VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to Planet Doug in the historic city of Melaka, Malaysia. And I’m hoping to do something a little bit unusual today. In all my time here in Melaka, I get around on foot or on my bicycle. I’ve walked very, very long distances on foot. One walk took me all the way out to what they called Melaka Central. And I was going there just to run an errand. I didn’t even realize it was a bus station. But since I realized Melaka Central was a bus station, people watched that video and they said, “Well, instead of walking all the way out there and all the way back and nearly collapsing from heat exhaustion along the way, why didn’t you take the bus?” So, that got me thinking as a foreigner, a foreign tourist visitor to Melaka, can I take a local bus? And where can it take me? How do I get on the bus? How do I pay for it? Is it a reasonable way for a foreign visitor to explore the city of Melaka by taking a local city bus?
And one thing I know is that there is one bus that goes through the historic district. So, I mean, I’m here right now. My hotel is right in the middle of the historic district. There’s the museum Samudera that everybody knows. Dutch Square is right up ahead there. So, I’m right in the heart of the tourist part of the city. And whenever I’m here, I often see a bus go by. And I believe it’s number M100. This M100 bus, I think, is pink. It’s like the pink line or something like that. I just have this idea that it’s a pink bus. And I’ve always wondered, okay, where does that bus go? How do you get on it? And that is what I’m trying to figure out today.
And I have my handy Touch ‘n Go card because I believe the buses are cashless. You can’t just get on and then ask how much and pay in ringgit. You have to pay with some kind of a card. The Touch ‘n Go card here in Malaysia is the best option. But there is also I think you can pay with a credit card. I’m not up to speed with all these modern ways of paying with your phone and with a debit card and with a credit card. I’ve never done that, so I don’t know how that works, but maybe you can get on the bus and just beep on with your credit card if that works. I don’t really know. But I do know that in KL, this Touch ‘n Go card is what gets me in the MRT system in the buses. So, this is what I’m going to try. And I’m going to look for the M100, figure out where it stops, how to get on it, how to pay for it, and then where does it go. And I believe it goes from here to Melaka Central in a loop. So I can get on the bus in the historic district, go in a loop, and come right back to where I started. When I get to Melaka Central, I don’t know whether I have to get off the bus and get on a different one for the return journey. Can I stay on the same bus and just complete the loop? I don’t really know.
So first thing I have to figure out is bus stops. That’s always a confusing thing for me. And I see a lot of people. There’s like benches here. And I downloaded an app called Lugo. I did some research online chatting with my AI buddies and they said, “Yeah, download the app Lugo.” And on Lugo you can see the bus route and you get an up-to-date GPS tracker for the bus and you can see the bus stops. But according to Lugo, there is a bus stop right here across from Samudera. And but I in Malaysia, I always get puzzled by buses because I never see bus stops. And information online does seem to say something about just wave the bus down. Like there aren’t any official stops. You can just wave it down and it will stop for you. But anyway, this is where I was going to look for a bus stop, but I don’t see a sign for a bus here. And this is the main street that goes through the historic district. And here again, in Malaysia and very much so in Melaka, street names don’t do me any good. So, you know, I can’t tell you the name of this street because every block the name changes. So here the street has one name. Once you go through Dutch Square, the name changes and it changes again. So I can’t tell you really the name of this street other than it goes through the historic district. So what I’m going to do here is walk along this street and look for bus stops. And as I do that, I’m going to be monitoring the Lugo app so that I can see where the buses are, how long I have to wait, and we’ll just see how this whole system works out.
I’ve opened up the Lugo app on my phone and I see like a little blue bus on the map and it says on the bus 7 minutes, but I don’t know if that means 7 minutes to reach wherever I am. I don’t know if the app is smart enough to calculate that, but I can see the route for the map. And it looks like it goes along this street through the historic district, then it turns and goes out towards the Portuguese settlement, goes through the Portuguese settlement, and then heads up to Melaka Central and then completes a loop to come back here. Something like that. Yeah, the map isn’t entirely clear to me and I’m going to zoom in to see where the next bus stop is marked. So, I’m just approaching Dutch Square. And according to Lugo, there are two official bus stops right in the middle of Dutch Square. But since it’s a Saturday, that might change because they block off the roads and it’s a holiday weekend. I can already see pylons up there. So maybe traffic is not allowed to go through the historic district today. So this might be a bad time to do this experiment. But today, at the very least, I can look for official bus stops. Try and figure out what they look like. At least, yeah, it’s looking like today is a non-starter for this little experiment. I thought if it was just pylons, maybe the bus is allowed to go through the pylons. But over here, you can see they’ve got the heavy-duty, what do you call these? Bollards. These heavy-duty bollards that come up out of the ground. There’s an opening here so the petty cabs can go through, but no bus is getting through here. So, yeah, looks like I won’t be able to do my bus experiment today, but I can look for bus stops. And there’s supposed to be one right here according to the map. I doubted there could be such a thing because this area is just too crowded for a bus to stop here.
