jayterwilligerii

Argentina trip: Day 4 (18 June)

Hey there once again everyone. As you’ve seen, things continue to go well with my time in Buenos Aires. Today I have a couple rough plans in my head, but it will be okay if they don’t work out as expected.

Anyways, I took my time getting out of the apartment in San Telmo, not departing until 11:46 AM. I set off walking and came across Bar Seddon. It was a very picturesque place, so I decided to have the menu del día (Daily special). Incidentally, this is a good tip for visitors, if you want to eat in actual sit down places, you will generally do better with the menu del día since it tends to be more affordable and many times includes several items. Also, unlike some other countries, you usually have a choice of at least two options, so there should be something you like. Honestly, I don’t know the name of what I ordered, since I tend to just pretend that I know what I’m talking about when they give me options, but the starter was a nice vegetable soup, and the main course was done sort of lightly breaded beef. The food was good, but after having had this sort of breaded beef thing a couple of times, I could see it quickly getting old. The meal also included either a simple dessert or coffee at the end; I opted for the coffee since I had already eaten way too much of the bread which also typically is served at these sit down places. The entire meal, including a Pepsi, was just 9500 ARS which I paid for with a card and then left a 1200 cash tip.

At 1:15 PM I departed and headed towards la basilica de nuestra señora la Merced, as I had seen on a Facebook group called BAIRES free that there would be a free organ concert there. I arrived at 1:35 PM and shortly thereafter they were announcing the concert. As expected at that time of the day during the week, few people had come and they were mostly retirees but the short program which began at 13:51 was great! I recommend that Facebook group for anyone visiting, or even residents of the city, because they constantly announce nice activities which as you might have guessed . . . Are completely free.

The concert finished at 2:37 PM and I immediately headed over to catch a bus to la Recolecta cemetery. At 2:48 I was on the bus, arriving nearby at 3:03 PM. It was a short walk, and at 3:17 I was paying my 8270 ARS (590 INR with my Indian card). As I speak Spanish, and the weather was nice, I decided to hang out near the entry in order to have the free tour in Spanish which happens every hour.

Right at 4:02 PM the free tour began and we were off. The mausoleums here were incredibly over the top. While I’m no history expert, I thought the free tour was great. The guide was very responsive to questions, and I learned various tidbits along the way. First of all, many of the cruise crypts are actually open, since for various reasons, the remains of the deceased were later on taken to a different place. The crypts themselves can be sold and remodeled, but the front of them have to stay the same. Women in Argentina were first able to vote in 1952. Oh, and wealthy Argentinians used to take a cow with them on the boat when they would go to Europe so that they could continue to have fresh milk. Finally, as was incredibly obvious just from looking around, the families with crypts here either were or still are crazy rich.

The tour ended at 5:05 PM, but we were welcome to continue to wander around on our own. Without a guide, while the crypts were still amazing to look at, there didn’t seem like too much of a reason to stay for a long time. So, at 5:23 PM I was already walking outside, passing plaza Lavalle at 5:44 PM.

I continued walking, and arrived at the apartment at 7:00 PM.

Then at 7:48 I decided to go back to Cosas Ricas to get more of those amazing empanadas. When I got there, I realized they also sold takeaway pasta, so I also ordered Raviolis with Bolognese sauce. The total was 9600 ARS ($8 USD) in cash, and it was way too much food! I hadn’t realized how big the pasta serving would be.

So, at 8:20 PM I was back in the apartment having dinner. I however decided to leave the empanadas in the refrigerator, having them in the morning for breakfast. And thus ended my fourth day in Buenos Aires.

My key takeaways for the day were: (1) Free cultural events can be amazing, so try to find it about them wherever you are going. (2) Buenos Aires does generous takeaway pasta dishes, or at any rate Cosas Ricas does in San Telmo, and it’s really tasty and filling. (3) If available, opt for the Menu del Día.

Despite being Winter in Buenos Aires, so far the weather has been great. I hope it stays that way for the next few days. Tomorrow I think I might try to visit a satellite city which is highly recommended, but you will have to keep reading in order to find out whether or not that worked out. As always, thanks for reading along and let me know if you have any questions; you might also scroll further down and check out some of my other trips I’ve made over the past couple of years. For now, I hope your travels are at least half as great as mine, and I look forward to seeing you again for day five.

Argentina trip: Day 3 (17 June)

Hey there everyone. I hope things are going well for you wherever you are. For my part, as many of you would already have read, so far things in Argentina have been going great. Still, whereas day 2 and 3 had quite a bit of structure to them, day 3 was really just me wandering around the city. . . And boy did I wander, by the end of the day having walked more than 21000 steps, which equates to more than 16.5 km (10 miles).

Despite how much walking I did, I actually had started the day rather late, waking up at 10:30 AM, puttering around the apartment and also washing some clothes, not actually leaving until 12:24 PM. As I had not eaten anything yet, my only real plan was to find something to eat, but I was in no hurry to do the same. For those of you who wonder where the apartment is, it’s in front of the Santander building, which is just one block away from Lezama park. Anyways, I just set out walking for awhile, letting my feet take me where they would.

It wasn’t actually until 2:05 PM that I finally decided to eat at Bernardo Café. I opted for the plate of the day with a Quilmes beer. When asked if I would like a small or large one, I responded that I would like a large one, figuring that was probably 500 ml. As luck would have it however, it was a full liter! I know where you are thinking this is going, but amazingly, while I’m sure that I was in some way affected by the alcohol, it was very smooth drinking, and I definitely did not obviously feel tipsy when I finished. The food while not “amazing” was certainly decent, and the total bill was 11800 ARS, which I paid with my Indian credit card, being charged 850 INR. Separately, I left a cash tip on the table of 1440. So for those of you trying to figure out things in USD, including the tip, it was about 11 USD.

Note the cooler on the bottle. This is a simple, but good idea to keep a bottle cold, and it worked quite well.

As with other “sit down” eateries I had encountered here, nobody tried to rush me out despite me being a single person at a table for four, and I didn’t actually leave until 3:28 PM.

