22 to 28 September - Singapore to Jakarta (Indonesia)

The standard of accommodation in Indonesia after Batam is going to drop I have been told by our leader. Considering some of the disgusting places I have been in this is a worrying comment. I know places could be worse than I have seen (you have to take the good with the bad is Madventures motto) but if we have only had the ‘good’ up to now I hate to think what is in-front of us.

After a 32 hour cockroach/rat infested ferry journey and a screaming child at 6am in the not so clean hostel in Jakarta’ has been taken from a post by another person on the trip.

Singapore fuel prices : Petrol - 1.755SD/L (£0.90/L) Diesel – 2.014Sd/L (£1.00/L) with £1 = 1.955SD. Driving is on the left hand side.

Indonesia fuel prices : Petrol (normal) 4500 rupiah (£0.60/L) Diesel - 4500 rupiah (£0.60/L) and Eco Solar clean petrol for expensive cars (as it was explained to me) 10500 rupiah (£0.75/L) with £1 = 15,500 rupiah, Driving is on the left hand.

The journey to Singapore was uneventful with the crossing of the Malaysian and Singapore borders being easy and swift. The same bus took us all the way though we did have to take all our luggage out of the bus for it to be examined before entering Singapore. One odd thing was that cigarettes were not allowed into Singapore when entering by road. A few minutes after arriving at the bus station Jane and Bronwyn arrived (my daughter and grand-daughter) and I went to stay with them while I was in Singapore. Although we went out a couple of times we did not really do any tourist things, zoo, botanical gardens etc, though we did go to the gardens by the Bay, as I had seen them in the past. Just going round the centre of Singapore was an eye-opener with huge shopping malls and seeing the changes in the city and what had been done to Sentosa Island and the whole of the waterfront. Anson Road where I used to walk from the ship to the town and where the Indian shops would copy records onto tapes for pennies no longer existed as such, it was a road of high rise buildings and if not for the road sign I would not have known where I was. This was the weekend of the F1 Grand Prix not that I was bothered or that it bothered me at all.

Jane and Bronwyn

Gardens by the Bay

Gardens by the Bay

On the morning of 25th we caught the Sindo ferry to Batam in Indonesia. The crossing was only 45 minutes and on landing the immigration process only took a few minutes. Then it was up to the Pelni Shipping office to book tickets for Jakarta. Having a passport to show how old I was I was able to get a 20% discount on the trip so upgraded myself to a separate cabin for just a little more money. No-one seems to know why a ferry cannot sail direct to Jakarta from Singapore instead of trans-shipping here. The hotel we stayed in was the Hotel Pelita with no complaints about the hotel.

This was the view from the hotel window. I just like the photograph! Kind of a Picasso still life! I have not written that I liked the view.

 Batam is green with plenty of grass and trees though quite a lot of traffic. The town itself is a long way from the port and has a hypermarket and plenty of new building going on. Apparently it exists to service the requirements of Singapore gentlemen who come here for weekends!

Our leader has advised that the accommodation in Jakarta (and Indonesia) may not be up to the standard we (me) expect. (I did try to put ‘I’ in the brackets and this machine printed out a light bulb like this instead).

Leaving the hotel at 13.00 hours we went to the ferry terminal to take the ferry to Jakarta, supposedly leaving at 15.00 hours and eventually leaving at 17.30 hours.

The MV Kelund, carries 1906 passengers with 157 crew. Cruising speed 18 knots, built 1997.

I shared a cabin with a young Indonesian man, which was just as well as he could tell me what the announcements on the ship’s tannoy were all about as they were only in Indonesian. Very important when it came to meal times! The cabin had two single beds, sheets and blanket, with an en-suite bathroom and shower. A writing table and wardrobe were also fitted. There was a reasonable amount of room really. The evening meal after leaving consisted of a pasty of some sort which was very nice, cooked vegetables, chicken with green curry, two fish which were also very tasty, rice, fruit and tea. There was no shortage of food. Breakfast the following morning consisted of a savoury rice, fried egg and very sweet black tea.

First Class Dining Room

Birthday Party

First Class Cabin

I asked if I could visit the engine room and was eventually given permission to do so. I was amused to see that engine rooms were still being painted in the colour eau-de-nil, a colour that has been around for the same purpose for the past fifty years or more as far as I know. The equipment in the engine room has not changed over the years only the engines have become smaller for the same output.

