motorway | Chaos roaming the world

Monday is a good day to start again. Monday was the day we were leaving KL to explore more of Malaysia. If we could only get this packing done…

In our defense, we had stayed longer at Sonja’s place than we usually do in any hotel plus we had sorted things out that we didn’t take on our special trip to Thailand. And, we were probably more thorough than at other times. We noticed, for example, that the oxo cubes in our kitchen box had somehow drawn water and were disintegrating…a mess that we cleaned immediately, with running water and swipes so nearby, rather than leave it. So yeah, packing took until lunch time.

beautiful!

It didn’t impede much on our plans though. The city of Melaka, a Unesco World Heritage Site, is only 150km away from KL. Also, Flo had picked a small town half-way in between to have lunch as he read a lot about Malaysian food lately. Going on the motorway still delights Flo and we even listened to some audio book, a thing we haven’t done since we left the Australian Stuart Highway. This fact, probably more than anything else, should tell you in what a great shape the roads here are.

Cautious at first, but it was pretty good

Stopping in Seremban at a small but well-frequented eatery (Lonely Planet suggestion), we realized that we didn’t even look at the language section so far. Luckily, most of the words for foods are exactly the same here as they are in bahasa Indonesia so we already know a lot. One phrase needs to be added to my vocabulary “sayuran saja” (gemüsig ich bin) and then I should be sweet for the rest of our time here. In the end, we had noodles in some kind of tomato sauce with fried tofu and tried a cendol as dessert. Cendol is like nothing I knew and it is surprisingly un-sweet. You get a bowl with shaved ice cubes, jelly noodles, little crunchy things, coconut milk and some sort of red bean mash. Not bad but very new for my taste buds.

Riding another 80km down to Melaka didn’t take long anymore. The city is probably still better known in the West as “Malacca”, first a Portugese trade hub, then taken over by the Dutch before being handed over to the British…Flo could give you a history lesson if you are interested. =P

Still not sure why, but cool motto

Today, “Don’t mess with Melaka” is the slogan here. After we found a place to stay and cooled down a little again (man, you forget how hot those motorcycle clothes get), we explored the old center a bit. Crossing the river got us to the “Stadthuys” or town hall next to St. Peter’s hill. There used to be a fortress on the hill but after having been taken a couple of times by force, one settled for a church up there now. It is an odd place, filled with the old grave headstones which are nowadays used as props by the tourists. We even saw a couple taking their wedding pictures there.

Back down from the hill, half molten by the heat, we once again stumbled into a massive mall. The AC was on “freezer” temperature, I think, but the mall had many perks. First and foremost, it had massage chair which I used for 6min. Don’t bash it before you’ve tried it…it’s not the real thing but it’s still better than no massage at all.

ICE CREAM!!!!!

Second, it had a real ice cream stall. The advertisement went from “natural ingredient” to “freshly produce”. BUT, the ice cream was YUMMY and it made me happy as the picture testifies. Flo had a very good but very sour “Lemon Lime” flavour which he balanced with “Snickers” while I had the more classic combo of “Chocolate” and “Berry yogurt”.

This refreshment gave us new energy to keep on exploring colourful alleys around the river. We also started looking for a dinner restaurant when the sun started to set, just to notice that most places were already closed. Cafe-style eateries close at 5.30pm here so we were more than an hour too late. Wandering the streets, we had to settle on a Western restaurant which meant that the food was expensive and not spicy enough.

: Even tire pressure was still all good.

: Cautious at first, but it was pretty good

: beautiful!

: Even though Melaka is pretty tight, we got a good parking spot.

: A street in the UNESCO world heritage of Melaka’s Chinatown

: Grave of an ancient general / war hero / insane murderer

: path towards the river

: The river separates Chinatown from the old fort district and Little India

: A European-style clock tower

: This Christchurch replaced the old one on the hill

: Still not sure why, but cool motto

: Men wearing dresses always make good statues. Less sculpting required.

: Funny enough, it is based on the flag of the East India Company and not the other obvious one …

: This had been a catholic church, a protestant church and an ammunition store.

: Old dutch men, bones gone stones remain.

: The last remnant of the Portuguese fort.

: The English might have “accidentally” razed the fort to the ground while safekeeping it for the Dutch …

: The luxury of a massage chair

: ICE CREAM!!!!!

