A Celebration of Everything That Flies

Of all the weekend getaways I’ve enjoyed in Southeast Asia over the past three and a half years, perhaps the most unexpectedly, surprisngly awesome was this past weekend’s trip to Clark in the Philippines. I just got back yesterday, and up until a few days before my Friday afternoon flight, I hadn’t even made up my mind about going. You see, I booked my flights back in early January because I found stupidly cheap tickets and figured that even if I wound up cancelling, it couldn’t hurt to book. At one point, Kevin, our friend Matt, Courtney and Sonia all toyed with the idea of joining me for the trip, but for one reason or another, none of them wound up booking tickets. I wasn’t sure whether it was worth it to go alone, but in the end I decided to take a chance. I’m so glad I did, because the memories of the weekend will surely rank among the most unforgettable I’ve yet experienced out here. It was a gamble, but it also proved that some gambles really do pay off.

Clark is best known as an alternative airport for those looking to save a bit of money. It is only about a two hour drive from Manila, and as such, several budget airlines offer very cheap airfares. Many passengers immediately make a beeline to the Philippines’ capital city as soon as they clear immigration since nearby Angeles City is notoriously known as one of the region’s seediest locales, not necessarily an ideal spot for a family holiday.

However, once a year, Clark is host to an extraordinary festival called the Philippines Hot Air Balloon Fiesta. That’s a bit of a misnomer really, because as it’s tagline accurately suggests, the weekend-long event is a celebration of "everything that flies.” From bubbles and kites to jumbo jets, it’s hard to think of a flying object that did not play a part in the weekend’s festivities.

The Fiesta first appeared on my travel radar two or three years ago, when I read about it on some website or other. It’s always been on my mind when booking flights, and in the past I’d tried to get a group together to attend the event, but for some reason, it never came together. This year, though, I made up my mind to finally attend, and the wait was well worth it!

I flew Cebu Pacific from Singapore to Clark on Friday afternoon, arriving around 8pm. I waited until a day or so before the flight to finally book a hotel, and my options were pretty limited. I finally settled on Tune Hotel, run by AirAsia, the region’s budget airline. It had decent reviews and looked very close to the fiesta’s location, and in the end, it turned out to be a good choice. The guy sitting next to me on the plane, another American expat living in Singapore, told me the hotel’s philosophy was to provide very nice beds and power showers but little else, managing to keep price down but comfort and cleanliness high. So yes, my room was tiny, but the bed was uber-comfortable and the shower was great. The staff was helpful and friendly to boot, which can always lift a hotel stay up a few notches.

After getting settled in my room, I went down to the desk to enquire about the following day’s festival. The lady on duty suggested I head to the field around 5am in order to be there for the morning’s activities, so I booked a cab, headed up to my room and had an early night. I was still extremely unsure about how this whole weekend was going to turn out, and as I set my alarm for 4:45am, I thought that the whole thing might have been a bad idea.

Dark and early the next morning I was in a car headed towards Omni Aviation, venue of the 18^th Annual Philippines Hot Air Balloon Fiesta. It was still pitch black outside when I bought my ticket at the entrance gate, but there was a steady crowd of people flowing into the massive festival grounds. In the darkness, I could discern some small airplanes scattered about, and also a few glowing objects floating in the night sky. A man’s voice was explaining various aspects of ballooning. And it was the first time I finally felt sure that I had made the right decision to take this trip.

Omni Aviation is set on a flat plain strikingly straddled by two volcanoes: the extinct, photogenic Mount Arayat to the east and the active Mount Pinatubo of the Cabusilan Mountain Range to the west. Slowly, about twenty minutes after I had entered the field, the sun began to illuminate the skies behind Arayat, and the black night first turned a deep ruby red and then into an unforgettable mix of pink and golden orange. (It’s beginning to seem like no trip to the Philippines is complete for me without experiencing a sunrise. First in Boracay, then in Panglao, now in Clark, watching the beautiful morning come into full force has become an indelible part of each of my trips.)

As the sky got brighter and brighter, the first of the balloons became visible on the field. The commentator was discussing the clouds, hoping they weren’t rain clouds but cautiously saying it was too early to tell. Hopefully, he said, the sun would dispel them and we would have clear, perfect skies for the morning flight. And that’s exactly what happened.

More and more balloons appeared on the field, the first of which were slowly being inflated. I bought a “photographer’s pass” for access to the field, something I had read about online during my research leading up to the trip. It wound up being the best thing I could have done. It only cost 1000PHP (US$25) but it allowed me to wander around from one balloon to the next as I pleased, while most of the crowd had to stand behind a fence to watch the action from afar.

Before I knew it, the entire field was covered in balloons of every color, size and shape—a bouquet of tulips, a space shuttle, a smiling sun, a fire truck, a pink elephant, even an upside-down humpty dumpty! I’d never seen such cleverly-shaped hot air balloons in person, and watching them slowly take shape as the sun continued to light the dawn sky was as unforgettable a morning as I’ve ever had.