Yeah, there’s always so many petty cabs parked here, food stalls, things like that. It just doesn’t seem like a bus could pull over to the side of the road right here. And I don’t know whether it would go stop on which side of the road as well, left side or right side. So I don’t even know where to look for any kind of indication of a bus stop. Yeah. I don’t. I haven’t seen anything at all.
And according to the online maps, this is where the bus is supposed to come. It’s a one-way street, I think. Over here, the street is called Laksamana, which means Admiral in Malay, I think. So, this is Admiral Street. And I think the bus is supposed to come along here. It’s a one-way heading in that direction. So, the bus goes through here and then turns to the Portuguese settlement or something and does a loop. But until I actually get on the bus, I will really have no idea what’s going on. According to the map, the bus stop is right here. Right where I’m standing. I don’t know whether it’s supposed to be… I mean, the street is so narrow. One side or the other makes no difference, but I don’t see any markings at all. Like even along the columns here, there’s no signs of any kind. Certainly nothing like a bus shelter. But this is where the bus is supposed to stop right here, but there’s no indication at all. There’s one more bus stop clearly marked once we head into Little India over here maybe. Well, there’s some signs there, but no, those are businesses. Nothing to do with buses. But yeah, Little India is up ahead, and there’s a clearly marked bus stop there as well. But again, a lot of information I found online says you just stand anywhere and wave the bus down, which I’m not a big fan of that. I like systems. I like to know that where I’m standing, the bus will eventually show up there and stop there. I don’t like the uncertainty of just standing at the side of the road and hoping that someday a bus will go by. Ah, there it is. And it looks like it would normally come this way, but it looks like it’s going to follow a different route today and cut that direction. It stopped right there. Can you see on the other side of the bollards? It actually came to a stop. That’s why I call it the pink bus ’cause it is pink. But I think all of the buses are pink. So, you just have to look at the number on the front. And that is M100. Someone just got off the bus and now the bus is starting to move. And I think normally it would come this direction, but because it’s blocked, it has to go in that direction. And I think the bus said EV on the side, so it could be an electric vehicle. So where I am right now is right here where you see that giant World Heritage City sign. And this is one of the areas where they’ve uncovered the foundations for the fortress that used to dominate Melaka, encircle St. Paul’s Hill. Yeah. I remember looking at the history. This used to be a parking lot. So all of this history was buried underneath well basically this parking lot, but it used to extend all the way to here. All you saw was tarmac. And then they decided to uncover the remains of the fortress. So now it’s exposed. Interesting. So anyway, apparently the bus stops here in front of the public Islamic bank. But again, I don’t see… there is a sign facing the other direction. That could be a bus stop sign or more likely whoever got off the bus just asked the driver to stop and maybe you just have to, as I said, wave the bus down. So, let’s go over here and see if there’s anything any marking to indicate that this is a bus stop.
The only hope is that sign that I just walked by. And it doesn’t say anything about a bus stop that I can see. So yeah, this is where the bus came to a halt, but I don’t see any. This is just signs saying private parking.
Yeah, Grab has recently put up these pickup drop off points all over the city. It’s interesting that Grab has gotten so fancy, you know, it’s even a solar powered sign. You can scan the QR code there, summon a Grab. So, Grab has very clearly marked pickup drop off points, but so far the city bus doesn’t have anything at all. Yeah, there’s nothing here to indicate this is an official bus stop. I had another reason for coming out this way. By the way, I’m sort of combining my bus experiment with a personal errand because tomorrow, I think it’s tomorrow, I’m moving into this Discovery Cafe and a guest house. At least I think I’m in the right place because it’s a busy holiday weekend. Everything is fully booked and I’m essentially getting kicked out of my hotel again. I tried to extend my stay and they said no. They were full. They had no more rooms. So, I had no choice but to move out. And most hotels in town are doubling or tripling their prices because it’s Independence Day this weekend. But for some reason, this place still has like hostel level prices. And I think the room I booked is like shared bathroom, very rough. But comes at a very good price for Malaysia. Anyway, I just wanted to go in there and confirm my reservation just to make sure I have someplace to stay. Okay. Yeah, everything is looking good. This is the area. I kind of love places like this. A little bit informal, a little bit ramshackle. There’s no concern about like where do you park your bicycle? I mean, look at this. All this open space. I could just roll my bike in here. Anywhere. There’s a bike right there. And it looks like that must be the rooms would be over there. Up there. Old historic building. There’s the reception area. And then this guy, he works here, Rizal, with his dog. And I was hoping to go in and look at my room, but he says, “Yeah, I can’t do that right now.” But he says, “Yeah, no problem. If you booked on Agoda, if your reservation was confirmed on Agoda, you’ve got a room, so don’t worry about it.” I kind of wanted him to go to the computer and double check for me, but he said, “Ah, there’s no need. You’ve got a room. Don’t worry about it.” And on Agoda, I was worried. They said they had 4:00 p.m. check-in time. So, I asked him about that. He says, “No, no, no. You know, you can come at 1:00, you know, check in at 1:00.” So, everything is looking good. The only, you know, concern might be that, you know, it is a shared bathroom, which I’ve done that many times in my life. It’s not a big deal, but I haven’t done that for a while lately. I’ve gotten spoiled, I guess. I’ve gotten accustomed to having my own bathroom. So, having to walk down the hall every time you want to go to the bathroom, take a shower, changes your life. So, there’s the front of the building and the entrance. The check-in area is over there. But I have the feeling they’re also connected with this driver side in right here. It says Discovery on it. And then this cafe. Who knows? This might all be connected.
