21-day South-Asia trip (2007)

January 20th

Not bad sleeping at Changi Airport. There is a section on the 2nd floor, toward the MRT side which finds several people sleeping probably every night. The facilities even turn several lights off in the area for the comfort of those sleeping. Quite interesting.

Head to Lavender Station. Meet Dominic.

5 hours to Malacca.

Malacca is the historic Portugese colony, later taken over by the British. There are excellent examples of this history with a fort, various churches and even an old galleon, standing near the water, down toward the hotel district of the town.

Dominic and I hired a trishaw for an hour. Think rickshaw except pulled by bycycle. This is a famous thing to do in Malacca, and each driver decorates his ride with an array of flowers, blinking lights and a boom-box. We got to listen to BonyM the whole duration of our ride. Now that was a blast from the past!!

Later in the evening, Jonker street opened up as walk-about shopping and eating paradise. After all, this is the Saturday Market. We spent hours strolling around, snacking.

Later in the evening, we went to eat satay fondu. This place is packed, and the tables were full of minimum 6-8 people. It was the first time I have seen a place offering frozen meat and veggies, which are dipped by the customer into a boiling pot, recessed into the centre of each table. Once the meats or veggies are cooked, the food taken out by the stick they come on, and eaten. We had cold beer to go with this dinner, which turned out to be a good choice.