This is the honeymoon suite we stayed in on our trip to Phillip Island. Swan Lake Guest House is more beautiful than I had imagined – with 4 hectares of land and 5 luxurious suites to choose from. Odette & Siegfried’s Room is the honeymoon suite.
The room looks out to romantic sea views and beautiful sunsets. There’s also a private balcony with extensive views of Western Port Bay and Bass Strait. You can feel the gale-force winds blowing at night but it’s very serene and chill in the daylight.
This is the only time we used the ensuite jacuzzi in Melbourne (technically Victoria). Haha!
It’s AUD 270 per night (about RM 900) but it’s well worth the price. The service from Bernie is impeccable!
I had asked for flowers in the room for my love (I was thinking of a bouquet) and when we arrived, the kind lady proprietor (Bernie) subtly told me that it wasn’t ready and she’s heading to the market to get it done.
She was thinking fresh flowers in a vase.
Close enough, I guess. Heh! It’s the thought that matters. She wouldn’t accept a tip either, very kind of her.
There was tea service the moment we arrived, with a wide variety of choices and chocolate biscuits.
We had the entire place to ourselves since it wasn’t the peak season and the privacy and views are to die for! The main living room is immaculately decorated with a real fire place!
Swan Lake Guest House is a mixture of a guest house and a B&B (Bed & Breakfast) – albeit a premium one with all the privacy you need. The breakfast spread was nothing short of lavish!
Our kind host brought out warm croissants and had coffee and tea brewing.
Fresh juices and three (3) different types of milk were produced.
BREAD!!! There’s a lot of local Phillip Island produced bread – country, multi-grain and multi-cereal and also this fruit packed loaf that we both liked.
There’s also a big bowl of single serve cereal boxes to choose from…
…as well as ham, cheese and other cold cuts. I remember asking Ling how she knew we weren’t Muslim or had other specific dietary requirements that forbids pork. 😉
I had my eye on something that’s *not commercial* when I planned for our stay at Phillip Island. I told Ling that I’ll take care of it coz I wanted her to have a nice stay without worrying about the cost. This place fits the bill perfectly.
I’ll highly recommend Swan Lake Guest House if you want to stay at Ventnor in Phillip Island. It’s very close to the Penguin Parade. The service is second to none – the owner is friendly and goes out of her way to accommodate your whims. The place is nestled in a huge farmland and you can see the sea from the private balcony.
There’s a lot of rooms but only one is the largest (and most expensive) meant for honeymooners and that’s Odette & Siegfried’s Room. You won’t be disappointed. I think we only went to bed at around 4 am coz we stayed in the jacuzzi till late. She loved it, and so did I. <3
We were both so tired when we took the V/Line coach back to Melbourne that Ling slept most of the way through. Thanks for making the stay memorable for us. 🙂
This is undoubtedly the most famous thing Phillip Island is known for. Little Penguins come back to nest every evening on the shores of Phillip Island after a day out hunting and doing whatever penguins do.
These are not the Emperor Penguins of the Antarctica but a different species of penguin called Fairy Penguins. They’re quite small and furry creatures – about the size of a particularly tall roti tissue (35 cm tall).
We drove down to the Penguin Parade after visiting the Nobbies. It was a particularly cold day as the sign shows – you need cold weather gear. Unfortunately, Ling didn’t bring a wind breaker so I gave her mine and went through the night with just a button up shirt with a cardigan underneath.
I half froze to death, but the layered clothing helped a bit. Haha!
She was still cold even after wearing 3 layers (including my wind breaker) and I even offered her my shirt (could do with just the cardigan), which she thankfully declined.
The things you do for love. 😉
There’s no photography allowed these days, primarily for commercial reasons and coz of a few bad apples using flash to take pictures. However, 12 years earlier when I visited Phillip Island, photography is permitted, you just can’t use flash.
Anyway, we had a fish and chip dinner while waiting for the penguin parade countdown to start. You’re advised to come at least 1 hour earlier. The time of the penguin parade changes according to the season – you need to check out the schedule. It’s usually sunset and since it was autumn, our session begin at around 8 pm.
The “no photography” rule is enforced quite strictly – saw a girl being hauled off by the rangers after she attempted to video the first few penguins making landfall.