: Pretty carvings

: Even the garage doors are artsy

: Old waterwheel at dusk

: At night in Melaka’s River View Guesthouse

Don’t like handing over my bike …

The whole shipping our bike on a passenger ferry made us nervous. There was no guaranty that it would work and just last week, a traveller we know (going from London to NZ) was refused because his bike was too big to fit through the door and now he’s stuck in Kuala Lumpur with no way across to Sumatra.

Thus, our night was short. Flo was up from 2am, I joined at 5am. Mr Ade called again at 7am to make sure that we had “the money” and we felt as if we were in a bad mafia movie. We had “the money” and now we were going to “the harbour” with it to meet “our fixer”. The wire anyone?

We arrived at the ferry terminal at 8am which was an hour earlier than Mr Ade told us to be there. He, however, was there already and started the procedure right away. Our luggage was carried onto the pier (with now ferry in sight there yet) and then, one of the staff insisted on driving Rocinante onto the pier. Flo would have preferred to drive our bike himself but he wasn’t allowed.

The Agent, hard at work with his other clients …

We had a basic breakfast in the waiting area before being picked up by Mr Ade for some special bule treatment. Got our passenger ferry tickets and then had our passports stamped as proof that we left Indonesia way before anyone else. We then proceeded to be the first ones on the ferry. One of the staff took us to the storage to show us all our luggage was on board but Rocinante had to remain on the pier until all passengers had boarded.

The ferry was one of the high speed kind but it smelled pretty badly. Fish, urine and the sight of cockroaches mingled for the next two hours while we waited for everyone else to come on board. Since we were leaving one country and entering a new one, everyone had to go through customs to have their passports checked and stamped which takes forever. Suddenly, we heard commotion from the hallway; Rocinante was being pulled, heaved and dragged onto the boat. I felt much relief when the bike finally was on the same boat as us.

Leaving Tanjungbalai, everyone was served a lunch packet. It contained a pile of plain rice and a piece of fish. Flo had “luck” and a whole fish’s head in his one.

safety what?

The ferry ride was very long. And horrible. Mostly because some of the hawkers had obviously paid so that they could use the announcement system but it was broken and emitted a high-pitched electronic sound for an hour or so which made my head nearly explode. I felt really sick. It got to the point where Flo and I put toilet paper into our ears because we had no access to any other form of earplugs.

We were so happy when we arrived in Port Klang. Just going into the port, you could see how different Malaysia would be to Indonesia. What an enormous, industrial-sized harbour! Wow. On the Malaysian side of customs, we had to queue shortly, leave our fingerprints and declare our goods. As soon as we were through, Mr Ong found us to deal with the Malaysian side of shipping our bike across. This mostly included leaving our carnet de passage with a customs officer and going to pay Mr Ong his share. He wanted another RM350 which is RM150 more than we were told. Again, we had no other choice than to pay. we were “graciously” given a discount of RM50. At least we got a receipt for this fee…

We had to stay back … safety and all … yeah right.

Then we were allowed access to Rocinante. The customs officer checked the engine number and other things before stamping it. Our luggage still had to be x-rayed. Finally, we were at the point when we strapped everything back to the bike and left the harbour. It was getting late and it was another 50km to our bed.

Riding out of the harbour, we fell in love with Malaysian roads. Great roads. Big roads. Almost like the autobahn. Functioning traffic lights. No honking. No one trying to kill us. Motorbikes are not only allowed on the motorway, they get their own on-ramp so they can bypass the toll station. Motorbikes can use the motorway for free. It all looked so great. Sun was slowly setting when we made our way into Kuala Lumpur. What a pretty city!

Getting darker, but everyting is nicely illuminated.

And then we had to face the difficulties of a life without a proper SIM card yet. Our GPS didn’t know Sonja’s address. Without SIM card, we couldn’t google it and instead had to ask for directions on the way there. Took a wrong turn and ended up back on the motorway. *sigh* It was dark when we arrived at the gated community. Security asked for our swipe card…which we didn’t have. Without a SIM card, we couldn’t even call Sonja’s neighbour who had all our access keys. *sigh again* In the end, one of the guards lend us a phone so we could call and while I waited, Flo got accompanied to a phone shop to remedy our “no SIM card” plight once and for all.

Barely human anymore, we entered Sonja’s flat at 9pm. Tired, exhausted and filthy as.

If everything goes according to plan, this was the last shipping we had to do. We now have made our way from New Zealand onto the Eurasian continent. From here on out, we are crossing land borders. HELLO EURASIA! *wohooo*