A Big Adventure

Saturday 24th January 2009, Melaka, (Malacca), Malaysia

So another late night means another late morning to follow.

I crawled out of bed around 10:30am – Sofia told me to go and get some breakfast (donuts) so she could sleep on, otherwise my fiddling on the computer and other stuff will keep her awake. So to the Big Apple Donut stand it was and another truly delicious coffee and donut combination. My intention was to follow it up with an hour or so’s wander around the town but first to the ATM machine to get some cash. Dam, dam and dam again none of my cards will work, twice already on this trip we have had to call the bank as they have put a security check on the cards, even though I have already told them our itinerary they obviously still don’t trust us with our own money, it’s a shame they did not look after all their customers as well as they seem to be looking after us! However after a phone call today it would turn out that the cards are fine so hopefully it’s a problem with the system this end and even more hopefully it’s sorted soon as the cash in hand runs out around lunchtime tomorrow I estimate! So after all the calling to the bank Sofia was obviously awake so she got up and dressed.

We need to find somewhere to go after Melaka which is not proving very easy, we are trying to keep our budget down. We were considering Tioman Island on the east coast but it would appear this is monsoon season and most resorts don’t open until March, there is one that we can afford that opens on Feb 1^st but so far my emails and calls have gone unanswered so that’s not looking good. So that idea is defunct, we need a new destination. I am sure there are hundreds of places to visit, but the ones we see are spread far and wide, plus because we are traveling with so much luggage and as a group of five, self driving is probably out of my comfort zone over here as the road craft is a bit dicey and I would rather leave the driving to others while here, although as we found out yesterday that’s not always the best option!

So we were reading the guide books, checking out the web sites and drawing lots of blanks. The Malaysian holiday industry has not fully embraced the internet , which means lots of Hotels either don’t have websites or, if they do they don’t have a way of booking rooms online or if they do they want you to give all of your details, credit card, passport number absolutely everything over non secure emails or web pages rather than HTTPs ons, I have already booked one hotel that way and I refuse to do it again, it’s a stupid thing to do once, to do it twice would be really asking for trouble. So we finally decided to try a place called Desaru – but of course all our attempts to book on line were futile, and all our emails went unreturned.

So although we check out on Tuesday we still have no idea where we are going or how we get there.

We eventually gave up and decided to go for a walk, Sofia in her nearly new and worn only once shoes she had bought in Manila, I was pleased as I really like them on her, well they lasted all of 50 yards from the hotel before one of them self destructed! Sofia had to hobble around barefooted until we could get in the mall and believe me the bloody pavements are hot! Now the problem we are having is shoe shops over here seem to stop at around size 39 for almost all there shoes and Sofia is a 41. Bit of a problem. She eventually found something, not perfect and sadly not as sexy as her recently defunct pair, but shoes until we can find something better.

We wandered over to the Chinese area (Jonkers Street).and were going to try Dr Fish again but they were closed, so we went for a drink and something to eat at a place called Calense Art Café, it was a good choice and we spent a leisurely hour or so there.

We headed back to the hotel where after a freshen up we were down in the lobby waiting for the driver (not the same one we had yesterday!) to take us to Melaka Night Zoo, we had decided against wandering around the zoo in the heat of the day. A lovely evening cool and pleasant and the animals were active, more so than in the heat of the day. We went on a little trailer train around the zoo, but also got to explore on foot, we arrived at 8:00pm and did not leave until 10:45pm. Sofia fell in love with the Slow Lorris and came nose to nose with a Bintarong. The biggest cobra I have ever seen impressive, the cloud leopard took our breath away, and we got very close to white rhinos, giraffes, elephants the works! We enjoyed the white civet cat but it was a bit smelly and the fruits bats…. Well they were very fruity.

OK it’s not the Singapore Zoo but the fact is we all had a really good few hours wandering around in the cool evening air and the fact that there were so few people meant it almost felt like a private viewing, recommended. The drive back just like the drive to the zoo was uneventful and so we took the drivers card for future use.

We got him to drop us at Jonkers and we wandered around a bit and by chance we found the same café Sofia and I had visited earlier, so we took the others in to enjoy the food and drink. We all had supper and played cards together, Gabrielle is a bit too good and keeps beating us at our own game. She and Sasha had, had their photos done at one of the booths, the type that lets you add loads of special effects, it was so good the owners put one up in the booth to attract new customers.

The stroll back to the hotel was pleasant and at around 1:00am.

Much more pleasant than a walk home from a pub or club in the UK, I did not hear anybody shouting out “what the F you looking at”?  and the girls never had anybody shout “oy show us yer tits”. The more time I spend here, the less I want to go back to England, I really think I could enjoy living in Malaysia.