From there, I continued walking until about 4:00 PM when I saw a rather impressive plaza/park and building, which I later realized was the national Congress. To the side, there was also an independent movie theatre which looked interesting, but I figured that was more for residents than for a tourist like me.

Continuing on, nearby at 4:40 PM I saw a church which intrigued me, so I went ahead and entered. It was the San Expedito church. From what I could tell, this San Expedito is a really big deal for residents of Buenos Aires.

Once again strolling up and down the streets, I found myself in the once de diciembre area. This seemed to be a slightly lower income area, but it still felt completely safe. I was really excited when I saw these little green parrots eating with the pigeons.

From there I continued to the Cromañon area, or at least from the different signs I saw, that was what I thought it was called. Clearly at some time in the past there had been some sort of disaster here? Or at any rate, that was what the street memorials indicated. Later on in the day I checked online and saw that in 2004 there had been a nightclub fire which killed 194 people, and had injured at least 1400 more!

Walking along from there, at 6:13 PM I was then in Monseñor Miguel de Andrea Plaza. I was really impressed by how many people of all ages were actively using/enjoying the park. I think it is wonderful when public spaces like this are actually valued by the local residents.

From there my walk continued, and at 6:51 PM I was at the corner of the Recolecta mall, where there was live street music! Again, I was happy to see some local residents clearly enjoying the performance.

At 6:55 PM I realized that I was starting to feel a bit tired, so I sat down on a bench to see the best way to get back to San Telmo. My original idea had been to walk back, but upon further consideration, at 7:29 PM I was waiting for the 10A bus to take me back to the apartment. However, the bus didn’t actually arrive until 7:48 PM.

I didn’t really notice the time when I got back to San Telmo, but at 8:35 PM I bought three very nice looking empanadas from Cosas Ricas, a simple shop two blocks from where I’m staying. They seem to only sell takeaway pizza, and empanadas, but I will go back again later on to see if they have other stuff. The empanadas were large and tasty, and the total for all three was 3600 ARS cash, or $3 USD.

At 8:45 I was back in the apartment with the empanadas. My original thought had been to only eat one or two, saving the rest for breakfast, but they were so delicious that I ended up eating all three 🤪. Then I went ahead and checked some news, and went to bed at 10:00 PM.

So while I didn’t actually have any obvious activities today, I still had a good time exploring the city. For now, I’m a bit tired, so will close, but don’t hesitate to ask any questions or leave comments in the section below.

Argentina trip: Day 2 (16 June)

Hey there everyone, thanks for continuing to follow along. Today will be my first full day in Buenos Aires, so I’m hoping it’s a good one.

Despite not having slept until 1:00 AM, I woke at 6:20 AM this morning, but then resolved to try to sleep until at least 8:00 AM. That didn’t really work out as planned, but at least I stayed resting in bed. The previous evening Beatriz had suggested that we meet up again at 11:00 AM, so I left the apartment at 9:46 AM and headed walking in the general direction of Plaza de Mayo.

Mostly because I didn’t want to deal with the difficulties of figuring out breakfast, at 10:12 I stopped in at a McDonald’s along the way and got a small breakfast sandwich and drink, paying with my Indian credit card at a cost of 281 INR ($3.36 USD). Incidentally, they didn’t have “Mcmuffins” but rather a less dense local bread which was similar in size. Regardless, it tasted fine and served its purpose.

I departed at 10:41, walking through Plaza de las Armas.

I then arrived to the Plaza de Mayo at 10:49. The plaza itself is a bit smaller than I had imagined, but it’s much the same as other city plazas. There was a statue no doubt of someone very important on a horse, and around it people had placed stones with the names of people who died during the pandemic. I thought that was a nice symbol, especially since in other countries I’ve been, society as a whole seems to be intent on just completely forgetting that it ever happened.

Beatriz arrived shortly thereafter and we went walking across the plaza towards the Catedral de Buenos Aires. Beatriz and many locals were quite excited to see that the changing of the guard was taking place. For tourists, the main attraction of this cathedral is the tomb of San Martin, Argentina’s national hero. The tomb itself was quite impressive, but as I discovered a couple of days later, Argentinians with money definitely don’t scrimp on tombs. Still, it’s one of those places you definitely should visit if you are in Buenos Aires.

By 11:19 AM we were heading into the Calle de la Defensa market which takes place on Sundays to supplement the San Telmo market which is near the end of it. Going to this Sunday market is always mentioned as one of the “must do” activities of visiting Buenos Aires, so I was happy to be doing it. To be sure, there was a lot of interesting stuff to buy, but I’m not much of a casual shopper; although, I do still like to see it.

At 12:18 we were in Plaza Dorrega. As far as I can tell, they have a more or less permanent installation of stalls there. It was similar stuff to what one finds on the Calle la Defensa Sunday market but with the difference that they seem to be there all the time.

At 12:36 we stopped into Mercado San Telmo itself, but it was so crowded that I didn’t actually want to go in.

Evidently a lot of people go here to eat, but I’m not sure. We wanted a bit more, but by 12:56 we were already in a bus headed towards la Boca, where we arrived at 1:03 PM.

The first landmarks I saw were puente nueva and puente vieja. Essentially just two bridges next to each other. The area itself was pretty enough, but there wasn’t really all that much to see. It seems that for the most part this is another general area where people go to eat and do some souvenir shopping.

As Beatriz is a local, she recommended that we eat in Cafe Proa, a rather elegant cafe on the upper floor of a museum there. It must be quite popular because we didn’t have a reservation, and thus almost didn’t get in. However, there was an early departure, so at 1:29 PM a table unexpectedly opened up.

There we stayed eating and chatting until 3:30 PM. This sort of “slow dining” seems to be the norm in these cafe/restaurants and it’s nice because they don’t try to push you out quickly. The total for both of us was 28000 ARS, with them easily allowing us to split the bill, both paying by card. I separately left 3000 ARS in cash as a tip.

