Come along for the journey!

Come along for the journey!

Monday 15 December 2014

MALAY STOPOVER (Melaka, Malaysia)

After a hectic month, we arrived into KL having not slept for 72 hours. So you can imagine our delight when we found out the bus from the airport to Melaka was fully loaded with 'massage chairs'. We were asleep pretty quick! Upon arrival in the colonial city and a somewhat circular cab trip, we found an affordable room at rather retro looking Emperor Hotel. The yellow exterior and 1970's decor was right up our street. The view from our picture window up on the 18th floor was great for gazing out over the city. We conked out and spent the next day in bed, with short breaks for food at the night market opposite - where you could get 10 sticks of chicken satay for about $2. You could also sample tasty treats like monitor lizard curry, sweet and sour frog or pig brain soup!

Strolling the canal at dusk, you can see our retro highrise hotel in the distance,
and the next hotel we stayed in is just on the opposite side of the riverbank

You might be wondering, why Melaka? Most people only visit the World Heritage spot for a day or two - but we really wanted to just stop and chill out on the way to Oz and we'd been to KL before. We had considered flying up to Georgetown, Penang - but thought we'd save that one for another time. Maybe on the way south from our favourite Thai island Koh Lipe!

After five days at the Emperor, we moved over to the River Song Residence, a lovely little guesthouse with a balcony right in Chinatown. We discovered the most incredible brunch spot called Eat at 18 - my favourite place in all of Melaka - they also have stunning boutique rooms, so check them out if aren't travelling on a shoestring!

Rather lazily, we did some Christmas shopping in Chinatown, wandered around the night markets in Jonker Street, had massages every other day, ate delicious food, chilled on the balcony in the rain and enjoy a bit of sun by the pool.

One night we went out to Bistro 1673 and made friends with the two-piece playing live music  - Joseph and Lauren, who kindly gave us lots of insider foodie tips on Melakan cuisine. We met up a couple of times and sampled everything from traditional Nyonya food, authentic Chinese, frozen coconut shakes, Durian jelly and the famous Nadeje layer cake (dozens of crepes delicately piled up with cream inbetween each layer!) Amazing.

Unfortunately, our trip to the cake shop was en-route to the bus, which our friends had kindly offered to drop us to, and we missed it due to a traffic jam! There wasn't enough time to get another bus and so we thought we'd take a taxi - but they wouldn't hear of it, and drove us two hours back to KL. What angels! Thanks J&L.



Friday 5 December 2014

SKIPPING WINTER (Bristol, UK)

It's been awhile since we were on the road, having settled down back in the UK for the past few years. We thought it was about time to visit family in Oz again and that we might as well rent out the flat and skip winter. So we're heading off in December for warmer climes...!


Wednesday 3 December 2014

FLIGHT TIPS FOR OZ VIA ASIA (STA Travel, UK)

The journey to Oz from the UK is always a tiring one - especially when you only book tickets last second during high season! Luckily I came up with an ingenious and cost saving way to do the trip - which gives us the maximum amount of flexibility for our journey. We booked a six month return ticket from Heathrow to KL with Sri Lankan Air, as the price and their stopover time in Columbo was much less than the competition. This meant we could have a nice ten day stopover in Malaysia on the way to Australia. By booking one-way tickets to Sydney with AirAsia, we'll have the flexibility to do some travelling in SE Asia on the way back to England if we want to.