Malacca Town and surrounding area

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I decided to get the train from KL to Tampin then get a taxi to Malacca as strangely the railway does not extend to Malacca. I could have gone by bus which would have been a lot cheaper but I was curious to see what the railways were like here.
Not up to much as it turned out - it cost 25 Ringits instead of 6 on the bus. This was first class seating with air-con on the express service to Singapore. The train arrived on time but inexplicably left 15 minutes late - this would not have happened in Vietnam where every train leaves and arrives bang on time. The seats were very large - almost like armchairs and tilted backwards and had a foot rest too. Shame the carriage was about 20 years overdue for a total refit! It was a bit dog eared to say the least. Interestingly they had 2 separate loos in the carriage - one was a western type and the other was the traditional asian squat over the hole in the ground type. On the station the loos are of the western variety but it was obvious by the ingrained footmarks on the loo seat that many Malysians don't have much of an idea how to use them, just as I cannot see how anybody wearing trousers could use an asian loo without taking them off! There was a little diagram on the wall indicating the incorrect and correct ways of using a western toilet but obviously some, just like me, still find it difficult to change the habit of a lifetime ;-) lol

Anyway I arrived in Tampin, a scruffy little town, at around 16:30 (15 minutes late) and was immediately accosted by a taxi driver who wanted 70 ringits to go to Malacca and tried to get me to agree to using him to do the return journey when leaving Malacca - he wasn't going to get it as I'd decided to do it by coach.

Malacca Town has a lot of history particularly in trade and shipping, the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British have all taken their turns at running the town for their own benefit. Today there is no shipping trade as the port of Singapore eclipsed Malacca in importance in the late 19th century. Much of what is left of the old historical town is in the vicinity of Malaccas Chinatown. There is a superb private museum which was a house that belonged to a successful Baba-Nonya trading family for several hundred years - it is still owned by the same family but they are no longer resident. The Baba-Nonya is the name given to the inter racial group that resulted from Chinese men marrying Malay women in the 18th Century. Baba is the term used for the man and Nonya for the woman. This house museum is packed full of late 19th and early 20th century furniture, silver, paintings, silk wall hangings, a gramophone, bottles of vintage brandy from the turn of the 20th century that have never been opened. The family collected furniture and art from Western Europe - particularly from Britain and Itlay. The whole place has both an oriental but very western colonial feel. The guided tour of the house is well worth the 4 ringits (80 pence) entrance fee. If you're the type of person that enjoys stately homes etc then this is a real gem and a must see.
Virtually right next door there is a shop that actually looks like a museum full of art, antiques and craft products for sale. Chinatowns narrow streets and back alleys are full of antique shops selling predominantly art deco and colonial antiques - the biggest grandfather clock I've ever seen was in one with a sold sticker on it! A 1930's rickshaw was for sale in another, a vintage bicycle in perfect condition in another. If this stuff is as genuine as it looks you may have trouble getting it out of the country as most SE Asian countries are trying to stop the national heritage being sold off abroad.
The rest of the Town is not much to shout about. There has been a lot of development here and reclaiming of land. the old esplanade has gone and an ugly shopping Mall built on the reclaimed land. The mall itself has all the trappings of modern western style consumerism, complete with McDonalds and KFC. The river is still technically tidal but it has been partly canalised and locks have been built to control the ebb and flow to stop potential flooding. A mini version of the London Eye has also been built but was closed and later I learned that it had gone bankrupt after only 9 months! Next to it a lot of new hotel buildings stand empty and have never been occupied as the reclaimed land they are built on is unstable thanks to the job not being done properly and the land not being allowed to settle - apparently making a quick profit was more important than a job well done. There are also suspicions amongst some locals I spoke to that some of the developments receiving development funding are built at 'inflated' costs and the excess ending up in someones back pocket - that would explain a lot of the otherwise uneccessary or obviously non profitable deveopments here e.g. the Eye on Malaysia - it doesn't take a genius to see that what made the London Eye successful was that the view was spectacular once you got up there - in Malacca all you are likely to see are cargo ships and dredgers in the Straits of Malacca and a town with only a couple of notable landmarks like the Stadhuys and the replica Portuguese ship museum.
The food here was pretty average and the much touted local Baba-Nonya cuisine struck me as a rather bland version of chinese cooking.
Without a doubt though the best thing I did here was go on the bicycle tour recommended by Lonely Planet. It isn't a tour of Malacca Town at all but a 4 hour bike ride through the small villages and plantations about 30 minutes inland. The guide whose name was Alias (pron Al I As) was great - he is a local who decided to set up his guided bike tour business after he was made redundant by a western company in Singapore during the Asian financial crisis 10 years ago - simliar to my own situation. He knows all about every tree and plant, village, history, economy of the local plantations of rubber and palm oil. Before I did thgis bike ride there was only one place I wanted to retire, now there are 2 on my list! West Coast of Corfu away from the tourists in case you were wondering. The plantations and the jungle are serene, the loacls grow a lot of fruit and rubber - I even got to see how it is 'cut' and collected. The local small time producers cut every other day and maybe produce 15kg of raw rubber - smells awful just like Copydex glue. They then sell it to the chinese middle men who currently give them 4.5 ringits a kilo (90 pence) - when times are hard the income from rubber has put food on many tables in the villages around here and some rubber trees are still retained even though Palm Oil is currently worth a lot more. Fruits that are grown include pineaaples, mago, papaya, passion fruit, dragon fruit, strawberries, also curry leaves, lemongrass, aloe vera, citronella - it's not uncommon for one household to grow all of these and have rubber and palm oil trees as well!

After a week here it was a tough decision whether to go to Sabah or Pukao Pangkor - either way I had been put off Penang well and truly - sounds too much like Ibiza at it's worst! Pangkor for 2 weeks of brilliant sunshine, peace and quiet, and a suntan on a deserted beach before I return to the UK and try and get a job.

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