Then, like magic, the first of the balloons lifted into the air and floated away. Soon others followed it, until balloons were taking off all around me and disappearing into the distance. And still more balloons were taking shape all over the field. In the end, there were about thirty balloons that took part in the dawn flight that morning.

Hot air balloons work on the well-known law of physics that hot air rises. Fans are used to channel air into the balloons before this air is heated, causing the balloons to rise. However, the air inside the balloon must be hotter than the outside air in order for this principle to work, and that’s why flights have to take place when the temperature is coolest, usually around sunrise and sunset.

As the balloons were taking off, paragliders were flying around the field. These paragliders were unlike anything I had ever seen. They had motors on their backs propelling them all over the place, and a parachute aiding them in their flight. It was amazing to watch them buzz around, about as close to flying as I can imagine.

One balloon, nicknamed Sunny Boy, stayed back to provide the crowd with an endless photo op. A sun-shaped balloon sporting cool shades with signs over the eyes proclaiming, "It's more fun in the Philippines," Sunny Boy certainly knew what he was talking about, and I couldn't have agreed with him more. After all the balloons had either taken off or—in the case of a few—been deflated and packed up again, the rest of the day started. I had looked at the schedule online and known that hot air ballooning was only a part of this festival, but it didn’t quite hit me until now that the whole day would turn out to be an informative, wildly entertaining celebration of mankind’s fascination with flight.

After the last of the paragliders came down, Dr. Meynard Halili took to the skies in a tiny prop plane, delighting the crowd with loops and spins and inverted flying. His friend, our commentator, explained each and every move, from the Cuban Eight to the Hammerhead to the Clover Leaf. And he also said that Dr. Meynard learned to fly at the age of 40, proving that it’s never too late to follow your dream.

After he landed his plane, some remote controlled jets took to the skies, miniature versions of some of the most powerful flying machines known to man. With powerful, miniature engines, these models could perform incredible stunts of airborne wonder, and it was really cool to see them show off.

Still, nothing was as breathtaking as what followed: the Breitling Jet Team’s Aerobatic Exhibition. Seven pilots from France performed daredevil maneuvers in stunning formations, zipping by and wowing everybody who could see them. Set to music and complete with narration explaining their stunts, the exhibition was awe-inspiring.

This was the team’s first stop on an Asian tour that will take them to several other spots before heading back to Europe. And watching their highly-demanding, precise aerial feats lets me know the rest of their tour will be a hit. I could have watched them all day, and as one of their stops on the tour is in Singapore, perhaps I will get another chance to see these daredevils in action.

Having not eaten yet, I decided to leave the field and head into the crowded festival grounds to have some breakfast after the Breitling Jet Team had finished. I also realized that as great a vantage point for catching the action as the field had been, the real atmosphere of the event was here in the heart of the crowd. Music blared, stalls sold all kinds of food and drinks, hundreds of people were flying their kites, and there were tons of impromptu shops that had sprung up selling all manner of souvenirs. It was a good old-fashioned carnival, the perfect place to enjoy what was turning out to be quite a beautiful sunny day.

Some ulta-light aircraft flew by, and then skydivers jumped out of their planes 9,000 feet above us and landed in the middle of the field. At one point, a gaggle of bicycles even rode by before some experienced racecar drivers demonstrated “car drifting,” though I didn’t quite understand their inclusion in a festival celebrating “everything that flies.”

Next up was one of the day’s most surprisingly entertaining features—the balloon bursting competition. Four or five planes took turns flying over the field trying to pop yellow balloons set free as they flew by. (Planes with propellers on their wings had a much harder time completing the task than planes with propellers on their noses.) As each pilot either accomplished or botched the task, the crowd cheered wildly or moaned disappointedly. I couldn’t believe how engrossing the simple event turned out to be, but I was almost embarrassingly engaged in the action!

The Philippine Coast Guard even put on a very cool exhibition demonstrating just how they go about saving people at sea, using one of their planes and a helicopter to aid in the reenactment of a maritime rescue mission.

My favorite plane of the weekend had to be a bright yellow 1942 PT 13 Stearman, beautifully restored with all original parts. It was clear from the second it taxied by on the runway, complete with an appropriately era-attired pilot, that this was a well-loved airplane. Watching it take to the skies, you’d never know it was over seventy years old! It looped around, flying sideways and rolling in the air, like something out of an old war movie. The bi-plane stole the show for me, and I’d love to fly in one like it someday, if I ever get the chance.

The afternoon was chock-full of demonstrations. First, a German pilot flew an engineless wood-and-fabric glider thousands of feet in the air for about twenty minutes. Next, an incredible kite-flying exhibition blew my mind, with multiple kites performing synchronized routines set to music! It was literally like watching kites do the samba or cha-cha! Alongside them, horse-shaped and fish-shaped kites danced in the breeze. Who ever knew you could get so inventive with kites!?!

