A Trip to Malacca – My Journal, Part 1

This is a screen shot of the road map from my computer screen – Singapore to Malacca aka Maleka

So, here I am. Back from my three days and two nights trip to Malacca or Melaka. I went there with a group of friends from my Food and Beverage Course in 1986 – classmates from another era. We reconnected last year, but unfortunately, we could only reached three quarter of the class. While most were eager to continue the friendship, some were not so keen. Anyway, sixteen out of twenty-two from the class are in contact, and eight of us went on this trip.

The trip was an impromptu decision when two in the group visited a travel fair, and saw the Special Offer for a three days, two nights stay at the A’Fomasa resort. The idea sounded nice and they floated the idea through Whatsapp. A decision had to be made on the same day before the ‘Offer’ expires. So, a frantic to and fro on Whatsapp ensued. The result was eight of us signed up. None did the homework on where was the Resort, or what was it all about. We just signed up for the adventure. And we set out on our adventures last Friday.

I mentioned in my previous post that the trip was about two and a half hours by car. But that was the trip beginning after the immigration checkpoint to Malacca. The entire trip by coach from Singapore to the resort is actually close to five hours on our way there, and six and a half hours on the way back. This included a twenty-five minutes break for refreshments.

We left Singapore early in the morning, so there was no jam. Traffic was smooth, and Immigration was smooth too. On the way back, for Singapore and Malaysian Steemians on here, who had used the Customs and Immigrations at the Causeway on a Sunday, you will know what a nightmare it is to clear Immigration.

Although Singapore and Malaysia is divided by a causeway, I can count the number of times I have travelled to Malaysia on my two hands. And they were by private car, or by flight. I can’t remember when was the last time I used the Customs and Immigration at the Causeway. I won’t go into details, but I will just say that there was a sea of people in a mad rush to clear immigration. The scene reminds me of refugees trying to escape across the border. There was another sea of people waiting for buses to continue on their journey after clearing customs. Utterly chaotic and madness.

I was completely lost in the crowd. If not for my mates coming back to look for me, I would have been left behind. If I can have it my way, I will not want to have to go through this scene again.

Anyhow, you must be dying to know how the trip went. It surpassed our expectations – because, we had no expectations, and/or we had expected the worst scenarios of what could happen when a group of eight adults of different characters spend three days and two nights together. I think I speak on the behalf of the group, when I said we did well. So well in fact, that we had planned our next trip – tentatively, some time in April/May next year.

On top of that, there is a dim sum lunch planned on the nineteenth of October, and a Birthday dinner on the first of November. Suddenly, this retiree living a simple life is now a social butterfly.

Although, it was only a short trip, my routine has been turned upside down. I will need a couple of days to organize the photos and talk about the places I visited. Stay tuned, if you are interested. Meanwhile some pictures of the villa's surrounding and a video of the interior of the room - courtesy of Nat.

This is the scene/villas opposite our villa. I had wanted to take a picture of our villa, but there were always people around, and then when they were all inside, I forgot all about it. Anway, our villa is similar to the ones in the picture.

The pool was a letdown. I had expected a bigger pool. As one my mates stated, 'With one stroke, I am at the end, how to swim.'

The following two pictures are of the surrounding area.

Loitering with intent - to enter. On the first night, we came back from shopping to find that we were locked out. The battery in the electronic keys ran out of battery - or something like that. We had to wait for reception to send someone to fix it.

This is the interior of the villa. Video courtesy of Nat.