Melaka Guide : A Day Tour From Kuala Lumpur

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.

TBS as seen from the connecting walkway

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.

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).

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.

Dutch Square

Christ Church Melaka...an imposing structure in the Dutch Square. All red and all European air.

I love Melaka :)

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.

St. Paul's Church at the top of the hill

It is amazing to be standing in the midst of the ruins of this very old church.

Behind the ruins, there is a path leading down to Porta de Santiago. We followed the path and passed thru some old dutch graveyard.

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.

Porta de Santiago as seen from St. Paul's Church atop the hill.

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 ------------------

My Sagada Trip : A Right Adventure in a Wrong Time

I'm gonna talk about my wrongly timed Sagada Adventure last January.


Last year, I came in contact again with a few friends from my previous company and we have set this Sagada trip as our way of get-together after a long time of not seeing each other.

Sagada in the mountain province of the Philippines is surely a great place to visit. If you love nature, want to escape from the crowded city life, and want to get a glimpse on what a remote, mountainous civilization looks like, then Sagada is your place.

We booked the Sagada Trip thru viajerogabrielletravelandtour at 2899/pax for a group of 14. Luckily we were able to gather some more friends of friends to form the required 14 pax so we have the van exclusively for our group. We were even picked-up from Dasmarinas, Cavite yey :) .

And so we left Dasmarinas at Thursday 8:00 pm for the night trip to Sagada. The van that picked us is GL Grandia so I had to say the ride is comfortable enough. Unfortunately, I was not feeling well since the start of the week (mild flu) and so I was coughing hard all the way to Sagada. Also, I'm not the type that can easily sleep so yeah, I think I only have 2 hours at most of interrupted sleep, yes, interrupted..lol.

The first part of the itinerary is an early breakfast at Banaue Rice Terraces View deck. We reached there around 6:00 am very excited to see the famous rice terraces but the fog was so thick so it was freezing cold. Good thing our breakfast took so long to be served. We took some pictures while waiting and before we  finished breakfast the sun has risen and we were able to have a good look of the rice terraces.

The trip then continued and we reached Sagada around 10 am. The winding road is so scary, wooohh.
We left our things in the van and our tour guide proceeded to bring us to the Echo Valley and the hanging coffins. I remember being cold generally but Mr. Sun was so happy to be around that I have to bring my shawl as cover from the heat, I don't want to get darker, I'm brown already, lol.

The echo valley, the hanging coffins is on the other side.

Okay, we just shout our hearts out and hear our voices' echos in the valley but there was not so much shade there so we left immediately and go to the hanging coffins. It was a good trek down the valley and up again. Good thing I was just wearing my havs, I felt poorly for the groups we passed wearing heels and have so much difficulty trekking, I wonder why they were wearing heels in the first place though..hmmmm.

The hanging coffins.

 It feels creepy to be standing just below the hanging coffins. The tour guide did a good job explaining things and overall it is a very unique and good experience. I am so tired after the walk back to the van and felt weaker as my cough is getting worse but I still have to join the cave spelunking in the afternoon, this is the highlight of the trip after all. We did a quick lunch, bought slippers for the caving, checked in at Pines Lodge, rest for around 15 minutes, and then we're back in the road again for the cave spelunking.

End of Sumaguing Cave Level 2 Exploration. No pics for level 3, cams were not brought.

January is a peak season for tourism in Sagada. We cannot do cave connection since the guide told us half day won't be enough as we are a big group, so yeah, we resort to just do the spelunking at Sumaguing cave. I was not so happy with the arrangement at first because I was looking for real adventure and I want the cave connection. I have been to Puerto Princesa, Palawan and went caving in Ugong Rock. It was not a big cave but I like the twist and turn and squezzing thru tight passages and so when we start Sumaguing caving until we reached level 2, I was still wanting for more..bitin :). I thought that was all but I was so happy later when the guide asked us if we're okay to get wet and proceed to level 3 spelunking. Of course we don't bother to get wet, we want more adventure..lol.
Okay, so it seems that level 3 did satisfied our adventurous selves. There we found the challenging passages, the rappeling moments, and the parts we need to wade thru chest deep waters under the dark...scary but highly recommended. The experience was so good, and we went back to our accomodation later very happy. But by then, all I wanted was to get out of my wet clothes the soonest so I can retire early. I was feeling very ill already.


We start very early the next day for the sunrise viewing at Kiltepan View Point (the famous sea of clouds). By then, I have no voice already, my eyes are red maybe something to do with stress and lack of sleep. I'm afraid to remove my shades coz people may think I have a sore eyes. Still, I go on with the itinerary. Some sturdy 4x4s picked us up at 4:30am I think and uphill we went thru winding dirt road. It was still very dark when we reached our destination. People keep pouring in and I think we waited for 1.5hrs just to view the famous sunrise on the sea of clouds.

Some crowd waiting for the sunrise at Kiltepan Viewpoint.

Unfortunately, the fog was so thick, we cannot see the much awaited sunrise. Anyhow, each of us still took the obligatory shot in this famous spot..haha. This spot should be very nice if the sun is rising in the background amidst the sea of clouds.

The obligatory pic spot haha

We went back to our accomodation, went to Sagada Brew for breakfast and I can't help but to share this very good and big serving of coffee ever. Sorry I forgot what coffee is this, I was really not so mindful of the details that time, I was not planning to write this blog then :).

Best coffee ever..

After breakfast and a short rest, the group proceeded with the next itinerary which is the waterfall trekking. I did not go with them as I prefer to sleep and rest more. Anyway, I came from Mindanao where waterfalls are not new anymore and so I was not that interested to explore more waterfall.
After lunch, I left the group and took a bus to Manila, I did not enjoy the trip anymore and want to go home and see the doctor. There is a bus with direct route from Sagada to Manila every afternoon: 2:00pm and 2:30pm.

...end of this blog...