I really wanted to go and see some fauna that I have never seen before. I had planned on heading to Taman Negara to see if I could see anything in the wild, but I also planned to support some of the conservation and sanctuaries for sick and injured animals, like the Kuala Gandah Elephant Conservation Sanctuary. This place is incredible and the guides and elephants are very friendly.
Welcome sign to the Conservation Sanctuary
Not knowing much about elephants and only ever seeing them at a zoo at a distance, I really didn't quite understand how awesome their mass actually is. They are big and heavy and they can make very loud sounds. They are also very smart and seem to really try to communicate.
Baby elephant at the holding pen
I got there on a Friday, which due to the Muslim holy day, is a little quieter than normal and only has a feeding activity at about 2.45pm (check the times before you take my word for this). I knew it would be quiet, which is why I picked this day and drove from Kuala Lumpur. It is relatively easy to find and marked well by Tourism Malaysia (watch for the brown signs). The 9km road out there from the highway is a really nice forested and cool drive, but beware of the local traffic, chickens, dogs, and children running across the road. Also be aware that the road is not very wide and oncoming traffic can cause some issues, although this is minimised with a motorcycle.
On arriving you need to check yourself in and register at the visitor information centre before you cross the bridge and into the sanctuary itself. This is to ensure that you are informed about what you can and cannot do, and any safety information you need to know. It is also to keep track of the numbers of people going into the conservation area to maintain it and the elephants state of mind - there is a quota.
Real elephant skeleton on display at the registration centre
This is also the place you can make donations and unlike the temples, there is no donation box sitting around. If you want to make a donation, you need to see the registration staff. It costs about MYD$100 a day to feed a single elephant, so I'd recommend this as a starting donation as there are quite a few on the conservation and they eat about 200kgs of food daily. They are vegetarian and banana trees themselves make good food, which is why they can become a problem for farmers.
At the registration centre is a display room and a theatre which shows videos on how the elephants are translocated from areas of danger or concern to places like the conservation and Tanam Negara. The video was quite educational as I always thought of elephants as relatively docile creatures, but they are clearly difficult to manage.
In fact, there were lots of things I didn't know about elephants that I learned while being here. I didn't realise that Elephants have a similar life expectancy to humans and some have lived to be as old as 80 years in good environments that mimic their real wild environments. They have 4 teeth (tusks are not teeth) that are replaced up to 6 times as they loose them throughout their life and once their teeth are all gone, they die - usually because they can no longer eat. They are also very susceptible to trauma and just the traumatic experience of being moved somewhere can be enough to kill an elephant.
Part of the trauma issue is that they have really good memories. I have seen a documentary on their burial practices and that, in their native environment, they return to the burial grounds every year to pay respect to the dead. I have also heard that they are on the same level as primates for intelligence and tool use. They also make many more different noises than just a trumpeting sound, which is damn scary when they let forth a trumpet near you. They also have clicks, whistles and this deep grumble that reminds me of the crocodile rattle. There is even one instance of an elephant (Kosik) using its trunk inside its mouth to articulate Korean words. Eat your heart out Washoe!
I'd recommend you pay the MYD$50 for a guide to take you around the sanctuary. If anything it will keep you from getting zapped by electric fences, attacked by snakes and large spiders, and they carry a beating stick for anything larger - and apparently there are tigers on the sanctuary but they are well fed. I was afraid to ask what they were eating since they don't eat the elephants or humans (at least not that I heard). You can also get a guide for the Malaysian aboriginal community up the hill from the reservation centre to support them.
My guide, a pleasant and informative lady named Azmira, led me around the sanctuary and introduced me to the elephants, answering my many questions about various aspects and giving me some great general and specific information. First, we went to see the young ones and feed them some sugar cane and banana - I got to pat an elephant, hold the trunk, and pat its tongue (which was very warm). Then we went for a walk through the forest area and her and another guide showed me some of the bush medicine and poisons native to the area. Finally, after the video, she took me up to see the aboriginal community and the traditional house structures before getting me back in time for the adult elephant show and feeding session.
Greedy elephant who wanted more of everything
I had a brilliant day with the elephants and seeing the native Che' wong Orang Asli community. I'd recommend if you find yourself in Kuala Lumpur or even in Kuantan to take the effort to get out of the city and go and take a look at this marvellous sanctuary and lend some support to the efforts to keep them going.
