Melaka

Malaysia is just a bus ride away from Singapore, and our first stop in the country was the city of Melaka. Melaka has a long history of colonization. The Malays were there first, joined by Chinese, Arab and Indian immigrants and merchants. Different religions were brought in, especially Hinduism and Islam. The Portuguese were the first European power to colonize, followed by the Dutch, and then finally the English. The Europeans brought Christianity. During WWII Japan occupied Melaka. Eventually Malaysia gained independence in the 1950s, and has been finding ways to market Melaka's interesting past ever since. Due to all this colonialism, Melaka is a smorgasbord of different styles or architecture and has been deemed a Unesco World Heritage Site. The architecture was indeed unique, but it was the way in which all of these different cultures have merged together to create amazing food which made Melaka worth a visit.

We arrived in the city in the evening and were welcomed to our lovely guesthouse by our very friendly and accommodating hosts with cool drinks and cake. They suggested that we hit up a local Indian restaurant for dinner, which sounded great to us. Malaysia is majority ethnic Malay, with large populations of Chinese and Indians as well. Much like Singapore, certain cities and areas of cities tend to contain different groups and types of restaurants. The restaurant served dishes on banana leaves and all of the customers ate with their hands. We decided not to jump right into hand eating, but we did accidentally order two meals apiece, so we had our work cut out for us.

Only one half of our giant feast

Malaysia is a Muslim country and most of the Malay women wear headscarves, and the occasional Burka. We have gotten used to hearing the call to prayer and passing mosques. But as it is very multicultural, and the Indian and Chinese populations are generally not Muslim, it is pretty easy going about religion and we have not had to change our dress. Melaka has a jumbled religious past though, and a history of Christianity. We set out the next day to view some of the old Christian churches in the city. Some of the churches are still used, but most are either in ruins or have been restored for tourists.

As we quickly found out Melaka attracts an enormous amount of tourists, many Europeans, but mostly local. Some folks have taken advantage of the tourist market and offer to pedal visitors around in rickshaws. There is a lot of competition in this business, so the entrepreneurs decorate their rickshaws with ridiculous colors, fake flowers and streamers and play the most obnoxious techno music at the highest possible volumes to attract more customers. It was amazing how many people actually hired them...

Very Decorative

Church, built by the Dutch. Can't see it in this picture, but there was a windmill right near by, might as well have been in Lynden

We went to a couple of terrible museums filled with vacationing families and crying children, before finding a replica of a Melakan Sultan's palace that was pretty interesting. Malaysian architecture is very cool, but unfortunately they used wood to build everything. Wood doesn't have a long life span, so there are very few original buildings left. This replica was built to look just like a palace that used to stand in the same area and was filled with artifacts from the era and examples of court life at the time. One room contained figurines that represented different scenes from a famous Malaysian tale of the hero Hang Tuah. Hang Tuah was a great warrior who had protected and served the Sultan well. The sultan became jealous of him and sentenced him to death. A sympathetic court member, who had been saved by Hang in the past, helped him escape. Hang's best friend didn't know of the escape and went on a rampage in the court to revenge his friend. Since it was an emergency the Sultan was told that Hang was actually still alive, and the Sultan asked that he be brought back to protect the court from the crazed friend. Hang came back and killed his friend because he believed that loyalty to the Sultan should be above friendship. No mention that the Sultan tried to have him killed in the first place! This is a beloved tale and seen as a good moral tale.... How is that for cultural differences!!

Palace

View of the city


That afternoon we ate Chicken rice balls, a regional speciality, which is basically balls of rice with chicken. It sounds weird, but was delicious! That night we decided to try another local speciality, the satay at the famous restaurant Capital Satay. We had to wait in line for an hour to even get a table. Once inside we filled a tray with all kinds of food on sticks, meat, vegetables, bread, tofu, eggs, strange shellfish... We then brought it back to our table which contained a large vat of delicious peanut sauce in its middle. The peanut sauce was heated and we cooked our food right in a the middle. It was a fusion of Chinese hotpot and Malaysian peanut sauce satay, and was so delicious.

Food on sticks waiting for satay

Our guesthouse was located in the Chinatown region of the city, along the river. It was quite a lovely location, at night Chinatown is lit with red lanterns. That evening we wanted to buy some beer to drink by the river, and Dan was going to teach me how to play chess. I have always associated Asia with cheap beer, but Islam is a more dominate force in Malaysia than Asian-ness, and the Islam won the alcohol battle. Beer is incredibly expensive in Malaysia, we bought two very cheap cans of Tiger beer, and it cost us the equivalent of 4 US dollars. On a $25 a day budget, Malaysian beer was not an option....

Chinatown


The next day we were excited to try some more delicious local food. When Chinese immigrants came to Malaysia they intermarried with Malays. Malay and Chinese mixed women became called Nonyas and the men were called Babas. Therefore the fusion Chinese Malaysian food that is common in Melaka is called Nonya food, since the women cooked it. We tried some local noodles and also tried the local dessert, which is a combination of ice, wheatgrass noodles, sugar cane syrup and coconut milk. It was weird, but refreshing.

Dan with his weird ice dessert


That afternoon we went to a Baba Nonya house that has been converted into a museum. It belongs to a rich family who built it several generations ago at the turn of the 20th century. It was built in the Chinese tradition, but with Malay twists. All of the original furniture and clothing has been preserved. We also went to a house owned by a woman who has turned it into a sort of museum that she lives in with her family. She is as old as the hills and has been showing it to tourists for forty years. It was built in the old style, on stilts with open courtyards, and still maintains original furniture. She was a pretty neat lady, she obviously took great pride in her house and showed us the list of all the famous people who have visited.

The very old lady told me to hit her gong three times for good luck