Beatriz asked if I would like to see part of the north of the city, and as I had nothing planned, I agreed. By 3:36 we were on bus 64, arriving to Palermo Norte at 4:21 PM. This part of the city was very different from where I’m staying, much fancier, and it was nice to just walk around and continue to chat with Beatriz.

After a couple hours of exploring, at 6:11 PM I was waiting for bus 130, which did not arrive until 6:30 PM, but it was a pleasant bus stop, so I had no concerns. The bus trip was very fast, and at 6:42 PM I was at the bus stop near where I was staying.

So that was my first full day in Buenos Aires. Certainly I got lots of great pictures, but more importantly I had another nice visit with a dear old coworker and friend from when I used to work at UWC Costa Rica. I have no definite plans for tomorrow, but I’m sure it will be another interesting day. Let me know if you have any questions, and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Finally, as always, thanks for following along; I hope you enjoy reading a bit about my adventures. See you next time!

Argentina trip: Day 1 (15 June)

Hey there followers, it’s been some time but I’m finally back to chat with you about another trip. After 27 hours of flights and another 6 hours of layovers, I finally arrived at Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires at 11:25 AM. It looked sunny outside, and according to the information screen, it was 15 degrees Celsius outside.

Getting off the plane and doing all the formalities was incredibly easy, and by 11:44 AM I was already through immigration and out in the arrivals hall. I had several tasks to get done before leaving the airport: change a small amount of dollars to Argentinian pesos, get a local transit card, and hopefully also get a local prepaid SIM card.

Paying attention to advice I had read online, I avoided the local exchange house, and headed over to the Banco de la Nación branch which was to the right, just as one enters the main arrival hall. If you have problems seeing it, just ask someone, and they will be happy to point you in the right direction. Also, remember to only change the MINIMUM amount of money you will need to get from the airport to your lodging. While the exchange rate at the bank is better than what you will get at the currency exchange counter at the airport, it’s still much worse than what you can get at an exchange house downtown. The line was short, and I exchanged $20 USD for 17,640 ARS (exchange rate of 882).

Then at 12:09 PM I bought a SUBE (public transport) card at the Open25 shop which was to the left as I walked into the arrival hall. Again, if you get turned around, just ask someone for help; however, it’s fairly easy to manage. I paid 5000 ARS total in cash for the card itself and 4120 ARS of transport credit. So far, things were going well. The next order of business was to find a prepaid SIM card.

I had read a lot of conflicting information about this online, so I wasn’t too surprised to find that you can no longer buy cards in the airport. However, if you have an ESIM enabled phone, you can scan a QR code and start the process of activating a local personal flow card. The whole process is easy, but seems odd, since you do it via email rather than through an automated system. The only problem is that they don’t tell you how long the activation process will take.

So, not knowing whether it would be 30 minutes or 3 days, I went ahead at 12:52 PM and got an Airalo data ESIM online with 1 GB of data and seven days of validity for $6 (I actually only paid $1.73 USD since I had Airalo points) before heading out to find the bus to the center. Incidentally, taking the public bus like this only makes sense if like me, you only have a medium size backpack; mine is maximum size carry on. Most travelers will either opt for a private car costing about 30 USD or a shuttle which costs like $10 USD. The public bus is clean, comfortable, and less than $1 USD, so that’s what I had decided to use.

At 1:40 PM the bus departed from the airport. I didn’t pay attention to exactly how long it took but it was about an hour. Part of the reason I was distracted is that while on the bus I discovered that my personal flow eSIM had already been approved at 1:30 PM. Given that I had sent the activation request at 12:32, that’s a pretty impressive turnaround time. However, I couldn’t activate it on my own, since they had ironically sent a QR code which has to be scanned with your phone camera in order to activate. There’s probably some way to make it work, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it by myself, so since I already had the Airalo card active, I decided to wait until arriving at my AirBnB to take care of activating the local eSIM.

Again, I wasn’t paying close attention to all the times, but the bus let me off fairly close to my apartment in San Telmo, and the owner of the place quickly helped me to take care of getting the local eSIM installed. While it’s still much cheaper than the data only eSIMs like you get with Airalo, as with most prepaid plans in Latin America, they go out of their way to make it a complicated choice as to which plan to choose.

Since I was going to be in the country for 15 days, it looked like the best option for me was a 2 GB of data (unlimited Whatsapp) plus unlimited calls and texting plan which was good for 30 days; it had a cost of 5 ARS, which when I paid online with my Indian credit card was about $4.07 USD. So, now with all of the initial needs taken care of, it was fine to get started with the vacation!

My first order of business was to change some money. On a Facebook page I had seen a couple of recommended places. The one I decided to go to was at Florida 656. It seems like many of these places aren’t “official” but are generally considered safe. Most people online at least also seem to prefer these less official exchange houses. I left my apartment at Avenida Colón 13800 block, at 4:04 PM, and by 4:42 I had already completed the 3 km walk and was walking into the locale. There was no clear sign, but someone noticed me looking and directed me to a little closet office which seemed to be formally set up for financial transactions. The place was well lit, and “seemed safe”. They offered me 1200 ARbly close to the Blue dollar (unofficial dollar exchange rate) which I had checked earlier. I gave him one of my crisp 100 USD bills and he pushed me over a stack of Argentinian 1000 peso bills. Noting the “check your money before leaving” sign, I counted that I only had 112,000 instead of 120,000. I indicated this to the cashier, and he quickly corrected the amount with no complaint. Given the nonplussed manner in which he recognized the error, I suspected that this type of “mistake” might be common, but as he immediately fixed it, I wasn’t upset. Whereas the bank at the airport had asked for my passport and boarding pass, here they asked for nothing.

