Day 1: Malacca (Melaka), Malaysia, cloud, 30°

Excited Yet Annemarie?

For blogging purposes I’ve referred to this post as Day 1, however, it truly has been a verrrry long day. We boarded our first of 3 flights at 9:55AM and via Vancouver/Tokyo, some 22 hours later, we arrived safely in Kuala Lumpur at 00:15 early today on January 23. We were 45 minutes late getting out of Vancouver which meant that we anticipated a scramble in Tokyo. After what had originally seemed a reasonable 90 minute window to change planes, this was suddenly cut in half. In the end there was no reason to worry because we were in the very competent hands of the Japanese airport system! Airport agents were waiting and directed quite a few people to three different connecting flights. We had to change terminals, but it went very smoothly and we arrived just before our flight to Kuala Lumpur boarded. I love Japan!

Our flight to KL went smoothly with an empty seat between us yet again. Bonus! Additionally, the seat spacing was like it once was in our part of the world. It felt like we had been upgraded.😅 We actually managed to get some sleep on the second flight.

We went through a surprisingly easy customs check, and soon found a taxi to our Ibis airport hotel. We finally crashed in bed about 2AM delighted to be able to stretch out!

After about 4-5 hours and a very welcome shower, we went for a really good breakfast in the hotel. Annemarie looked longingly at the pool, but we had much to do this morning.

We caught the airport shuttle and managed to find a SIM card for our phones with a stupidly cheap data plan. For reference, we each purchased a 1 month 5G plan with 90gigs of data, unlimited calls and texts for MYR 44 or CDN$14. Nice!

We then located our bus and successfully purchased our tickets through a kiosk.

We found our bus for the 2 1/2 hour trip south to Malacca. It was a bit of an older bus complete with its resident bugs, but there were large recliner seats a bit like we found in South America. At least it was comfortable! !

We decided to put masks on because there were a number of folks seemingly ill on board. We are trying to keep ourselves fit for the coming 5 week travel.

Malaysia is predominantly a Muslim country, and we were reminded of this as we passed a number of mosques. Many women are wearing traditional Muslim clothing. In fact, our accommodation has a mosque directly across the street. Can’t wait for the 6AM call to prayers!😬 Just a part of travel.

Arriving in Malacca we texted to arrange a GRAB ride which is the SE Asian version of Uber. It took us a while to connect with our driver as we were on opposite sides of the bus depot, but we eventually found each other. Cost just CDN$3. As advertised, transportation is very inexpensive in Malaysia. The bus was inexpensive as well.

We were warmly welcomed by our host who showed us the ins and outs of his place. We chose this guest house in part because of the lovely comments people had made about him.

After a little time to settle in we went for a nice walk along the Melaka River through the central area of town. Malacca is a World Heritage site and was declared as such in 2008 at a conference in Quebec, Canada.

They will be holding a world tourism conference in the city during September this year.

Even with the clouds, there was plenty of colour.

We walked back upstream along the other side in search of dinner. Sure enough we found a hole in the wall place that our host had recommended. It’s outside the tourist zone with lots of locals in attendance. Usually a good sign. I suggested to AM that we basically have to jump in to the local food scene. So we did.

The food was just ok. Not outstanding, but for 2 jet lagged travellers it was adequate.

We walked after dinner as the sky rapidly darkened. We are, after all, just 2° off equator.

While walking through this lovely WH designated city we again discovered that one doesn’t really have to look too far to find something a bit more authentic.

It’s late here and I’ve been finding moments through the day to write this post. Hopefully it’s readable! Time to get some sleep. Hopefully the weather will hold.

Good night!

Geoff🌴🌅

Before I sign off I need to explain today’s title. AM wasn’t all that excited in the lead up to this travel, saying that it was more my sort of thing. She’s not wrong about that, and I’ll admit that I’ve been looking forward to this trip for weeks. Our kids have been teasing AM about this, but today she finally told me at breakfast that she is now excited about the trip. Better late than never I guess. 😵‍💫