On my second trip to Singapore, I convinced my travel mates (i.e. my mom, sister, cousin, and mom's amiga with her kids) to take a day trip to Malaysia's world heritage site, Malacca--or more accurately spelled as Melaka. There's not much to do in Singapore after all, so we took the bus from City Plaza at Geylang Road for the 5-hour trip to Malacca.
I have always thought of Singapore's Geylang area as a red district, no thanks to online reviews, but seeing these heritage structures totally made me change my mind. It's a quiet, peaceful residential area where locals are friendly enough to give you directions. I had a nice friendly conversation with a student who was nice enough to walk us to the nearest bus stop after we missed the last train to Clarke Quay on our way home. Way to go, Singaporeans!
To head to Malacca, we took the Delima Bus leaving City Plaza at 8:30 am. The one-way tickets to Malaysia cost us SGD 21.00 each or roughly Php 700. We opted to buy the tickets from Malaysia to Singapore upon arrival at the Malacca bus terminal since I read reviews that it's cheaper there by half. Compared to the SGD 21 for our morning trip, we got our tickets to Singapore at SGD 9 from the Malacca terminal.
Since SG cabs are notoriously expensive, we chose to commute to City Plaza from our place since it's easy to head there coming from Clarke Quay or Orchard Road. We took the MTR and got off at Paya Lebar station and took the exit A. From there, just look around and you won't miss the tall orange City Plaza building which is accessible in less than a five-minute walk.
The bus left on time and our driver also strictly observed the 20-minute waiting time at the Singapore and Malaysia immigration halls. We panicked a lot no thanks to the long lines and added confusion of rushing to the nearest immigration counter, but managed to head back to our bus at every stop point.
After five long hours on the road with a boring landscape, we finally arrived at the Malacca bus terminal! From there we took the bus going to the Malacca cultural heritage area and proceeded to walk around the place. It reminded me of Intramuros, actually. From the bus terminal, it's about a ten-minute ride towards Dutch Square or heritage area. It's hard to miss, since the place is surrounded by pinkish red buildings.
Here we are in front of the Christ Church built in 1753. This centuries old church at Dutch Square is the oldest Protestant church in Malacca. Across the church is the Tan Beng Swee clock tower built in 1886. It's also the jumping point for most walking tours and there are trishaws that offer rides towards the top of the hill going to St. Paul's Ruins. We opted to walk!
And the view was worth it! It's an uphill climb which involves a lot of stairs, so make sure you're up for it.
It's also tempting to ride the flowered trishaws with loud pop music blaring from the speakers. It's best to haggle for the price since most of the drivers will easily lower prices if you attempt to walk away.
Unlike Macau's Ruins of St. Paul, this church still has intact walls and you can go inside to take some photos. It's a nice structure from the outside and there's an exhilarating view of Melaka town from the top since it is literally on top of a hill. In fact, I had to cling to the sloping grass bank to take this wide photo or risk falling off the hill.
Inside, there are wide and tall doorways and stone carvings that are fascinating to look at and observe. There is no roof so it might be a bit of a hassle to come here when it's raining. This church was originally built in 1521 and still has a Dutch cemetery behind the structure.
Walking down from the hill, we found the A Famosa ruins or in English, The Famous. Apparently, it is one of the oldest European architectures in Asia and served as a fortress for the Portugese during their settlement in Malacca.
Despite the added challenge of dodging crazy fast trishaws, it's fun to walk around Melaka and we were able to explore the city in an hour. I love the fact that it has these pink-red buildings everywhere!
The best part of our trip to Melaka was Jonker Street and the chicken rice balls which deserves a separate entry. :-)