So, whole new place to explore when I move here tomorrow. And if I want to continue my bus experiment today, I have to head over to the next street. I think this is the main Little India street. And this is where the bus M100 comes from. It goes along this street in Little India.
Bendahara I think they call it here. So here in the… you know the street is called Bendahara and then when it goes through this intersection I think it becomes Laksamana then it changes to another name and another name and another name. So street names are kind of useless when it comes to people you know giving you directions and telling you where to go ’cause they’re really referring to just a couple of city blocks, not really a long street.
So this is a one-way. Yeah. So, the bus would be coming from that direction. And yeah, I’m just looking for anything that looks like a bus stop. It’s marked on the map up here somewhere here in Little India. Yeah, it’s amazing. Even with your eyes closed, you know you’re in Little India. You smell the curry and the incense immediately. It’s just pouring out of all of these restaurants and shops. Yeah. Just smells like a Little India right away. I’m right at the bus stop at where it is marked on the map. But again, I don’t see any anything on the street. No sign, no marker of any kind, though. There is this. Does this have anything to do with buses? Probably not. BDR13 Bendahara. No, that’s just the name of the street. ‘Cause those are addresses. And I’m right outside the quite large Ibis hotel. So apparently this is where they want you to wait for the bus according to the Lugo app. Anyway, I don’t know if they have an official Melaka bus app. I wasn’t able to find one if they have such a thing. Yeah, I’m just walking up and down a little bit trying to see. There’s a nice swing. Yeah, you think that could be a nice place to sit and wait for the bus, but don’t think it’s a bus stop. Just a tourism selfie station.
So, I can check on the app to see how far away the bus is. I can track it using their GPS tracker. So, I’ll do that in a minute. See how long I have to wait. I think I’ll just wait right here. Kind of makes sense that maybe the bus routinely stops here because it is an open space right in front of the hotel. There’s no parking here. So, this would be the only spot where a bus could consistently pull over and stop to pick up passengers or drop them off right here. Yeah, maybe I’ll pop inside and ask them. Yeah, lobby of the Ibis Hotel. Really nice, spacious, air-conditioned. I’m sweating so badly already just from this short walk. And the man at the front desk, he said, “Oh yeah, the bus goes right by here.” And he said, “There’s a bus stop, a sign.” And I told him, you know, I’ve been looking and looking and I haven’t seen any signs, bus stops anywhere. He said, “No, it’s right here, right on the left.” So with that information, he definitely pointed here, said it was on the left.
So, Eagle Eye Doug, they call me. Let’s see if I can… Oh, I wonder if that’s it right there. Nah, that couldn’t be it, could it? Feels like it would have to be something at least a little bit more obvious.
This is kind of the story of my life. I’m always… I ask local people questions and the answers I get are usually quite simple and straightforward. It’s always like, “Yeah, it’s right there. Just go outside, turn left, and you’ll see it.” And then I do that. I go outside and turn left, and what is obvious to everyone else is not obvious to me. I’ve already gone much farther than he indicated. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Whoa. And this has got to be it. An actual bus stop. Yeah. Does this say bus? Kind of. I don’t know what that says, but I mean a little shelter like this. This has to be a bus stop. Of course, it doesn’t look like anything. There’s no bus number, no map. That sign is completely worn out. What does it say?
