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Published: September 12th 2006
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I was aiming for the landscape, but the bus turned a corner and I ended up catching this sign... Yesterday "Muar KL! Muar KL! Muar Muar KL KL! KL KL KL KL KL Muar Muar Muar KL!" - I'd have thought this was some incredibly strange birdcall if I couldn't see the small Muslim woman at Johor Bahru Bus Terminal screaming it outside the ticket offices.
The terminal comprised of a long row of ticket offices for competing bus companies, fronted with an extsenisive, noisy and busy coach park, most of which was drowned out by this woman, who must be KKKL's greates asset. The ticket to Malacca/Melaka/Melacca etc (depending on preference, it seems) cost the equivalent of just over 2 pounds, and the coach turned out to be very comfortable and plush.
Melaka is Malaysia's version of York: a small city with an extensive and colourful history that can keep a camera-wielding intellectual enthralled for ages... as long as they can accept the slightly cheesy tourist-based approach to city planning (this place has an entirely-faux "dutch quarter" with a real honest-to-Allah bona-fide fake Dutch windmill in the square... actually, it's worse than York).
Yesterday turned out particularly hot, and after checking into our guest house (a lovely miniature old chinese woman runs the place) we spent
A Chinese Temple in Melaka
They all look pretty much like this... the day mostly recconoitering the tourist area in preperation for a hard day's touristing the next day. It was very hot (even by local standards, I think), so we spent quite alot of time in cafes drinking iced lemon tea.
More temples in chinatown. The Chinese one was nice, though unfortunately not very photographable, as there were a lot of bright electic lights haning from the ceiling, and glass fronts to displays reflecting ligth from the doorway. We coudln't visit the mosque, as Jen would have needed to cover her head and shuolders with a sarong and we didn't have one, but the best was the Hindu temple.
As we carefully walked the tightrope between traffic and deep, deep gutter (my biggest problem with Melaka are these storm-drains gutters lining the street right where the pavement should be, and get clogged with all sorts of you-can-guess-what, not to mention breeding multitudes of small biters) along the street towards the gaudy, Turquoise-fronted temple, we could hear strange music from within. We came up to the entrance, and peering in, we found ourselves witnessing a worship-ritual. Two people were playing, one on an atonal droning pipe instument, and the other
A Kite On Display in a Melakan Museum
Free Mars Bar to the first person to tell me who this reminds me of...? with a double-ended drum (sorry Joss, no idea what type). There must have been about 6 worshippers watching the priest and his aide, in front of a statue of Ganesh (the elephant god). The drummer beckoned us in, so we took off our shes and sat closs legged, listening to the enchanting music as the priest washed ganesh repeatedly in water, passing a flame in front of him between washes. Then he bathed Ganesh in sacred ash, washing him in water afterwards, then in some kind of orange gunge that might have been butter ghee, washing his again, always ensuring that his eyes were clear. After the ritual, the priest passed the flame arount the worshippers, who passed their hands through it. His aide came to the back and anointed us with sacred ash, blessing us. I was absolutely speechless. I can see why pretentious westerners try to convert to Hinduism, now. So powerful! Hopefully the priest's blessing will carry the weight of Ganesh's particular speciality, which (according to Jen, who is a relative fountain of knowledge on all things religious) involve removing or overcoming obstacles.
We weren't sure how long to leave the ash there, or if it
Those Accursed Melakan Gutters
Where am I supposed to walk here? was rude to rub it off, so we continued to explore with white marks on our forehead for a bit longer, feeling a little silly and pretentious when other travellers saw us, until we decided it was time to wipe it away.
Today It seems every second building in Melaka is another museum. Still, loads of samller ones means that at least you pay a small entry fee for small museums you're interested in rather than a big one for a big museum that you're interested in bits of, but might not manage all of the interesting bits before you want to take a break from knowledge absorbance.
Sorry if that made no sense...
Started with a trip to a replica palace of the old Sultans who ruled the Melakan Empire in the 1400's for a couple of hundred years or so. They had loads of different palaces, and they were all made out of wood. From the palace list in this palace-museum, the ones that didn't decay tended to burn down whenever someone tried to invade.
Then there was another museum with a rather interesting and diverse selection of subjects. Ground floor was 1/3 recent civic planning in Melaka (boring, but air conditioning goes a long way, so we took our time in there). Included several farmyard animal photos, including one of a very happy lookig local sticking an anal thermometer into a sheep. Next bit was about a game called Gasing, like boules with spinning tops, that looks fun but I have no idea how to play. Another floor was devoted to kites of the world, and the top was called "enduring beauty" and covered mutilation-for-beauty practices like tatooing, scarring, bodices and much, much worse.
Running out of time again, so here's an abrupt end to the entry... sorry!
Sam
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helen
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great to read your full blog. Keep it up, we are keen to hear all about it. Being on holiday for 6 months might not be so stressful after all eh?