I taxied to Golden Mile Complex on Beach Road to catch my bus to Melaka. As I found a taxi nearly immediately, I was way too early and walked around the complex and realised it was a Little Bangkok. There was a lot of Thai food so I grabbed some breakfast (a second breakfast in fact) plus some Thai kuehs to bring along for the 3h30 journey.The bus left at 1100 and it took half an hour to get to the Tuas checkpoint. There weren’t any queues on the Singapore side.
We left what I call “the breakaway republic” and ascended the bridge to the Malaysian side where the checkpoint was set quite far inland. Again we were lucky with the absence of any queues. Surprisingly, the biometric gate “Autogate” let me through by scanning my passport only – without matching my thumbprint to that held in the passport. I checked with a group of officers nearby and they said “Sir, it is OK”. Foreigners mentioned that they weren’t photographed and fingerprinted today. Strange. Must be a special day to let in all the riff-raff.
From Melaka Sentral bus station, I taxied to the hotel in the new part of the city centre. It is only a few minutes walk from the old town but handy to malls and eating. The taxi driver, interestingly, has had several work-experiences in the South Island of New Zealand. He had worked in the halal sections of abbatoirs and really liked the friendliness of Kiwis.
I spent the rest of the day resting and went out for a walk in the evening.
-
- How many trademarks and names can my bus company steal? (1) Starmart from Caltex (2) AirAsia including the font but looks like they had to drop the Asia (3) Nike’s swoosh.
-
- The bus company had “Air Asia” in its name before but must have been forced to change.
-
- Dinner on Melaka River bank opposite St Francis Xavier’s church.