At one point, a pilot demonstrated just how those aerial banner advertisements get to their position trailing behind a plane. It’s something I realized I had never even thought of before. I just assumed a plane could take off with the banner hanging off its tail, but in actuality, this would make takeoff impossible. Instead, the pilot takes off normally, loops around and flies back over the runway with a hook hanging down from the tail of the plane and a string attached to the banner suspended between two poles. The pilot must maneuver his plane so that he can catch the string with his hook, and then the banner floats in the wind behind the plane, visible to all on the ground.  It might sound confusing when put into words, but the quick demonstration that afternoon made it perfectly clear.

Later in the afternoon, there was a really fun “flour-bombing” exhibition, where pilots in ultra light aircrafts attempted to drop bags full of flour on their “targets” below, who just happened to be the manager and president of a local flying club! The bags burst upon impact, sending a cloud of dust into the air, but they never managed to directly hit their targets!

I could hardly believe it, but after the flour bombing ended, the sun was starting to set over the Cabusilan Mountains! I had been in the sun with hardly a minute’s cover since it rose that morning! And the day had just dissipated what with all the fascinating aerial stunts on display over the many hours that followed.

As the skies grew darker, the iconic hot air balloons made their return for “night glow,” the dusk-time display where the balloons inflate but stay attached to the ground, showing off their golden aura to the crowd. Donning my “photographer’s pass” vest, I re-entered the field to see the balloons up close. Although all thirty balloons were supposed to come back for the display, for some unexplained reason only four or five actually inflated and glowed for the crowd. But an amazing musical showcase took place on the nearby stage, and even the sight of the few balloons proudly glowing in the dark sky was a sight to remember. I could only imagine what it would have been like if all thirty had been there!

It was nearly 8:30pm when I left the festival grounds that night, fifteen hours after I had arrived that morning. Again, the skies were pitch black.

I walked a ways back toward the Tune Hotel, but ultimately hopped in a local trike to take me on the final stretch, so exhausted was I from the full day I had just enjoyed. It was all I could have hoped for and then some, and I loved every minute of it. I was so glad I had gone through with my plans to attend! And as I’m sure you can imagine, I had no trouble falling asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Although I toyed with the idea of waking up even earlier Sunday so that I stood a chance of actually riding in one of the balloons, I ultimately opted to sleep a little later and spend my day exploring the nearby town of Angeles. Before leaving, I looked out my window and realized I had a view of Omni Aviation. I saw a couple of hot air balloons lingering on the field and stuck around to watch the Breitling Jet Team perform again from the comfort of my room!

I left the hotel and jumped in a trike to go to the Holy Rosary Church in time for 10am mass. The church was beautiful, designed and built in a distinctly Filipino style, with imposing stone bell towers and golden chandeliers inside. Near the entrance there was a memorial to six American soldiers who were killed when their plane crashed through the roof of the church after being struck by a Japanese anti-aircraft gun in January 1945. 

The area around Holy Rosary was fascinating, full of character and buzzing with life. Trikes, jeepneys, horse-drawn carriages… the mansion where General Arthur MacArthur (father of WWII General Douglas MacArthur) had lived when he was based in Angeles City at the turn of the twentieth century… People had told me there was nothing to see or do in Angeles, but I’m so glad I decided not to listen to them and find out for myself. Like Cebu City, I can’t call it beautiful, but it was atmospheric and charming in a decidedly Filipino way, and I loved it.

I even took a forty minute horse-drawn carriage tour around town, sharing traffic-clogged main streets with all manner of vehicles only to turn down quiet dirt lanes lined with homes and churches and little shops. Every street was teeming with life, and the people were so friendly, waving to me and saying hello, some even posing for pictures. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the Filipinos are what truly make their country the magical place that it is.

That ride was such a cool way to get to explore parts of the city I probably never would have discovered had I just wandered around on my own. My driver even rode me past his house, waving and chatting with his neighbors as we drove by. Kids were playing on the street, families were out doing chores and others were just relaxing in the nice weather.

After my tour was over, I hopped on a jeepney and made my way to the local shopping mall. Jeepneys are perhaps the Philippines’ single most iconic mode of transport. The historic roots of the vehicle stem, as you can probably guess, from World War II. When the war ended and the Americans departed, many jeeps were left behind. The locals expanded the bodies of the vehicles so they could seat many more passengers and the jeepney was born. In the years since, it has become an indelible feature of the country. For 8PHP (US$0.20) you can ride pretty much anywhere you want along the route, simply flagging one down as it passes and letting the driver now when you want to jump out. They can get crowded and hot, but they are such a fun way to get around!

At the local mall, called SM Clark, I caught a screening of A Good Day to Die Hard. Truth be told I had spent far too much time in the sun the day before, and I knew I should do my best to stay out of it if possible. A 2:30pm movie seemed like a good way to protect my skin for a few hours, and I opted for the IMAX cinema, watching the movie on one of the biggest screens I’ve ever seen!

After a quick pit stop at the hotel to freshen up a bit after another relatively long day, I headed back to the fiesta for my last night. It was cheap enough to get in, and I wanted to take some more time to bask in the festive atmosphere, sample the food stalls and shop at the souvenir booths. Plus, I figured it would be worth it just in case tonight’s night glow featured more of the balloons. It turned out to be a great decision.

