Road trip: Singapore to Malacca City
Well there is no dearth of options when picking a weekend getaway from the Singapore bustle, and one of the quite popular ones, no doubt, is Malacca City, (also spelled Melaka). It is about 215km from Johor Bahru, most of which is the impeccable North-South Expressway (E2).
Day 1 (Saturday)
We took a taxi from our homes in South Singapore to Johor Bahru via Woodlands checkpoint, reaching Johor at 7:30 am.
Cost of taxi for 5: SGD 80
From Johor, we got into our pickup truck, a Toyota Hilux, and started driving towards Malacca city.
Cost of Car rental: SGD 242 for 2 days
It is doubtlessly a scenic drive, so including a couple of stops for pictures and snack breaks, we reached our destination, a cozy little village-style Airbnb called ‘De Villa’ in about 4 hours.
Breakfast at hawker centre: 4MYR per person
After freshening up and relaxing a bit, we had lunch at food trucks outside the Elements mall: spaghetti, spring rolls, burgers, etc
Lunch at food trucks: 6MYR per person
In the late afternoon, we went to the Pantai Klebang beach, where we let out the children inside us, flying kites and blowing soap bubbles until sundown.
Post sunset, we visited the famous Malacca straits Mosque to see it in all its night lit glory. Remember to wear full length clothing if you plan to visit the Mosque.
After the mosque, we headed straight to the Night market at jonker street, and stayed there from 9.30pm to 1 am. The night market is quite a scene! By far the one place in Malacca where you need to go to to get all kinds of street food, souvenirs and even artefacts from quaint forgotten-art shops.
Cost for dinner at an upscale restaurant near the night market: 16MYR per pax
Day 2 (Sunday)
I woke up at 6:30 am (out of habit), played some cards, drew fresh water out of the well, you know, that kind of stuff – while waiting for everyone to get ready for breakfast.
Which was inarguably the best part about our Airbnb stay:
After the more-than-I-asked for breakfast, we headed on to Sky tower, where we were cordially greeted by awesome weather and a clear view for miles and miles.
Cost of tickets Sky tower : 23.50 MYR per pax
Next stop, we headed on to the legendary Cheng Hoon Teng temple, which is the OLDEST FUNCTIONING TEMPLE IN MALAYSIA!
After the enchanting temple, we were all full of intent and purpose, in a completely resolute mood for — food. So we sought out a “popular” pseudo-Indian restaurant called d’tandoori, which was as disappointing as it was popular. The staff was compulsively unscrupulous. Twice they tried to charge us for things we never ordered. Anyway, hazards of being a stranger in a strange land.
The Upside down house was okay. Only go if you’ve got kids, or someone in your group has the mental acuity of kids, or if you’ve got too much time on your hands and you wish to be photographed with a fake upside down dog kennel.
Our drive back to Johor was a smooth, sullen, slow crawl, and the feeling of the weekend coming to an end was sinking along with the sun on our right.
We had some time before our scheduled car-dropoff, so we grabbed pizza from Pizza hut in paradigm mall, where we also got diesel for 110 MYR (our entire trip’s fuel expense).
Pizza for 5 in Pizza hut: 105MYR
And after much hearts played (and lost) in the back of the pickup truck, we dropped it off, sat in our Hyundai Starex with our monoglot malay driver who had a lot to do but little to say. We were stuck in a traffic jam at Tuas checkpoint for 3 hours, and finally re-entered our beloved Singapura around 1am Monday.
Cab from Johor to 4 dropoffs in Singapore: 80SGD
That’s it guys, glad you made it to the bottom :) If you have feedback, reach out to me on Facebook
