Day 21, Year 4: Arrival in Port Dickson, Malaysia
Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Weather: Partly Overcast Morning; Clear Afternoon; Winds 5 NE
Latitude: 02 degrees 28.563 minutes N
Longitude: 101 degrees 50.754 minutes E
Location: Admiral Marina, Port Dickson, Malaysia
We made it here safely with no encounters with pirates, floating logs, fishing nets, or big ships. And this is a good thing. We arrived in Admiral Marina before noon and by day’s end we had made the trip to Port Dickson to check in and be legal here in Malaysia. The marina is at least five miles from town, so we walked out to the four-lane highway and hailed a cab. Port Dickson is small town compared to Singapore, but there are four lane highways and lots of traffic on the road. Port Dickson
reminded us of Kupang; not quite as frenetically busy, but the aging buildings and type of stores were very similar. After our first day here, we would say that Malaysia has one foot in the modern world and one foot dragging behind in the third world. As we travel further north, it is our impression that the modern world takes over totally, but we shall see. Malaysia is a Muslim country, but there are also evidences of Hindus, Christians, and Buddhists as you walk through town. The marina here
is lovely but it was a bit of a let down after One15 in Singapore. At One15 we had transport to town for free every 30 minutes and never had to use our own towels. Here we have a pool and changing nice changing rooms, but it is a hike to the highway to get transportation that is not free and we have to supply our own towels. But the marina is lovely in the colonial tradition and we’ll just have to lower our standards just a bit from One15.
We are planning two trips from here, one to the coastal city of Melaka and the other to an inland elephant center. We had hoped to leave early in the morning for Melaka, but we are having difficulties with the new battery charger. Mark is working with that tonight and will continue in the morning, so we think we will finish checking this problem out in the morning and head for Kuala Lumpur in the afternoon and have our elephant experience the next day. Who knows what will really happen, but hopefully we will be exploring Malaysia by this time tomorrow night.
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| 081112 Day 21 Singapore to Malaysia |
