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Kampung Simpang Balak

Kampung Simpang Balak

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Traveler Gavin’s Gone A-wandering
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- Dec 11, 2022, 12:28pm
- 🌧 27 °C
- Altitude: 10 m
- Malaysia Selangor Kampung Simpang Balak Sungai Jerneh 3.0081, 101.77193°0’29” N 101°46’19” E
Day 24
Change of Travel Plans
December 11, 2022 in Malaysia ⋅ 🌧 27 °C
The rain was so bad yesterday and today, the sky so unfriendly, that I decided not to stick around in the Kota Bharu area. I'd hoped to nip over on a small boat to the Perhentian Islands for a bit of scuba diving. It's usually cheap and highly recommended. Anyhow, the rumours were that the Perhentians might 'closed' due to the monsoon rains having arrived. The diving would have been poor at best: cold and with reduced visibility.
Staying at 'Destiny Hotel' tonight. I guess it was fate.
At least the trains seem to be running. New plan: head for Malacca in the south for a bit of warmth and dryness.
I walked to the bus station, rucksack n all, and there was told there were 'no more buses today'. It carried on raining, then it poured down really hard, then it just rained for a bit. But mostly it was a torrential downpour all day.
So I got in a taxi to the train station with my fingers crossed. Happily, the staff there were very helpful and fixed me up with a two-train ticket to Malacca.
Horrible, cold train journey.
Worst of all, I asked a train guard 'Is this Gesam?' (my station to change at), and he replied 'This Gesam stesion' (sic). So I got off in a rush to find it was actually the station before. Picture me running to dash onto an open carriage door. To add salt to the wound, I found there were sleeping bunks in some of the front carriages :(
Anyway.... Malacca looks interesting. A look around and some photos to come.Read more
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Traveler Gavin’s Gone A-wandering
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- Dec 12, 2022, 5:27pm
- 🌧 28 °C
- Altitude: 10 m
- Malaysia Selangor Kampung Simpang Balak Sungai Jerneh 3.0081, 101.77193°0’29” N 101°46’19” E
Day 25
Melaka - 1st Full Day of Wandering
December 12, 2022 in Malaysia ⋅ 🌧 28 °C
Oh my ears and whiskers, this is much better.
From the cold and rainy, monsoon-drenched north, it's lovely to be in the typically tropical south of Malaysia.
Melaka (local spelling) is a noted UNESCO World Heritage City. As a result of what appears to be continual intermixing of races and cultures, and following the influence of several colonising nations, including Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese, British, Malaka retains a wonderfully rich cultural heritage that's evident in the architecture, food and generally encompassing feel to the place.
I'm enjoying it here.
Melaka is a very 'walkable' city, especially in the hub centred on Town Square. Overall, there's a very strong (if not to say overwhelming) Chinese influence currently. However, the Dutch flavour to much of the riverside architecture, which is pleasingly 'funky' for a European visitor such as me.
I'm staying at a very Bohemian guest house that my Lonely Planet guide used to call The Riverside Guesthouse, but is now called 'Vspace': uber cool with hi-tec pods to sleep in and exposed brickwork on most of the walls. I could fit in here for a while.Read more
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Traveler Gavin’s Gone A-wandering
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- Dec 13, 2022, 5:54pm
- 🌧 27 °C
- Altitude: 10 m
- Malaysia Selangor Kampung Simpang Balak Sungai Jerneh 3.0081, 101.77193°0’29” N 101°46’19” E
Day 26
Melaka - 2nd Full Day of Wandering
December 13, 2022 in Malaysia ⋅ 🌧 27 °C
Blimey, did I sleep well in my pod.
I'm back in the relaxed traveller frame of mind. That's not to say there haven't been hiccups.
I dropped my iPhone on a hard floor in Kuwait and needed to get the whole front screen replaced in Kathmandu (by a knowledgeable lad: c.£16, bargain).
I also dropped my removable hard drive (back-up for photos) on arriving at Vspace. Now it can't be accessed on my MacBook.
Yeah, there have been frustrations, but this is turning out to be a wonderful trip already.
I've chatted to mainly local people, but met the occasional fellow traveller along the way. For example, a French couple took the same journey as me from Kota Bharu to Melaka, but we only got talking when I was chatting with a local chap outside his house on the riverside. The Malay chap was fascinating. He'd studied in the UK at Brighton and Birmingham, and we had a good old natter about myriad things of mutual interest. He'd only give his name as 'Mr Best in Town' (photo uploaded).
I'm writing this on one of the tables beside the riverside walk that the rear of my hotel butts onto. Te breeze is helping a lot. The lights are starting to come on in the riverside restaurants, and it's time to go hunting for dinner.Read more
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Traveler Gavin’s Gone A-wandering
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- Dec 14, 2022, 9:24pm
- 🌧 25 °C
- Altitude: 10 m
- Malaysia Selangor Kampung Simpang Balak Sungai Jerneh 3.0081, 101.77193°0’29” N 101°46’19” E
Day 27
Melaka - Last Day
December 14, 2022 in Malaysia ⋅ 🌧 25 °C
Today's been about visiting the Stadhuys Museum and connected smaller displays in the morning, and trying to 'tick off' some things I'd not managed to cram in earlier.
The Stadhuys (town hall) dates back to the Dutch colonisation/takeover from the Portuguese. It's particularly interesting to me (no wait, honest, it get's a bit more interesting), as the building was modelled on one I remember very fondly from my youth. Yeah, yeah, my memory's not that bad. It was designed as a reconstruction if the 'stadhuis' in Hoorn in the Netherlands.
Our Steve will immediately know where I'm going with this.
We spent a very, very pleasant week with Mrs de Kuiper and her family in Hoorn when I was 11 years old, as part of a town twinning/band visit, back in the mists of time. Lovely memories.
Included here are yet more shots around Melaka; St Paul's church (Bukit St Paul), [why is an Austin Princess limousine displayed in a kind of bandstand?] Gravy Baby promotes a balanced diet, more street scenes and more river scenes when it's at it's most colourful in the evening.
Early turn-in tonight - pack the rucksack for a smooth getaway in the morning: 8am taxi to the main bus terminus at Melaka Sentral (local spelling).
Speaking of which, amongst all the Malay-ized renditions of common words, some other oddities crop up. Just around the corner from my guesthouse is a place proudly calling itself the AK47 Cafe. Apparently people are dying to get a table.Read more
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