Almost all of the balloons showed up that night, and there was even a fireworks display capping off the illuminations. Enjoying a few San Miguels was a perfect compliment to the colorful display before me, and I had some great Mexican tacos for dinner from one of the many food stalls, run by a delightful brother-sister duo named Eduard and Brenda. They were very friendly, even offering me a free shot of tequila while explaining how she makes their out-of-this-world delicious Habanero sauce while he does the rest of the cooking.

I walked back to the Tune again, and laid down on my comfortable bed, content to spend my last night of the weekend watching television. You see, we cancelled our television subscription in Hong Kong before I moved to Singapore, and down here Sonia doesn’t have television channels set up either, so it’s been a long while since I’ve been able to simply lie back, relax and channel surf. I guess it sounds weird, but it was a perfect last night for my little weekend getaway.

My flight on Monday wasn’t until 12:10pm, so I checked out of the Tune and asked the lady at the desk if she could recommend a place for breakfast nearby. She suggested the Savannah Resort just a few doors away, and I sat by their pool, had a Bloody Mary and some breakfast, and chilled out for a good two hours before heading back to Diosado Macapagal International Airport for my flight back to Singapore.

I could not have asked for a better weekend, and hopefully I can convince a good little crew to join me for my next visit to Clark for the 2014 Fiesta!

We’re Off on the Road to Malacca

Gong Xi Fa Cai from Singapore! I hope everybody’s Year of the Snake has gotten off to a good start. Honestly, I love Chinese New Year. It’s always an exciting opportunity to travel and soak up some Southeast Asian culture, so I was very happy to add a new installment to my ever-growing litany of CNY adventures.

The original plan to ring in the Year of the Snake was a grand, slightly hectic romp across three countries, starting in Singapore, continuing into Malaysia and culminating in Indonesia with a volcano trek in Bukittinggi. I tend to pack my travel itineraries from start to finish, rarely leaving a moment’s pause. But luckily I was forced at the last minute to scale this trip back a bit, making for a much more relaxed experience. I’m so glad the whole thing worked out so seamlessly!

My friend Bernadett flew from Hong Kong to Singapore last Thursday night to spend her vacation with Sonia and me, and since I’m still Sonia’s houseguest, it made sense for Bernadett to stay at her place, too. It was pushing midnight when her taxi pulled up to the house, and a few rum and Cokes were obviously in order upon her arrival.

I’d seen her in Hong Kong less than a week before, but it had been a long time since she and Sonia had last been together. The three of us imbibed on the patio and were joined by one of Sonia’s current roommates, Rafael, who was departing for Cambodia on a Chinese New Year vacation of his own in about five hours’ time.

Sonia, having to work Friday morning, headed to bed around 2am, but Bernadett and I kept Rafael company until his 5am departure!

On Friday morning, we got to my office around 11 with a plan to finally book all of our bus and ferry tickets for the upcoming trip. However, in the 24 hours since I had last checked availability, everything seemed to have filled up! No more Saturday morning buses were available, and many ferries, too, were sold out. It became clear that we would have to push back our departure and tweak our itinerary by deciding on just one destination. We even discussed the possibility of a stay-cation in Singapore, but ultimately it came down to deciding between Malaysia and Indonesia.

After a nice Vietnamese lunch on Telok Ayer Street with Bernadett’s good friend Johannes and his girlfriend Leza, back to the office we went to iron out a final plan. Bernadett and I decided on Malacca, a well-preserved colonial Malaysian town that was—over the course of its history—controlled by Dutch, Portuguese and British administrations. The bus we chose was set to depart for Malacca at 7:30pm on Saturday night. An express bus, it would take us from downtown Singapore, across the border into Malaysia and onto our final destination about three hours up the Western coast of the Malay Peninsula.

Delaying our planned departure by about twelve hours meant we could take the opportunity to show Bernadett a little bit of the Lion City. After all, she had only been down on business trips before and never actually gotten a chance to explore Singapore. So after purchasing the tickets, I gave her an impromptu walking tour of the Central Business District, wandering up along Boat Quay, Clarke Quay and finally Chinatown, where there was a very memorable snake lantern display for the holiday!

In the late afternoon, we made our way via taxi to the British Club to meet Sonia for drinks and dinner, and sitting by the club’s pool indulging in a delicious meal was a relaxing start to our vacation. Back home we watched a few episodes of Friends before turning in relatively early.

Saturday morning the three of us dropped our bags in my office and headed out for a typically Singaporean Saturday. We met Johannes at Raffles Place and hopped on a river taxi to take us to Robertson Quay. The first available river taxi was actually sailing in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go, but we asked if we could ride it anyway, knowing it would eventually make its way back upriver and take us to our desired destination. So for only SG$3, we pretty much got the same river tour I’ve paid SG$18 for in the past!