There are a lot of rangers around and one kind lady told us the best spot to sit to spot penguins returning to their burrows. She was right – only that rock formation on the beach had incoming penguins!
It was fun to watch the cute little penguins waddle up from the surf and into their nests (burrows). People started leaving soon after though and we found out why – it’s better to go and watch from the board walk coz you can get up close and personal with the penguins!
You can hear their mating calls and see their social structure (one penguin was waiting for his/her mate for ages).
There were lots of people taking photos since the rangers couldn’t manage everyone on the board walk and I saw this Caucasian guy surreptitiously videoing the penguins near the public toilet. I decided to take one photo too – it’s using Ling’s iPhone (my digicam ran out of battery at the Nobbies) and taken by me while she went to the wash room so this is the first HuaiLing Productions photo. 😉
I present to you: A very dark and grainy photo of the Phillip Island penguins!
There was also a souvenir shop and we both wrote our own addresses on two stamped Phillip Island Penguin Parade postcards and gave it to the other to write. It was agreed that we won’t see what the other wrote until we received it in the mail. <3
We also bought each other souvenir tees to commemorate our Australia trip and wore it the next day!
The best part of the trip was when we saw a penguin that was less than 1/2 meter in front of us! The penguin could definitely see and smell us but it wasn’t afraid at all. That was a very nice experience indeed – worth the entry fee in itself. 🙂
This is where we headed on our second day in Melbourne, Victoria. We headed out of the city to see penguins!
It’s essential to have a car when you go to Phillip Island. The attractions are all spread out and the famed Melbourne public transport system does not extend that far. The V/Line bus will drop you at Cowes – it’s the main in Phillip Island.
A lot of people think Phillip Island is all about penguins. That’s the most famous attraction but there are other things to see too.
Ling got an iVenture card which allows us to choose 5 different attractions for AUD 130. One if them is a 3 parks pass in Phillip Island (includes Penguin Parade).
I recommend you drive down from Melbourne though – it only takes about 90 minutes by car but the V/Line coach takes 3-5 hours, depending on whether the bus is direct or stops at stations along the way. The direct route starts from Dandenong and stops at Anderson and Koo Wee Rup.
The car was only registered under my name as the driver though. You only need a valid credit card and driver’s licence. There also might be restrictions to where you can drive – check out the name of the excluded areas. Haha!
We rented a car for AUD 88 (about RM 300) per day. You can use your Malaysian driving licence over there. I drove most of the time and got Ling to drive too so she could say that she has driven in Melbourne (albeit at a car park in quiet Nobbies).
She wanted to see kangaroos so we drove to Wildlife Park. It’s a open range in Phillip Island and has wallabies and kangaroos which runs hops around you!
The wallaby and kangaroo population is very friendly. They’re used to humans around them and expect to be fed. The latter can be slightly aggressive when they see you and come hopping over to get fed while wallabies need a bit of coaxing.
I reckon wallabies are shy by nature – I tried to get close to a wild wallaby in 2002 when I was studying in Melbourne but was unsuccessful. I got to feed a wallaby two years ago in 2011 though, but that was in a park as well.
There’s also a scary looking emu there. Huge bird. Slightly intimidating. 😡
I took a video of me feeding it the cassowary.
The Koala Conservation Center in Phillip Island isn’t anything to shout about. There are koalas in trees but most of them are sleeping. I think Ling expected to see more koalas but it’s actually quite hard to see large populations nowadays and you can’t pet them unless it’s in a zoo.
She was also apprehensive coz we passed a sign that said: Beware of Hidden Snakes!
It’s probably the lowland copperhead (which is common in Phillip Island) instead of the eastern brown snake (3rd most venomous snake in the world – gotta look out for it in Melbourne). The latter is a highly aggressive snake while the lowland copperhead is pretty much harmless (most snakes avoid confrontation with humans) even though it’s also venomous.
It doesn’t help that the trees are brown in color too and could easily hide an invisible snake.
We spent a while at the koala park in Phillip Island, strolled through the new koala treetop walk, took a couple of photos and headed down to the Nobbies. I love that place so much, I’ll write about it in the next post, coz my camera battery ran out of juice and I had to use Ling’s phone to take photos.
