Hi All,
Hot, Hot, Hot. This place is Hot. Hot. Hot.
Melaka is midway between the capital cities of Singapore and Kuala
Lumpur and at the mouth of the Strait of Melaka, a crucial shipping
route connecting the Indian and Pacific oceans,Melaka has been a centre
of trade and cultural exchange for more than 600 years. Established at
the beginning of the 14th century, Melaka was set up by a renegade Hindu
Prince who originally hailed from Sumatra control of Melaka since the
Hindu Prince´s reign has changed many times Portuguese sailors conquered
it in 1511 and turned the city into a walled fortress, hoping to take
control of the spice and silk trade and from that point, and for the
next 400 years Melaka remained under European influence – the Dutch rose
to power in 1641, followed by the British in 1824. With the exception of
four years of Japanese occupation during WWII, Melaka remained a British
colony until Malaysia gained independence in 1957.
Melaka was recently designated as a World Heritage site. Dotted around the city's historic quarter, many buildings have been
painstakingly restored and preserved.
We
stayed in the heart of chinatown at 20 Jonker street. The place was a
beautiful old three story dutch terrace house near the main town
square. It was very nice even if the staff were too cool to be helpful.
Unfortunately we found that the floorboards tranmitted the sound
from the room above us very well but this could only be considered a
very small issue. It was great to just lay back on the bed and look up
at the high ceiling. Such extravagant use of timber. Some of the wooden
floor boards would have been over 350mm wide and the supporting beams
200mm.
We wandered around following the river
past the old town hall and found a nice food hall that had a wide range
of asian food about 1km later. Certainly wasn't Penang quality but was
cheap. We didn't have a map and after searching for a supermarket found
ourselves lost and without any sense of direction. It was infuriating
but interesting as it took us out of the main tourist area and down
some nice backstreets full of life. Eventually we found the river and
followed it along back to our guesthouse.
It was the weekend so
there were markets along the length of the street. For once we not the
targets of the sellers affections as Melaka gets a lot of tourists from
singapore so it was nice just to wander. The area was a nic nac
shoppers heaven and also had the largest collection of sweet his and
hers t-shirts that we had ever seen. Probably another indicator that we
weren't the target market.
Karaoke was popular in some of the
shops along the way with one old lady belting out a chinese song in
tune. The highlight was the permanent stage near the end of the street
with distorted music, a singer and and old man, one of the tallest,
skiniest chinese men I have ever seen, with a black wig, dancing as
part of the act. It was priceless. He even sang. Eat some food dancing
skeleton!
Next day.
Headed
straight to tourist
information for a map. Run out of maps. Sorry. Hmmm. We headed over to
the town hall which is now a museum. Quite a nice display. Then down
backstreets to the rubber boom millionaires row of terrace houses and
onto the Baba-Nonya Heritage Museum another large house of a wealthy
businessman. Baba-Nonya are the chinese-malaysians in Malaka. It was
elaborate, very well presented by a lady with a sparkle in her eyes and
a great sense of humour. We especially liked the peep hole above the
door entrance which, when the house was occupied, was used to encourage
unwelcome visitors to leave by pouring the contents of the commode
through it.When we first arrived at the museum and an elderly
Singaporean gentleman,who was visiting the museum with his family,
immediately started talking to us and telling us of the history of the
house and its previous inhabitants.We were interested in what he was
saying so listened intently and at one point he point with his walking
stick to a framed photograph on the wall,little did we know that he had
committed a grave offence by pointing at the deceased so his daughter
growled at him telling him that he had been being respectfulness of
the dead and she commenced praying and asking for forgiveness in front
of the picture.The gentleman continued to talk with us but it felt like
we had stopped into a family feud and he was using us as respite from
his family.The family didn´t have any issues with us and the daughter
spoke with us on numerous occasions but Dad was obviously needing to
go to the naughty step in their eyes and they didn´t speak to him much
during the tour..Asians are extremely tolerate and polite when it
comes to Westerners who are probably continually commencing offences.
We were getting a little hungry and found an
excellent local favourite place on 88 Jonker street. Very spicy food
followed by delicious Cendol. Look up Jonker 88 on the internet for a
look. This place is not to be missed even if it is just to watch the
odd rat scurrying under and between tables carrying food in its
mouth.Would this place meet health regulation in the western world? I
very much doubt it.Did we care? Not one little bit.This place is
totally devoid of western tourists and is fully of memorabilia from
bygone eras so is in fact a cafe museum .If you get the chance go
there.
Escaped the midday heat and retreated back to the guesthouse for a few hours.
We
headed off and climbed sweaty hill, St Pauls hill, to visit the ruins
of the church. Some too cool young western tourists were blocking most
of the entrance to the church ruins so I made a point of 'accidently'
collecting one heavily on the way past to make the point that this is a
walkway not a seat. I have no tolerance for these kind of western
tourists. The ruins were supposed to be imposing but we did not find
that the case however the tomb stones were interesting and some dated
to the early 15th century.
Went for a cruise on the Melaka river. We grabbed the front seats on
opposite sides of the boats then, even with available seats elsewhere, a
large indian man sat next to Vanessa so she was leaning away for the
rest of the trip. The front seat choice was not so good as the boat
caused a regular stream of small splashes, similar to water torture, to
hit us in the face for to whole 7km. Quite refreshing really.
The
riverfront buildings were quite nice and a lot of them were painted
with impressive murals. We passed a youth centre with a youth singing
Karaoke passionately to an invisible audience or perhaps for passing
boats before coming to a historical suburb of Malaka with traditional
wooden houses.
Next day.
Took
it easy for the morning before catching the bus to Kuala Lumpur. All
went well until we got on the metro and my most efficient plan to get
us to chinatown didn't work out as planned. We had an enormous row over
the definition of mistake in the context of planning. We both have
strong personalities. It was the immovable
mountain meeting the unstoppable force.
Our stubbornness and determination has helped us get to where we are in
our lives but sometimes it works against us. No talking and time was
the solution. It was really stupid and not the ideal way to celebrate
our 20th anniversary.............
We arrived quietly at Chinatown.
Bye,
David and Vanessa
