I had an entertaining afternoon watching the beautiful traditional dances at Taman Mini Malaysia, Ayer Keroh.
Earlier in the morning, I had my morning exercise, walking and photographing birds at the newly opened Melaka Bird Park, about 5 minutes away from Taman Mini Malaysia.
And of course, dinner was fabulous at the newly opened Hard Rock Café near Jonker Street.
I stayed at a very beautiful hotel – The Kahaani.
It was once the residence of Tuan Yang Terutama Yang di-Pertua Negeri Melaka (Governor) of Melaka. And I slept not only in the same room the TYT once slept in, but I also slept in the same bed Datuk Shah Rukh Khan slept in when he was in Melaka to receive his Datukship.
I was born in this historical city. My ‘kampong’ is here and I spent my early childhood years in Melaka.
Today, Melaka is a very fast developing state with many high rise buildings, new roads and more tourist attractions.
The fast changing landscape of Melaka makes it difficult for us to drive to where you want to go.
And the road signs really need a lot of improvement.
If it was not for Waze, the world's fastest-growing community-based traffic and navigation app, I would have difficulty locating the hotel, the bird park and many other places.
At many locations the road signs were blocked by trees.
Sometimes, the road signs were placed at unsuitable places. For example, before reaching a T-junction we must know where the road will take us if we turn to the left or right. But at many locations the signs were placed at the junction itself and by then we could be in the wrong lane.
There were also instances where you would know your final destination more than 10 kilometres away. But when you are near the destination, it was like – go figure. No signs at all.
There were also so many signboards at one spot. And we need to slowdown to read and this would cause traffic jams.
People who produce and place signboards on the strategic spots must put themselves in the shoes of the drivers. Only then they will understand. But then again, they are drivers too, aren’t they?
