Land borders are still a bit of a novelty to me – despite my extensive travels, I’ve only crossed one other land border (other than in Europe), and that was many years ago between China and Mongolia. This time, I caught a bus from Singapore to Malacca. I ended up choosing Luxury Bus for a couple of reasons: they pickup from the Concorde Hotel, which its downtown Singapore (as opposed to the main bus station, which is out of the way), I was able to book online, and they dropped off at the Casa Hotel in Malacca – only 5 minutes from my hotel, and significantly closer than the main bus station.  The bus itself was very nice – only 3 seats per row, with personal TV’s in each (I managed to watch Yogi Bear and Shrek on my trip). About 30 minutes from the city centre, we hit the border and went through immigration and customs. At immigration everyone jumped off the bus (leaving luggage behind) and had their passports stamps (make sure you don’t lose your departure card when you first arrive into Singapore – I thought I had, which caused problems for a moment). The bus then took us to customs, where we took all of our luggage, had our passports stamped again and declared anything if necessary. Very quick procedure, with everyone very insistent that you double check your visa yourself – apparently there have been issues with people smuggling and the such, so you need to check you for a stamp, and it has the correct date on it.

At this stage we had a tour guide join us on the bus, who proceeded to let us know a little of the history of the area, and pointed out important landmarks as we passed them. There was a quick stop an hour later for every one to stretch their legs and go to the toilet. Plenty of food and drinks for sale – be aware that there was no atm nor money changer here (I don’t know if all the buses headed for Malacca stop at this particular rest stop, but it certainly looked like it). They do accept Singapore dollars, S$1 = RM 2 (ie not a great rate!). In Singapore I bought a $50 M1 SIM card because it would work in Singapore and Malaysia – in hindsight I should have gotten a cheaper SIM in Singapore, and just bought a local SIM here (I didn’t look too closely, but there was definitely someone selling DIGI sims).

After our quick stop it was full steam to Malacca – all in all we left Singapore at 8am and arrived in Malacca at about 1:30pm.  We were dropped at Casa Hotel, however the tour guide gave me directions to Hotel Puri, so off I went. The historic area of Malacca is quite small and easy to navigate, so I found the gorgeous hotel quite quickly.

Malacca is a gorgeous area and I wish I had of had more time there. I managed to see most things, wandering around on my own, and also jumped on a river cruise. Everywhere I went there were rickshaws decorated Hello Kitty style (there is a Hello Kitty World not far from here), belting out Ganham Style, I even saw a weeding couple posing for photos in one!

I’m my short stay, I also managed to try some of the local foods – chicken rice (yum!), satay chicken (yum!), pineapple tarts (yum!) and durian cendol (ummm…). The durian wasn’t really to my tastes, but I can now say I’ve tried it!

I’m now on the bus from Malacca to KL – these busses leave from Malacca Sentral regularly, and I think it should take about 2 hours. This time I went with KKKL – the bus it’s similar to the Luxury one, however no personal tv’s… then again this bus did cost RM 12.2, significantly cheaper than the Singapore – Malacca one!