After a short, very comfortable bus ride (then a subsequent city bus downtown), we arrived in the budget-hotel area of town, which looked like little more than a suburban-sprawl strip-mall in any mid-size city or town. We'd hoped to have left the pricey room-rates of KL behind, but the first few places we looked at were near the high end of our budget, and nothing more than flop pads, with saggy beds, dirty floors, and if we were lucky, a window. Ugh! 
I let T take a break and watch the bags at a cafe while I spent the better part of two hours looking at dozens of hotels – all more than we wanted to spend and much less than we'd hoped for in regards to comfort. Finally, drenched in sweat, I settled on the Shirah Guesthouse, with adequate rooms at an OK price. The place was run by an Indian-Malay named Steven, who was almost overly friendly, and who really stressed that we were now part of his “family.”
That night Steven took the family (us and a few other guests) to a nice Indian meal of curries, dhal, naan and the like, where we ate with our hands (right hand only!) off of banana leaves. It was good fun, and we enjoyed chatting with our fellow travelers, a group of 3 young Japanese.
Afterwards we explored the old-town, which is now Chinatown. It was nice and impressive, but 
swarming with thousands of tourists on the main market street. We quickly veered away from the crowds and explored the smaller alleys and streets, all an odd mix of colonial-style buildings done up with chinese decoration. We eventually ended up back at the busy main square, where a large crowd was gathered to watch a main stage where public karaoke was performed, complete with amateur dance crews. It was truly hilarious and good fun, until the singing finally got the better of our ears and we headed back to the guesthouse.
We spent the next few days exploring the sights of Melaka, including a portugese fort, ancient english church on a hill, and of course more of
chinatown, which boasted the most interesting colonial buildings, temples and mosques. Unfortunately, getting to these places was a real chore, as there was a huge hill between us and old-town, making what seemed like a short walk on the map into a long, hot trek down narrow, broken sidewalks. We also had to pass through one of the many mega-malls surrounding old-town to get there, which took away from the charm of the colonial sites. (At least they boasted strong AC as we passed through!) I'd been eager to see the famous Straights of Melaka, though as you'd expect, it was just a vast expanse of sea off the industrial waterfront.
We did find some i
nteresting food, such as the town's famous pineapple tarts (including the world's largest one on display), and malay “steamboat”, which consists of skewers of meat, fish, tofu and vegetables which you cook in a vat of bubbling satay (spicy peanut) sauce built into the center of the table. It was fun to eat, but everything ended up tasting like peanuts and little more.
Again, after a few days, we'd seen pretty much all there was to see. Melaka is a very touristy town, and if you're looking for something more than trinket shops and old colonial buildings, then you'll probably end up a bit bored, as I did. From there, we decided to make a bigger leap to the northern part of the eastern malay peninsula, Kuala Terengganu, which entailed yet another 10-hour overnight bus ride. Woohoo!
Talor: Yes, Melaka was way over-crowded with tourists, and with our usual impeccable timing, 
we had arrived on a weekend, when the town gets inundated with national as well as international tourists... o well. It was kinda fun walking through the evening weekend market in Chinatown's Jonker street where vendors were lined up selling food, clothes, housewares and other knick-knacks. We got to see new food ideas, such as fried egg ice cream and waffle hotdogs, but it was the pineapple tarts that ruled. Famous in Melaka, these tarts (more like cookies with pineapple preserves on top) were everywhere so we went from stand to stand helping ourselves to the samples that were out.
Chinatown was definitely the most interesting part of town. It is famous for it's Baba-Nonya culture (mix of Malay and early Chinese settlers) with their own special cuisine and strong ties to old clans. There were also cool little artesanal shops
and traditional wooden doorways, a gorgeous Chinese temple, one of the oldest in Malaysia, as well as mosques and churches. It's so nice to see different religions co-existing peacefully together. The other sites around town were pretty interesting, like the 
Dutch colonial architecture in the city square (which was more like a triangle), and we both got a real kick out of the decked-out trishaws, especially at night when they were decorated with glittering lights and blasted really bad pop music. But in the end, it became too draining... the long unpleasant walk there and back, and always having to fight through crowds and traffic. So we decided to move on.
Had a day to kill until we took a night bus to Terengganu on the East Coast so we stopped in at the Museum Complex that housed the People's Museum, which 
gave the history of the people of Malaysia, the three largest groups being original Malay, Chinese and Indian; a Kite and Tops Museum, which we learned are their national past-times; and most interesting of all, the Museum of Enduring Beauty, which chronicled the history of how people go to great pains to “enhance” or “deform” their bodies (depends on how you look at it) based on what is culturally considered attractive.
Some general observations about Malaysia... although it's cool to see the different cultures and religions playing nice, they generally don't mix. And after traveling through Cambo
dia and Laos, where we saw poverty on a grand scale, it was surprising to see overweight people again. Malaysia is a country that is more prosperous, so they eat well. And it is more modern with better roads, hi-rises and mega-malls, but the modernity isn't across the board... there are still nasty squat toilets in public bathrooms, the fowl smell of the sewer systems and broken down sidewalks. In fact, walking around in the towns and cities is just plain unpleasant... the sidewalks are taken up with vendors and parked cars and there is garbage and open sewage everywhere. On the other hand, the people are super-friendly and nice, except for when a queue is involved, then they are aggressive and down-right rude. Lots of contradictions and never dull, makes me want to explore more. So onto the East Coast, where there are supposed to be the highest concentration of Muslims, but also much more laid back...
Photos from Melaka:
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| Melaka, Malaysia |
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