My first experience driving in Malaysia was painful - driving rain, pitch darkness, limited visibility. I didn't know where I was going, my GPS was out, and I was getting dazzled by lights from incoming vehicles. I have driven in Australia around kangaroo and cattle zones, so the warnings to beware of the cattle were nothing special, but the warnings to watch for elephants really had me a little worried. I decided it must have been a joke.
I found out a little later that Johor has a significant population of elephants and they do sometimes cross the roads there, so if you see a warning about crossing elephants, take it seriously. I have no doubt an elephant would make a mess of your car, but riding a motorcycle, I'd probably have to have my body surgically removed from the elephant, even if I survived and this just doesn't sound pleasant at all.
The weather in the period I have been in Malaysia (mid to late February) has been quite wet, but reliably so. You can pretty much guarantee that mornings and early afternoons will be cloudless or a little overcast, but will not rain. There is a rain period from about 3pm through to about 7 or 8pm when it clears up and, as a friend told me (and I didn't really believe him) if it is not raining at about 9pm then the night will be clear of rain for some time. There can also be a midnight rain period that lasts until just before dawn.
The ultra-violet is severe here, like it is in Australia, but the sunlight is a little less bright, so you don't quite expect it. I have had some excellent sunburn just riding around in the mornings with normal jackets and gloves on. One day, I went for a long ride to a local beach (about 2 hours return) and on the trip out my sleeves blew out leaving an inch gap between my shirt and gloves. This resulted in a wonderful red wrist band that was sore for days. I also got a lot of sunburn on my neck due to the high UV and lack of cover on this area.
I have made a lot of use of these tubes of fabric that are placed over your head under the helmet and pulled down to cover the neck. They are also really useful for keeping dust out of your nose and mouth. This is not a big problem in Australia, but Malaysia has a lot of particulate debris on the roads from dust and dirt to grit and pulverised bits of plant and leaf. It is easy to inhale this on the road, so having a cloth over your mouth and nose will save you a lot of unsavoury experiences.
As for roads, the major highways are pretty well maintained and the speed limits are set at 110kph when you are outside a city limit and at 90kph when you are close to a city. Sometimes if the highway takes you through a city, it might drop down to 70kph (or even 50kph) when there is entering or exiting traffic.
I was told by other riders in the area as a motorcycle, I would have no problems travelling at 130 or 140kph in the 110kph zones and at first, I didn't really believe this. After being hassled by scooters sitting on my arse at 100kph in a 90kph zone and watching some of the larger bikes fly past me while I was doing 120kph in a 110kph zone, I decided to crank it up (safely). On a specific stretch from Kuala Lumpur to Johor Bahru, I had the bike up to 140kph in a 110kph zone and a police car passed me (much faster) waving and smiling. I have been able to get the bike up to in excess of 160kph in a 110kph zone with no trouble at all and the roads are good enough to handle it. However, note that the legal limit it signed well and you take a risk exceeding that limit.
The smaller roads will not handle this speed and you would be crazy to try. Both the state of the roads and the amount of slow traffic would be prohibitive at best and deadly at worst. Many of the country roads into the jungle areas are not signposted with tight corners and you find even at 80kph (in an 80kph zone) it can be difficult negotiating these corners as they come up on you from out of nowhere with no warning. Additionally, some of these old roads have some wicked dips in them and I got airborne on one doing 60kph which had me a bit worried. There is also no way to overtake if you get stuck behind a slow moving vehicle on these roads and it is often very dangerous to try.
On the larger roads, there is a shoulder that becomes a default motorcycle lane for the scooters and smaller bikes. For most cars, they expect that all motorcycles should be in this non-lane, but the edge of the road is not a place to be doing much more than 100kph and I would consider that speed in that lane is dangerous. That section of the road is not maintained as well as the main road, and there is often debris over it, like gravel, branches, and road-kill. I started trying to stick with all the others in the left lane, but as soon as you are on a big bike and travelling faster than 100kph, it is almost suicidal to stay there. You are also in a big blind spot for many normal road scenarios.