This is the view out of our honeymoon suite at a guest house there. Phillip Island is more than just the Penguin Parade. There’s a lot of things to do there, we stayed at a nice place and had a lot of fun. Most people just come for day trips so the population is predominantly island folks but if you stay, the hospitality is amazing!
Just remember that you need a car to get around for food and attractions coz everything is far away and there are only a couple of taxis operating…on the entire island! 🙂
Our flight was a really interesting one – there was a bit of a commotion when it landed coz someone was apparently sick in the plane and no one could leave.
It was boarded by health and quarantine officials before everyone was let out. The original arrival time is just after midnight so I had planned to stay at Tullamarine since it’ll be almost 2 am by the time we clear customs and immigration. Tullamarine is where Melbourne International Airport is and I reckon we’ll just crash there and head down to the city the next morning. I did have it in my mind to check out sites like https://buymelbourneapartments.com.au/ while I waited. I know how desirable that city is so I know what to expect. It’s going to cost a lot.
I asked for airport transfer (which was complimentary) but for some reason we didn’t see the motel shuttle. We stayed at Ciloms Airport Lodge Motel (about USD 130++ per night) and since it’s just 0.5 km from the airport, I hailed a cab instead.
The taxi driver was Indian/Sri Lankan (as is the trend in Melbourne) and really didn’t want to go for the short time. It was a crazy ride that had Ling fearing she would die in Melbourne. Haha!
Anyway, we reached the hotel with all of our appendages more or less intact and the fare was AUD 15. My smallest denomination was AUD 50 and the taxi driver couldn’t make change and finally gave us AUD 40 – a AUD 5 saving, at the risk of life and limb. 😉
We walked into the motel and discovered that there was no one at reception. -_-
Luckily, there’s a 1800 free phone number listed and a pay phone beside the counter so I called and the person who answered said he’ll be coming in 5 minutes.
5 minutes later, a shuttle pulled in loaded with Malay passengers from the exact same flight as ours. It was a free service that we didn’t see.
Ciloms Airport Lodge is pretty decent – the other option is Ibis Budget, which is really crap. Our room even had a spa! 😀
We didn’t use it though, there really wasn’t enough time.
The next day, we took the complimentary shuttle back to the airport and caught the SkyBus for AUD 19 each.
Tickets please!
The SkyBus took us to Southern Cross Station where we took another SkyBus shuttle – the SkyBus Hotel Transfer is a feeder service that they run for free.
Our destination was Rydges on Swanston, which is right in the middle of town
I also remember some very familiar shops like Nelayan and Club X.
Their sex peep-shows are still AUD 2! It seems to be recession proof. 😉
I showed Ling the big Myer in the city. It’s to Melbourne what Harrods is to London.
There were still plenty of buskers around – the really popular ones are still the painted statues which I’ve seen 10 years ago when I was studying in Melbourne.
We had breakfast at Hardware Lane (more about that later) and got pies for dinner. There’s a Chunky Pepper Steak Pie and a Bacon & Cheese Roll.
I also got some of the deals on offer – Buy 1 Big M milk and get another Big M milk for AUD 4 (about RM 12), a 1.25 liter Coke with Tim Tams for AUD 6 (about RM 18) and a candy bar for just AUD 1 (about RM 3) with the previous combo.
The prices are really cheap if you don’t convert. The next day, we headed to Phillip Island via V/Line (a bus servicing outlying areas in Victoria).
Hereby ends the Melbourne 2013 trip report for Day 1. 🙂
This photo is our inside joke. I was wearing a shirt that Ling got for me. She’s wearing a shirt that I got for her (she really wanted to see koalas).
Quite a few people have commented that my updates have been infrequent since I’ve met her. Haha! We’ve been somewhat busy but I’ll be getting up to speed starting from today with regular posts. I’m catching a flight to Bali so here’s one last photo for the candy bar themed post.
This is a limited edition Cherry Ripe which comes with a blank spot where the candy name is supposed to go. It’s meant for you to write a message to your loved one in the (). I saw it and thought of her – wrote “LIFE, <3, (universe)” in the space and gave it to Ling.
Greetings everyone! I’m in Melbourne right now for a couple of days with Ling. That’s her right there.
The photo was taken right in front of the tram stop at Rydges on Swanston, where we’re staying. It’s AUD 680 (about RM 2,100) per night!