From there I walked nearby to Buenos Aires tickets to get two tickets to tonight’s showing of Brujas, as I had invited my old coworker and friend Beatriz to go with me. I had tried to buy the tickets online ahead of time, but as is the case with many countries, it seemed impossible to buy the tickets online ahead of time from outside of the country, using a foreign card. The good news though is that while it’s an overly complicated system, buying the tickets in person at Buenos Aires tickets is significantly cheaper than buying online. Had I purchased from the official site, it was 23000 ARS for a ticket, but doing it this way it was only 14800. However, as indicated, it was a weird system in which one first pays 3300 to Buenos Aires tickets and then walks nearby to the theatre and pays 11500; note, the second payment had to be done at least one hour before the show. In summary, for the sake of convenience I can see why many people buy online ahead of time, but the savings are significant if one can do it this way. Of course, not all tickets have the same cost, but I imagine that the percent savings is similar for all tickets.

I had bought the second part of the tickets at 5:15 PM and then decided to quickly go back to the apartment before the show, as I didn’t want to have my passport and all that cash with me. At 5:35 PM I was on a bus headed back to the apartment. I left my things and headed out again, but had problems getting the bus back to the area so ended up taking an Uber for 4000 ARS at 6:40 PM, just barely arriving at the theatre at 6:50 to meet up with Beatriz and enter for the 7:00 PM show.

It was amazing to see Beatriz again after 14 years! While the show was nice, they frequently spoke so quickly that I at times had problems following along. I suspect they were also at times using some local slang. If not obvious, the show was in Spanish, which in itself is not a problem for me. Most of the audience seemed to think it was very funny, but I just thought it was pleasant; however, I recognize that it is more a function of my understanding of the local slang and local accent than of the show itself. Still, I was happy to have gone.

Departing the theatre at 8:46 PM, Beatriz and I continued hanging out until 11:43 PM at an elegant, very picturesque bar/cafe called Petit Colon which was nearby. For my very large sandwich, a beer, and two teas, the total cost was 26400 ARS. Based on the cash rate I had got at the second exchange house, that means it would have been $22 USD. It gets a bit tricky though since whenever possible I’m paying with my Indian credit card, which was 1901 INR; this is equivalent to $22.75 USD. Still, you get the general idea. Regardless, we were at the bar/cafe for more than 2.5 hours, without being hassled at all to give up the table, so it seemed like a good deal.

I then decided to walk the three kilometers back to the AirBnB apartment I had rented for 12276 INR ($147 USD) for 7 nights, finally finding myself in bed at 1:00 AM.

So wow! It’s been a great time so far, and I’ve discovered many things along the way. I don’t have an exact plan for these next few days in Buenos Aires, instead choosing to make decisions along the way and to slowly start to get a feel for the city. Keep following along with future entries, and you’ll find out how things went. As always, thanks for reading along and feel free to put any comments or questions in the comment section below.

Malaysia trip: Day 6 (28 Mar)

Hey there fellow travelers and friends. I hope you all enjoyed my first full day in Melaka. I know that I certainly did.

Despite the generally pervasive heat I discovered this morning at 8:15 AM that it can actually be very pleasant earlier in the day. At 8:00 AM with the windows open I could hear the soft sound of popular Arabic language music in the background which accompanied the cool breeze through the window.

Then at 8:23 AM we headed out for the day in search of an ATM. This was actually more difficult than you might think, which is odd, because many smaller shops and eateries seem to only want cash. Fortunately, there were some interesting things to see along the way.

Finally at 9:00 AM we were able to locate two banks with open ATMs, which were ironically right next to each other. Fortunately there was a simple eating joint nearby called Sisbuay Delight, right in front of the Grand Star Hotel. The cost of breakfast for two people was 25 RM ($5.29 USD).

While simple, the food was good. However we were not inclined to hang around a lot longer, so at 9:24 AM we finished up and continued exploring.

While within easy enough walking distance, this was clearly not a tourism sector of the city. However, the temperature was quickly rising, so at 10:10 PM we decided to duck into the Melaka Mega Mall. At first we thought it was another one of those oddly abandoned shopping centers, since there was almost nothing nor anybody on the first three floors of the building, but as we were exiting, we decided to go through a non-descript entryway into the lower ground floor where we discovered an entire small city of vibrant shops, albeit still with few customers. It’s hard to tell in the pictures, but the partially underground area really was huge.

At 10:40 PM we went out the other end of the mall, emerging back into the land of neverending museums. We initially weren’t particularly keen to visit the Independence Memorial Museum, but entrance was free, so we figured we may as well check it out. Once more, the air-conditioning was going full blast with doors and even some windows open throughout. I can only assume that electricity here is incredibly cheap.

Then at 11:40 AM we walked across the little plaza access headed into the People’s Museum. The cost per adult was 10 RM. ($2.11 USD). There were actually several different sections here. the first one had lots of stuff about kites and traditional games.

By 12:10 PM we were ready to head upstairs to the beauty museum. This seemed less about beauty than it was about showing off cultural practices that most of the mainstream world would find to be ugly. They seemed to be especially interested in lip, nose and very large ear plugs.

Of course more time could have been spent here, but at 12:43 PM we started down the stairs and almost immediately came across a very engaging stamp and coin collectors shop.

These seemed to be mostly geared to the casual collector, since prices tended to be between 10 and 50 RM. Nevertheless, they did a good job of presenting things, but I just didn’t want to buy anything.

Back down on the ground floor was the Meteor gallery. This was mostly like an upper elementary school science class, but with the important distinction that they actually had several meteorites on display, some of which you could even touch and pick up; that was new for me! They also of course sold jewelry made with meteorites and even meteor cologne; who even knew that existed?

After leaving the building at 1:07 PM we headed back to the nearby Megamall where we had earlier seen a nice looking Thai food place called Johnny’s Restaurant.

The food was very satisfying, and the total cost for both of us was only 71 RM ($15.15 USD. The robot delivery of the food was a bit silly, but an interesting gimmick. We finished up here at 2:29 PM and decided to go across the aisle to check out “Brands Outlet”. There are no pictures because the clothing was just plain horrible. We did however finally find a bathroom in the mall; for some reason these are very few and far between.

I wondered if this sign really was. . . . Evidently it is a common enough issue that they had stickers made.

By 3:03 PM we were back to museum land, this time the Melaka Heritage Museum. Entry here was free.