It is also expected that you as a motorcycle will relinquish your lane to anything larger than you if it approaches at speed behind you, even if you have nowhere to go. It is expected you will pull over to the left and the vehicle will pass very close with no indicator on your right. The vehicle behind will sometimes flash lights or use their own indicators to urge you out of the way. As a courtesy, in Australia, you stay left unless overtaking, but in Malaysia even if the right lane is clear, you will need to pull to the left while in the left lane to give another vehicle space to get past you. It doesn't matter if the right lane is vacant and they could move into the right lane to get around you; you, as a motorcycle, are expected to get out of the way to anything larger behind you.
Staying to the left is also useful for the toll plaza that seem to arrive randomly as far as I can see. When I got into Malaysia from Singapore, I had to get a "Touch and Go" card for USD$34 (which I found out later was a lot more than it needed to be). This card is used at the toll points for cars, but the only toll point I have had to use it with for a motorcycle was the one when I entered Malaysia from Singapore. Every other toll point has a small motorcycle lane at the far left just large enough for a motorcycle to move through.
Some of these motorcycle toll lanes are simply a small lane right next to the car lanes with no toll gate. Others are intricate weaving lanes that move around the toll area, with motorcycle parking and different single lanes disappearing off into other directions. There were even a few that had an over and under pass area for motorcycles. I always took the direct route as I was never sure where the other routes led. The idea, though, is to keep your speed down and that is why they are designed to be quite narrow and meander around the place.
Night time riding can be quite dangerous because the roads are not well lit and their seems to be no courtesy about turning down the high beam for oncoming vehicles. I was told that there is a general courtesy to turn high beam down, but that the lights themselves are often not adjusted to focus on the road properly and many focus high, which looks like high beam glaring in your face rather than being focused on the road. Regardless, in rain this can be devastating and I have refrained from driving at night since that first night ride to Mersing.
Walking up the Batu Cave steps to the Temple Cave, I made sure when I started to feel fatigued that I concentrated on where I was putting my feet. The photo below was an exchange with another solo tourist who wanted a photo like this with her in it, so we negotiated an agreement. If you look in the background to the right, you will see two guys in the process of being mugged by monkeys. This was a smart phone snatch and the guy in the black shirt lost his latest edition iPhone because he held it out to take a photo of a monkey who decided it was an offering, snatching it and running.
Nearly to the top (Pic exchange with another solo tourist)
Only a few more steps, surely
Getting to the top, you assume that there are no more stairs, but you are very wrong. The Temple Cave complex is vast and much larger than I expected before I got there. The caves themselves are amazing structures, but the amount of space is impressive as are the shrines and temples built inside. I had a few monkeys approach to see if they could steal anything, but I think my helmet put them off as it was latched to my belt and looked like a face watching my rear.
Welcome to the cave entrance
More steps, both down and up
The temperature drops significantly once in the shadow of the caves. Although there are no more banana stalls from this point, there are many tourist shops, even selling little die cast Petronis Twin Tower replicas and "I love Batu Cave" bumper stickers. They also sell drinks in these stalls, so if you have run out of water you can grab more here.
One of the many shrines inside the Temple Cave complex
There are dozens of detailed shrines and temples inside the cave complex, some are off-limits and some are being repaired, but many are open to the public to pray at or take photos of. The detail in the work is amazing and I found myself happily snapping away just because they were incredible works of art, not just religious in nature. I was a bit disappointed with the Main Temple after such incredible build up outside and the size and scope of the cave itself. I was imagining a massive and intricate temple hidden in the caves.
Batu Caves Main Temple
Batu Caves Main Temple
It seemed that there were no more monkeys this far into the cave complex, but I was wrong. Looking back the way I had come, the caves themselves were still impressive and quite large, but as mentioned above, I was expecting more inside the caves than there was. Maybe the caves themselves were so revered that to build anything inside them really needed to have a good reason.
Also be aware, even though there are signs everywhere, you need to remove your shoes if you are going to enter the temples. I watched a tourist from one of the Eastern European countries fail to read the signs and she was monstered by one of the monks who told her in crisp English to remove her shoes. She continued as if she didn't understand and he had to physically walk her out. Then she started to remove them where she stood and he had to point to the signs for her to figure out she was still too close. The signs really are quite obvious, so I don't know what she thought she was doing.
