Two weeks ago, RK and myself just felt like work stress was too much to handle. One fine morning, he randomly suggested a day trip to Malacca to “runaway from stress”. With no itinerary at all, we woke up when we woke up and drove to Malacca for our “runaway” =)
Random weekend getaway to random places in Malacca. Stopping wherever we stumble upon. Where should we stop next? ☺
Posted by Staci KY Tan on Friday, December 4, 2015
We reached Malacca in the late morning, almost noon. After parking the car, we walked towards Jonker Walk with the mission to hunt for lunch. When we walked past Calanthe Art Cafe, I just had to drag RK in to eat laksa; that’s right: laksa.
After the chillax and satisfying lunch encounter, we continued wandering into the historical town to search for our next pit stop. We walked in and out of the many shops along Jonker Walk, almost stopped at Jonker 88 for cendol if not for the massive crowd and ended up being attracted to this local cafe: Locahouz!
Noticed that we only stopped by cafes so far? Unintentionally, it turned into a cafe hopping trip. We quickly fixed it with a stop at a chicken rice shop for Malacca’s signature chicken rice ball. I believe the shop that we went was Hoe Kee; just queued and went in because both of us have tried that shop before and thought it’s alright.
RK finally felt his full tummy after this stop and so we wandered a little longer on the street to allow our tummies to digest the food marathon.
Our next exploration was to have a bowl of cendol before we head out of Jonker Walk. Decided to pull out the phone and Googled for a cendol place we’ve never tried before. Stumbled upon Best 3 Cendol in Melaka by HungryGoWhere and that’s how we ended up at The Kappan House that was -erm- empty when we arrived.
Next, we wanted to go to Baba Charlie to buy snacks home but it was already past its operating hour. We went to Nancy’s Kitchen instead to takeaway nyonya rice dumplings. By the way, Nancy’s Kitchen has moved out of Jonker area since Sept 2015. I missed the old structure at the old place.
Anyway, we headed to Klebang for coconut shake but it was so crowded RK said we’d return after dropping by Pantai Klebang. But he conned me! There was a 2km traffic jam (because of the coconut shake business) and RK refused to return. Can’t believe we drove past without buying any. *cry* He ended up buying me a random coconut shake from Pantai Klebang that totally didn’t make it.
Recently, I saw a video of sandboarding at Pantai Klebang. I also saw a photo of hotel made of refurbished buses, called Bustel at Pantai Klebang. I made it a mission to explore Klebang because I’ve only experienced the coconut shake and nothing else.
We saw the sand dunes from afar but didn’t get to compare it up close with the one in Perth because RK didn’t want to drive his new car into the sand =.= The end of tarred road and the sand dunes were quite a distance apart.
But we checked out Bustel! Rather than being amused by the Bustel, I was more amused by the stretch of buses refurbished into hawkers by the beach! It was so lively. There was even a public toilet refurbished from an old bus. If only we stopped by for some photos…
We left this side of Malacca for a 30-min drive to Portuguese Settlement. I wanted to check out the Christmas decoration because it’s December already and I learned that they have elaborated Christmas decoration there every year. And we spotted a few amazing home decorations!
We were supposed to head further south for dinner after checking out the decorations but it was raining cats and dogs so we stayed there for dinner instead.
Dinner experience was quite epic. Out of nowhere, a man stood outside our car with an umbrella in the pouring rain to escort us to the food court. Once at the food court, everyone was hailing us to their shops. I was shocked. I felt harassed. RK stayed resilient and we continued walking to the last shop, Lot 10 or J&J Corner because that’s the one that people rave about online (word of mouse again). Hmm.
It was 7pm when we finished dinner. The rain has just stopped and we noticed queue was forming at this mango juice stall. I consulted Google again to learn more about the stall: Joe’s Only One Mango Juice. Apparently, it’s a must-try at Portuguese Settlement too but RK didn’t allow me because he can’t stuff it in his tummy anymore and he knew I won’t be able to as well =(
And that was the end of our random and unplanned weekend getaway to Malacca. Looking back, I really liked the idea of wandering around without an itinerary. It kept us absorbed in the moment without worrying about having a checklist to tick off or itinerary to follow. Nothing to chase after and just about anything to be discovered. It was interesting =)
p/s Can’t quite believe I edited the photos taken with a powerful DSLR, with filters from my phone app =P
Was it really jam inside the town itself? Read that you mentioned there was a slight jam for coconut shake, but i am not planning to stop for that, basically i’m trying to avoid all places that need to queue for long and jam.. Haha! Well…I think i’m more or less the same as you, gonna hv an unplanned trip to Malacca tomorrow, but am just too afraid to stuck in jam 😔
Turn on the GPS (Google Map or Waze) so that you can avoid the jam leading into the town. It helped us avoid jam and save lots of time when we drove around. Enjoy your day tomorrow!
Was it really jam inside the town itself? Read that you mentioned there was a slight jam for coconut shake, but i am not planning to stop for that, basically i’m trying to avoid all places that need to queue for long and jam.. Haha! Well…I think i’m more or less the same as you, gonna hv an unplanned trip to Malacca tomorrow, but am just too afraid to stuck in jam 😔
Turn on the GPS (Google Map or Waze) so that you can avoid the jam leading into the town. It helped us avoid jam and save lots of time when we drove around. Enjoy your day tomorrow!