After a quick stop off in KL for a night, where we enjoyed a particular delicious Indian, we hopped onto yet another bus and whizzed down south to a delightful seaside town called Melaka (also spelled Malacca). Developed as a commercial port town in the early 15th century, it was captured by the Portuguese and then the Dutch before being ceded to the British in 1824, then briefly to the Japanese during WW2 until finally becoming part of the Malayan Union in 1946. It was also listed as a UNESCO world heritage site in 2007. With such a varied history, it’s no wonder that the city is so appealing to tourists. In 2017 it recorded almost 17 million of them.
We were staying a few miles outside of the city centre in an AirBnB named the Atlantis Residence, part of a new development on reclaimed land to the North of the old town. Our apartment was a large two bedroom 27th floor stylish IKEA showroom sponsored by the colour silver, overlooking the ocean to the West (thankfully facing away from the large pool in the centre of the complex and the noise being emitted by the numerous children in it). The balcony looks out to the reclaimed land and ocean where presumably the plan is to construct more of the kind of holiday let apartments that we’re in, but for the time being it offers an unobstructed view of the ships in the bay, as well as some fantastic thunderstorms every evening. After almost 9 months of living in very close quarters, we were grateful to have a bit of room to stretch our legs and experience the luxury of personal space.
Our first taste of the old town was a trip to the weekend night market which we’d heard was quite a good one. There’s a distinctly European feel to it, which isn’t surprising I suppose given its history. It feels a bit like Amsterdam meets Hoi An, and the market was a good mix of tourist toot, durian based snacks and unnecessary plastic. At the far end, we stumbled upon two old men singing karaoke and dancing on the steps outside a Chinese temple, all this in a country where the vast majority of the population doesn’t drink. It was really good fun to watch. There’s something fascinating about someone getting up in front of a bunch of strangers to sing their heart out, especially when their idea of singing seems to be a competition as to who can sound the most like a cat being strangled. I have to confess when we first arrived in Malaysia, I was a little underwhelmed, but the kindness and friendliness of the people, as well as the tolerance and respect for different religions and lifestyles has absolutely won us over. The vast majority of people are curious about us, asking where we’ve come from and what we’re up to in Malaysia. We also heard an advert on the radio encouraging politeness and reminding people to say please and thank you to each other, which is absolutely the way to any Brit’s heart (that and the tea, scones, and jam from the Cameron Highlands).
One of the things we seem to be doing rather a lot of recently is nothing. That is to say vegging out on the sofa catching up on all the TV we’ve missed since January and consuming the offerings of the local convenience store. Having said that, we haven’t been complete sloths, Melaka is home to a wealth of museums and so we decided to take advantage of its rather compact city centre, taking a stroll along the riverfront before reaching the Baba and Nyonya Heritage Museum. The museum is a brilliantly preserved house from the 1800s which continues to be owned by the descendants of the house’s original owner, Chan Chang Siew. The word “Baba” refers to a Straits-born man of Chinese parentage and the word “Nyonya” refers to a Straits-born woman of Chinese parentage. The word “Nyonya” is still used today but mostly in reference to certain cuisines and dishes that you can find throughout Malaysia. Sadly, the Museum does not allow photography, so I’ve pinched a few off their website instead. It was a good hour that we spent wandering through the old house, admiring the mother of pearl lacquered furniture and reading about the traditions of the time. The wooden stairs leading up to the second floor are not only intricately carved, but also have a lockable gate at the top and a wooden cover that can be folded over in order to prevent mischievous children from going downstairs when they should be in bed, and also to stop those returning to the house later than they should have been from being able to sneak back in. Neither Dave nor I could empathise of course, having never done either of these things.
The following day, in a shocking turn of events, we embarked on a free walking tour provided by the Malaysia Tourism Board. The sky was clear, and the sea haze had retreated, leaving us considerably sweatier than we would normally have been at 9am. Luckily the meeting point was air-conditioned, and we joined a group of around 20 people for what turned out to be the longest 3 hours of our lives. Melaka Old Town is a very walkable place, being very flat and having lots of trees for shelter; unfortunately, it also has one of the dullest free walking tours imaginable. 3 hours is a long time to be standing around in the sun, especially when the advertised time was roughly 2 hours, leaving us finished around 11am which as everyone knows is the perfect time for coffee and a cake. Our tour guide was an older chap of Indian descent and whilst not being completely devoid of personality, he did talk over me a few times which seems to happen a lot here. Taxi drivers also ignore me and talk to Dave instead, so I’ve taken up the habit of answering when they talk to him. We’ve only got a month left and I’m fed up of picking my battles. Anyway, back to the walking tour. The guide also had a rather annoying tendency to either stop half-way through a rather interesting anecdote, or drone on unnecessarily about tombstones, or how he cured his mother and sister of Dengue Fever using a local isotonic drink, or how science and medicine aren’t interested in natural remedies, despite, you know, aspirin coming from a tree, or quinine, or menthol, it’s almost as if they don’t like to base scientific certainties on one piece of anecdotal evidence! Still, we did learn a few bits and pieces, and it was free after all. Our tour group was reduced to about 10 people by the end, poor bloke. Naturally, once he’d finished telling us about every single possible restaurant in all of Melaka, we told him we’d had a jolly nice time thank you very much and tipped him 10 Ringgit (about £2). Luckily for us we finished up by the river, meaning it as only a short walk to the nearest bar for some lunch and a cold beer, before heading back to the AirBnB to take advantage of the rather large swimming pool.