Looking back toward the entrance to the caves
The large temple at the far point in the Batu Caves
There are more temples and shrines at the far point of the cave so don't just stop at the Main Temple and think you have seen it all. It is still worth heading up the final set of stairs to see the back of the cave. This is also where the more peaceful monkeys are and the only place I saw the little baby monkeys, clinging to Mum with big bright eyes. Many of them were not happy to have their photos taken, but they were not as aggressive as those out the front of the cave complex, which I thought was a little strange as they had young to protect.
I exchanged my saved banana to get close to this Mum and baby
Many of the tourists were trying to get close to the babies and the mothers would just take them higher into the caves to get them away. I remembered then that I still had two banana in my backpack, stashed for an emergency like this one. Wary that these monkeys are not stupid and often cannot be cajoled into doing anything, I thought that just offering two bananas would be a nice thing to do as the guys out the front were clearly not bringing any bananas into these depths for the young.
She hissed at anyone else who got close, but I was favoured
Initially, I pulled them out and some of the younger monkeys came up to me intending to mug me, but they soon found out I was wise to them and when they couldn't get behind me or form a pack, they relaxed a little. I moved as close as I could to the Mum and baby I could find within throw range and threw my first banana at them. Mum realised it was for her and the other monkeys also knew it was for her, so they let her come forward to collect it. She still wouldn't let me hand her the second banana, but she checked it was suitable and then gave the remains to the baby who munched it down.
The choice photo, contemplative and caring
I threw the second banana a little closer and she knew I wanted her to come closer so I could get a photo. Once the second banana had been devoured, she considered my request and then clambered down onto the stairs for some close photos. She hissed at the other photographers if they came closer than I was, clearly understanding the trade we were making. I was able to get about four meters closer than any of the other photographers and took some great shots of the couple.
This was probably my highlight of the day. The caves were amazing and the temples were detailed and beautiful, but the interaction with the monkeys was the most fun. They are not stupid - in fact, I think I saw much more stupidity from the "higher" monkeys. They were often outsmarted by the "lessor" monkeys. There is such a curiosity and intelligence in these eyes that I think we humans sometimes forget that we are not the only sentient creatures on this planet.
I took advantage of the good morning weather in Kuala Lumpur to get to the places I wanted to see. One of the primary locations I had been recommend were the Batu Caves. A friend had told me to get some bananas at the bottom of the caves and take them up into the caves, which is what I planned to do, unaware that my friend had tried to set me up for a monkey mugging, but I'll get to that a little bit later.
The drive from Kuala Lumpur to Batu Caves is relatively easy if you don't over think it and there is a train station right next to the cave complex. I over thought the entire thing, so was looking for the temple on the GPS and in the maps, via Google Maps, and other tourist maps I had available, but I was concerned that there is also a suburb called Batu Caves. I could not tell if I were just being guided to the suburb or the temple complex. In the end, I placed my trust in Tourism Malaysia as I had seen signs to Batu Caves on my way into Kuala Lumpur from Kuantan. It took me only a short time to find these signs again.
When facing the complex, to the extreme left is the Ramayana Cave which holds a range of Hindu statues and pleasant lighting, but when I arrived, the large warning signs out the front and the restricted access put me off going in as it looked like it was being renovated. No one else went anywhere near it and even when I spoke to the guys at the Hanuman Temple, they could not tell me if the cave was open or closed for work. I had not yet seen the arrogance and ignorance of many of the Western (and Chinese) tourists on site, so I refrained from investigating for fear of insulting someone or causing trouble.
50 foot tall figure of Hanuman
Hanuman, the monkey trickster and Hindu deity, was the first temple I stopped at and probably appropriately warned me of what I was in for later. You know who your real friends are - those who try to catch you out when you are a tourist in a foreign country so they can get the good stories. I watched a guy try to get a monkey to take the photo he wanted by bribing it with a banana, but it didn't go well. He thought the monkey he was facing was the only monkey he had to deal with, but within minutes, he was swamped by a pack of about a dozen who clambered all over him to get the single banana. At first, I thought about helping him, but he was with a group of friends who were being no help at all and I left them to figure it out themselves.