It was a beautiful morning, with bright sunshine and clear skies. We sailed around the Marina Bay, past the Merlion and the Theatres on the Bay before heading back up past the iconic quays, finally alighting about half an hour later. At eM, the restaurant we had selected for brunch, we all had eggs Benedict (or some variation thereof) in the outdoor riverside garden, complete with jazzy tunes and Bloody Marys. And we then hopped a taxi to the Singapore Botanic Gardens for a stroll around the aromatic lungs of the city.

When the clouds overhead looked like they’d be able to hold their water no longer, we dashed over to Dempsey Hill to escape the imminent storm. We found a gem among gems in PS Café, a restaurant specializing in exceedingly unhealthy desserts, with large picture windows overlooking the wooded hill. My friend Taz, who has also just moved to Singapore, came by to join us, and the five of us gave new meaning to the word “gluttony” in the homey spot. I indulged in a sensational sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce that was out of this world, and the rest of our group enjoyed similarly artery-clogging treats. As the heavens rained down on the glass window panes of the restaurant, we kept dry and warm, and it was a delightful couple of hours.

Whiling the afternoon away in the pleasant café, we almost lost track of time. Sonia, Bernadett and I made our way back to the office to grab our bags, got some Turkish food at a restaurant near Arab Street, loaded up on goodies for the upcoming ride, and checked in for our bus!

The ride to the border zipped by, although the bus driver was rather confused about how the whole process of crossing the border worked. About two minutes away from the checkpoint, he pulled off to the side of the road and told us that a new bus would come along to take us the rest of the way. We had been told that he would take us as far as Malaysia, and then we would switch buses, but we figured the driver knew best. WRONG! As we sat there waiting for about ten minutes, one resourceful Singaporean lady called the bus company and passed her phone along to the driver. Turns out he was supposed to take us across the border. Our new bus would not be meeting us until we were in Malaysia!

For some incomprehensible reason, the passport authorities of Singapore and Malaysia do their best to make crossing the border as annoying as possible. Instead of having one complex where you depart one country and enter the other—which would be the logical thing to do—you instead get off of your first bus, receive your official Singapore departure stamp, re-board the bus to drive over a causeway crossing the Straits of Johor, disembark again, clear Malaysian immigration, and finally get onto a new bus to continue the journey. Why they make you go through all that hassle is beyond me, but thankfully, there was no line at either checkpoint, and we fairly flew across the causeway, which can sometimes be gridlocked for hours!  

Our second bus was about a thousand times more comfortable than the first one, with fully reclining seats and leg rests! With some Pringles, a bottle of Smirnoff and plenty of mixers, it felt like just another part of the adventure. When you fly somewhere, it always feels like the vacation waits to start until you get off the plane. But by taking the bus, the journey becomes part of the fun, and that’s just one reason why I’m thrilled that Singapore has such amazing bus connections.

I couldn’t believe how quickly the ride flew, and before I knew it we were in Malacca. In fact, I was sure we were pulling in to just another rest stop when I saw a sign declaring “Melaka Sentral.” We grabbed the first cab we could find and made our way straight to the hotel I had booked, Heeren House, where we again dropped our bags and headed straight out.

Heeren House is just beside the river in the heart of Old Malacca, and it’s a historic Chinese building with an abundance of charm. Luckily our room was on the first floor—and I say luckily because they lock the front doors at midnight, so we had to climb in and out through our window to explore the city.

That first night, we took a midnight stroll around the colorful old streets of Chinatown, grabbing a drink here and there, with some abysmal chicken satays thrown in for good measure. There were so bad we didn’t even finish them, and I realized that this was probably the first time in my entire life that a satay had been left on the plate uneaten!

Still it was a fascinating stroll around the city. And you could palpably feel the buzz of Chinese New Year in the air. And then it hit me. This was actually really the fist time I'd been somewhere remotely Chinese for Chinese New Year. I've run away to Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam the past three years. And even though last year's cruise included a port call in Sanya, China, it was such a quick daytime stop that I was only barely aware it was a holiday there at all. But in Malacca's Chinatown, you knew something special was in the air. Almost immediately after we sat down for a drink at Georgraphér Café, fireworks began exploding not fifteen feet in front of us. I've never been that close to them in my life, and as they exploded, the cinders literally fell upon us. It was one of the most exhilarating moments I've experienced in a very long time. 

Although we only took an hour or so to get our bearings before going to sleep, it was enough time for us all to realize what a gem of a town we had stumbled upon. I went to sleep uber-excited for the days to follow!

I woke up bright and early on Sunday morning and finally met Marcia, the proprietress of Heeren House with whom I’d been e-mailing for weeks. She was an amazing hostess. We were staying in Malacca for two nights, but space in the six-room guest house was only available for our first night. Hoping there would be a last-minute cancellation, we had boarded the bus without a place to stay for the second half of the trip. Enter heroic Marcia. Sadly no room had opened up, but within minutes she had found us a room at another hotel a few doors away. Before breakfast, the crisis had been averted and we had a place to stay.

Popping open a bottle of seriously cheap champagne left over from New Year’s Eve, we turned the hotel’s simple breakfast, served in the charming knick knack-filled lobby, into a mini-celebration: scrambled eggs, sausage, tomato and beans, with ample toast and mimosas!