I don’t know if that has anything to do with a bus. There’s no bus image or picture or graphic. Only the Mommy Monster has taken over all of Melaka. And Mr. Potato, I mean, come on. And this has to be this has to be a bus stop, right?
Well, I was hoping when I took the bus I would be able to go right through the historic district, but since it’s closed today, if I get on the bus today, we’re going to go around the historic district, but normally it would go through it. But I think I’ll… Yeah, I’ll do it anyway. I’ve come this far. Let me check to see how long it’s going to be till the next bus shows up. I don’t know if you can see my screen, but that is the Lugo map on the Lugo app. And way up at the top there, that’s Melaka Central. So that’s where the bus… that’s the ending point and the starting point. And that blue box you see right there, that is my bus. And it should go to that intersection, turn right and then it’s going to come down to where I am down there. You can see where I’m sitting. So, the dot on the map is a little bit misplaced. It’s not exactly where I’m sitting, but it’s pretty close. This is certainly the only thing I found that looks like a bus stop. And it says my bus is 8 minutes away. Yeah, it’s very cool. You can see the bus right there. I think it’s going to turn the corner and I think it does automatically track its location relative to you because it says right on the bus 7 minutes. Oh, look at that. Yeah, it turned right and now it’s coming down this road and should be here in 7 minutes. M100.
Yeah, it’d be really nice to go through the historic district, look at it from the bus, but can’t do that today, but we can do the rest of the route. 6 minutes. I better get ready.
Things are looking good for this small adventure. It’s a 4 minutes away and more people are showing up here at the bus stop. I was just chatting with this woman here and she says she takes this bus all the time because she lives in this building here and she knows the exact schedule. So, she comes out here. I can see the bus coming again. And I want to call it the pink bus, but yeah, all the buses are pink, I think. Yeah, even all the new buses in Port Dickson were pink. Yeah, I think this this person with the umbrella seems to be looking backwards looking for the bus, too. I think everybody knows the exact schedule when it’s supposed to be here.
And my informant here said that the bus is diverted on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for the whole weekend. It doesn’t go through the historic center. It goes nearby, but it doesn’t go directly through Dutch Square ’cause the road is blocked. And she doesn’t know whether they take Touch ‘n Go or not. She has a special bus card, a bus line like a Melaka bus card of her own, a special one. But I’m assuming they will take Touch ‘n Go. If not, I can’t get on the bus. Bandaraya.
I can use Touch ‘n Go.
I don’t have anything like that. There’s no cash. Cash can. Oh, yeah. Cash can. Well, I just want to go the whole route. Melaka Central, I guess. And you return to central. Okay. Just put in three.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay. You probably saw in the video there, no Touch ‘n Go. That amazes me. I’m such a Touch ‘n Go fanatic. It’s really disappointing that I can’t use it on the bus here. They have a sensor, you know, it’s a modern bus and they have a sensor up there, but you have to have a local card. And this is where the road is blocked. So, normally on a weekday, it goes down that way. But now we have to take a detour.
But again, my information was completely wrong. What I looked at online, they said they take Touch ‘n Go, but they don’t take cash. That’s what I was told online by everybody, but the reality is the exact opposite. They don’t take Touch ‘n Go, but they do take cash, but they don’t give any change. So, yeah. But here we go.
I’m tracking this with a Relive app, so at some point in the video I can put in an exact map of the route that bus took. Yeah, we’re doing a real roundabout route through the downtown the historic area of Melaka. Yeah, I’ve come down this way before. I ate at a couple of restaurants down here.
So, yeah, you get a nice tour of some of the back streets of Melaka.
So, I was hoping to get this scenic view of the historic downtown core, but not today. We’re just getting a tour of some of the back streets going around around Dutch Square rather than through it. Yeah, there’s Dataran Pahlawan, the mega mall right over there. This massive abandoned hotel. Fascinating building right up there.
We just finished with the detour and we’re now back on the main route of this bus. So, we’re back on the official route, at least according to the Lugo app. And we’re heading towards the Portuguese settlement. So you could use this bus as a tourist to go to the Portuguese settlement, I guess, and then back again.
Just missed it. We just went by the prison museum. So, this bus can take you to the prison museum as well. And then over here on my right, we’re going around St. John’s Hill and the St. John Fort is up there. I came out here on my bicycle one time, but I guess you could also come out here by bus. Yeah. Yeah. I remember riding my bike on this road many times because of the one-way streets of Melaka, you can’t just go straight. You’ve got to follow this road in a loop that goes around St. John’s Hill and then goes back down to the main road again. So, I think right up here is the entrance to St. John’s Hill. You can go up there to see the fort.