One of the things I have learnt while travelling is not to get involved if you can help it.
Approach to the Art Gallery Cave and Museum Cave
I had all good intentions to see the other caves and investigate what was in them, but I wasn't really interested in watching dances or listen to chanting. Intellectually, I find these things interesting, but I really wanted to get up into the main cave to take a look. The Entrance Shrine was gorgeous to look at, but when I was there I didn't get too close as they were hosing the place down and I didn't want to get wet (although with the temperature, I understood why these guys were hosing things down and walking around in robes just covering bottom halves).
Entrance Shrine at Batu Caves
To the right of this image is a fortified store with banana and coconuts available for purchase, but they don't look the normal quality of fruits here in Malaysia and the guard out the front is not there to watch for people. The monkey's make sly passes every now and then and the guard is keeping his eye on them. There are no warnings anywhere for the tourists, but I was already watching those monkeys with wariness. They were also keeping a watchful eye on me.
One of the monkey muggers sounding me out
I purchased a bunch of bananas on a pink cord and asked the guy at the stall what the safest way to carry them was. He shrugged and told me to tie them to my belt, but I am pretty good at noticing those furtive glances between guards and the locals smiles. When the monkeys weren't looking, I stuffed two banana deep into my backpack and put the rest of the bunch in an external pouch in my backpack - out of view, I thought, but perhaps not realising their sniffing skills.
I moved toward the entrance to the Temple Cave and the impressive red and white painted stairway only to realise I was being followed. Perhaps tracked and herded would be more appropriate terms. I had a pack of monkeys, convinced I had bananas, trying to get behind me, but my martial arts multiple attacker sparring training came in handy and I was able to divest myself of the bunch of bananas quickly while sparing myself the monkey mugging I got to see happen around the place to less well trained tourists.
I wasn't stupid enough to try to give them courteously to the monkeys either - I threw them off into the distance for the monkeys to chase. I dropped one at my feet and backed off and when the bunch was complete (except the two I had stashed) I made a big show of being very sorry I had no more and put the last bits in a bin nearby. Like pretending to pick up a stone and throw it at a pack of dogs (of which there was a pack in the car park I had to tend to later), the monkeys were fooled and assumed they had got all I had.
At this point, I am noticing that an English couple are under attack a hundred meters away by about twenty of the monkeys, who had climbed onto the girl and were looting the bananas from her. She was bleeding as they dug their claws into her to hold on. Her clothes were not tough enough to stop them and when the guy moved to rescue her, several of them bared sharp teeth and then jumped on him as well. I decided I had come off reasonably well and cursed my friend for not warning me. On the other hand, I would probably have done the same to him, so I figured this made us even.
Entrance to the Temple Cave
140 foot statue of Lord Murugan (the worlds tallest)
The statue of Lord Murugan is impressive and can be seen from most places across the complex. You don't really get a good idea of how big it is until you are up in the temple complex itself and can look out and see the view that Murugan has over the surrounding land. I have found things always look much taller when you look down from the top rather up from the bottom.
Batu Caves stairway to heaven (all 200 plus steps)
The steps are quite narrow, but the red and white paint does help you keep a close watch on where your feet are. Many people I saw started off strongly, powering up them only to falter toward the middle section. There are three "lanes" but the middle lane had been closed for cleaning while I was there. The best thing for me was that I can walk up steps without watching my feet, so I noticed the monkey's sitting on the edges watching the tourists with some serious anticipation. I chose to remain in the centre of the stairway on the way up, avoiding what I was to witness along the way.
Monkey waiting to grab something from someone on the way past
This monkey waited looking cute and allowing photos until a girl got too close and then he stole her hair clip and ran off with it. Others, also posing for photographs, were spotters for the tourists who had made it this far with food. What the tourists failed to see were the other dozen monkeys on the outside of the wall waiting in silence for the sign to attack. While I walked up these steps I got to see a dozen monkey muggings and they didn't just steal food. I watched one take a guys watch while he tried to take a photo of a monkey. Another snatched a mobile phone and another acted as a diversion while a tourist's pockets were searched. I had to wonder if some of them had been trained and were returning their winnings to someone in the complex.
