On the laid back track

Lately we've not had time to really stay in Malacca much. It was always a snatched affair - we'd go back late at night on Friday and return to KL early Sunday to avoid the late evening congestion on the North South Highway. However the past few weeks were even worse. We could only go back on Saturday morning. So last Saturday off we went home to Malacca, to spend roughly 24 hours there and back again to KL. This time around though, instead of taking the highway, Repin and I decided to take the coastal road - slower and more scenic.

We took the road to Masjid Tanah (which is fairly new and rather good), drove past sleepy looking villages, gardens bright and colourful with orange, red and purple bourgainevilla and orchards full of ripe rambutans.  For those who don't know, rambutans are a Malaysian fruit - growing in bunches with red, hairy looking skins. They look deliciously ripe and juicy and we passed many stalls selling the ripe fruits. If it were not the fasting month, I'm sure we would have stopped to buy some.

Ripe rambutans hanging in bunches

We passed a few small towns - for example Masjid Tanah (Clay Mosque) on our way to Kuala Sungai Baru.  To go to Kuala Sungai Baru we'd have to take a left turn just after the town of Masjid Tanah.  Here we passed a river full of fishing boats - it seems the fishermen had returned early in the morning - before 8am. We even stopped at a market to look at the fresh fish sold and I bought a few very fresh cencaru and some sea water prawns. Its not easy in these days of fish farming, to get sea water prawns. Most of the prawns you see in the market are actually farmed and reared in fresh water.

Along the way we stopped to look at 1Malaysia in action - a group of Chinese shopkeepers helping a Malay fireman clean or shoot a hose of water into a drain. After some conjecture, we realised that the drain was blocked -  because a python had got stuck inside it and the firemen were trying to flush it out.

Helpful citizens

Fishing boats  lining up along the river in Kuala Sungai Baru

Driving to Linggi we passed many a sleepy villlage with colourful mosques, cosy looking cottages of which a few are actually seaside resorts,  fishermen drying nets along the shore ,children riding bikes and women gossipping .  Life seems to be slow and very relaxed here in this part of Malacca. Soon we crossed the Linggi River which is the border between Negri Sembilan and Malacca. After driving through till Port Dickson, we found that we had not much time left and decided to take the PD HIghway back to KL. A short diversion but a worthwhile one, and very interesting.