After a wonderful 3 days in KL we boarded a bus for the Historic city of Melaka. The bus station in KL was amazing! It was more like an airport. The infrastructure in Malaysia has definitely impressed us. The trip was pleasant enough except for the driver blaring the Malaysian equivalent of Mariah Carey - thank goodness for i-pods.
Melaka is a UNESCO world heritage site and was founded in 1400. It was a wealthy trading post between East and West. The popularity of the port was mainly because of the good governance of the ruling Sultan and it's geographic location at the narrowest point on the Melakan straits. At it's peak there were up to 84 languages spoken in the town because of all the different nations trading through the port. In 1511 the Portuguese decided they wanted some of the action and took over the show. They didn't do to well despite holding on for about 130 years and then the Dutch took over. They didn't fare much better economically but both countries left there mark on the city, both in terms of architecture and culture. The British then took over but ignored Melaka from a development point of view and focused mainly on Penang and so it steadily declined. The large Chinese community has been the backbone behind the economy and now tourism seems to be the one of the largest industries.
Once we found our guest house and cooled down we took a walk alongside the canal/river that runs through Melaka. Some of the houses along the canal have been turned into guest houses and restaurants and the local government has done really well by placing plants and flowers all along the boardwalk that runs both sides of the canal.
It was a beautiful walk that lead us to the main tourist hub called Dutch square. All the buildings are painted a bright pinky red including the land marks of Christ Church and the Stadhuis.
Running off Dutch square is Jonkers walk which is the main street in China Town. This street has numerous restaurants, cafes, antique and clothing shops on it and is made even more charismatic by the red lanterns and flags that run above the street. We were lured into a riverside restaurant and had black soy sauce chicken with the cendol. Cendol is a popular desert in South East Asia and consists of shaved iced with coconut milk and palm sugar/syrup poured over it. Underneath all of this is red beans and worm like pieces of green jelly made from rice flour. It is delicious! And in hot humid Melaka it made for a refreshing desert.
It was a beautiful walk that lead us to the main tourist hub called Dutch square. All the buildings are painted a bright pinky red including the land marks of Christ Church and the Stadhuis.
Running off Dutch square is Jonkers walk which is the main street in China Town. This street has numerous restaurants, cafes, antique and clothing shops on it and is made even more charismatic by the red lanterns and flags that run above the street. We were lured into a riverside restaurant and had black soy sauce chicken with the cendol. Cendol is a popular desert in South East Asia and consists of shaved iced with coconut milk and palm sugar/syrup poured over it. Underneath all of this is red beans and worm like pieces of green jelly made from rice flour. It is delicious! And in hot humid Melaka it made for a refreshing desert.
That night we wandered around until we came upon an Indian restaurant that served banana leaf curries. Basically they slap a banana leaf on the table, scoop some rice onto it along with various atchas and then bring you a bowl of the curry that you ordered. In our case this was a fiery lamb and chicken masala, although it was really good it took some skin off the lips and cleared our sinuses. We tried just using our hands to look authentic but you could see by the mess we were making that we were not fooling anybody, especially our waiter who was sporting an impressive moustache and mullet combo.
We thought it would be a good idea to go to a sound and light show that depicts the history of Malaysia. The guide book we were using gave 2 different locations so we resorted to another 2 maps to try help us find out where it was. After walking around the city for about two hours we eventually collapsed onto a bench - I pulled the map out and looked again and then discovered that in a tiny font in brackets it said that it was closed due to renovation. At least we worked off our dinner! It took us another 45 minutes and a fanta to get us back to the guest house where we practically passed out.
Phil
No comments:
Post a Comment