So on 7 February this year, on a Friday morning, we caught one of the first few early trains down to Terminal Bersepadu Selatan (TBS), a bus terminal in Bandar Tasik Selatan. The bus terminal is just opposite the Bandar Tasik Selatan LRT station, so it was really convenient for us. We took the earliest bus that we could get, which departed at 7:30am.
Pretty excited for our first trip together! :)
The bus left TBS on time, which was quite surprising, because you know.....Malaysian timing are almost always deceptive. We reached Melaka Sentral, a public transportation terminal, about 9 something and took the town bus to the city centre. We alighted at the Stadthuys, or also known as the Red Square. The Stadthuys was built between 1641 and 1660, and is believed to be the oldest remaining Dutch colonial building in Southeast Asia.
Queen Victoria's Fountain, not squirting out any water at that time :(
Christ Church, an 18th century Anglican church with Dutch colonial architecture.
The Dutch windmill is located just opposite the Stadthuys. It was built as a symbol of the Dutch occupation in Malacca from the 1600s to 1800s.
The (murky) Malacca River.
The giant windmill of Malacca.
It would be a nice stroll along the riverside, if not for the pungent smell coming from the river.
Haha this is so cute.
This is the Maritime Museum, which I think is a really cool structure as it is a replica of the Portugese ship Flora de La Mar. It is just located at Quayside Road, along the Malacca River.
The view from the ship's deck!
Inside the ship/museum.
If you're not really keen on the history of Malacca, then the museum would definitely not appeal to you. However, since the entrance fee is so cheap, you'd probably want to go in to feel how it was like to sail on such a huge ship, enjoy the breeze, admire the stunning view of the Malacca River and Malacca town from up above, and take some (crazy) pictures....like what we did :P
Address: Jalan Quayside, 75000 Malacca
Opening hours: 9am to 5:30pm daily (closed from 12:15pm to 2:45pm on Fridays)
Admission fee: RM3 for adults, RM1 for children
Tel: +603 284 7090
After that, we headed to Jonker Street!
We actually wanted to try the famous Malacca chicken rice balls at Chop Chung Wah but what luck we had because the shop was closed :( So we went to Hoe Kee instead, which was not far away. My friends and I actually researched beforehand and found that there are quite a lot of good reviews about Hoe Kee too.
Joining the long queue during lunch hour.
Finally, it was our turn to order. It helps to be considerate and know what you want to order when you are queuing, so that you can tell your orders straightaway when you reach the entrance. After that, the workers will lead you to the tables.
I like the traditional facet of the restaurant :) I know everything seems to appear calm in this picture, but reality was far from it. The atmosphere was filled with workers shouting orders to one another, hurrying up and down the restaurant carrying dishes, and clearing tables as fast as possible for the next customers.
The Hainanese chicken was tender and juicy; close to perfect as I chewed the meat. The chicken rice balls are merely Hainanese chicken rice being shaped into balls - my parents keep telling me that there is nothing special about the rice balls since they're practically normal chicken rice - but I still wanted to try them because I want to know what makes them so famous! I compared the rice balls with the normal chicken rice (yep, they sell this too) and......I don't know if I was being delusional or what but I felt that somehow the rice balls tasted more fragrant :D
Address: 4, 6, 8, Jalan Hang Jebat, 75200 Malacca
Opening hours: 8am to 5pm daily
Tel: +606 283 4751 / +6012 623 8431
After the satisfying lunch, we explored Jonker Street and went into some really interesting shops.
We stopped by Jonker 88 for some thirst-quenchers.
According to what I found online, the shop is known for its cendol and curry/asam laksa. We didn't try those but ordered mango ice kacang instead....
Basically, it only contains two or three pieces of mango, and the rest is shaved ice and syrup. It was just full of sweet flavouring (with no mango flavour at all), ughh.
Address: 88, Jalan Hang Jebat, 75200 Malacca
Tel.: +6019 397 5665
Website: www.jonker88.com
Lion dance performance in the midst of the Chinese New Year celebrations.
