Malaysia

Well, after 2 and a half days of filling our bellies in Singapore, we headed off to Malaysia on the bus.  Fortunately we had no trouble crossing the border without an onward ticket so that was a bit of a sigh of relief!  The bus was extremely comfortable with HUGE seats, lots of legroom, a tv, air-condtionning and bathrooms stops.  At one of the bathroom breaks there was a stand selling bags of fresh cut up fruit and krupek udang (shrimp chips)...so of course we bought both to help tide us over.  We took a local bus into the chinatown area of Melaka (for 30 cents!) and quickly found a place to stay.

Melaka is a town that used to be a trading port and was originally owned by Sumatra until the Portuguese took it over, then the Dutch, then the British.  There was some old Dutch architecture there and a very pretty town square with a fountain.  The food in this town is famous as well, supplying some dishes that you can't get elsewhere, and we made a point of seeking them out.  Popiah was like this massive spring roll stuffed with egg, onions, greens, prawns and some kind of amazing sauce.  I really liked this kind of salad called rojak which was fruits and veggies (like pinapple and zuchinni) topped with a sweet and spicey gravey.  There was also this really good soup with prawns and coconut milk.

Our most interesting dining experience was last night when we went for Satay Celup.  It is another regional dish.  You sit at this big metal table and they have a fondue pot in the middle attached to this giant tank of propane.  In the fondue pot this put this spicey sauce that you cook your food in.  So you go up and pick which sticks of raw food you want at this counter (all the meat and veggies has already been carefully squewered) and take it back to your table.  Each stick was about 20 cents and they counted the sticks at the end to come up with the bill.  It was such a fun meal!  When you are done the table is a complete disaster but they just clear everything off in a hurry and do a wipedown and on with the next people.  There were about 5 or six restaurants like this on the street but this was the only busy one...all the others didn't have a soul in them and they were advertising "free samples."  We waited for about an hour or an hour and a half to get in, but it was totally worth it.  When we first showed up it was all these young teenagers in line and we figured we would just come back in an hour or so and the line up would be gone but when we got back it was longer!  And it wasn't until we left that there were like 3 little old ladies who showed up.  So much fun :>)

Today we took the bus to Mersing, and tomorrow we have a ferry booked to go to Tioman Island.  It is supposed to be good for hiking, snorkeling and swimming, and the beer is cheap because it's duty free.  My book says it's cheaper than water...we'll see.

Talk to you later -

Hanna and Dan

Town centre in Melaka

 Waiting in line for supper

 Huge prawns at Capitol Satay