The Most Exhausting Day Trip to Malacca in My Travel History【54】

The day from hell began.

I have traveled to various countries and all over Japan, but this day was the hardest.

Since I had eaten a lot the previous day, I wasn't hungry, so I skipped breakfast and headed out. I took the subway from Bukit Bintang to TBS. It's a large bus terminal, akin to a Kuala Lumpur version of Busta Shinjuku.

The building is spacious, with ticket gates for each destination and different levels, resembling an airport. The electronic display boards also resemble those at airports.

Upon arrival, I immediately looked for the bus I was to board. Since I had reserved round-trip bus tickets online the previous day, showing them at the counter directed me to where I could get the paper tickets issued. (By the way, on the return trip, showing the ticket image on my smartphone was sufficient.)

After successfully getting the tickets and finding the bus stop, I killed about 30 minutes nearby at a convenience store, eating breakfast. It was a crab cream sandwich. The taste was neither good nor bad. There were several convenience stores inside the building, so shopping wasn’t a problem.

The destination for sightseeing on this day was the ancient city of "Malacca," which is also registered as a World Heritage Site.

There are three major ways to get there from Kuala Lumpur city center: by bus, train, or taxi. However, due to the cost and the abundance of information, I chose the bus. It took about 2 hours and 30 minutes by bus to reach the bus terminal in Malacca, and from there, it was about a 15-minute taxi ride to the tourist spots.

The tragedy of this journey was that the bus was overly air-conditioned for the entire 2 hours and 30 minutes, making it extremely cold. I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, but had shorts on. Also, the roads were not as smooth as in Japan, so the ride was very bumpy.

Initially, I was feeling a bit under the weather, and the cold and the shaking made my condition worse, leading to a state I had never experienced before. It felt like a continuous cold and severe motion sickness.

The bus terminal in Malacca has stalls lined up inside the building. There were quite a number of regular eateries as well. However, I was feeling so sick that I couldn’t even look at the shops.

Although I could have taken another bus from Malacca bus terminal to the tourist spots, I thought I would collapse if I took another bus ride, so I decided to take a taxi alone.

I vaguely told the driver to take me to a famous place, and we ended up at the well-known pink square.

I decided to walk around the Chinatown side first, but before that, I bought a dragon fruit juice. I felt like I was having symptoms of heatstroke, so I thought I needed hydration and drank it all at once. It was just hot, so maybe I was just thirsty.

Since my body was chilled from the air conditioning, the hot sun felt good at first, but gradually I couldn’t stop sweating. There were various temples, but I didn’t have the energy to go inside and see.

After going around Chinatown, I headed to the opposite side.

I was feeling like I was going to die from a headache, nausea, and chills, so I took refuge in a nearby shopping mall.

I thought I needed to get some nutrition, so I bought some potatoes that seemed edible, but after eating a few, I felt sick again. I lay down on a chair inside the building waiting to recover, but the air conditioning was too strong and I started to feel cold again, so I decided to go outside. I tried to vomit several times but couldn’t, so I decided to head back to the Malacca bus terminal no matter what.

I returned to the terminal from the shopping mall's taxi stand and spent about 2 hours lying outside until the bus I had reserved departed. What scared me the most was the thought of having to endure another 2 hours and 30 minutes of bus travel in this condition.

I bought this drink with the change from the taxi fare, and it tasted unusually good. It has a taste similar to a carbonated sports drink.

The bus I boarded this time was from a company called Odyssey? It's a two-story bus and quite spacious, but it was very cold.

On the way back, I shivered and was troubled by the shaking, but somehow managed to arrive at TBS, and by then it was already dark outside.

I took the train back to Bukit Bintang afterward, but the train was also cold, so by the time I arrived at the guesthouse, I was literally "dying."

When I arrived at the guesthouse, the staff asked me, "How was Malacca?" At that moment, I felt like crying.

And thus, the day from hell came to an end.