After a lazy morning featuring scrambled eggs and catching up on The Circle, we headed into town for a spot of lunch at Geographer’s Café where I discovered that the local sour plum &lime juice is one of the nicest drinks on the planet. Bellies full, we walked up the wonderful Jonker Street up to the Stadthyus building. Believed to be the oldest surviving Dutch structure in all of the Eastern world, its bright salmon pink façade certainly draws your attention. Built between 1641 and 1660 on the ruins of a Portuguese fort, the building housed several successive governments, right up until 1982 when it was turned into a museum. Now I know we’ve touched on this before, and I think we’re definitely spoilt in so far as museums go because we grew up with places like the National History Museum or the Science Museum, but museums in South East Asia are just a bit, meh. That’s not to say the history isn’t fascinating or that the relics they house aren’t to be cherished and preserved, it’s just that they need to hire some curators, or at least put in some signs or something. The Stadthyus jumped from weaponry to pottery to local food and wedding customs, without so much as a thread from which to weave the narrative of the place. Melaka has such a rich history and it’s bizarre that someone has just thrown some old plates, paintings, and terrifying mannequins into the building and thought “yep, that’s a jolly good museum thanks, pub anyone?”. There was an information point as you entered, but it seemed to consist of some leaflets for the very museum we were already inside of, and the most bored looking member of staff you could possibly imagine. We did meet a nice cat as we walked through though, so at least there was that. Our ticket also included the Governor’s Museum, which was just a cult of personality to the various sultans and governors in Malaysia, half closed and falling to pieces with nary a staff member in sight (spooky) as well as the Democratic Government Museum, which sounds a lot more Orwellian than it actually turned out to be. There was quite a lot of information about the independence of Malaysia but again in a rather hodge podge fashion, I think we might have to give up on museums in South East Asia and rely on Father Christmas to bring us some jolly good history books instead.
Melaka also offers a river cruise throughout the day and we’d decided to hop aboard at 7pm so that we could enjoy the light on the ride up and then the lights from the old town in the dark on the way back. The sun sets really quickly here so you don’t really get a twilight, but what sunset there was to be had, we enjoyed from a bar just across the river that we’d settled into a few hours earlier, after our jam packed rip roaring adventure around the various museums. This meant that by the time we boarded the boat at 7pm, we were a little sloshed. Alcohol is expensive here, well at least by South East Asian standards. A 620ml bottle of beer in Thailand for example will set you back between £1-£2 depending on the bar. A 620ml bottle of beer in Malaysia will typically cost between £4 – £5, so no more expensive than back in the UK, but definitely a bit more than we’ve been paying over the past 5 months. As such, the river cruise was fab. Unlike the museums, the whole trip has been really thought through, with lights and attractions being put up along the way, with the voiceover providing you with explanations about the things you’re seeing. Everyone sitting at the bars along the riverside waves at you as you go past too, and who can resist waving back? It lasted around 40 minutes and we enjoyed every second, despite the booming middle-eastern chap sitting at the front having a conversation on his phone the whole time. Don’t really know why he’d paid to come on the cruise if he was just going to be on his phone. Ah well, we had a nice time, and we enjoyed several more beers at a Thai restaurant on the riverside, saw yet another pussy cat, and stumbled back to the apartment feeling really rather jolly indeed.
And that dear reader more or less sums up our time in Melaka. It was definitely one of our favourite places in Malaysia, retaining that old town charm but also giving you plenty of things to see and do. Our last night there a huge great storm rolled in and kept us entertained for hours. We were very sad to be saying goodbye to our huge great apartment, not just because of the amount of space we’d had, but also because Melaka had been a really enchanting place to spend our last full week in Malaysia. Back to KL next for a few days and then onwards to Thailand where the countdown to home begins.
Katy and Dave Avoid Adulthood 