11.30am the restaurant was full up, so we knew we were in a for a treat - we were not disappointed. With our bellies full (you may be sensing a theme) we went for an explore!
I won't say too much about the specifics of our day, but we did do A LOT of walking - the pictures paint a nice picture of what we did. Melaka is an interesting place that is predominantly Chinese-Malay, so there are lots of interesting shops and art if you head off from the main streets in Chinatown. There is a night market on a Friday and Saturday night - it is predominantly targeted towards the tourists so isn't quite as interesting as some of the markets we've been to in Johor, but it is quite a sight watching the locals being very busy setting up and working VERY hard to the late hours of the evening.
An old Portuguese fort (a nice Indonesian on holiday man took this photo...)
A Dutch church (in Malaysia!)
There is lots of street art around the town - especially around the river
The 17th-century Cheng Hoon Teng temple - the oldest temple in Malaysia
Beth with some drawings....lots of cats' heads
Bikini Toppings - a little cafe where we had some refreshing ice cream with coconut flesh and sprinkles - served in a coconut!
More street art - this is an independent shop that sells t-shirts and art
The following day was much the same as the Saturday. A bit of exploring followed by some more food - the Melakan Laksa is especially good! I also had their famous Cendol - Beth wasn't so keen on this one. It's crushed ice with red beans, jelly, flavourings and sweetcorn. It is actually a lot better than it sounds...although I may give the sweetcorn a miss next time!
So that was our trip to Melaka - I'm sure we'll be heading back again in the not-too-distant future as it's not too far up the the E3 highway. Speaking of the highway, do make sure that if you come to Malaysia, you have enough money on your toll card, or at least have some cash on you. We made the mistake of having no money on our toll card AND no cash on us. This lead us to being forced to reverse, yes REVERSE, up the 5-lane highway to perform a u-turn to head back to the cashpoint. So, lesson learnt, always have an emergency RM20 in the car :)
P.S. A reminder to replace the emergency RM20 in the car as the previous emergency RM20 was spent on cake!
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