Historic Melaka

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Our bus ride from Pudu Raya station in KL to Melaka took roughly two hours. As soon as we arrived in Melaka, we hauled a cab to bring us to the center of the action: the history quarter. I’ve always heard about the City of Melaka, where the great Malay culture, which defines Malaysian and part of Indonesian cultures, started. Malay history was famous for its regional exploration and sea navigation achievement, just like Christopher Columbus of SE Asia. Most of the names started with “Hang”, so all these heroes named Hang Tuah, Hang Jebat, Hang Lekir, and some others I can't think of now.

We decided to ‘tourist-hopping’ Melaka, so the plan was to check out these tourist spots, quickly. We got off our taxi near the Porta de Santiago, or AFamosa, which was built in 1511 by the Portuguese. Most of the historical structures were built as a result of competition between Portuguese and Dutch explorers during the new world exploration.

I almost forget that we are in right within the tropical region. Sweat started to drip, as it was super hot and humid. With nothing to complain about, we embraced ourselves to climb up a hill to see the St. Paul’s Church ruin, overlooking Melaka. St. Francis Xavier was supposedly visited Melaka when he was in the region. Damn, someone beat me to reach this point!

We went down the hill to where a red house and church called Stadthuys, and by the name suggesting it, the square was built by Dutch. Many trishaw bicycles parked in the quarter, very decorative and colorful. We had a little time to check out the Chinatown before going back to the bus station to continue on our journey to Singapore.

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Photos

Porta de Santiago
Also known as "A Famosa"

An ornamental banana
Hot and humid: a habitat of banana.