Not at the same height, but you get the idea of how big Lord Murugan is
Pausing to turn back is not just useful to catch your breath as the view can also be breath-taking. I was not quite at the same height at the top of the Murugan statue, but it still gives a good idea of just how tall it is with the city in the background and the size of the people approaching the Temple Cave lanes as they lead to the steps.
Since my bike, fitted with a new battery, woke me early to get going, I dropped the keys in the basket before anyone in the hostel had woken. The kids were starting school early as I packed my noble steed and waved to the family across the road who had been so nice talking to me while tinkering with the bike to get it working. The cheers when it started the previous day had changed into waves and best wishes for my continued journey. Dodging traffic, I made my way out of Melaka and toward Kuantan.
On the way, I had a guy on an R6 motorcycle follow me for a while before zipping past with a honk and a wave. I was too busy returning the wave to read the sign and ended up overshooting the right hand turn off I needed. Taking the first left hand turn off I could find, I stopped to check the map right outside the Alor Gajah mosque.
Alor Gajah Mosque (I got a little lost)
Accepting my error, I started back to the turn off and continued on the correct path. With a tank the size I have and an intention to ride for several hours, a wrong turn in the first half hour could result in significant deviation from he planned course. It started to rain; not heavily, but enough to make the roads slippery, which I found out to my detriment at the turn off to Bandar Seri Jempol.
I attempted a U-turn in the rain and didn't account for the fully-laden weight of the bike on the turn and managed to drop her right in the middle of the road. Although when I started there had been very little traffic, Murphy's Law had heaps of traffic turn up immediately, including an emergency services vehicle that had been clearing the road of fallen trees. No one had seen the incident, so they first asked if I were injured, which I thought was a great question to be asking, but I could not translate "Only my pride" into Malay-Bahasa, so instead, I said "No".
They helped me lift the bike and move it off the road to allow the traffic through and we had a chat about being a crazy Aussie on a solo tour of South East Asia. Only the guy in charge spoke any English, so he translated to the other young fellas in the truck who laughed away and made many jokes. You can tell when someone is making jokes about you in another language while you stand there, but I was happy they had helped. I could not lift the bike by myself on the incline.
The emergency services team continued on their way with grins and waves while I started to repack the bike. I had nearly got it finished when a large 4WD wanted to turn into the small lane I had been blocking. I pushed the bike just a little further to give him room and the weight on it again tipped the bike over into the mud, dragging me with it. The 4WD driver happily assisted me to lift the bike and move it just enough to get himself past, watched me drop the bike for a third time and waved as he left me there. I pulled everything off the bike (again) and tried to lift it from the incline as it slowly slid further down into the ditch at the side of the road.
Finally, a well spoken man riding a black Kawasaki Ninja came out of a driveway nearby and helped me pull the bike out of the ditch and talked for a while. Another man drove down on his motorcycle from the local mosque to see if I needed any assistance, but he spoke no English and the guy who spoke English translated for a while before he offered for me to stay at his kampung for a while. I told him I would consider it on the way back if I were coming this way, but that I planned to get to Kuantan. He waved and left me with the very helpful old man who had retired from Tourism Malaysia and spent some time in Australia. He agreed I was crazy to be doing my motorcycle tour solo and wished me luck. The bike started immediately and I continued on my way.
I took a leg stretch at Lake Bera which looked like a river (although I am yet to be convinced it is not a river), but is a large sprawling lake not very large across at too many locations. The road travels along and around it for some way past this photo on the way to Kuantan.
Lake Bera - leg stretch
I got a little lost using the wonderfully scenic route through the small roads on my way to Kuantan and had to stop for directions. My GPS was working, but I try not to run down the battery too much while I am out from power points. I usually need it for terminal guidance to my hotel once I hit the city limits, and it was great to talk to some of the locals, even if they did think I was completely mad. I seem to be told this a lot during my trip, maybe I should start believing it.
View from the hotel (South China Sea on the far left)
I had two things I wanted to photograph on this trip before I set foot in Singapore or Malaysia and that was the Malacca Strait and the South China Sea. I have previously taken a photo of the Malacca Strait, but the shot above is the closest I have come to the South China Sea (so far). Both these regions will be the zones of future (if not current) conflict and I wanted to at least get my eyes on them, not from any strategic aspect, but just to see them and understand their extent.