While pretty much everything covered here had earlier been seen in other museums, I felt that they had done a decent job here. My only criticism would be that they were way too detailed with some of the information. I felt that even a serious history student would at times have been overwhelmed.

3:50 PM came and we rushed over next door to the final museum, Stadthuys. It had a cost of 20 RM ($4.22 USD) per adult, but we would have to finish and be out by 4:45 PM.

This museum had a lot more actual artifacts than the others, but there were also a lot of recreations. I would have liked to spend more time here, but I know I also would have quickly gotten overloaded. Thus, it was probably for the best that I had to just rush through. We were pushed out of the museum at 4:40 PM, and then we immediately went to a traditional Malaysian Chinese coffee shop at 4:45 PM.

Despite having no signage of any sort, this place was very busy. I was the only non-ethic Chinese person in the place. It was 18 RM ($3.81 USD) for a cold, long coffee and a tiny piece of tasty cheesecake. We stayed here at 5:20 PM and were once more out on the street.

While this had not been planned, at 5:40 PM, we found ourselves outside the Malaysian knife gallery, and they had the largest knife in Malaysia right in front of the shop!

This place was actually way cooler than it sounds, so I would highly recommend that you stop in. We stayed walking around inside until 6:18 PM and even bought a few items. The lighting outside was amazing when we exited.

Next, at 6:54 PM we went into this vegetarian Chinese restaurant called Chin Hua vegetarian food. The absolutely delicious food was 30 RM ( $6.35) for two (including two coconuts). They even cut open the coconut for me afterwards AND scooped all the coconut off the husk so I could easily eat it; what a bargain!

Departing at 7:33 PM, it was then an easy 30 minute stroll back to the hotel.

And then my last full day in Melaka was finished!

If it was tiring for you to read all that, just imagine what it was like for me to actually do it. Still, I’m glad I packed in as much as possible, since while I might come back to Malaysia, it’s rather unlikely that I’ll ever be back to Melaka. Yes, it was a very nice place to visit, but the world just has so many other amazing places waiting to be discovered.

As always, I hope you’ve enjoyed following along, and I look forward to seeing your comments and questions in the space provided below. For now goodbye to all of you faithful readers, family members and friends.

Malaysia trip: Day 5 (27 Mar)

Hey there everyone! I hope your adventures from today were as great as mine. If yesterday was all about random weirdness, today was mostly a perfect combination of storybook tourism.

Everything started at 8:30 AM when we left the hotel in search of breakfast. With just a quick walk over the bridge, by 8:45 AM we found ourselves at Heart and Lova Cafe.

While the outside dining experience was “okay,” this is probably not the spot I would recommend for most travelers. Our meal of 44 RM ($9.32 USD) consisted of a Hershey’s chocolate drink, a liquid egg, canned baked beans, a slightly stale croissant with a single slice of cold cut chicken garnished with spray can cheese and a medicinal tasting “juice”. Yes, or could have been worse, but there are clearly many better options available.

On the plus side, when we exited at 9:18 AM, we were able to walk immediately into the Malaysian Architecture Museum which was right next door. The cost per foreign adult was 5 RM ($1.06 USD).

The building itself, built sometime in the 1700’s was well cared for and there was abundant air conditioning throughout despite the doors remaining wide open and there being no attempt to close obvious open spaces around the windows. Separately, the exhibits themselves, while “attractive,” primarily consisted of well lit cardboard cutouts and models. It was of course incredibly educational.

At 10:24 AM we exited and walked up to the ruins of St. Paul’s church.

The views were nice, and there were various grave markers which were lining the walls, thus giving a bit of insight to the Dutch and English colonists who had been here before. Mostly, visitors treated this as a favorite site to get a good Instagram pic. Next walked over to the nearby, still fully functional Christ Church.

I couldn’t figure out the purpose of these structures.

The seating design was very practical for this climate. It was comfortable and had good air flow.

Right next door was the Melaka Art Gallery, which had a cost of 10 RM ($2.11 USD) per adult when we entered at 11:26 AM.

Fortunately, at 2:35 PM we found ourselves entering the non pretentiously named Jonker Street Chicken Rice Ball restaurant.

The ground floor was this very informative, but perhaps overly detailed chronicle of youth movements in Malaysia since the time of independence. Would the next floor be the same?

Woohoo, this was more along the lines of what we had expected.

This Allen Tan was clearly considered a big deal, with this entire hall dedicated to him. The temperature inside was very comfortable, and the polished parquet flooring was gorgeous. Yes, the dusty plastic flower arrangement in the corner seemed a bit out of place, but maybe that was intentional . . . some sort of contrast point to the paintings and polished wooden floor? No doubt they didn’t want to encourage sitting, so there were no benches here.

I noticed that much of the art was for sale, so why do they charge admission? I was just wondering . . . Anyways, onto other rooms.

Now this group of artists had the same parquet flooring, but in stark contrast to the previous room, a single simple wooden bench was right in the center of the room. Perhaps I was being overly analytical, but I once again found myself asking if there was some special artistic intention here?

Around the corner, another dusty fake flower arrangement served as a contrast point to a painting . . . Once again, coincidental or intentional?

While not everyone will find this relevant, I think it’s sometimes also worthwhile to report on the state of the restrooms.

No, there was no water on the floor. Rather, this seemed to be some sort of special flooring which at first glance always looks wet. My hotel room actually had the same thing, but with a different color.

A lot of the paintings seemed to be student work from the last twenty years. Maybe high schools could do this with really good work? I mean anyone who works in a school knows that lots of times students don’t want their creations at the end of the school year. However, I thought it was odd that none of the works by UTIM students listed the name of the creator; whereas, Koleksi Tetap which also had a lot of representation, always put the student names. Also none of the sculptures had any sort of information: creator, year, title?

At 12:46 we exited the museum, once more on our way to gather further cultural enlightenment.

The Cheng Ho cultural museum was high on the list of must-see sites, and we arrived at 1:09 PM. Some of you will already know about him since he’s a big deal explorer and cultural ambassador from China, but this was my first exposure. While I attempted to treat the visit with the solemnity and respect it deserved, I may at times have failed.