And we’ve passed a number of bus stops that actually have seats and benches, like an official bus stop. Yeah, there’s the access road to go up to St. John Fort right up there. Interesting historic site. And now we’re going to go down here, turn left, and then do something in the Portuguese settlement area and somehow turn around. We’ll see how that works out.
Right there, for example, is one of the bus stops. Again, it doesn’t have any signs or anything. Kind of looks abandoned, but anything with a bench and a roof. Apparently, that is a bus stop. And they’re all on the left side of the street because the door to the bus is on the left side.
There’s the hotel Ancasa. I remember that place. The last time I got stuck in a holiday period here and I had nowhere to stay. Planet Doug subscriber tried to book me a room at that hotel, but their computers weren’t working. And even though I had a reservation, they didn’t have any rooms available. That was a whole big adventure. So, right here we’re on the edges of the Portuguese settlement. There’s another bus stop right there.
And he clocked in using a special bus card. I imagine a senior… senior citizens get a big discount on the fare. So, how are we going to turn around? Wonder if we’re going to go into the Portuguese settlement at all or just do a loop and go back. Very narrow roads heading down in that direction like going into the… This is the Portuguese settlement over here. So, the bus probably would have a hard time navigating those tiny laneways like that right there.
But at least this bus gets you near the Portuguese settlement. You just have to look at Google Maps to figure out when you’re close and hop off the bus. So, we’ve reached the end of the line, more or less in this direction. And as you can see, we’re just doing a random U-turn.
And I don’t think they come down here for any reason in particular. They just go down this road. Sort of gets very near the coast so that they can do a big U-turn. And now we’re turning around. We’re going to turn left and go back into the central core of Melaka or at least sort of skirting the edges of the historic district.
So you can use this bus to go to Melaka Central, the main bus terminal. Like if you wanted to take a bus to Muar to Tampin, probably back to Kuala Lumpur, you can take this bus to Melaka Central, transfer to a longer bus that goes to other cities. But this isn’t the fastest way to do it. Instead of going directly to Melaka Central when you pick it up in the downtown core, it does this big loop first, goes all the way out here, back again around, and then it finally goes to Melaka Central, but eventually it will get you there. I had my usual trouble when the guy asked me, I said, “Can I pay in cash?” And he said, “Yeah, but he needs to know where are you going?” And so I’m… I don’t know how to explain. Well, I don’t really want to go anywhere. I just want to do a loop. So I want to go here. I just want to go around and back to here. But of course, that doesn’t make any sense. So eventually I told him, well, Melaka Central, and that was 2.20 ringgit. And then I guess I’ll have to get off there, get back on a bus, pay again to come back. I don’t know if I have any more cash, like small bills. We returned to the intersection where there’s the prison museum right there. You can tell by the barbed wire along the walls and St. John Hill. And we’re going to be heading right by a couple of very large hotels and condominium like residence complexes. I think that one right ahead of us, that’s the Imperial. I actually had a chance to go in there and spend some time with some people that I met who have a condo up there in that building. You get some amazing views of Melaka from the roof. And you can’t really see it, but over here on the left somewhere is the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel. A big fancy hotel tower. So, we’re going right by that… I think it’s called DoubleTree Hilton. Can’t really see it, but there it is. There. It’s actually called the DoubleTree DoubleTree Hilton. And there’s the Imperial Residence Building.
Yeah, I know this area quite well now. I’ve been out here quite a few times. So, there we get a view. So, there’s the DoubleTree by Hilton right over there.
I stayed at a hotel out in this area for a little while.
So, I rode my bicycle up and down these streets a few times.
And we’re going to be going right by the entrance to what I call the ghost island out there. There’s a whole big island, reclaimed land. They were going to build cruise ship terminals out there, giant hotel complexes, but then the whole thing was abandoned. It was never completed.
I don’t think the bus goes out there. But we just drive by the… I think right here. You would turn left to go down if you wanted to explore that island. There’s a beautiful mosque down there as well. Masjid Selat Melaka I think. It’s a popular sunset viewing mosque right on the water.
I don’t know what that is over there. Some sort of apartment building. There’s another landmark that I know. The Estadia Hotel right there. Estadia and the Mahkota Medical Center.
And it turns out this bus is going right by my hotel right up ahead. It’s the Mahkota Vibe Inn just not very far away. So for me, if I wanted to take this bus to Melaka Central from my hotel, this would be the place to get it. So they have a bus stop here right across from the Mahkota Medical Center.
And there might be another bus stop near my hotel, but probably not. This road goes over the main bridge in and out of Melaka that goes over the Melaka River. And we’ll see that in a minute. Right up ahead there, you can see the road going up.
So, this is the… I believe the… Yeah. Big shopping mall here. Mahkota Parade. Is that what it’s called? Plaza Mahkota.
