Melaka is a historic state in the Southern region of Peninsular Malaysia. The state is abundant with heritage buildings, ancient landmarks and colonial structures. Melaka City was listed as one of Malaysia UNESCO World Heritage Site together with George Town in Penang. Melaka is famous for the imprints of British, Dutch and Portuguese forces left behind in forts, museums, churches and towers.
I am a UNESCO site enthusiast and in my not so frequent trips to some new place, I always search for any UNESCO site nearby that I could visit. So yes, on our first day of our 1 week Malaysia trip, Melacca tops the list :). We arranged our Melaka day tour from Kuala Lumpur on our own and it was very easy. All information we need is available in google, and the very good transportation system of Malaysia did help a lot.
Our hotel is in Pudu area near Bukit Bintang and we are walking distance from Hang Tuah and Pudu LRT station (LRT lines 3 & 4). We are so excited on this trip as this is the first day of our Malaysia exploration. We have read that there is a bus from Berjaya Times Square Hotel (a short distance from our hotel) that goes directly to Melaka and so after our early breakfast, we walked to Berjaya Times Square Hotel to try to get the ride. First lesson learned : bus tickets are purchased either online or from the ticket booths in the terminals (except for local buses and city buses). We know that the bus tickets can be purchased online but we don't know that we cannot buy it from the driver. We have no choice but to proceed with our other option, to go to (TBS) Terminal Bersepadu Selatan Bus Station.
From Berjaya Times Square Hotel, we walked towards Hang Tuah and took LRT Line4 to Bandar Tasik Selatan (BTS). The TBS Bus Station is a huge building, very organized, the first modern bus terminal I've been to so far. It is located just across the BTS train station and accessible via the walkway that connects BTS train station and TBS bus station.
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| TBS as seen from the connecting walkway |
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| The walkways that connects TBS and BTS. I appreciate that Malaysia is blind-friendly. There are yellow lines as guide for the blinds everywhere. |
TBS Bus station has a sentralized ticketing system, I feel like I'm in the airport actually and not in a bus terminal.
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| Centralized Ticketing System |
We bought our ticket to Melaka for just 10RM each and waited for about 15 mins for the bus to arrive in the assigned gate (just like in the airport).
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| waiting are |
The bus would bring us to Melaka Sentral (local bus station in Melaka) and the trip took us ~2.5hrs.
From Melaka Sentral Bus Station, we took the local bus (Gate 17) to bring us to Dutch Square and the fare is only 2RM each. We reached Dutch Square at 11:30am, took some pics on this famous red square but did not stay long as we are already hungry so we cross the bridge to the other side of the river to take our lunch. Melaka City indeed feels like a European city center because of the presence of the river (except for the hot weather of course). I always love the feel of city centers in Europe coz I love nature and seeing a clean river in the midst of the city is so relaxing.
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| Dutch Square |
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| Christ Church Melaka...an imposing structure in the Dutch Square. All red and all European air. |
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| I love Melaka :) |
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| The river dividing Melaka City |
Right after crossing the bridge is the famous Jonker Walk. There was no crowd but on weekend nights, the street is close for the night market. We walk around to look for a good restaurant but it was very hot, the one restaurant we wanted to try is close, and so we just settled for Famosa Chicken Rice Ball.
After lunch we started with our Melaka City Exploration. We cross the bridge back to Dutch Square and use below map as our guide.
We walk up the little hill at the back of Stadthuys towards St. Paul's church at the summit and down to Porta De Santiago. St. Paul's Church is a historic church building in Malacca, Malaysia that was originally built in 1521, making it the oldest church building in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. It is located at the summit of St. Paul's Hill and is today part of the Malacca Museum Complex comprising the A Famosa ruins, the Stadthuys and other historical buildings.
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| St. Paul's Church at the top of the hill |
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| It is amazing to be standing in the midst of the ruins of this very old church. |
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| The old structure behind is the St Paul's Church atop the hill. |
Porta de Santiago is a small gate house of A Famosa, a Portuguese fortress in Melaka. It is among the oldest surviving European architectural remains in Southeast Asia.
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| Porta de Santiago as seen from St. Paul's Church atop the hill. |
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| Porta de Santiago |
When we were at the top of the hill in St. Paul's church, we saw this huge old ship in the distance and so we decided to go and explore the area. We found out that it is a Maritime Museum. The Maritime Museum or the Muzium Samudera is a replica of the Portuguese ship which sank in the coast of Malacca while on its way to Portugal. The replica is a staggering 34 meters in height and 8 meters in width. The main focus of the museum is the maritime history of Malacca and the golden ages of Malacca’s Sultanate as the Emporium of the East.
Later, there are other places we have checked like the old streets of Melaka with historical small establishments or buildings. We also passed this cute windmill and fort, I don't know the name, I forgot to check :) .
And to end our Melaka visit, we tried the famous Cendol.
It is good but I still prefer our own famous halo-halo in the Philippines :).
We walked back towards the end of Jonker Street where it joined Jalan Tokong and there is the waiting shed for a bus that would bring us back to Melaka Sentral, then back to Kuala Lumpur. at Terminal Bersepadu Selatan.
-------------end of our Melaka Adventure ------------------
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