Don’t be fooled though. I did learn a lot. It turns out that in this part of the world, a lot of older mosques have strong Chinese architectural influences, and that’s because of the influence of Chinese Muslims. However, the model of Guamchang was at times incredibly comical with all the different sized figures and the inclusion of different artistic styles. It reminded me of Christmas nativity scene in Latin America when little kids help set things up with their toys.

The last exhibit hall was very eclectic. It seemed almost like a random collection of stuff from various grandmas. Many items weren’t even labeled.

Really, it was a bit of a marathon of learning, but at 2:35 PM we finally exited in search of something to eat for lunch.

Presumably this gentleman had also been doing a marathon of various museum visits.

Our meal for two was 70.9 RM ($14.99 USD). The food at Jonker street chicken rice ball restaurant was decent, but not amazing. Still, I would feel comfortable recommending it to fellow travelers.

We continued here until 3:07 PM and then trekked off to our next obligatory Melaka destination, arriving at the nearby Baba & Nyonya heritage museum at 3:17 PM. Here the per adult entrance fee was 18 RM ($3.80 USD).

I wasn’t really sure why it was precisely 3 more RM than the last one, but I was sure there was a logical reason. Maybe it was the cost of the “self guide book” we were given to read while visiting?

The book actually did a very good job explaining things. But, I figured this out without the guidebook, the people who used to live in this house were seriously rich. This is just a family home which is no longer lived in by the younger family members. . . Presumably they prefer big city life. If you want the details of everything, you will have to visit on your own, or alternatively just read their website. Next we went upstairs.

Again, everything was very well laid out and very beautiful. It turns out that being super rich means that you have a beautiful home. Let’s see if it still continues like that when we go downstairs again.

So honestly, I really found this place to be very informative and even enjoyable. I learned so much about the Chinese immigrant community in Malaysia, or more precisely, the rich Chinese community. If in Melaka, go ahead and take the time to visit this place. Finally at 4:25 PM we were ready to head over to the Geographer’s cafe.

After a relaxing snack and coffee, at 6:00 PM it was time to once again check out sites on the street.

We wandered beyond the tourist district.

And then at 7:22 PM, down a wide side alley, we came across the amazing Capital Seafood food stall.

Our amazing food had a total cost of 62 RM ($13.10 USD) for two people and I was so satisfied with the entire delicious experience. Unless you are a vegetarian, if you only eat one place in Melaka, eat here. We finished up here at 8:23 PM and walked back towards the hotel.

Right in front of the hotel I decided to get one of these absurdly tall soft-serve ice cream cones for only 10 RM ($2.11 USD). The ice cream itself really wasn’t that tasty, but the whole idea of eating such a tall ice-cream cone was irresistible.

Despite the heat, there was so much water in it, the ice cream actually held up fairly well, but it was still a bit of a rush to finish it before it melted or worse, fell over. Still, I’m happy to report that I finished the whole thing, and no doubt because of the high water content did not even feel bad later on as a result of eating so much ice cream.

By 9:00 PM we were back in the room, but the nearby off key karaoke continued until 12:15 AM. The singing from the previous evening had been quite nice, but that was not so much the case this evening.

So friends, that was my first mega museum and culture day in Melaka. Let me know which part you liked the most in the comment section below.

Malaysia trip: Day 4 (26 Mar)

Hey everyone, I hope you are doing well. Today was a bit of an adventure as it was time to go to a new city called Melaka. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but the area where we had planned to go is a World Heritage site, so some people think it’s pretty special.

The important events of the day started at 8:50 AM when I once again used Grab to summon a car from Mont Kiara to TBS station. The car arrived at 8:57, and by 9:37 we were pulling up in front of the station. The total cost of the 19 km ride was 22.5 RM ($4.77 USD).

The station was much larger than I had imagined, but it was also very organized. The day before I had used easybook.com to buy two direct bus tickets to Melaka for a total of $5.32 USD. After grabbing some snacks, I was quickly able to approach the appropriate counter and pick up my tickets. Except for the lack of any obvious security measures, there was a very airport vibe, and by 9:54 AM we were at the waiting area in front of our gate.

Just as the ticket had indicated, at 10:30 AM sharp we entered the comfortable bus and started on our way. The seat and the trip itself was very comfortable, and at 12:31 PM we pulled up outside the Melaka bus terminal.

My first impression was that it was very hot, but also a nice enough looking place. I once again got a Grab car at 12:37 PM, with the car arriving almost instantly.

At 12:58 PM I was paying 9 RM ($1.90 USD) fee for the 4 km trip. And that was when we had our first hiccup. The Heeren house lodging which I had booked for three nights ($150 USD) on booking.com appeared to be closed. When I was able to contact someone on the phone numbers posted outside, they said they had no record of our booking.

A bit of further investigation revealed that there are several hotels called Heeren, and we were at the wrong one. Fortunately, the right one was only about 15 meters away, so it was easy enough to walk right over to that one, Heeren by the River hotel. Unfortunately, that one was also closed. On the plus side, some random guest let us get in from the sun into the lobby, where we were finally able to get ahold of someone on the phone who told us to just stick our bags behind reception and to come back in about 45 minutes.

So at 1:28 PM, we left our bags and headed out walking. The sun was very strong and the heat relentless, but there were several interesting shops, including a place called a flea shop, which actually assisted appeared to just be a discount store, kind of like a “dollar store”.

Then at 2:35 PM we tried to get some food at the highly recommended Jonker 88, but there was no obvious way to order food and the staff were rather rude. So, we decided to head back towards a Mexican restaurant we had seen a couple of blocks earlier called Mamasita Melaka. This seemed like a bad idea, but we were hot and the place had nice decor.

Amazingly, the Mexican restaurant was surprisingly good. I’m not willing to say it was outstanding, but I would definitely recommend it. The food was decent, the decor nice, and the service good. The cost for two people was 88.6 RM ($18.78 USD). We stayed there until 3:24 PM and then walked back to the hotel, arriving two minutes later.