This is the Victoria Public Library in front of Melbourne Central Station. I haven’t been back in about 10 years!
A lot has changed since then – MyKi is required for trams and trains. It’s a pre-loaded card that allows you to travel by just scanning it on public transport. It was still old school plain cardboard tickets when I was in Melbourne in 2003.
Candy! These are variants that only Australia has.
No-Doz caffeine pills! For all your wakefulness needs. 😉
Big M milk! There’s all sorts of flavors and 1% fat versions now. I remember blogging about this when I was living on campus in 2002 – there was a Big M Banana Flavoured milk giveaway on the campus shop the same month I *started blogging* due to the expiry date coming up.
Best photo bomb ever! Haha! It’s our first overseas vacation together. In a sense, this was how we met. The HIMYM story is actually slightly longer than that but how we started our relationship was due to this Melbourne trip. 🙂
I went on a road trip to Kuala Gandah in Pahang over the long weekend to check out National Elephant Conservation Center. I didn’t even know there was an elephant sanctuary in Malaysia!
We had planned to go to Chiling Falls, but that was nixed due to the closure of the route. Thus, on the night before, the four of us – Suanie, Marco, Joyce and yours truly drove down on one of our impromptu road trips. Well, to be precise, Suanie drove.
I was quite intrigued to find an emophant in the elephant conservatory.
What is an emophant?
Emophant is emo.
The elephants in this sanctuary are all rescued from the wild – from poachers of their prized tusks. Thus, you can see that all of them don’t have tasks. This place saves elephants but sometimes, quite a few die coz they’re beyond salvation after running into illegal poachers wielding sharp instruments for cutting off their lucrative tusks.
I heard this from one of the rangers in the park. There are actually quite a lot of deaths before they could be saved but what they’re doing is admirable.
Naturally, after a nasty experience of being cornered by men with the intent on separating them from their appendages, the wild pachyderms takes a while to recover.
Some are more resilient, and it’s good to feel the sensitive elephant’s trunk around your hands – they can be fed peanuts or sugar cane (all sold at the premises).
Others, like the emophant, takes a while to recover and it’s a little sad to see that poor huge beast standing by itself in the corner. 😡
Emophant smash!
I have to say that I’m no saint though, I felt really sorry for the emophant but given a chance to try out elephant meat, I would. I don’t see why dead carcasses cannot be butchered and sold with profits going to the care of the ones that are alive (they’re dead anyway).
I’m no stranger to eating dogs – I’ve done so twice, once in Hanoi (where there’s an entire street dedicated to it) and once in Korea. I’ve also eaten a huge rat in China. I do like exotic game meat and I’ll try everything once.
No point in bashing me for it, there’s plenty of that on my YouTube video of the dog meat trade – just do what you feel is right and you’re good. I don’t get pressured not to eat certain stuff, my personal stance is that while education about brutality is good and all, it’s really a personal choice – cows are sacred to the Hindus, yet people all around eat steaks with abandon and on the secular side of things, there’s horrendous egg farms for chickens but yet a lot of people eat eggs.
I do not judge and my policy is simple – education for the future generation and personal choice. Getting your panties all in a twist about it is kinda like the War on Drugs – pointless. It benefits some people (keeps the DEA and the likes in their jobs) and afford a holier-than-thou podium for people who wants be in the limelight but ultimately the mantra of “When the demand drops, the supply would too” is a slippery slope.
I have already quit that particular chapter in my life and I can piss as clean as a whistle now. I don’t want any part of it anymore, but that’s just my choice. I won’t look at you askance if you enjoy a toke or two on the weekends.
Anyway, back on the subject of elephants – I heard you can also take a bath with them beside a nearby stream. It sounds like a fun thing to do, but it seems like the place has become a tad commercialized according to Suanie – it used to be quite rustic, but that is the way of the world.
The next stop on our trip was Deerland Park.
I found a really cute cat that really made my day. She looks a lot like Champagne (a cat I had when I was in my early teens – would cuddle her for hours each night and she drinks from the same glass of milk as I do, something which horrifies my parents).
