Day 5: To Malaysia

Infinity pool by day: still awesome

Predictably, my plan to see the sun rise came to nothing. We received some pictures over the group app though, proving some of the students were made of stronger, or more likely younger stuff.

At the more reasonable time of 8:30 I went down for breakfast. The available choice was as rich and varied as might be expected from this place; but that does not make it super-special, since breakfast is the one thing that those all-in holiday resorts typically also get right. The really special thing is the roof top swimming pool, so right after breakfast I went there again to experience it in the daylight. It was no less flabbergasting.

Gardens at the Bay, with the Supertree Grove

Even sights like this lose their novelty after a while though, and moreover there was still an area behind the hotel that I would like to explore, called the Gardens at the Bay, featuring a botanic garden and a set of tall tree-like structures called the Supertree Grove. The latter had a light show at night which it was now too late to experience but had gotten great reviews from the students. It was also the last opportunity to catch some more of the rare Pokémon that infest the grounds of Marina Bay - one of the waiters of the Ulu Ulu restaurant Thursday evening reacted with envy when we told him where we would be staying, especially because of the Pokémon. An amazing phenomenon, that: when we were having dinner in The Breakfast Kitchen, there was a sudden rush of people actually running towards a square where apparently a Lapras had been spotted. Well, wanting to take part in this phenomenon I have played actively for a while myself, catching Pokémon left and right, and though the fun is starting to wear off now with the overabundance of Ratata and Pidgets in Enschede, here in Singapore I have enriched my collection with at least 10 new specimen, and I can confirm that the Marina Bay Sands manages to attract not only the upper crust of humanity but some pretty rare specimen of Pokémon as well.

Supertrees and super hotel

The Gardens at the Bay are awesome and deserve more than the hour I had to spare. At the maximum speed that the temperature allowed I made it to the center before it was time to return, pack my bags and get to the right point of the lobby for checkout. Then it was time for a major bus ride to Melaka, Malaysia: a distance of some 250 km, which was expected to take us most of the day to cover.

Comfy bus seats

We were no more than 5 minutes on our way before snores started to resonate through the bus. Though the comfort of a bed is certainly larger than that of a bus seat, why sleep during the night if you have such a lot of travel time that you can use for that purpose? The only downside was that after an hour we had to cross the border, for which we had to get out of the bus twice, once to get out of Singapore and once to get into Malaysia. Both transitions took time but otherwise went smoothly enough, even though at the second of these we had to get all the luggage out of the bus and have it checked through a scanner. No illegal substances found, apparently: if there had been any in the first place then their residue was still coursing through the unscanned bodies of the zombies on the bus, and not hidden in their luggage.

Roadside lunch

More bus hours through the traffic jam-packed roads. Haze and smog surrounded us from time to time, confirming the waste disposal process of oil palms we had learned about at A-star: just burn it! At 15:30 we enjoyed a late lunch at a Chinese restaurant along the motorway, then we went on again. More traffic jams, interspersed with clear stretches, where good speed could nevertheless hardly be made due to road conditions. Finally, it was almost 19:00 when we checked into the Puti Hotel in Melaka.

We had changed our guide when we changed countries. Jack, as our Malaysian guide wants to be called (and which eveyone agreed to do after he had also given us his full name) made productive use of the last bus hour to fill us in on the history of Melaka, part of which I will pass on as part of tomorrow's post. There was an evening program in Melaka, consisting of a short beca ride and a slightly longer boat trip, after which we were free to find our own dinner.

Beca train

A beca is a bicycle taxi, the thing called a rickshaw in India and a betjak in Indonetia (I'm sure the latter is etymologically related to beca). There is a difference, however: in a rickshaw, the driver is seated in front, in a betjak behind; for the beca they have adopted the only remaining option, to put him to the side. When I was in Indonesia, betjaks were in great demand not only for tourists but for the local population as well, but that was in 1989; things might well be otherwise there now. Certainly, very clearly, the becas we were squeezed into were never meant to be taken by anyone but a tourist: they were bedecked with as many garish symbols and flickering lights as the drivers had been able to glue on, and many of them had a sound system sufficient to deafen the passengers. We made quite a spectacle with 15 or so of these in a queue finding their way from the hotel to the waterfront.

River boats

Melaka is situated on a river (with the uninspired name of Melaka River), and in the heart of the city there are tourist boats going up and down. It's a fairly popular ride, judging from the queue in which we spent the next 30+ minutes. When we finally got in, we could observe that there is indeed a certain charm to the quays, though we had to adjust our minds from the cleanliness of Singapore to this place, which conformed a lot more to the prejudice about hygiene in developing countries. In particular, the river itself gave off sewer-like smells, and the forward guys who had grabbed the front seats soon came to regret their choice, as the waves from opposing boats made great foul splashes.

Dutch Harbourfront Café

Nevertheless, the riverfront was charming enough for myself and Luís to choose to have dinner there afterwards. Fortunately we already had some Malaysian Ringits in our pockets, changed from the remaining Singapore dollars when we left the Marina Bay Sands, as here, even more than in Singapore, the places where you can pay electronically are few and far between. We did not know how far that amount would stretch, but we very soon found a table at the Dutch Harbourfront Café which offered a three-course meal for 7 Euro, including ice tea. The meal was delicious and we though we had a good deal, but later we heard that others had diner for 1/4th the price...

The way back to the hotel offered some challenges as I had run out of internet and the becas had taken us along a circuitous route that we certainly could not follow backwards. In the end it turned out we had landed up on the river bank opposite from the one we thought we were on. Close to the hotel was a street market still going on, though it was already 23:00, which was so crowded that I dreaded to make my way through it. Fortunately there was a way around. Having had a short night and not having slept much in the bus, I was now quite tired and glad to find my bed.