And there’s the Taming Sari Tower. And my hotel is right here in these white buildings right here. So I’d have to walk to the hotel to get on the bus.
We’re going over the bridge.
I can’t pay for you anymore. Take care of yourself. There’s the Melaka River over there. Crazy.
It would be nice if this bus continued like 10 km up this road. Then you could use it to go to the submarine museum and the beach up ahead as well. But I don’t… it doesn’t go that far. It’s going to turn right up here somewhere. Pretty close.
More of the Mommy Monster. You cannot get away from the monster here in Melaka. And interestingly, we’re just turning onto Heren Street. So, this is the end of historic Heren Street or Heron Street. I shot an in-depth video about this street just a few days ago. So, it looks like we’re going to go down Heren Street and then turn left and we’re basically going to be skirting the edge of historic Melaka. It’s probably not a good day for me to be taking the bus because it’s going to be so busy, so much traffic in here. They’re going to be moving very very slowly to get through this part of the city.
So there is the entrance or the end of historic Heren Street right there. You can see it’s quite narrow one-way traffic. So we can’t go down there. And we’re turning left here. We got some police out here doing a traffic check, pulling people over.
Maybe that’s why the traffic was moving so slowly for a while. Yeah, they’re mainly checking of motorcycles, scooters.
And right up here should be… Yeah, Jonker Walk. So, the bus goes right by the end of Jonker Walk. Look at that. That’s very cool. So that would be a good good place to catch this bus if you want to go up to Melaka Central to the bus station. Another landmark we’re going by. There’s the Hatten Mall. I was there not that long ago.
And I think we’re going to be going right by the very large modern Aeon Mall as well. It’s another thing that this bus goes by.
Oh, another fancy hotel. The Swiss Grand Swiss-Belhotel. Look at that. Never heard of that one before. Crazy building. Looks like it’s got some history or maybe it’s just designed to look old.
Look at that apartment building.
Something just went. I don’t know what that was. Now we’re going over the Melaka River. And there’s the fancy Aeon Mall. Yeah, there’s the Melaka River.
I was a bit worried when I heard that huge bang that where my bus was going to be stranded out here.
We are almost at Melaka Central and I guess I have to get off the bus there and I’ll pop into the mall for a second and then come back out and get on a bus to take me back. Should be a much shorter journey to go back to where I started. But yeah, Aeon Mall is right over there on my left. And then right up ahead, I don’t know whether we’re going to get a clear view of it, is this huge pedestrian walkway. There’s like a giant intersection up here and they built this massive pedestrian bridge going across this intersection. It’s really quite something ’cause I walked all the way out here one time and I went across that bridge. I don’t think we can get a full view of it, but yeah, we can see a little bit of it. There’s the stairs climbing up to this giant pedestrian bridge. We’re going underneath it now.
And the end of the line right up ahead should be Melaka Central, the bus station, shopping mall. I think we’re going to go around it in a big circle and then park inside the station itself. There’s the main entrance and the sign bus terminal, market, and bazaar cookies.
And bus stations are always wild places. A little bit rough around the edges.
There we are. Yeah, this is where all the buses come to a stop. I just have to make a mental note of where…
It just sounds like something is wrong with this bus. Something in the front axle is banging pretty badly. So, here we go. Oh, there’s the bridge pedestrian walkway over there.
I imagine most of these people or all of them I guess will all be getting off the bus here.
Yeah, bus stations always have that very lived in look. So yeah, this is us.
And there goes my bus. My original plan was just to stay on the bus, like not even get off and just go around in a circle. But the way things turned out, you kind of have to get out here. Just want to see if it pulls over at a pickup spot to see where I get on the bus now that I got off.
Yeah, I think that’s my bus. But he didn’t really stop anywhere. Just continued in a loop. Or maybe that’s where the departure spot is. I guess that’s another mystery that I’ll have to figure out when I try to leave from here. And this is the inside of the bus station mall. Pretty basic. Got a McDonald’s in here actually, which is surprising. A Subway, 7-Eleven, Mr. DIY, and a whole bunch of little shops. I came all the way out here originally to go to an RHB RIA cash pickup point and that’s… yeah I walked all the way out here nearly did myself in but yeah had I known I could have hopped on bus M100 I probably wouldn’t have… Even if I known about the bus I still would have walked back I just like walking you get to see a lot more, but I kind of underestimated how difficult the walk was going to be in the heat of that day.
