Malaysia: Melaka Canals

This was one day when we had a very leisurely start to the day as our check-out wasn’t until midday. Then, it was a short walk to the local service bus which took us express to the intercity bus station (TBS), a journey of just 20 minutes.

At the bus station there was time to have lunch which was available from many outlets in the food court. I ended up having chicken curry with boiled rice, peanuts, crushed peanuts and dried fish, cucumber and a spicy sauce washed down by a cup of black tea… and all of this cost the princely sum of RM21.10 (AUD7).

Our intercity bus left at 14.00. It was an interesting seating arrangement. The front half of the coach had 2×2 seating while the rear half had 1 x 1 x 1 seating and therefore two aisles. We were in the executive section. The seats were the same as in the front section, the difference being more space per passenger. My seat was in the back row and must have been next to the exhaust as the side of the bus was very warm.The journey to Melaka took a little over two hours and was a much more enjoyable experience, because this driver considered his passenger’s comfort much more than the driver who had driven us to KL.

On arrival in Melaka, we only just had time to drop our bags in our newly acquired rooms, change my shirt before being back down in the foyer ready to begin an orientation walk around the interesting old town of Melaka. The ‘walk’ consisted of a trishaw ride in the most uniquely decorated vehicle you could ever imagine. There were butterfly shapes, plastic flowers, stuffed animals and every other kind of bunting ever made decorating the bikes.

Each bike took two passengers and, just like the trishaws themselves, the on-board music system had to outdo the next. It was quite an experience as these bikes took us from one attraction to the next. You’ll just have to imagine the sound!

We were delighted when our ‘bikes’ took us across bridges that spanned the canals of Melaka. Several modern buildings lined this canal… probably apartments.

Every house seemed to make an effort to add some flowers to their canal side path.

Looking down the canal from the bridges, we saw the towers of the neo-Classical Catholic church of St. Francis Xavier built in 1856.

A colourful mural brightened the front wall of this house… though the side wall needed some cleaning and a fresh coat of paint! It looked as though that was on the ‘to-do’ list.

We stopped at one of the canal side houses and enjoyed their garden.

The scent of these sweet smelling frangipani flowers filled the air around us.

unknown but cute!

The flowers on the Star Jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) vine vied with the frangipani to see which one could win the sweet smelling flower competition .