It being Sunday, and having already driven past two quaint churches on the ride into town the night before, I decided to attend mass. Bernadett and I walked around beforehand, exploring more of Malacca’s charming streets, squares and alleyways. Dutch Square was especially stunning, with its uniformly red façades concentrated around an elegant European-style central fountain dedicated to Queen Victoria.

While I was at mass, the girls moved our stuff from Heeren House to our new lodging, called the Hangout. And when we reunited, we decided to take a river cruise. While waiting for our boat, we ordered a cheap peanut butter and jelly waffle, a peanut butter and cappuccino-chocolate cream waffle and some delicious sweet corn, all for less than ten Malaysian ringgit.

And the cruise was wonderful. A strange assortment of music played—everything from the Black Eyed Peas and Evanescence to local music celebrating Chinese New Year. And the riverbanks were teeming with interesting sights, from street art on the walls of buildings to an amusement park with old-fashioned rides to local houses oozing unique character. If you ever make your way to Malacca, do not pass up a chance to explore the city by boat.

Post cruise, we headed straight for lunch at a quaint courtyard restaurant called Bistro Year 1673, just off Jonker Street. We had much better luck with our satays this time, and we also enjoyed a nice South African cider in addition to some local food, including my favorite—deep fried lychee stuffed with prawn! Although it had started lightly raining, a big umbrella kept us covered, and by the time we were ready to start wandering again, the rain had stopped.

Jonker Street is lined with all kinds of shops, from picturesque antique shops to trendy boutiques to garish souvenir stores selling Gangnam Style sandals and hilarious t-shirts. Although I’d love to play posh and pretend I preferred the former, it was the latter where I spent the most amount of time and money. I wound up buying two pairs of said sandals and at least five t-shirts over the course of the trip! (Before returning to Singapore, I also wound up adding two pair of sunglasses to my list of possessions—by far the most clothes shopping I’ve ever done on a vacation!)

We tucked into some delicious street snacks while exploring mosques, temples, churches, mansions and shacks. Malacca is a vibrant and diverse cross-section of Southeast Asia, and strolling it’s fascinating streets makes for a never-ending array of different cultures.

My favorite spot was a modern temple with a second floor terrace overlooking an obviously older temple just across the street. From the vantage point, you could see out over all of Chinatown, as most of the buildings are only one or two stories tall. Every sense was stimulated. Having just snacked on some madeleines from a street stall, I could feel the warm breeze on my face, smell the incense burning all around, hear the clang of a young monk endlessly ringing a temple bell and, of course, gaze upon the gallimaufry of life on display before me: red-tiled roofs stretching on and on, streets teeming with all sorts Chinese New Year-life, the rich colors of the ancient temple. It was almost overwhelming.

I think the real reason photographs so rarely capture scenes like this is because they are a purely visual means of recalling something that was actually composed of so many sensory details. Yes, a picture can help bring to mind these other aspects of the scene… It can be a good memory-jogger, but it’s never quite perfect. There’s a great line from the movie Rebecca, where Joan Fontaine fantasizes about reliving memories. She says, “You know, I wish there could be an invention that bottled up a memory like perfume and it never faded, never got stale. Then, whenever I wanted to, I could uncork the bottle and live the memory all over again.” Laurence Olivier then asks her what particular moment she would like to bottle up. For me, standing on that balcony with Bernadett and Sonia would surely be one of them. I’m almost glad my camera was charging in the hotel room at the time, so I could simply soak it all in. (And also because Bernadett and Sonia both had theirs, so I can get a ‘memory-jogger’ from them when I want it!)

After exploring the ancient temple across the street, which we were told is the oldest in all of Malaysia, we found ourselves a nice riverfront café and had a drink while dusk set in, waving at the guests on the passing boats.

We made a slight detour on the way to the hotel to snap some twilight-time photos in Dutch Square, and then we got ready for dinner at the Portuguese Settlement, a ramshackle seaside collection of local seafood restaurants. The girls were somewhat disappointed in the reality of the Portuguese Settlement. In their heads, it was going to be a slightly chic, picturesque part of town with Eurasian fusion restaurants offering a vaguely upscale blend of Malaysian, Chinese and Portuguese dishes, similar to some of Macau’s finer Portuguese establishments.

As nice as that would have been, I quickly fell in love with the reality of the place. Hundreds of people were chattering away at their tables, with plates full of fish and vegetables and rice and clams and scallops and crabs and all other sorts of seafood. Some families were releasing golden yellow lanterns into the air over the sea, and a young boy was shooting off fireworks with his dad. At one point, fireworks again began to explode in the skies over our heads.

Unfortunately, Sonia and Bernadett are not really seafood fans, so there was little on the menu that appealed to them. Even more unfortunately, the restaurant did not serve wine and was currently out of Sprite, only offering beer without even the possibility of diluting it down into a nice shandy. Fine for me, but poor Bernadett and Sonia don’t like beer and are normally wine-girls all the way. In fact, it was the first time I’d really seen either of them even drink the stuff!

