Melaka has
been occupied by many countries over its time, the Portuguese in the
16th century, the Dutch in the 17th century and the British from the
18th century, with Melaka and Malaysia only gaining Independence in
1957, so the architecture of the town has many European influences.
The town hall and clock tower are some of the oldest Dutch buildings
in the East and part of the old Portuguese fort and ruin chapel still
rests on the bukit (hill) looking over the Straits of Melaka.
However,
there is only really one way to describe Melaka and that is as a city
of M’s. M can stand for many things here, but the three main ones
are museums, meals and malls.
Anyone
interested in Museums just has to visit Melaka. There seem to be
about 100 museums here, although that might be a slight exaggeration,
I will name a few of them for you so you get my point. We have the
Melaka Stamp Museum, Kite Museum, Education Museum, Malaysian Youth
Museum, Independence Museum, Islamic Museum, Peoples Museum, History
Museum, Literature Museum, Maritime Museum, Cultural Museum,
Government & Democracy Museum, Architecture Museum, Spinning Top
Museum and the Enduring Beauty Museum. We impressively managed to
visit 7 in the 3 days we were there and then we were museumed out.
M
stands for meals because of the variety of food on offer here, including Malaysian, Chinese, Indian and also Portuguese, Dutch
and Nonya (a mix between Chinese and Malaysian). One night we went
out with Stephen, the guy who runs the hostel we were staying in,
plus some of the other guests, to a South Indian restaurant and had a
banana leaf banquet, which tasted very good indeed!
Another
night we visited the restaurant Capitol Satay, where the stainless
steel tables have vats of bubbling satay sauce in the centre, then
you purchase skewers of uncooked food, like chicken, sausage, liver,
fish, tofu, vegetables and many which I didn't have a clue what they
were, and then cooked them yourself in the vat. Such a good idea and
lipsmackingly delicious!
The
other M stands for Malls. There are just loads of them towering
around the centre of town, creating an underground maze of shops and
stalls, with the most impressive being the ‘Mega Mall of Melaka’.
It’s easy to get lost in them, although this isn’t a chore as the
air con helps cool off from the heat and I have never been one to
complain about window shopping, although I managed not to spend any
money this time. Well, we spent a few ringetts on some cheap dvds
(read as $1 pirate copies) as there was a dvd player in the hostel we
could use, so took the opportunity to catch up on a few cinema
releases we have missed. After 3 days it was time to move on to KL,
where I had been informed the largest mall in Malaysia lives!
Kuala
Lumpur
or
Koala Jumper as I have affectionately renamed it, is a 2 hour bus
ride from Melaka. The transport system so far in Malaysia has been
wonderful, with full air con buses with reclining seats, leg and foot
rests and motorways where drivers stick to the lanes provided and
don't try to make 4 lanes out of 2 and no pot holes either, bliss!
When we arrived in KL or KJ we set about looking for a hostel
recommended to us, and eventually found it 2 hours later via walking
about 3km, catching the train and the monorail too. Then we realised
if we had walked 600m in the other direction from where we started we
would have found it a lot quicker, but at least we already had a
mini tour of the city. The room we got at the hostel was about the
size of a shoe box with no window, and a shared air con unit that sat
resting in a hole in the wall between the two rooms, so you had to
hope the neighbours liked the same temperature as you, but it was
cheap so we were happy. When we checked in the guy on the desk warned
us that as it was a Friday night there would be noise from the bar
downstairs, but we said no problem we could use ear plugs if it
got too noisy. Blimey, waving a piece of cotton wool in front of a
sub woofer speaker would have been as effective as using ear plugs,
the music just got louder and louder until 3am with the beds and
walls shaking from the bass...we checked out the next day. We could
have joined them, but we were wearing our cardigans that night.
Someone
had told us we must visit the Batu Caves just north of the city, a
set of caves containing Hindu shrines and the worlds highest Murga
statue.
It
turned out we would be there for the Hindu Thaipusam festival, where
pilgrims march every year carrying 'Kavadi' on their heads and
shoulders, performed as acts of penance and to repent sins. The
Kavadi range from small milk pots to large brightly decorated ornate
frames that are very heavy. So we went on the Sunday, the last and
most important day of the festival. The only word that can describe
this experience is CRAZY!!!!!!!!!! There were over 1.2 million people
there that day. The men carrying the heavy 'Kavadi' attach the frames
to their body using the mortification of flesh method of attaching
hooks to the skin, so when the frame moved it would pull the skin and
create pain, to remind them why they are on the pilgrimage. Some also
put spears through their mouths and cheeks so they can't talk and
have to endure the pain in silence.
Each
Kavadi carrier needs a team of about six helpers to make sure they
don't fall and someone carrys a seat behind so they can rest when
needed. This is such a test of endurance for them.
One
guy turned himself into a living Kavadi by hanging from hooks through
his arms, back and legs. It was fascinating but gruesome at the same
time.
We
headed over to climb the 272 steps up to the caves, thinking it would
be much easier for us to do than for the guys carrying the frames. We
got around 50m from the entrance then we had to move slowly along
with the building crowd. This was at midday and the heat had risen to
about 33 degrees. It took us an hour to move about 20m and the crowd
was getting frustrated and people where pushing in from all
directions, it was crazy, hot, and like nothing we had experienced
before. We couldn't move in any direction and everyone was getting crushed. It got too much for us and we fought our way out to the
space at the back and never made it up the stairs, we certainly
didn't have the endurance for it. It turned out that none of the
travelers we met on the bus back had made it either, you really had
to be dedicated to make it up there!
We
spent our time in KL wandering around Chinatown, the Merdeka
(Independence) Square, and the parks and gardens. A few times just
wandering we came across impromptu Chinese Dragon street
performances. The performers drive around in a pick-up truck and
block a street off and start performing. One performance had a two
man dragon climing up posts with small foot plates on top and jumping
from one to another, great acrobatics and cool to watch.
We
saved the biggest KL attraction to last visiting the Petronas Towers
on our last morning. Tickets are on a first come first served basis,
so we got up early to join the queue for a visit to the skybridge. We
did this on a Monday. The Petronas Towers are closed on a Monday.
Aaarrrggghhh! Oh well, we were suitably impressed by the view from
the ground, they are an awesome structure and beat any
skyscraper I have ever seen.
We
went back at night, sat out a two hour thunderstorm (in the pub) to
see the towers all lit up, and they certainly have the wow factor.
We
are now in the Cameron Highlands, 4 hours north of KL, planning
on doing some jungle trekking and tea tasting, the tea plantations on
the way up looked beautiful, but we'll save that for next time...
Jo &
Ryan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dojo77/collections/72157613742320550/
P.S. Happy Birthday to Jo's Dad on the 14th and Ryan's Mum on the 16th!