Masjid Negeri (from South-East)
Masjid Negeri (from South-West)
The local mosque was a fantastic building with very friendly people who offered to show me inside, but I had arrived at exactly the wrong time (prayer time) and was not allowed to enter just to take photographs - which I can appreciate. No one likes to be photographed while they are trying to pray and meditate. I was offered to be shown around the following day, but planned to depart the following morning as early as possible, so I never got a chance to see inside it. I can only imagine how impressive it was on the inside, given how impressive it was on the outside.
Heading off for Kuala Lumpur
Now I won't make any mention of the military guys standing to the left in the photograph above as I have been very careful not to photograph anything military or police in Malaysia, but the chap who took this photo had no such reservations and did not know how to focus an auto-focusing camera. Nevertheless, I am immensely gracious that he took the photo at all. The weather decided to put out a treat for my last days on the East coast of Malaysia and I was able to ride to Kuala Lumpur with only dark, foreboding and threatening clouds.
Exploring Melaka is not very hard. Most of the interesting things are all stuck together in a bunch and the city is not huge, so walking around it is not difficult, although it is easy to get lost. The Porta de Santiago ruins were just around the corner from my hostel, so this was the first place I started, and walking up the stairs to the ruins St Paul's Church, it was clear the scope of vision the fortification had on the water approach to the town.
The remnants of Porta de Santiago (built 1511)
Ruins of St Paul's Church (built 1521)
While I wandered through all the locations clustered around this little area, I came across an elderly Japanese guy wielding old World War 2 military issued katana in the park. Many other people were too scared to approach, but he had that slight upturn of his mouth that to me looked like a smile. I approached him and he showed me this working WW2 Japanese motorcycle used during the Japanese occupation of Melaka in 1942. The smile, I found out, was because he offered a photo with the bike for MYR$3. I thought this was worth it, but he had no experience with my camera, so I actually got about 40 photos while he figured it out.
WW2 Japanese motorcycle - still working (from circa 1942)
I had seen this thing rise and fall and spin around for days, but I had no idea what it could be. When I tracked it down, I found it to be a very overt tourist ride to show tourists the city from a height of about 80m. The Menara Taming Sari had lines of people ready to ride it, camera at the ready, and tour buses pulling up to deposit more tourists onto the packed lines. I took a photo to prove I had been there, but you can get the city sights from the top of St Paul's Church ruins for more exercise and much cheaper.
Menara Taming Sari (Spinning viewing tower)
Just around the corner is the Melaka Naval Museum which had heaps of old gear in it, including a massive boat mounted on concrete pillars that you can roam all over. The kids were sitting at various locations shooting each other - always good to encourage violence in kids, it helps them for the wars to come, but I wonder if it might predispose them to violence, like video games do (or don't depending on which scientific study you read). Don't get this mixed up with the Melaka Navel Museum, which I stayed away from.
Naval turret on display at the Melaka Naval Museum
I managed to miss Stadthuys (twice), and although I wasn't really looking for it I am sure I saw it, it just didn't really stick out for me. Melaka's Christ Church did jump out at me, mostly because of the New Zealand name (for me) and the entire region is made of the same coloured structure. There is a round about just out the front of here that I was much more worried about when I was driving and equally worried about as a pedestrian.
Christ Church, Melaka (built 1753)
I did find the "Tourist Police" across the road most interesting, but was too worried to check it out - the name suggests some interesting aspects. For example, if they are police who are specifically there to assist tourists, then it does suggest a need for a large building full of tourist police to address a criminal element targeting tourists. On the other hand, it could be a building of police dedicated to keeping the tourists in line. Either way, I didn't want to have anything to do with it and stayed on the other side of the street.
I had been a little disappointed with the Dragon Dances in Singapore when I saw them, at most four people under the dragon, when I used to participate in eight person dragon dances in Brisbane's Chinatown. Practice for this is intense and even having six people, I was impressed. Most of the dragons I have seen have been small dragons with two people in them. You can imagine how impressed I was when I came across this massive dragon in an alley in Melaka.
