It's a lot less windy today, which made walking around the coast much more pleasant. The coast has a very rocky but picturesque coastline.
The trip to Malta has been unexpected. Before I started my big trip, I wouldn't had imagined coming here, but I managed to find some cheap flights that made it worthwhile to fly over as part of my route back up into Western Europe.
Arriving here, I realised how much we have taken for granted drinking water from the tap. Before arriving in Malta, I did look this up, and a few sites indicated that tap water is safe to drink, but at every place I had stayed, there were signs which indicated that tap water is non drinkable.
I also found out that Malta was once a British colony, so the power plugs were the 3 pin heads that we use in Singapore. Cars are also driven on the left side of the road, so I had to quickly readjust back to left hand driving since I had been driving on the right in Europe where car rental had been possible.
The good thing is that roundabouts in Malta usually shows the direction you are suppose to take, so that helps me get back into the groove.
Outside of Valletta and Sliema, it's fairly easy to drive around, with the occasional extra narrow lanes. Google maps generally works well in the country, though at times it doesn't realise a road is one way.
Very often I was using only the 1st 3 gears, as it was very hard to go fast due to the way the roads are structured, along with heavier traffic in some sections.
The country is very small, about half the size of Singapore and with only 500,000 in population (vs 6 million in Singapore). As it is small, I could cover most of the key places with a car within the 1 week I was here.
There are also a lot of trekking routes one can hike on, and I was told that it takes just about 10 hours to walk from one end of Malta to the other!
Public toilets are much better than I had expected - I had entered a few during my trip and most were fairly clean. In contrast to a number of European countries, as well as even in Singapore, where public toilets can sometimes be a nightmare. I also noticed I haven't seen any homeless around.
There were quite a few foreigners in Malta, with quite a few of them coming to learn English. I met a lot of Colombians, and even Asians from Japan, Korea or Taiwan doing the same.
It's been really pleasant travelling this time of the year, as the temperature is an average of 16°C in the day and drops to about 12°C at night, and at times during the day, I would get so warm that I needed to take off my jacket and walk with just a long-sleeve t-shirt on.
Food wise, the average meal in a restaurant is about Euro 20 at the low end. Meals had been average quality for the price, and not too much in variety.
I did however love their Pastilles, a local pastry filled with either cheese or smashed peas wrapped in a crispy flaky skin. They are very cheap too, at average €0.50, although some places are even at €0.40.
The best ones I have had were at the Fontanella Tea Garden at Mdina as well as the food truck in Gozo.
While we are still on the topic of pricing, it appears they have different pricing for winter and non-winter period, with prices being lower during winter season. I have managed to stay in a hotel at less than €15 a night, which I doubt I would be able to get during non winter season.
Even public transport, buses are at €1.50 during winter and €2 outside of winter season.
Looking at the beaches in Malta, it's highly unlikely I would come here for the beach, as they are mostly rocky in numerous places. The few sandier ones I had seen were located in Mellieha Bay, Golden Bay and the surrounding area.
Possibly this would be the only time I would come to Malta, since I have seen most of what the country could offer, and especially since there isn't any direct flights to get here from Singapore either.
And that's my 2 cents worth 😆
Bye Malta! Love this quote found at the Malta Airport.
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