WHICH BUS? (28-30/1/09)

WEDNESDAY 28TH JANUARY

I had the worst sleep ever last night. This was due entirely due to the couple in the next room having the biggest row in the world ever. This wouldn’t really bother me except that the fella was a bit pissed by the sounds of it, and he kept throwing things and the woman sounded quite scared. If this wasn’t bad enough, they were arguing about me! At first Louise didn’t believe me. This quickly changed when I explained what had happened earlier on in the day. When I say what happened, there wasn’t anything that happened, it’s more of a none story to be honest. I was having a conversation with the woman, and then he (the husband) turned up in a towel, having just been for a shower. That was it, nothing more, nothing less. I wasn’t doing the deed with her or anything like that, I was stood in the doorway talking to her, and that was it. Eventually, around 02:00a.m, the sparring session stopped.
The next day I saw the husband. He didn’t even have the decency to look at me. I think he was slightly embarrassed by his actions. The green eyed monster gets people like that sometimes.
Later on that afternoon we left the city of Kuala Lumpur; our next destination was to be Melacca (Melaka). This was to be our last stop in Malaysia before we went to Singapore for the weekend. We arrived quite late in the afternoon at Melaka bus station. The terminal is about three miles out of town and unless you want to pay over the odds for a taxi, you have to get the local bus. This isn’t a problem for the locals. For a fat, white boy from England who speaks no foreign languages to anything above Mickey Mouse level (Je m’appelle David, Ich bin Lederhosonkopf ©J. McNally circa 1995. Anyway French and German would be no use here.), and whose English is riddled with colloquialisms and slang it was going to be harder than reading a Salman Rushdie novel.
After following the map we were given (It was more like a seven year olds version of a treasure map, rather than a Texaco road map.), and the six or seven people we spoke to, we finally got on the right bus (it was also the one we first wanted to get on, but were told no.). Another 45 mins on the bus and we were at our guesthouse. Very cheap, and almost cheerful, we were at our new home for the next 3 nights.

THURSDAY 29TH JANUARY

After getting up late, unintentionally mind, we went to see the town in the daylight. It is a very pleasant town to look at. There are a lot of places to visit in the old town, there’s a fair bit of history in the place. There are also a lot of different influences; there’s Portuguese, Dutch, British, Chinese and Indian. Whilst we were there it was mainly a party town for the Chinese immigrants, as it was still part of the New Year celebrations. We went around Chinatown, and it was very nice. There were people doing craftwork, a huge amount of food stalls, selling all the local delicacies, and lots of music. This is what I expected KL’s Chinatown area to be more like.
In the afternoon we went for a stroll along the river. Whilst we were having a drink, the Japanese family we met at KL City Park happened to walk by. Not only were they still very friendly, the young daughter was still going on about Bambi. My Japanese hadn’t come on leaps and bounds in the last three days; Bambi is still Bambi in any language.
In the evening I achieved another first in my life. Tonight I ate an Indian meal the traditional way for the first time, with my hands, (Well it’s really just one hand, your right one.) using a banana leaf as a plate. It was a strange experience but one I would definitely do again. Not at home mind you, there aren’t banana leaves in abundance, and I don’t think eating a Jalfrezi from the local Punjab Palace with one hand is going to be as easy, especially when you’ve just had 10 pints of cider.

FRIDAY 30TH JANUARY

Most of today was spent travelling to and from the nightmare that is the local bus terminal. It took us over an hour and a half to get there. This was because the bus stop we got off at last time suddenly became one that was no longer in use on the day we wanted. Then after walking along the bus route to see if we could pick it up, it drove past us with the conductor and the driver watching and waving at the pair of us. We had to get a taxi in the end.
We booked our bus ticket to Johor Bahru; it’s easier than going straight to Singapore. That took us all of five minutes. We then had to go back. Logical thinking suggests that the bus that you got two days ago would be the same one you’d get now, especially if it had the same number and it was at the exact same stop as the previous day. Oh no, that would be too simple. So having got on what we thought would be the right bus (I don’t know what we were thinking, getting on the bus with the same number that was departing from the same stop. Thinking logically that’s for fools.), and getting our ticket off the same conductor who had been waving at us no more than two hours ago. We were driven around Melaka for another hour, on a completely different route, seeing nothing that was familiar and getting a little worried. Finally we arrived at the rear entrance to the main shopping centre, completely oblivious to how we got here. My sense of direction is rubbish at the best of times, but I know I’d never been to any of the destinations on that bus route before. I think we might have had to get off the bus when around twenty people got off, I’m not too sure though, I still don’t speak Bahasa.
We had to then go to the post office and send home Louise’s box of tat that was getting bigger by the day. It costs an absolute fortune to send anything home from abroad, even by sea it cost us almost as much as the things we were sending home.
Not much else to be said about Melaka, it’s very nice and has plenty of history. If you do have the chance to go, do it, but avoid the bus terminal unless you speak the local language.