From A to B

As I am travelling overland through the first 6 countries on my itinerary, long distance buses are going to be my main mode of transport and will be quite uncomfortable and tiresome journeys if guidebooks and backpacker stories are to be believed. However, as with everything else I have experienced in Singapore, my journey over the border to Melaka was a very straight forward and pleasant experience!

After initial problems finding the bus station, I easily obtained a ticket from one of the many travel agencies there and only had to wait 20 mins until departure. The bus itself was a huge surprise, it was an 'executive' coach with huge seats that had massage facilities, leg rests and a generous recline; not necessary for the 4 hour journey but much appreciated all the same!

As the journey involved crossing the Singapore-Malaysia border there were two stops at immigration, one to get out of Singapore and one to get into Malaysia. This was a very straight forward process, and the immigration officer at the Malaysia border was very chatty and amiable which makes a refreshing change from the stern demeanor of most border officials.

A few hours into the journey there was a toilet/ refreshment stop, and so I decided to be sensible and use the toilet while I had the opportunity. After quite a long queue I eventually got into a cubicle, and discovered to my horror that it was a squat toilet! I considered heading straight back out again, but as it was quite a clean toilet I decided to get stuck into the S.E.Asian experience and go for it!

Just a short while later we arrived in Melaka Sentral which is the main bus station in Melaka. I needed to catch a local bus from the station to my guesthouse, and had rough instructions to catch any bus that was headed to 'ocean' which is a large shopping mall close to my hostel. I quickly found a rickety old bus heading to 'ocean', and although I had no idea what I was doing I decided to get on the bus and hope for the best! The driver was a frail old man who spoke no English and was obviously not going to leave until his bus was full, so we sat there for around 10 mins while he beeped his horn and yelled 'ocean' trying to round up passengers. Everyone that got on the bus seemed to find the sight of me and my huge backpack quite interesting, but they left me alone and happily chattered among themselves. The journey was quite short and the driver smoked the entire time regardless of the 'No Smoking' sign directly above his head. Our arrival at 'Ocean' was quite obvious as the entire bus got off, and I duly joined them. I had some rough directions to get to my hostel, none of which made any sense, but after asking a few locals, and roughly half an hour wandering around in the midday sun with my heavy pack on I eventually arrived at 'Ringos Foyer' and was greeted by the exceptionally friendly owner called 'Howard'.