Time for part two. Try to take the bus from Melaka Central back again. And this appears to be sort of the waiting area for all of these domestic… Wow, what else could they be? Domestic buses. ‘Cause I saw listings for buses to the airport to Muar to places like that. But beyond that, I don’t really understand the system at all. The buses apparently leave from here. They pull up. But when my bus got here, it never did. It didn’t pull up anywhere. It just sort of blasted right through. And I looked everywhere for a sign for M100, my bus, but there’s no signs matching that. Like they have names of destinations all along here. But a lot of them are torn up. Can’t read them. Yeah. Like this one is spray painted over. But my bus M100 Bandaraya isn’t listed anywhere. Oh, I spoke too soon. Look at that. 16. It actually I think that says 100 M100 right there. It’s like a spray painted on or something. But this is this is where my bus stopped. I think it just but it didn’t pull in.
But according to my app, which seems to work very well, the next bus, the next M100 is like 2 minutes away, 3 minutes away. So I’m just going to wait here for it to show up. And if it stops here, I’ll see if I can get on.
Yeah, I really prefer the Touch ‘n Go system where if I can just beep to get on, I don’t have to tell the bus driver where I’m going because it keeps track automatically. You beep to get on and then whenever you want to get off, you just beep and you jump off and the appropriate amount is deducted from your card. But since Touch ‘n Go doesn’t work here, I have to tell the driver where I’m going so he can tell me what the fare is. But I don’t know how to tell him where I’m going. It’s like I’m going to Melaka, the historic core. I don’t have a… I don’t know the words. I don’t know the destinations. So, yeah. Anyway, I’m going to check the app again. See how far away my bus is. Yeah, 2 minutes away. It should be arriving right now. And then going around in a circle. I went into the mall and I bought a carefully selected carton of milk just so that I could get change back ’cause I normally don’t have any small change ’cause I don’t often use cash anymore. I always go places where I can use a Touch ‘n Go. But I have to pay in cash to get on the bus. So I had to make sure I have some small bills. So I had to go rummaging in there inside the shopping mall behind me. Get some money. So let’s keep an eye open for M100.
Well, there’s M100 Bandaraya.
Oh, what’s happening? Oh, yeah. Look at that. He’s pulling in here.
So, this is a M100.
It has the sign that’s just a spray painted on.
Oh, cash. Where you want to go? To like the historic district like Little India, like Dutch Square around there. I go to the Dutch Square. Yeah, it’s 1.30. 1.30. Okay. I think I have some coins. But you don’t go there today, right? Because the road is blocked. Yeah. You go around nearby there. Okay, that’s great. 1.30.
Thank you.
So, that was pretty simple. Again, I was able to pay with cash and I told him I wanted to go to the historic center. I didn’t want to say Dutch Square because I know they can’t go to Dutch Square right now. The road is blocked off, but I said that anyway. And he says, “Oh, yeah. I’ll drop you nearby.” So, the bus driver, he’s keeping an eye on me. And I guess for this return trip, it’s going to be relatively short, and I don’t think we’re going to be passing by much of interest, so I won’t be narrating this part of the journey that much. But yeah, he actually pulled right in. The Lugo app really is giving very good information because it directed me when I looked up the route for M100. It basically gave me the end point and the start point right here and the start point guided me right to this spot. And it actually is right where M100 pulls up. The only weird thing is that the sign is like spray painted, which is kind of funny. And as I said, all the buses are pink anyway, so you can’t go by bus color. All right, so yeah, closing the door. And here we go.
I always end up thinking about how heavily heavily subsidized these bus lines must be. Like running all of these buses with so few passengers. There’s no way the fares are paying for anything at all. I mean, it’s practically a free bus. Like, I’m paying 1.30 for my fare, right? Which is like nothing at all. And there’s no way that amount of money from like four passengers pays for this bus to be running salary of the bus driver anything at all. So yeah, government has subsidized
and that makes sense too because most of the people that I’ve seen on the bus have all been senior citizens. People who clearly have medical issues, you know, people who can’t afford to have their own car or take a Grab or anything like that. So, these buses are subsidized for people that yeah have no other way of getting around. They their lives depend on the buses running the city buses.
So yeah, anywhere up there is okay. Like the Ibis Hotel stop, that would be okay. Want to go down there? Yeah, that’s where I got on the bus originally.
So, here we are back in the Little India. There’s the official gateway. We’re just going underneath it. And I just spoke to the driver and told him he can drop me off at this bus stop beside the Ibis Hotel. It’s where I got on the bus originally. So,
come a full circle. Yeah, we just passed the hotel. Here’s the… Yeah, here’s the bus stop right here.
There it is. Well, let’s film my bus as it goes away. The Planet Doug’s small adventure for today. Taking a ride on the M100 to see where it goes and is it useful for foreign visitors or not.