The cat is very affectionate and I picked it up and walked with it for a bit. I like the warmth and the soft purr of a feline in my arms. I’m a sucker for cats like this. 🙂
There are a lot of other animals in Deerland Park, like this ferret. I thought this was a hilarious pose (geddit?).
However, the main thing to see there are the deer. It looks a lot like goats to me, especially this Satanic looking specimen:
You get a bowl of carrots and other mixed vegetables and you can feed them. It’s fun! Every car owner wonders, as well as many people who live in or travel to areas where you can find deer. In fact, many people type the phrases “do deer whistles work mythbusters” and “deer whistles mythbusters” into Google to try to find out if they work.You can visit https://feedthatgame.com/deer-whistle-for-car/ for more information.
I reckon the bigger ones were getting really aggressive and snagging all the food so the trick is to take multiple carrots with both hands and make sure the smaller deer are fed while ensuring the larger ones gets distracted.
It’s fun to feel their lips and it’s remarkable how they can sense what to bite and what not to, like the elephants.
I did get bitten by a couple of red ants though. It turns out there’s a nest of the nasty little things nearby.
Deerland Park is also where I took a photo with a very huge python. I’ve been to the Snake Temple in Penang and I found it apt that I kissed and was blessed by this snake before the Chinese Year of the Snake. 😀
I like snakes. I used to own a ball python. I’ve also eaten snake before, including a cobra that I haven’t posted yet.
There’s a story about epicureans who managed to eat a phoenix in a story by master storyteller Jeffrey Archers. I highly recommend that book, bought it in London one of my trips there.
It’s a fun place to go to and just a short drive away from KL – both places are listed in Google Maps. I really liked the emophant – entrance fee to the National Elephant Conservation Center is free (donations are encouraged) and Deerland Park cost RM 28 for the four of us. It’s a good find and a fun place to spend a couple of hours during the long weekend.
There’s actually nothing much to do in both places, just a chance to pet and see the animals that makes up the name of the places. I guess that’s the appeal of the place, plus I haven’t been to both places before and I have been wanting to take a road trip for a while. 🙂
Interesting fact:
This blog was started on the 19th of April, 2002 when I was living in Melbourne
I’ve lived in Australia for 4 years while doing my college and uni. I’ve also stayed in other places while growing up but nothing beats Australia in my heart. I’ve always loved the place and have been back three times since graduating! 🙂
It’s a great country that has a bit of everything due to its unique location – you’ve got the temperate climates to the north to the infamous 4-seasons-in-a-day weather in Melbourne, towards the south. This makes it the perfect place for adventure lovers – there is a wide variety of activities to suit all tastes.
…and the things to do!
I like to travel around and experience new things and I did a lot of that while I was there. Hands down my favorite is snowboarding – Mount Buller in Victoria is where I learned skiing and snowboarding when I was there.
There’s also sea kayaking in Byron Bay, New South Wales where you power over the surf and get to watch dolphins and sometimes even whales migrating. I thought that was a lot of fun!
If you love running, don’t miss the Six Foot Track 45 kilometer super marathon from Katoomba to the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. It’s Australia’s largest 100% off-road running event.
Australia also boasts of having two of the three legal bridge climbs in the world. Well, you can technically climb bridges anywhere but you’ll be liable to a fine or jail time. Heh. Or you can do it legally at Sydney Harbour Bridge and Brisbane’s Story Bridge.
Highlighting the pure diversity of Australia, there are also camels in the “outback” – the desert interior. These are the only feral herds of their kind in the world. You can have a camel safari right at the outback! Bet you didn’t know that about Australia! 🙂
The Stockton Sand Dunes near Port Stephens are some of the largest sand dunes in the entire Southern Hemisphere. It can go up to 1 kilometer wide and 30 meters high at some places.
There’s also an abundance of nature activities and magnificent vistas in the Land Down Under:
It’s a very beautiful country – there’s the Great Ocean Walk between 12 Apostles and Apollo Bay. It’s Victoria’s (the state Melbourne is in) premier long-distance walking track where you get to see the tallest cliffs in mainland Australia, waterfalls cascading down limestone walls, ancient shipwrecks, Aboriginal middens and manna gums with resident koala populations.
I’ve heard that the 12 Apostles (rock stacks in the ocean) are steadily getting eroded so it would be a good idea to go visit soon!