Again, the door was locked, and we had to go through the whole process of calling and asking someone to help, but by 3:48 PM we were already in the room. Despite having already paid $150 USD on booking.com, we had to separately pay a 6 RM “heritage tax” in cash. It all seemed like a scam since the money went into the same register as everything else, but it was only the equivalent of $1.27 so I didn’t care.

The room looked alright and the bathroom was huge. Furthermore, once the air conditioner was going for a while it was a tolerable temperature. The room definitely should also have had a pedestal or table fan as well, since the air conditioner didn’t do a very good job of distributing the cooled air throughout the room. I decided to rest a bit until the day cooled down

At 7:05 PM it was fully dark and a bit cooler outside, so I decided to go out exploring.

At around 7:36 PM I had already walked through “little India” and then found myself in a strange mall called The Shore.

Contrary to the name, there was nothing electronic about this store.

At first I thought the issue was that it seemed to be mostly abandoned, but then I realized that the issue was not that there were no shops, but that there were almost no people. Most of the spots had the lights on, doors open and even plenty of merchandise, but there were just no people . . . Basically, it was like a movie set, but the actors and film crew had not yet arrived with any of the equipment. I considered calling out, but decided against it . . . What if someone answered and it wasn’t what I was wanting? Better to play it safe.

Anyways, I left the abandoned movie set at 7:44 and continued my walk.

Continuing with the theme of strange shopping centers, I then at 7:54 PM found myself in yet another one.

However, as can be seen, here the issue was that almost all the locales seemed to be either empty or shut up. All in all, this second one seemed less creepy than the first one. I did however start to wonder what was going on. Where were the people, and where were the stores? Was I unknowingly skipping through alternate shopping themed dimensions?

On the whole though, inter-dimensional travel seemed unlikely, so I simply excited the shopping center and continued walking.

At 8:02 PM I breathed an easy sigh of relief as I turned a corner and saw a few people. There weren’t a lot, but there were several cars moving, and I could see what reasonably appeared to be humans in the distance. I seemed to now be in some sort of a night market.

Similar to the “flea shop” and earlier “e-mart” which only had convenience store items, some of the store names in the night market also seemed randomly assigned, like the “Secondhand store” which was only selling beans new shoes. Still nothing particularly nefarious seemed to be happening in the night market. There were just very few clients.

At 8:29 PM I finally exited the very organized and clean, yet still sort of depressing night market, once again determined to make it back to my familiar, reasonably populated shopping dimension. There were several nice night sites along the way, and I actually did make it back to my land of capitalistic success at 9:31 PM.

In celebration, I figured the most appropriate thing to do would be to get some dinner at McDonald’s. Scorn me if you will, but few places were open, and I’m not afraid to admit that living in India, I actually do miss the occasional beef hamburger from McDonald’s. In case you are wondering, yes, the food tasted exactly the same as in either the USA or Costa Rica. Furthermore, the price was right at only 16 RM ($3.42 USD) for a double cheeseburger, medium french fries, medium soft drink and a strawberry sundae!

At 9:52 PM, I then left to go walking back to my lodging, arriving back to the room at 10:08 PM.

While I will admit that the day was a bit odd, it was certainly interesting. I was also confident that my first full day in Melaka would be a textbook tourist experience with plenty of culture and classic historical sites.

Anyways, for now I will close. I wonder, have any of you ever had hotel and “shopping” experiences like these while on vacation? If so, let me know about it in the comment section below.

Malaysia trip: Day 4 (26 Mar)

My first impression was that it was very hot, but also a nice enough looking place. I once again got a Grab car at 12:37 PM, with the car arriving almost instantly.

At 7:05 PM it was fully dark and a bit cooler outside, so I decided to go out exploring.

At around 7:36 PM I had already walked through “little India” and then found myself in a strange mall called The Shore.

Anyways, I left the abandoned movie set at 7:44 and continued my walk.

Continuing with the theme of strange shopping centers, I then at 7:54 PM found myself in yet another one.

On the whole though, inter-dimensional travel seemed unlikely, so I simply excited the shopping center and continued walking.

At 9:52 PM, I then left to go walking back to my lodging, arriving back to the room at 10:08 PM.

Anyways, for now I will close. I wonder, have any of you ever had hotel and “shopping” experiences like these while on vacation? If so, let me know about it in the comment section below.

Malaysia trip: Day 3 (25 Mar)

Hey there everyone. I hope you are enjoying my most recent travels. I certainly am! So anyways, here’s what happened on day 3.

At 10:29 AM I again ordered a Grab car. I feel like I should also try some other ride hailing service, but so far this one is working well, and since I’m only here for a week, I figure it’s probably better to just stick with what works. The car arrived at 10:35 AM, and we were on our way from Mont Kiara to Chinatown.

After a short, comfortable ride, at 10:52 AM we arrived and I paid the bill of 14 RM ($2.97 USD). I understood that there were plenty of things around here to see, so with no particular expectations, we set off walking.

Keeping in mind the name of the neighborhood, I was happy to quickly come across the Guan Di temple. It wasn’t particularly fancy, but if you are in the area, may as well check it out.

We were here for about 15 minutes and then at 11:18 AM, right across the street I saw that there was also the Sri Maha Mariamman temple. As I live in India, I felt a bit silly checking out an obviously Hindu temple in another country, but I was actually glad that I did. This looked very different from what I’ve become accustomed to in both Maharashtra and Karnataka.

There weren’t too many people, but there was a lot going on, so I stayed here until 11:54 AM. They were still playing ceremonial music when I left, but I thought I had seen and heard enough. I mean without too much effort, I can probably easily find something similar in Bengaluru. Following these two temple visits, I figured I should now just look around a bit.

The wandering was fine, but I wasn’t really keen on buying random stuff, so at 12:50 PM we decided to get a tasty lunch at Chef Ma BBQ. The food was reasonably priced, and while the ambiance wasn’t fancy, it was comfortable enough. We paid a total of 77.5 RM ($16.24 USD) for two people.

At 2:15 PM, we decided to exit the restaurant and go over to the nearby Central Market.