In the end, Bernadett and I managed to find a table’s worth of food that she was willing to try out, and we did our best to finish fried squid, delicious ginger scallops, spicy barbecued fish, a plate of fresh vegetables and some rice. It was, for me at least, the culinary highlight of the trip. And for the price we paid, I’d also say it was a steal!

Back in the old city, it was already the final night of the holiday. And after such a full day, we were all exhausted. Sonia even fell asleep in the car ride back to town, while Bernadett and I gave it our best effort to stay awake, chatting with the local Portuguese-Chinese driver. Sitting down now to write this, I can’t believe all of the things I’ve just described actually happened over the course of a single day. Looking back, I feel like we spent much more time in Malacca than a mere forty hours.

Bernadett and I opted to take yet another moonlit stroll around town before turning in. We weren’t planning on stopping anywhere for a drink, but we wanted to savor the last night. We made our way to the ancient temple again, to see how the magic of the moonlight changed the feel of the place, and we walked down Jonker Street too, still full of life as always. And then, somehow, we found ourselves on a side street that we had yet to stumble upon, among the most atmospheric we'd yet discovered. There were quaint houses and potted plants and red lanterns; bright lights and colored flowers and catchpenny bikes. 

And there was a bar on this street with live music called Me and Mr. Jones, and although we each made our best effort to walk by without betraying to the other that we would love to stop, it was painfully clear what we both were thinking. “Just one drink,” we said, and this time, shockingly, we stuck to our guns.

Breakfast at the Hangout wasn’t nearly as nice as at Heeren House, but the toast and coffee were good enough to kick start our day. We took our breakfast on the small front terrace, and it looked like it was shaping up to be a beautiful day. Our bus didn’t leave until 6:30pm, and there were some sights we had deliberately left unexplored until our final day.

Most noteworthy of these was Saint Paul’s Hill, crowned by the ruins of its namesake, an old Portuguese church. Once the resting place of Saint Francis Xavier before his remains were moved to Goa, the hollowed-out shell of the church was full of old tombs and a stray cat or two. And the view from the top of the hill over the Straits of Malacca was very pretty. Just across from the church was the Governor’s Museum, housed in the former mansion of the head colonial administrator from the olden days. Bright sunshine filled the air, and although it was pretty crowded up there, it was an undeniably beautiful place.

A rather steep staircase lead down to a ruined fort, but we opted instead to take the gently sloping path down, where a sign indicated we would find the Dutch Graveyard. Midway down, there was an abandoned art gallery where some bats had taken up residence. And below was the cemetery, which in spite of its name, actually contains many more British burials than it does Dutch ones. I sometimes wonder when I’m exploring places like the Dutch Cemetery what it must have been like to come so far from home in the age of sea travel, knowing it would be years, if ever, before you would see home again. What it must have been like for these adventurers to come from Europe and live out their days in Asia, and to sleep here forevermore! I like to think I would have been one of them had I been born a few centuries earlier.

Near the cemetery is a sort of museum fashioned out of a reconstruction of the old Sultanate Palace, where the one-time ruler of the region would have lived. Constructed using historical methods, the stunning wooden building and its picturesque gardens were simply lovely. An interesting exhibit inside gave a good background of the old political system practiced in Malaysia and also recreations of the sultan’s bedchamber and other aspects of royal life. I wish I had been more in a mood to read up on my Malaysian history, but the weather outside was so beautiful that all I could think about getting back out there.

Past the entrance to the palace was that ruined Portuguese fort (called A Famosa) that we had seen from the hilltop. And near that was a memorial of Malaysian Independence. A proud reminder of a colonial past steps away from an even prouder monument to an independent future and those who fought to make it so!

Up until now, we had spent the vast bulk of our time in the preserved historic district of town, but at this point, we realized we were just on the fringe of the modern city so we decided to explore what was there. We found a Starbucks, where we took a breather on the second floor terrace, enjoying a bite to eat and some coffee. I also managed to add another mug to my growing collection. I now have Starbucks mugs from Cebu, Bangkok, Macau, Boracay, Singapore, London, Paris, Las Vegas and the Twin Cities. Unfortunately, in the eyes of Starbucks, Malacca isn’t important enough to warrant its own mug, at least not yet. But they did sell Malaysia mugs, so I figured that would be an appropriate substitute. I’ll always remember where I was when I bought it anyway!

Malaysia is such a cool country, and I'm glad its now at my doorstep. It's got the whole Europe-meets-Asia thing down pat, but it's also got a unique culture all its own, not to mention all the phenomenal natural wonders both on land and under the sea. And so far as I've experienced, the people are very interesting, friendly and proud of their country. I can't wait to see more of it, especially places like Penang and Kota Kinabalu, of which I've heard amazing things.

