15th March 2010
We took an early bus from Singapore’s Golden Mile Complex to get to our next destination, Melaka in Malaysia. We were at the border about an 45 minutes after leaving Singapore and passed through immigration and customs with no problem.
On entering Malaysia, the predominant landscape was palms, a lot of which seem to be plantations, although I’m not sure whether that’s for palm oil or coconuts. Most of the journey was on a long straight motorway although we did stop at a food court for about half an hour.
Melaka is a city on the west coast of Malaysia. Historically it has been one of the most sought after havens in the region, inhabited in turn by a Hindu prince, the Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch then the British. It is quite a historical location, with many colonial buildings remaining from the various populations who have called it home.
We arrived in Melaka at about 1pm, but couldn’t find the bus terminal we needed to take the local bus out to the old town where we were staying. We decided a taxi would be the easiest way but the first guy quoted us 20 Ringits which seemed a little steep (we had been told about 10 RM). We headed back inside the shopping centre and found a local taxi stand. After much discussion by the drivers, one of them said he could do it for 15 RM so we went for it.
The guesthouse is lovely (and cheap), a lovely communal area with free tea, coffee and wifi and we have a lovely room with air-conditioning and our own bathroom. Everything is spotless and the owners are really friendly and happy to help with loads of information.
We took a wander over to the modern shopping mall in the newer part of town for something to eat. This was a lot like the some of the shopping malls we had seen in Singapore and in complete contrast to the part of town where we are staying with its tiny shops selling everything from DIY equipment to mopeds and pets.
Capitol Satay is somewhat of an institution in Melaka, evidenced by the long queue we had to wait in before getting a table. In the same family for three generations, this restaurant is famous for its satay celup (satay steamboat). The stainless steel tables have a bubbling vat of satay sauce in the middle. You choose your raw satay sticks from a fridge at the back of the shop then dunk the skewers into the boiling sauce until they are cooked.
It was definately an interesting experience, but because we didn’t know what most of the stuff was on the skewers we struggled a bit with what to eat. We ended up with some liver (interesting), chicken, prawns and some tofu. The prawns were definately the best and we also tried some massive tiger prawns that were about 20 cm long. The biggest and messiest problem with these was getting them off the stick to peel them, but they were delicious.
Note to self - don’t wear white when dealing with satay. I had to come back to the guesthouse and wash out my white shirt straight away, no stains though luckily.
When we got back to the guesthouse, the food market on the opposite side of the street which had stood silent all day was now in full swing.