I didn't realise this dragon was asleep
There is an old Chinese saying that equates roughly to "Let sleeping Dragon's lay" and the sound of my camera must have woken it up because it came at me. I dodged through the ever-present traffic and was glad when a small car got in its way. It did not hesitate to try to swallow the car whole! Surely this is a blessing for the Chinese New Year, but can you imagine explaining this to the wife? "Sorry, honey, a dragon ate the car."
Once it was awake, only a car would sate it
Bukit China is a massive cemetery across a beautiful hill with heaps of graves in it, including Muslim graves. There is a temple at the base called the Poh San Teng Temple, but I waited until the bus-loads of tourists moved on before I went in for a look and stopped in at the Hang Li Po Well next door, which was poisoned repeatedly during its lifespan (in 1511, 1606, and 1628/29). Whoever said history never repeats itself is unfamiliar with the story of this well.
Near Bukit China (Memorial to Chinese victims of the Japanese occupation)
Finally, I noticed this structure on Pulau Melaka from a distance early while I was there and finally, I figure out how to get over and see it. It is known as the Floating Mosque and was built recently for the Muslim population to pray at. The building is incredible with some amazingly intricate detail in the construction and cats all over the place. I don't think it is actually floating, but it does look like it. Regardless, it was a fantastic place to look around and the people were very friendly and wanted to know if I really had driven from Australia.
Masjid Mosque (built 2006)
Menara Tower (built 2006)
I really liked Melaka. It is a wonderful blend of India, China and Malay with a strong acceptance of the cultures that make up the city, which for me, coming from Australia, I thought would be normal, but even in Australia I don't think we have this sort of acceptance any more for the cultures that make up our multi-cultural nation. And given the fact that Senator Nick Xenophon was deported a few days before I arrived in Melaka, my Australian number plates certainly had me engage in political discussions about him with almost everyone there.
Initially, the route to Melaka was not marked clearly on the road signs, but I assumed that if I head toward Kuala Lumpur, then I would find a turn off to Melaka. This turned out to be a good plan, although I decided not to go through Muar as I could not be sure I would find my way back out. I had intended to go from Muar up the coast road.
The ride on the highway was pleasant but I really did need to be wary of the trucks and buses as well as the large expensive cars that felt they had a right of way over any motorcycle or scooter on the road - actually over anything on the road. I had a number of times when I found a car sliding up alongside me very close, so I chose the safest option of letting them through and pulling to one side (even when the second lane was clear of traffic).
There is a shoulder lane for motorcycles on the left of the road but I tried not to use this unless absolutely necessary - and it was on occasion. Many of the slow motorcycles and scooters use it constantly. For me, though, some of the cars were not as fast or as powerful as my bike, so I thought I would use my foreigner advantage and attempt wherever possible to follow the road rules that have kept me safe since I started riding. Lanes are optional here, so is giving way and street lights and stop signs. Officers directing traffic, however, are not optional considerations.
Given the time it took in Johor Bahru to get my customs paperwork sorted out, I arrived in Melaka around 5.30pm and found the Chinese New Year celebrations in full swing with more zest than anywhere I had yet seen and this continued the entire time I stayed there, including a full night of constant fireworks for my second last night there, which kept going until about 2am. Too bad if you wanted to get some sleep, like me.
Literally going around a very large block due to road closures several times, I had to pull over to ask for directions and was told my reservation was opposite the local Melaka high school, but when I got there I couldn't find it anywhere. I decided the best way to locate it would be on foot as the roads were busy and only one way, and the driving was the worst I have seen yet (although expecting worse to come). I parked the bike on a slight incline but in the only place available only to have it tip over due to the weight in the rear as soon as I got off it.
Accepting some well-deserved derision from the locals, I picked it up and rolled it into a better position before walking up and down the busy street in search of the accommodation. I found I had gone past it and almost just drove up the wrong way of the one way street - it certainly was not uncommon to do it as scooters were zipping past clinging to the edges of both sides up the wrong way of the one way street, but I decided I was larger and a foreigner which could cause problems. Another lap around the city centre and I found a small side street to park in.
Next came the motorcycle battery issues I have already described in this post, so won't dwell further on that. Once I got over being stuck and camping next to the bike using the solar panels to unsuccessfully recharge a dead battery, I started to explore - limited like a normal backpacker to two feet, heartbeat, bus and train.