One of the quirkiest things about Malaysia, at least to an English speaking visitor, is the written language. It uses our same alphabet, but the spelling is slightly off. As one of my friends once observed, it looks as if a kindergartner did his best at spelling English words phonetically. Taxis becomes teksis; museums are muziums; we bought our tickets for the river cruise from the kaunter ticket; the central bus station in town is called Melaka Sentral; but my absolute favorite was the name of a hotel we walked by near the Starbucks, with an image of a bird rising out of the ashes, which you can see in the photograph below.

Taking a short cut through a shopping mall, we stumbled upon the sunglass store I mentioned earlier, were I bought myself some uber-cheap brand-name shades. I don’t know how these Malaysian shops can keep their prices so low! Smirk.

And in the same mall was a shop dedicated to Marvel superheroes. I don’t know if it’s just me and my lack of shopping experience, but I’ve never come across one of these stores before. I'm sure they would be a huge hit in the States and Europe, especially judging from the childlike reaction the three of us had when we found the place. We took about twenty minutes browsing the cool, high quality merchandise, and Bernadett even bought a shirt that says, “I only date superheroes.”

As the inevitable departure hour drew near, we had to make our way back to the old town, stocking up on some last minute purchases and miraculously stumbling upon a market stall in Dutch Square that let you make your own cotton candy for a song! We also finally ducked inside Christ Church itself, the iconic building that I’d probably snapped about sixty photos of by this point in the trip.

As our last act in Malacca, we splurged on lunch in a delightful riverside restaurant called Harper’s. We had sailed past it on the river cruise, and walked past the entrance countless times, since it quite literally faced our hotel’s entrance just across the street. Just after we sat down, something resembling a dinosaur swam by in the water! Yes, I’m slightly exaggerating… but only slightly. It was a huge lizard, about six feet long, and it suddenly put to rest any and all desire I once had to jump in for a dip in the river.

The food was delicious, and the girls finally got the Eurasian meal they had expected at the Portuguese settlement the night before: salmon served over spinach and Pernod-cream sauce, buttery cod with thick balsamic reduction and peppery chicken atop creamy polenta. With the ruins of an old fort across the water and Heeren House just a few meters upriver from our table, it was the perfect place to kill our last hour in town. Two bottles of white wine and a nice chat with the older European couple at a neighboring table completed the meal, and I’ll surely come back to this spot next time I’m in town. (Sonia and I have vowed to return to Malacca in the near future when we need to escape Singapore.)

The return journey home did not go quite as smoothly as the trip out. When we booked our tickets on Friday afternoon, direct buses from Malacca to Singapore had already sold out, so we could only get as far as Johor Bahru, the border city just across the causeway. We snapped the seats up because, if worst comes to worst, you can simply cross the border via public bus and then walk to the nearest Singapore MRT station and be anywhere you want in a short time.

The bus ride itself wasn’t so bad. We all looked at each other's photos from the trip and liked watching the Malaysian landscape as we whizzed past. At the first rest stop, Sonia and I enjoyed some fresh watermelon as the sun was setting behind us. She remarked on how wonderful the trip had been, but Bernadett cautioned her with a German proverb, “Don’t praise the day until the night.”

When we got to the Larkin Bus Terminal in Johor Bharu, a man immediately came up to us and offered private transport to Singapore for SG$15 per person. It seemed like a perfect fit. But as we waited and waited for him to finally put us in a car, the situation slowly started to appear less and less perfect.

Eventually a driver showed up, then a car, then other passengers, until there were seven of us plus the driver in a space that could have comfortably seated five. Our driver seemed confused from the very instant we met him, leaving the car several times to go speak to the man who had organized this for us. It even took him a few minutes to figure out how to turn the radio down when we complained that the music was too loud. Finally, after taking longer than should have been necessary to perform a simple three-point turn, we were at last making our way out of the parking lot.

One minute later, he jumped the curb hard. It jolted every passenger in the vehicle, and he even got out to check if there was any damage. Sonia sarcastically asked if this was his first time doing a border crossing; I shot back that it was probably his first time driving a car.

Looking at it now, that journey couldn’t have ended in anything other than an accident. From the very first moment, it had disaster written all over it. Even the Muslim lady sitting in the back seat was reciting the Koran aloud a few minutes into the trip, as Sonia joked to me and Bernadett that we ought to buckle up! Then, literally at the entrance to the border checkpoint, another car hit into us as we drove in the wrong lane trying to cut into a line of traffic. Our car was maybe moving five miles per hour at this point, with the other one moving about as fast. It was the most minor of fender benders, but it did knock the bumper off the other car.

Thankfully nobody was seriously hurt. Sonia had bashed her elbow upon impact, and I had a small cut on my leg, but things could have been much more serious. Another passenger mentioned that we were very close to the border and could simply walk to the checkpoint. We followed him, got our stamps, boarded the 170 bus across the causeway, queued up again on the Singapore side, got our re-entry stamps, and—finally—were sitting in a taxi on the way to Sonia’s house. Not quite as painless as the trip out, but in all honesty, it could have been far worse.

Car accident or no car accident, it was a phenomenal vacation, and I’ll always remember my fourth Chinese New Year in Asia as being just as good as its predecessors. You know it’s been a great trip when even a car crash does nothing to take away from it!