vkeong’s trip to Melaka – in summary

So, I just came back from my one and a half day Melaka trip. I didn’t expect this but I guess I went at the correct time because the Chinese New Year mood was still very much alive throughout my trip. It was damn tiring because we walked insanely a lot.

Here’s a summary of what I have seen, ate and done for the entire trip according to the time line with photos included. I hope it could be useful for your Melaka trip especially on the eating and visiting part albeit the very brief descriptions. I will try to post the full stuff later when I got the time..

The first place I visited was actually my university – MMU at Bukit Beruang. Luckily the guard let us in when I told him we were ex students. Also took a drive in Taman Kerjasama to look for the single storey house I used to stay with another 5 guys.

For lunch, we actually wanted to try the famous Chung Wah’s Hainanese Chicken Rice Balls but too bad it has already closed when we got there. So, we settled for another popular chicken rice ball shop at Jonker Walk – Hoe Kee. The chicken is super smooth and soft, very different from the other chicken rice found in Ipoh, Penang and KL.

The chicken rice balls, looking rather cute with the size of a ping pong ball. Each ball cost only RM0.20.

Checked into Heeren House – a guest house along Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock (Heeren Street), or also known as the Millionaire’s Row. A twin room with the full view of Malacca River cost us RM149 inclusive of breakfast for two.

Proceeded to Jonker Walk immediately. We walked along the street back and forth at least four times, lol. Chinese New Year mood was still very much alive with plenty of red lanterns.

Had Durian Cendol at the famous Jonker88. What is visiting Melaka without eating cendol right? Anyway, I noticed they have reduced the amount of gula Melaka drizzled on the shaved ice.. it used to be A LOT when I visited 4 years ago.

Baba Laksa was awesome.. with sweet coconut milk soup and a big spoonful of tuna given.

Tried the poh piah which made a lot of appearances in other food blogs, kinda overrated and didn’t taste nice at all. If you are from Penang or Ipoh.. you can skip this.

There’s a dim sum stall at Jonker Walk with lots of people buying because they are quite cheap. Three pieces for RM1.50, or seven pieces for RM3. I was tempted and bought seven pieces to try.. not really nice lol. Quite salty.

A candy which is very hard to find nowadays.. Gula Ketuk or ‘Tiok Tiok Thong’.

Took some photos with the Melaka Wind Mill next to the river.

Visited the lantern festival at the Melaka river, open free to public. The highlight was this red dragon of at least 50m in length. I can’t believe no one actually blogged about this event, nor did it appear in the Melaka’s official tourism website, hmm.

Before we called it for the night, we walked to Jalan Ong Kim Wee from Jonker Walk for Ban Lee Hiang‘s famous Satay Celup. Can you believe for the whole time I studied in MMU, I didn’t eat or even seen Satay Celup before, lol. Pretty interesting stuff, it’s like Lok Lok but you are dipping into diluted satay sauce instead.

After our breakfast at Heeren House, we went to Chung Wah coffee shop for their Hainan Chicken Rice. This time we were early so we didn’t miss the business hour, haha. The chicken is not as nice as Hoe Kee’s but their rice balls are tastier. The rice balls here are also slightly more expensive at RM0.30 each.

Then we went to San Shu Gong for a shopping spree buying white coffee, biscuits and honey lime concentrated juice. It’s a nice place to shop because you get to try everything before deciding to buy. We spent RM100 here, lol. San Shu Gong is the huge red building opposite Chung Wah coffee shop, you can’t miss it.

Crossed the bridge to reach Stadhuys and spotted this small wind mill surrounded by colorful flowers.

Had some photos with the Clock Tower. There were many Digi sponsored trishaws around lol. According to the rate set by the state government, it is RM40 for an hour’s ride.

Checked out from our guesthouse and proceeded to drive to our first tourist destination out of Melaka town – the Crocodile Farm at Ayer Keroh.

The crocodile farm is not as huge as the ones at Langkawi and Sarawak but it still houses some pretty huge crocodiles.

What really amazed me was they even built a small water theme park next to the crocodile pens. Hmm, water theme park and crocodiles nearby.. doesn’t seem right.

This is Little Johnny, a crocodile from my hometown Bukit Mertajam. Kinda surprised to see a fellow BM Kia here lol. It has an interesting story to tell.. but I will reveal next time.

Next destination was Melaka’s Butterfly and Reptile farm further near Ayer Keroh’s toll. Most of the outdoor attractions in Melaka are located around Ayer Keroh’s toll plaza.

There weren’t many butterflies to be honest, and these are the most colorful ones I spotted.. Completing the visit to Melaka’s Butterfly Farm means that I have already visited three butterfly farms in Malaysia, with the nicest one in Batu Ferringhi, Penang.

Like many other butterfly farms, it also has a huge koi pond.

The pair of beautiful leopards are perhaps the saving grace for Melaka’s Butterfly Farm. Totally unexpected to see them here and I spent a long time admiring them playing with each other.

On the way to our next destination – Bee Museum, we saw a few bullock carts. I am not sure why they were at the road side but I got down from my car to snap a few photos of them anyway. It’s a rare sight, really.

The Bee Museum was actually recommended by my colleague who went there just a week ago. Besides having bee exhibits, It also sells honey products.

Here, you can try as much honey as you want. Cups and water are provided for visitors to have a taste of the six different types of honey before purchasing. Each honey has its own purpose for skincare and beauty, brain development and memory, cough and even aching joints.

We skipped Mini Malaysia because of its expensive entrace fee and visited Zoo Melaka instead.

From my visits to the other local zoos, I found that Zoo Melaka has the most number of sun bear, tiger, giraffe and elephant.

After a tiring walk around Zoo Melaka, we drove to the Portugese Settlement to sample their famous seafood. Ikan bakar was on our must-try list.

Too bad the Portugese style baked fish turned out to be a disappointment, it didn’t come cheap too @ RM31 for 650g. The only good thing about it was the freshness.

We headed back to Jonker Walk again to look for Satay Babi (Pork Satay) but the shop already closed. Saw a pre Chap Goh Meh singing and dancing performance at Jonker Walk’s main stage.

Not feeling satisfied that we missed the Satay Babi, we went to hunt for more cendol. Long Fong Ge was too crowded (mainly because Jonker88 closed, lol) so we ate at Low Kong Jong Ice Cafe, which had a HoChak sign. The cendol and ais kacang here were more to my liking because they tasted similar to Penang’s.
After we finished our desserts, we bade farewell to Melaka and vowed to return in near future to try the food we missed like Satay Babi, Beef Noodles, Semabok’s Burger Maut and the other equally famous cendol.

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