Malacca, Melaka

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Sarah: Penultimate destination: Melaka (or Malacca, one is English one is Malay...potayto/potarto and all that, but also not quite penultimate if you count Princes Street as the final destination but I'm getting pedantic with myself and will continue with the blog). We arrived here on Tuesday afternoon and were soon installed in our latest guest house. Our host spent a good deal of time talking us through all of the local restaurants and cuisines that we should try, the focus being on the local Indian grub. He was keen to know if the curry here is tastier than the curry in the UK. Apparently a lot of our fellow countrymen prefer Malacca Indian curry to the curry in England. Being blessed with several good curry houses in Reading and making decent versions of the stuff ourselves, we would reserve judgement but promised to let him know.

However, after a few curry lunches further north in Malaysia we found that it's probably not the best choice for lunch if you want to stay awake for the rest of the afternoon and so we headed off to Chinatown to get some noodles down us. The walk in to town took us along the very pretty (if somewhat sewage-smelling) river (or canalised stretch thereof) where we met with the main street of Chinatown, Jonker Street. We found a little street-side noodle joint and soon had two plates of very tasty fried noodles in front of us. Mine were a new type of noodle that we hadn't tried before that looked like short fat worms, but this didn't spoil my enjoyment! We were back in super hot and sweaty-ville and so after a short walk to get our bearings we headed back to shower and cool down before heading out to explore Malacca's nighttime offerings. We stomached a beer next to the pungent canal and after a late lunch we found that by time we were looking for some dinner quite a few places were closing up. We did find an Indian near our place that we think the guy back at the guesthouse had recommended and it looked busy so we took our seats. Service didn't exactly come with a smile but the mutton murtabarak (pancakey goodness) and vegetable roti (stuffed bready goodness) were really delicious. I was a little bit unsure about the iced tea that was basically a sweet milky tea with ice in it, generally preferring the lemon variety with no milk but it did the job!

On Wednesday, armed with our map, we did a bit more exploring of Melaka. We took a bit more of a wander down the riverside and around the old town. We visited a church on a hill and saw some old walls of a fort that an Englishman tried to knock down in the olden days. There was a waterwheel and an old ship. It was really f**king hot and it took a lot to pique my interest I'm afraid. However, a little old lady serving bowls of wan tan mee (wontons with noodle soup) did cause my head to turn and we were soon sat filling our tummies with the stuff. After a bit more of a wander it was back to chill out, literally and metaphorically. That evening we met up with Beth and Eddie who we had met in Penang and in the Cameron Highlands who had been in KL while we were in Langkawi and had now joined us in Melaka. As became typical of our evenings out with them, time ran away with us and it was another late Indian murtabarak dinner, followed by a few more beers before bedtime.

We had decided to meet up with the guys the next day at an undecided time to try and get ourselves on a cooking class. By the time we got ourselves in gear the cooking class was looking less attractive. Lunch was needed and the cooking class was an hour or so away, it seemed expensive and enthusiasm was not at an all time high. Instead, all of us being pretty hungry we went to an Indian banana leaf restaurant (despite previous misgiving regarding curry for lunch). Here, they laid out a banana leaf in front of each of us, piled it high with rice and dhal, added little piles of veggies and poppadoms and then we each chose a curry to go on the side. It was really good and very filling but being very hungry, we all made a good showing of finishing what was in front of us. After lunch, walking very far was off the cards and so we hopped on the little river cruise for a 20 minute or so ride up the river. There was a speaker system with various titbits of historical information as well as plenty of praise for the local state government that seem to have a hand in everything that is good in Melaka. (Funnily enough they didn't mention the disused monorail that was built four years ago only to be closed following a serious accident...). One of the highlights of the boat trip was the large monitor lizards that were swimming in the canal - they were really big and on first sighting the previous day we had thought the one we saw was in difficulty - but seeing so many of them we realised they were quite at home in the canal! After some cold drinks we all retired from the heat for a rest back at our hostels. We met up with Beth and Eddie later for some fried noodles, accompanied by some wine, which we were all craving a bit, and followed by an early night!

On Friday, for wont of much else to do and to stay out of the heat for a bit, the four of us booked ourselves on the cooking class. It was only two hours long and so we assumed (correctly) that it wouldn't involve too much hard work on our part. We rattled through some typical Nyonya (a mix of Chinese and Malay cuisine) dishes, adding weighed out ingredients to various pans in groups of two. We started preparing dessert: a batter for some Nyonya pancakes that once cooked were like a cross between a scotch pancake and a crumpet that one could add banana to if one so desired. We then prepared two main dishes: a chicken, mushroom and potato stew flavoured with bean paste and palm sugar and a prawn and pineapple stew that was a little bit spicy with coconut milk. The Nyonya's like it sweet! Once everything was cooked we ate our wares, accompanied by some rice and veggies that were brought out from the kitchen.

After lunch we had a bit of a tramp around, seeing little of note, to help digest before once more retreating for some afternoon R&R to escape the heat. We reconvened at 6pm to experience Melaka's weekend night market. The main street was closed to traffic and stalls were lined up along the pavement. After a drink to whet our appetites we made our way to the top of the street to work our way through all the stalls. The stalls were a mix of food, clothes, electronics, tourist tat and sweet treats. First stop for us was the grilled meat stall where we selected some sausage and meat on a stick. Our evening grazing had begun! The next stall to tempt us was the little quail-eggs-on-a-stick stall. They are cooked in little half moon moulds and then skewered and you can choose your topping: black pepper mayo was the order of the day for us. A few more stalls along we picked up some fried dumplings to share, before calling in to a cafe for a pit stop. The second phase brought some 'radish cake' (no idea what it was, savoury something fried with soy sauce and egg, didn't taste much like the radish I know, but it was good!). For sweet treats we picked up some little fish shaped cakes/ doughnut things filled with custard. All feeling pretty stuffed we retired to a bar for some more wine, followed by a very late night...

Thus concludes our time in Malacca. It was good to catch up with Beth and Eddie one last time before they head off towards Australia. The food was good, our guesthouse was good, the weather was good in that it didn't rain on us, although it is definitely one of the hotter towns in Asia. Our host at the guesthouse did want constant feedback on which Indian restaurants we had eaten at and how they compared to England. We concluded on our last morning with him that they are about equal in our eyes (although the addition of murtabarak to English menus wouldn't go amiss), but for about £1.50 a pop for a big lunch and soft drink, Malaysian curry definitely wins on price! On Saturday morning we caught our bus to our final destination (or should that be penultimate?), Kuala Lumpur, which after not much sleep the night before was a breeze as we slept all the way to the bus station ready to start our last adventure.

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