It was a leisurely stroll, and we arrived at 2:30 PM. If gift shopping is your thing, then you will love this place, but I suspect that you can get most items for cheaper prices elsewhere. It was certainly a comfortable place, but I was more than ready to leave at 3:13 PM. As Huixian was feeling a bit tired we decided to get some tea or coffee somewhere nearby.

At 3:20 PM we decided to try our luck at Secret Recipe. It was a pleasant place to sit and chat, with attractive dessert items, but neither the cake nor the drinks were particularly impressive. As such, I felt that the bill of 24.35 RM ($5.15 USD) was a bit much, but then I guess we weren’t really paying for the food or drinks, but rather for the setting.

At 4:11 PM it was time to walk towards Merbaka Square. It was a good spot to take pictures and just rest a bit, but I would have liked to be able to look inside some of the buildings.

When the afternoon rains started at 4:53 PM, there was fortunately a sheltered spot to sit right across the street, next to the river.

I couldn’t really figure out the intended purpose of this shelter, but it was perfect for a small group of people to get away from the downpour. Maybe it was actually made just for this reason, since I understand that it rains like this almost everyday, and people do need a protected spot. However, I’m not sure.

Right at 5:35 PM the rain stopped, so we figured that we should try to do a bit more exploring.

Nothing was particularly amazing, but this nearby neighborhood seemed to have a more down to earth character than other places I had so far seen in Kuala Lumpur. As we were a bit far from Mont Kiara and it was starting to get dark, at 6:13 PM I once again activated my trusty Grab app, and at 6:33 PM was back in a comfortable car headed towards Mont Kiara 163 retail park.

We arrived at 7:04 PM, paying 26 MR ($5.51 USD) for the transport, and then browsed the shops and restaurants before choosing QingHeGu Korean BBQ at 7:52 PM.

Even though our meal of Pork shoulder for two was a bit pricey with a cost of 104.9 RM ($22.10 USD), I felt that it was completely worth it. Besides, when on vacation, it’s important to indulge a bit unless one is really counting pennies.

At 9:05 PM we were done at the restaurant and it was just a short walk back to the apartment. All in all, it was a great day, and I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s trip as well. As for you, wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, I hope you are also making the most out of every moment! Finally, as always, if you have any questions, just drop a note in the comments below.

Malaysia trip: Day 2 (24 Mar)

Hey there friends, I know that yesterday’s entry wasn’t all that exciting, so if you are still reading along, I promise that today had much better traditional tourism activities to get you excited about visiting Kuala Lumpur.

We went ahead and headed out of the house at 9:30 AM here in Mont Kiara. Just a cross the road. There’s a rather fancy restaurant called Kanteen, but then to be fair, almost everything in Mont Kiara seems to be a bit fancy. The ambiance was nice, and our breakfast for two had a cost of 66 RM ($14.06 USD).

We finished up at 10:12 AM, and I used Grab to ask for a car to take us to The Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia. The very pleasant sedan arrived at 10:22 AM, and for the modest sum of 11 RM ($2.32 USD) for a 9 km trip, we were pulling up in front of the museum at 10:37 AM. Having come in from India just the night before I was really impressed with how nice the roads were and how it seemed that everyone on the road was being very respectful; in general there didn’t seem to be a lot of cars, but that might just be because it was so orderly.

The cost per adult to enter was 20 RM ($4.22 USD). As the building is very elegant, I had very high hopes. We started out our visit with a temporary exhibit which highlighted more recent creations.

I was intrigued by a lot of this, because much of it was a bit different than what I had come to expect from Islamic art. I think though that this is positive, because it shows that like everything else, it is evolving over time. Around 11:05 PM we headed up a floor to the second special exhibit hall and then on to the permanent collections.

I was rather surprised to see the section dedicated to Chinese Muslim art, since I had no idea how developed this was.

There was quite a lot to see, and I probably did not really do justice to the museum. While I appreciate art galleries and museums, even under the best of circumstances, I tend to find it hard to stay focused for too long. Ideally, I feel like most of these places should be visited with a good guide, several times, with each visit taking no longer than 90 minutes. However that’s not to say it wasn’t impressive.

These weird light blue ones in the background are evidently tear catchers; who knew that was even a thing?

At 1:14 PM we decided to depart for our next destination, which was about 1 km away on foot. The heat and humidity was terrible, but by staying in the shade as much as possible, we managed alright.

There was almost no traffic on the road.

While it had not been our original intent to eat again so soon, upon arriving at the Hornbill Cafe at 1:38 PM, we thought it would be best to have something else to eat asking with a cool drink before tackling the KL Bird Park. This was clearly a bit of a tourist trap, but the food was admittedly very nice, as was the general atmosphere of the place despite being an open air restaurant/cafe. For two people the bill was 126.9 RM ($26.79 USD).

Connected to the Cafe is a gift shop where one can pay and directly enter the park. The cost per adult was 85 RM ($17.94 USD). We paid and entered at 2:32 PM.

No these aren’t birds, but they were still cool to look at.

Guests receive a surprisingly useful brochure which basically just repeats the information on this map. We decided to just keep going left until we had completed the circuit.

While we were wandering we saw that there was a bird show at 3:30 PM which we decided to check out. Still pictures don’t really do it justice; it really was a nice addition to the visit.

We then finished up our visit over in zone 2 of the park.

As to be expected, there was another gift shop at the exit.

While we probably could have spent at least 30-60 more minutes at the park, we heard a lot of thunder in the distance, so decided to exit at 5:05 PM. The entire 2 hours and 45 minutes we were at the park was time greatly enjoyed.

I once again used the Grab app to hail a car, and by 5:31 PM we were back at Mont Kiara, having paid the same amount as before.

So in summary, while I personally found the museum a bit tiring, I would still recommend it. And as you have probably guessed, I think the Bird park is a must see destination in Kuala Lumpur.

As always, thanks for reading along, and please put any questions or comments in the space indicated below. Of course, If you are interested in what I got up to on day three, then you will just have to keep following along.

See you then!