Next, we went to Donald & Lily's Nyonya Food for cendol. My friend who is studying in Malacca recommended this restaurant to me and said that their cendol is the best. I later found out that the restaurant is very well-known among the locals. Well, I will never forget how my friends and I walked for about an hour - pass residential areas and streets - to come to this place.
Come to think of it now, it was such a laughable experience! The funny story goes like this, we thought the restaurant is walking distance from Jonker Street (according to a map), but the further we walked, we started to doubt if we were going the right way. Then I opened Google Maps, and found out that the place was actually quite far away to walk. By that time, we were already at some deserted residential area so of course there were no taxis around. So we decided to continue walking and see if there are any taxis along the way, but we had no luck, and since we couldn't just stop in the middle of nowhere and wait for a taxi (coz that would be such a waste of time).....we persisted on and reached our destination.
Bravo bravo! Each of us deserved a few claps on our backs.
The cendol was definitely a huge, huge reward, and it was AWESOMEEE. Okay seriously, yes the cendol was good. There seems to be a balance between the santan and the gula melaka, which took me by surprise. The portion is actually very small, and I would have gotten another bowl because one is definitely not enough, but.....I need to resist the temptation haha!
Address: 16, Jalan KSB 1, Taman Kota Shah Bandar, 75200 Malacca
Opening hours: 8am to 5pm, Tuesday to Sunday
Tel: +606 284 8907 / +6012 292 3157
Website: https://www.facebook.com/donaldandlily
After our sore legs had enough rest, we walked to Mahkota Parade - probably took a little less than half an hour? - because the restaurant owner said that there are no taxis around that area T__T This is where we walked along a highway (omg still can't believe we actually did that but YOLO)... The first blast of air-cond from the shopping complex was utmost bliss. We chilled around for a while, absorbing the cold air as much as possible, and then took a taxi to Pantai Klebang (if I remember the name correctly). It was only a 10- to 15-minutes' drive away.
The sand was surprisingly white and clean and soft like powder! After what seemed like ages, it felt good to feel sand in between my toes again.
I don't know how to jump.
These buses have been converted into mini food stalls - according to the taxi driver - how cute!
Enjoyed Oreo and original coconut shake by the beach.
At around 7pm, we went back to Jonker Street for the night market. It is quite small in size, so it only takes a short while to walk from one end to the other. There are not as many variety of food as I'd expected, so I was really disappointed. I felt that they should set up more stalls selling street food instead of non-edible items.
One of the few street food stalls.
Was quite intrigued by the way he swirled the potato using that small machine thingy on the table.
We turned into a small lane and suddenly saw a cluster of food stalls. OH, so they are all together in one place, hidden from the main street... It's like an outdoor food court, with tables and chairs everywhere so it's really convenient - don't have to stand up and eat haha! We had char kuey teow, fried oyster omelette, and some weird spicy glass noodles (which tasted absolutely disgusting).
Our dinner was a bit rushed, because we had to go to Melaka Sentral, take the bus back to KL, and lastly the LRT. The last train of the day ends at 11:30pm and we couldn't miss it. So thankful that we met a kind taxi driver who gave us a discount, drove really quickly when he knew that we were rushing, and even told us where exactly to buy our bus tickets. We managed to get on the next bus (that had five empty seats left!) and reach TBS just in time to take the train back. As I sunk back into the soft cushion of the chair, fatigue gradually engulfed me while two of my most talkative friends continued to talk all the way home. Well, it was an enjoyable first trip with friends, despite the tiredness :)
Here are the expenses of one person (some costs were shared out between the four of us):
LRT - RM2
Bus - RM25.30
Taxi - RM17.50
Museum ticket - RM3
Lunch - RM6.25
Drink - RM2.50
Durian puff - RM2.50
Mango ice kacang - RM1.25
Cendol - RM2.50
Coconut shake - RM1.50
Dinner - RM11.90
TOTAL - RM76.20