And off it goes. M100.
I found that whole experience interesting. I love to figure out how things work and I’ve been curious for so long about the M100 bus because I’ve seen it here in the UNESCO heritage zone quite often. And I kept thinking, huh, you know, someday I should hop on that bus, just go around in a loop and see where it goes. Just figure it out. So, yeah, I learned a lot today. You know, the main things I learned is you can’t pay with Touch ‘n Go, but you can pay with cash, but then you have to ask the driver how much it is, and then he tells you. So, you have to tell the driver where you want to go. Bus stops at the side of the road are sort of hit and miss. Sometimes they’re pretty obvious, even like having big benches and a roof and you go, “Oh, that must be a bus stop.” But there are no signs at all. Like there’s no signage, no maps, no bus numbers, anything like that. And whether or not M100 is useful for a foreign visitor, I mean overall I think I would have to say no. I mean unless you’re going to the Melaka Central bus station, then it’s useful if you don’t want to take a Grab because M100 goes there. So if you want to catch another bus out of the city or if you’re arriving at Melaka Central by bus from KL, that’s your bus to get down here to the historic core. You know M100 and then hop on the bus and it will take you right here and you can walk to your hotel down here in the heritage zone. But in terms of going places, seeing the city, I mean, you do get a view of what Melaka looks like away from the tourist area. So, you know, I’m right here back in my stomping ground. Yeah. Let’s cross this way and I can walk along the river. So if you spend all your time here in the UNESCO heritage zone, you get a certain idea of what Melaka looks like. You can hop in on M100 and you actually see the rest of the city, the real city as it were, where most of the people actually live. So, it’s useful from that point of view. I thought you might be able to use it to go to the Portuguese settlement, but to be honest, I think it would be too much trouble. Figure out how to get the bus, where to get on the bus, how to pay for it, and then you still would get dropped off outside of the Portuguese settlement, and then you have to walk into and then find the bus again to come. Yeah, it’d be too much of a hassle. So, you can’t really use the city bus for getting around unless, as I said, you want to go to Melaka Central to the Aeon Shopping Mall, that big shopping mall, something like that. It’s definitely designed for local people who know how to use it, figure out the routine, the schedule, have the local bus card ready to go. So, but for a foreigner like me, tourist in Melaka, I’d say, yeah, not not useful at all. It’s not like a hop on, hop off, you know, shuttle bus to take you to all the attractions. But the cool thing about Melaka is you don’t need that. I mean, if you’re in a city like KL, the attractions are spread out all over the city. So, you need to travel to get from one to the other. But Melaka as a place for visitors, for foreigners, it’s so compact. Everything is jammed into this very small area right here beside the Melaka River. So yeah, there’s no need for a hop on, hop off tourist bus. I was just hesitating because I started to wonder whether that side of the walkway has been opened. It looks like it looks complete, right? This has been under construction for a long long time. I wonder if I can get over there. Is it open? It still has a construction barrier over there, but I wonder if you can get there down the stairs or are the stairs still blocked off?
Yeah, the stairs are still blocked off, so it’s still not open to the public yet. Looks like they’re getting close, though. You can see. Yeah, everything looks accessible right here. You can still go to these bars if you want to, these restaurants and bars, but you have to get to them from the other side. You have to go to the street and come in from the other entrance. And you can still come out this the back entrance and sit by the river, but you can’t get there along the river yet. No, they’re almost there, but not quite. Not quite. It’s about 2:30 in the afternoon. And looks like they’re getting ready for a busy weekend. They’ve already putting out all the chairs from the bars on that side. And here these Riverside restaurants. There’s nobody here yet. It’s too hot for anybody to be out here except for, you know, unless you live on Planet Doug. For regular people, it’s too hot to be out this time of the day. But they’ve already set up the tables to get ready for the evening rush this weekend, Independence Day weekend. It’s going to be quite busy down here tonight, I imagine, and tomorrow night. And I guess that is it for today. I only wanted to do two things. Check out my new hotel, my hostel that I’m moving to tomorrow. New neighborhood, new place to lay my head. And I wanted to hop on the M100 and go for a loop. See how you use the local buses, where they go, what you can see using that bus. And I did both of those things. So I think my day is pretty much done as far as this video is concerned. So yeah, shout out to the Crunch Club. You know who you are. You know what to do. You know what I like. And yeah, shout out to everyone supporting Planet Doug through all the various portals. And there are QR codes to those portals at the end of the video. So stick around for that. And right now I’m going to stick in the 3D map that will show the route that the bus followed when I was sitting on it. I recorded that with the Strava app and then I created that map with something called Map Director. So that’s it. Shutting down for now. See you in the next video.