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Published: April 13th 2006
Old church in Melaka
1753! Around this square was a clocktower aswell- the various Governors of Melaka used to recide nearby. There was a stone plaque in one of the walls nearby that was commemorating Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in the 1890s.Me and Jonny decided to head to Melaka an old colonial town of the British empire about 2 hours drive south from Kuala Lumpar, Bully and Will would catch us up the next day. We arrived at a really nice family run hostel called Melaka Town Lodge. It was approaching 6pm by the time we'd got checked in and chilled out for a while so we decided to leave all the sightseeing till the next day and go out for some food.
We ended up staying out all night long. Initially we thought the place looked like a ghost town, everywhere was closed! Eventually we stumbled upon a bar that was buzzing- It seemed that all of the people that worked at a Honda showroom were on a Work social, so they were all propping up the bar playing drinking games.
Being the only westerners in the places we went meant that we were a bit of magnet to the locals who were all very friendly and talkative- their English is extremely good. One guy was awesome at doing the Limbo, didn't want to risk it myself. One bloke was showing everyone his dance moves, much to my dissapointment
Model of A windmill
Showing their Dutch heritage Jonny didn't reciprocate- I would have loved the "Sprigens Shuffle" "The Lasso" "Watering the Plants" and of course the famed "Shoulder Dance" to have caught on in Malaysia! All in all a good night was had.
The next day we managed to drag ourselves out of bed and grab some breakfast at a nearby bakery. After brekkie we went to the square which had the clocktower and various remeninces of Melakas colonial past. Melaka was first colonised by the Portugese, then the dutch, then the British, it passed into Japanes hands during WW2 before winning its independence in 1957 (I think). Each country has left it's roots in Melaka, there are various Portugese eateries and as i've said before the most obvious trait left by the British is the English Language (and perhaps a bit of a drinking culture, if the previous night was anything to go by)
Melaka has loads of Museums, the woman who runs our guesthouse was telling us that a recent Govenor of Melaka had a crazy idea to get into the Guinness Book of Records by building 150 Museums in the city, they stalled after about 22 though! We went in the museum
How far?
I love signs like these, that say how far it is to certain places in the world. Notice how it has London and Lisbon on there because thy used to "be in charge" of Melaka at various times in it's past. which was next to the Governors House in colonial time. It was quite well presented, portraying the various ruling times of the Colonisers and how things differed. It also showed various aspects of Malay culture, in particular the wedding engagement and ceremony, which have a lot of customs and symbolism attached to them.
We were all "museumed out" after the first museum so we hit the idea of visiting the Maritime Museum (The one inside a ship Galleon) on the head and headed back to the hostel. On the way back I kept up my record of visiting every Shopping Mall I see, and had a bite to eat- Lasagne and Chips, mmmm.
Tommorow we head to Singapore before flying to Australia on Saturday.
Mike
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Divesy
non-member comment
Malaysian interest
Hey Mike, loving your work! Been reading this for a while, to get another side to Will's travelling adventure. There's a girl at my work from Malaysia, she was actually born in Melaka, so she's been really interested to read your thoughts about the place. Sounds like you're all having a great time... tell Will to step his blog up a notch, you've been putting him to shame! Divesy (one of E.C's mates that came to visit him up at Sheffield)