Where in the World is Janelle?: Malacca, Malaysia!

Friday was a much needed day off. I had lunch plans with my local coworker Molly, and her daughter Lori (who I'm guessing is around my age). They were taking me to chicken rice, the dish EVERYONE here has asked me if I had eaten yet. It's rice cooked in chicken broth and either a roasted or white chicken meat on top (not sure the preparation for the "white chicken" but i would suspect some sort of slow poaching since it's very tender and the skin is not crispy...anyone know?). It comes with assorted condiments of chili paste and garlic and peanuts and pickles. The restaurant we went to served the white meat version only, but offered to run next door and get roasted if we wanted one. I guess we had the meal chicken rice connoisseurs prefer, since it does not rely on crispy skin- the meat has to be cooked perfectly to be good! Lori was awesome, spoke better Chinese than her mother- a valuable resource in ordering, and had the day off from her job as a wedding photographer. I asked her if she ever had been to Henderson Waves Bridge since we saw a couple getting engagement shots there. She said no- the bridge had been closed for awhile due to monkey attacks! I guess my dad and I got lucky that a) the bridge was open when we checked it out and b) we didn't get actually attacked or bitten during our monkey escapades. But enough monkeying around (pun absolutely intended), back to the Malacca trip!

After lunch Molly and I strolled the gorgeous botanical gardens. I will definitely have to go back sometime in the morning when it's cooler and explore more acres of the park. While strolling however, I learned that Molly had actually grown up in Malacca (or Melaka), a city 240km north, and she said it was wonderful and I must go! It has great history, settled by both Portuguese and Dutch and a crucial point along the crowded Strait of Malacca shipping channel. She was so encouraged by my willingness to go, that she hurried us out of the gardens and across town to the bus station to get a ticket for myself for the next morning. I got back from the ticket purchase about 6pm, changed some Sing dollars over to ringgits by 7pm, and had little time to prepare before my 6:30am departure the next day.

Molly called me that night after checking with her brother, who still lives there, and told me that I should go to Dutch town center, any more than a $25 cab ride I was getting ripped off, and to be safe and watch out for pickpockets....she ended the call with "your in God's hands now."

A little nervous about the safety warning she gave me, I did little to prepare and decided to just wing it....

The next morning I was able to retrace the cross city route to the bus station. I somehow made it through the 2 customs by just tagging along with the crowd and 4 hours later got to dropped off at the bus depot around 1pm with no clue what's next. I hadn't even purchased a return ticket. I had mistakenly forgot about how I can't speak or read Malay (or so I thought about the reading, but more to come on that later). It was a bit of an ill-planned arrival.

Luckily, the bus drivers' assistant helped me get through customs the whole journey and told me to avoid the cabs at the depot, walk three blocks and I'd find a better deal. I bought a 6pm return ticket. With a bargain $20 lift to the main tourist spot, I was now wandering around without a clue what to do for my 5 hours in this city.

I found a popular spot called Jonkers Street what I later learned was kind of the Chinatown. My strategy was to go look at what was on the souvenirs and then ask the vendors where those spots were. It worked out great- I finally had a game plan and $10 of 4 magnet souvenirs so I could remember what to look for (there's about 3.15 ringgits to USD...aka totally cheap). Still without a map, I headed up to where it seemed the greatest concentration of people was. I totally got sucked into a trishaw ride which turned out wonderful! The guide was helpful and told me everything to see. He took pictures for me and blocked traffic for me so I could run across the street to see things. It was like having a bodyguard, chauffeur, photographer and local guide wrapped into one. Totally worth the $25 (or like 8 bucks) for the 35 minute adventure! After the ride, I walked around for awhile, actually visited the spots I had seen while in the trishaw, and after about 3 hours I felt like I had seen everything there was to see, wanted to get out of the hot crowded city and back to where I would be comfortable. I asked a cab how much was it for a ride back to the bus station, $15- sweet deal and I was off! Not sure why the ride was so cheap but the cabbie told me I was lucky to have met him, gave me his number and told me I was going to be thinking of him while I slept...eww? He drove me around to see more of the city and explained what I was passing....not entirely bad.

Unfortunately, this bus driver spoke no English. It was supposed to be a direct trip, but after 30 minutes he pulled over and people got off. A kid saw I looked confused, asked "you singapore?" I nodded, "stay", and hopped off....

Well 3 hours later I was surrounded by an entirely different area from when I came in. I was no longer in the rural countryside, I was now in the big city. I was hoping that this was just a different route back and I wasn't going to end up in KL or somewhere entirely different. I had napped a bit on the first leg so maybe I missed a giant city, but doubtful. I texted my friend on base telling him I might not make it back to go out that night, and he said if I needed any help, he was there for me. Thank goodness and a huge relief! At least I'd have someone concerned X number of kilometers from Singapore. There was an Italian girl on the bus too, she was also a bit concerned.

Well thank goodness a half hour later, there was a sign for Singapore! We had gone back through Johor Bahru instead! Doing a little happy dance I breezed through customs and made it back to Singapore after a very interesting, poorly planned but overall successful spontaneous trip to another country.

I apologize for the whizzing by look in a lot of these photos- most were taken from bus, taxi or trishaw. Or if you want to learn a bit of Malay, bas or taksi (see I can totally read Malay).