Of course, there’s also Phillip Island with its unique population of little penguins. You can see the cute little things landing on Summerland Beach every evening during the “penguin parade”. Photography is permitted but no flash is allowed coz you’ll scare them off.
Lake Eyre in South Australia is another popular destination – it’s one of the world’s largest salt pans and since it only fills up a few times a century, it’s drying up fast so this is another one to go for before it completely dries up. There are scenic flights over the lake.
There’s really something for everyone in Australia and while I’m talking about adventure and the outdoors over here (it’s what I’m into) there are a myriad of other activities for those who have interests that lies elsewhere. I haven’t touched even a tiny portion of what’s available for adrenaline lovers Down Under.
Shopping, dining (the best crab meal I’ve had was on a chartered river cruise in NSW), or just plain sightseeing, there’s a newly revamped portal at australia.com for you to browse through and decide what you want to do before you go.
The amazing thing is that every article in that extremely detailed website is also translated into perfect Bahasa Malaysia! There are also other language options and I found the new tourism video to be very aspirational – it’s the one that I titled this post after and you can see it right at the main page of australia.com
Cheers and I hope that you’ll come to love the country where I spent about 1/3 of my adult life living in as much as I do! 🙂
Restaurant Peranakan is the aptly named place known for it’s Peranakan cuisine. It’s often been cited as the #1 place to go for Nyonya food in Melaka. Peranakan (or Straits Chinese) is a distinctive racial group in Melaka – it comes from Chinese settlers marrying locals and is an entire culture unto itself, the hotbed of which lies in Melaka.
Nyonya food is conglomeration of Chinese and Malay food, but there are some really unique dishes they call their own. I had lunch here while on a road trip to Melaka.
Peranakan Restaurant has a really nice décor which reflects the heydays of the Baba Nyonya clan.
Ayam Buah Keluak
This is perhaps the most well known Nyonya dish. It’s chicken cooked with kepayang tree nuts. Buah keluak is actually poisonous before being prepared for cooking. It prompted a lot of Googling when I mentioned that coz someone ate the inside of the nut.
I like this dish – it’s a very rich and flavorful one due to the buah keluak. I ate some of the insides of the nuts too – it’s sourish and contributes to the flavor of the chicken. Peranakan Restaurant makes the best ayam buah keluak I’ve had.
This is a really good and spicy fish dish that I found worthy of mention – it’s cooked with brinjals, tomatos, and ladyfingers and has a sweet, spicy and sour (more towards the latter) gravy that goes very well with rice.
Udang Lemak Nanas
This is a very rich dish of shrimp cooked with pineapples and lots of oil. I set the camera to Vivid and it almost hurts my eye to look at it.
Here’s one that’s easier on the ocular devices. 😉 It’s also one of the dishes I’ll recommend at Peranakan Restaurant.
Nyonya Chap Choy
It’s mixed vegetables, nothing special here.
Kangkung Belacan
This dish has strayed into mainstream Chinese cooking that a lot of people forget it’s Nyonya origins. If you want the most authentic version, I guess here’s where you go.
Taufo Peranakan
I’m not a huge fan of tofu but it disappeared pretty quickly so I’ll hazard a guess and say it’s pretty good if you like the stuff. 😉
Fo Yong Tan
I think this is the egg omelet unless I’ve completely messed up my bearings. Forgettable.
Sambal Bendih
Okra with a splash of sambal on top. Simple, but good.
I spent the whole time piling my plate with all the different stuff so I could take a photo. Their flagship dishes are really good, while some are mediocre, but IMHO, Peranakan Restaurant is the place to go for authentic Nyonya food if you’re in Melaka.
I was there on a the Eat, Play, Drive road trip with a bunch of other bloggers. We drove down on several Nissan Alameras. I had the opportunity to drive the IMPUL tuned one (which is my main ride, with a very auspicious plate too – WXN 6330). Simon, Joshua and Kelly (another group) was kind enough to let me drive the stock Nissan Alamara for a stretch.
I prefered the Nissan Alamera tuned by IMPUL that was issued to my group – there’s keyless ignition and the specs are pretty decent. I found the acceleration to be a bit lacking, but as they say, it’s not a sports car, but a sedan that’s surprisingly affordable for its class. I was quite impressed by the price of the car for it’s specs.