Control Room

MAK Main Engines with engine room staff

MAK Main Engine (2 off)

Daihatsu Generating Sets (4 off)

The top of the main engine cylinder heads

Later the crew carried out lifeboat and fire drills with the passengers being advised, for once in English as well, not to worry when they heard the bells ringing. Lunch was fish, chicken and vegetable, a separate vegetable dish, a cooked peanut dish, rice and fruit. While we were eating, all half-a-dozen of us, a live band played in the dining room with a singer as well. All meals so far have been with silver service, not what I expected. While I was living in apparent luxury the others, in Economy Class, were watching children chasing rats round their sleeping area and fighting off cockroaches as they tried to sleep. Arrival at Jakarta was at 1730 hours, another hour to get to the Djody Hostel which meant that the journey from Batam to Jakarta took 31 and a bit hours.

The Djody Hostel! Let the photographs speak for themselves, a pig sty is still a pig sty and the standard Madventure aspires to provide at any cost.

Toilet 2, shower broken.

Toilet 1, shower broken.

Toilet 3, shower a 1/2 inch pipe sticking out of the wall.

Kitchen

       

20 and 21 September – Melaka (Malaysia)

Leaving the hotel at midday and travelling by monorail and bus we finally arrived at the Hollitel Hotel, Melaka at 15.45 hours. Leaving our bags Derrick and I went straight out to see what was around as according to the guide book there was a lot of things to see and do in the town and we only had another day to see round the town. This was  a crafty thing to do as we were able to see what was there and plan what to do the following day. As it was we saw Chinatown in lights, at least the dragon, and a bride and groom having their wedding photographs taken. The following day we walked round the town and found that most of the tourist sights were in the centre of the town. What was strange was to find that there were so many museums there, Maritime having three, a Customs museum, Arts, Chinese, Portuguese, Youth to name a few. When visiting many of them one had to take off ones shoes to enter the building. Parts of the town still had very old buildings and it looked as though the Authorities had decided to make the town a tourist attraction especially as it has an UNESCO World Heritage Site notification. Here, as in other places seen in Malaysia, there were national flags hung on buildings, houses and business premises.

Because of its location Melaka was an important port on the Malay coast from earliest times. In the 15th century the Malays and Chinese lived together in peace. From late in the century the Thais tried to conquer the town due to its importance as a port and for the goods that were travelling through the straits and were repulsed. From then on the town was fought over by the Portuguese, Dutch and British. While the Portuguese and Dutch kept the town and port in order and welcomed passing ships, even though they had to pay a tax on cargo, the British allowed the narrows at the river mouth to silt up so that the port became unusable, just a sleepy little backwater as it was called. For quite a small place it was certainly fought over many times.

The Chinese dragon in Chinatown

The Chinese dragon in Chinatown

The Chinese dragon in Chinatown taken during the day

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Just married

A Chinese temple

A wedding shop

  

The Casa Del Rio in the day

The Casa Del Rio at night

The riverside

The riverside

Yuppie riverside

The riverside

A 'duck' for taking tourist on river trips

                

St. Francis Xavier's Church

The remains of Melaks Fort with cannon barrels

Artistic tricycles (with music)

Add caption

Christ Church ( Originally a Dutch Reformed Church now Anglican since 1795)

A street in the 'red' area

Old Buildings

Old Buildings

                                                          Istana Sultanate Palace
                             

19 September – Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)

Chris left today for New Zealand saying that there was no further challenges to be found before the end of the trip, his wanting to see his family who are in New Zealand and the fact that with all the extra costs forced on him he was running out of money. That leave thirteen of us of the original twenty-four who made up the members of the group as Bob and Rebecca have not re-joined us after Rebecca had an accident in Koh Samui, Thailand.

I decides to use the hop-on hop-off bus today to have a ride round and see what others think that tourists to Kuala Lumpur should see. Buying a ticket at the hotel was cheaper than on the bus, R36 compared to R38, ( the cost of which was £7.50). The distance travelled was not all that great as I had walked a fair bit of it the day before but because of the traffic the one round trip (the tourist buses only travelled one way round the city) was to take at least three hours. By hopping on and off as I wanted the journey took over six hours.

The first stop I made was at the National Museum. A lovely building with a lot of information about Malaya and Malaysia, and more to the point the exhibits did still show what influence the British had in the country. There were a few exhibits outside the building and people could have their photographs taken with different coloured birds, not all of which were of Malay origin, something of a trick so I thought.

A T-class steam loco made by W.G. Bagnall of England in 1927. It was the first steam loco built with a steel firebox and shipped completely built to Malaya and was in use until 1964 

Wall painting outside the museum

The entrance to the museum

Model of a very complicated sailing ship

Figurehead of a royal boat over 100 years old and made of wood from the jack fruit tree

Tourists with a snake and birds

                    




Then to the National Palace

The main entrance

The palace on the hill

Horse Guards

    
I did get off at other places but took few photographs. The ones following were taken just to show what parts of Kuala Lumpur looks like and are mainly of the remaining old buildings in the city.

The monorail

A mosque

An orchid

An orchid

A pretty flower

White bouganvillia

Old buildings