Thanks for the invite Hui Ping! 🙂
This was also where I had the famous Klebang Original Coconut Shake and while we were driving there, we also stopped by Aunty Koh’s Cendol. This place churns out really good cendol – perfect for a hot day!
It’s primarily manned by a single woman – the aforementioned Aunty Koh. Cendol is a shaved ice dessert with squiggly green jelly and kidney beans (we use red beans in Sarawak).
Gula Melaka (caramelized palm sugar) gives it that distinctive sugary sweet taste, which is tempered by santan (coconut milk).
You’ll be amazed by how many people come here for the RM 3.50 (large) cendol.
I was tempted to have two (and I think I did have two) but I also heard that this place is famous for it’s taibak (RM 1.50) – which is a very simple shaved ice dessert made with red and white flour squiggles. I found the taste very similar to something we have in Sibu called “wu wei tang” (5 taste soup) which is another shaved ice dessert that has dried apples and other misc ingredients among it.
It’s simple but refreshing.
However, I still prefered the cendol at Aunty Koh Cendol. They claim to be Melaka’s best cendol and I’m inclined to agree. I’ve had cendol in lots of places from Penang to Kuantan (click on the tag cendol) and this is among the top ones I’ve had the pleasure of eating. 😀
This is a truly remarkable drink – one where people are willing to line up under the hot sun or even in rain for. Klebang Original Coconut Shake is located in Melaka – it’s named after the street it’s on (Jalan Klebang).
There’s constantly a queue at the small takeaway kiosk whenever we passed it during a road trip yesterday. The kiosk is for takeaways only to free up the main arena for dine-in customers.
Klebang’s Original Coconut Shake truly deserves the “famous” moniker as the sit-down area is huge, as big as a sports stadium and packed full of people. The car park is equally impressive and despite the constant rain and drizzle, people still come in for a fix.
The shake is ingenious – it’s basically an ice blended coconut drink but everything in there is made of coconut. They take coconut water, coconut flesh and ice cubes to blend it all together.
Thus, you’ll taste coconut water and bits of the shredded flesh as well as you go through it with the spoon and straw it’s served in.
Klebang’s Coconut Shake must go through tons of coconuts every day and I know from observation that they go through several large boxes of vanilla ice cream in a couple of minutes. The “special” version of the coconut shake comes with a full, generous scoop of vanilla ice cream and it adds a lot to the taste of the shake.
The place does such a brisk business that it’s almost like an assembly line:
1. There’s a place were the coconuts are opened and prepared – juice/water drained and then the flesh extracted by cutting the coconuts into half
2. The coconut water and flesh goes to the blending station where it’s ice blended with ice and then loaded into a funnel-like device to churn the blend into a waiting chilled glass.
3. The glasses are then sent into the prep station where it’s either sent out as it is or supplemented with a large scoop of vanilla ice cream for the special version.
The end result is a delicious coconut shake made almost entirely of coconut and it only costs RM 1.70. The special version with a scoop of vanilla ice cream costs RM 2.20 – 50 cents more and I feel that adds a lot to the taste – imparting a creaminess than one would usually associate with the word “shake”.
The place is quite well known for it’s nasi lemak too but it didn’t work for me – it has wonderfully spicy sambal which makes my mouth water just thinking about it and it’s warm, but I’ve had better. It’s good for the main coconut shake business though, since you’ll need something to put out the fiery sambal. 😉
However, the Klebang Original Coconut Shake is a must visit when you’re in Melaka. It has grown a lot since the days and some might say it’s a tad commercialized with menus in three (3) different languages but that still doesn’t change the fact that it’s a great product to begin with.
They haven’t slacked off since the last time I came several years ago either – each glass of coconut shake is done to perfection and I love how they use chilled mugs even with the rush of a sudden influx of people (which is why you have to queue in the takeaway section). It’s also affordable (most brewed drinks in KL costs way more than that even in regular diners) which is part of the appeal.
I was transfixed at a man in his twenties taking off his helmet and coming in out of the rain to savor Klebang’s Original Coconut Shake by slowly and tentatively sipping the iced concoction using the spoon. He caught me looking several times and gave me a puzzled look, for me, he symbolizes why this place is so popular. 🙂
