Malaysia 2014 - Melacca

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Saturday morning we were excited to sleep in a bit.... we were leaving at 9am with our new driver as opposed to 6am which was recommended by our no-show driver. I actually liked our driver, who seemed enthusiastic to talk about his country. Jamie was not impressed. I felt bad for him. We had two other guys in the car - an old Aussie and a young indonesian - we were trying to figure out their relationship....

So, our driver lets us out in Melacca to enjoy the rest of the day, even though it was crazy busy for the Eid festivities. He had wanted to get us lunch, as part of the tour, but Jamie didn't want to deal with him and asked him for our money instead. Man, I really did feel bad for him! Lol. So, we walked down Jonker Street, which is basically this crazy busy street that leads to the Dutch Square, with shops and food stuffs and tons of people. We wanted to go to the tourist information center but it was closed until noon. Since we had about a half hour to kill, we decided to go to the tower. It lifts you 110m into the air so you can get a bird's eye view of the whole city. It was 20 ribatt and worth it I think. Melacca is a city that was settle first by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, English and Dutch again, not to mention the Malays and Indians. So, it is interesting to see the blend of cultures and architecture from above.

After that, guess where we had lunch - McDonald's. Honestly, I didn't complain. We then walked up the hill to St Paul's church, which was a church built by Portuguese explorers in the 16th century. It became a Protestant Church when the Dutch took over, then fell into disrepair in the ensuing centuries, before it was somewhat refurbished to become a tourist attraction. There were a lot of gravestones from around the 17th century scattered throughout the church, with nearby graveyards for parishioners.

After walking around the church and taking advantage of the amazing views, we went down to the Malacca Palace. Entry was only 2 ringgit so we went for it. The gardens were quite lovely, though I got bitten by a couple of pesky mosquitos. We had to take off our shoes to enter the palace, which was built above the ground level. There was a replica in a glass case that stated its construction, including that no nails were used. Maybe in the original version, but we definitely saw nails in the hardwood floors throughout the building. It was still pretty nice though. I was quite amazed at how cool the building remained despite the heat and amount of people. But it was dark, with plenty of breezeways and fans on the open ceiling, which allowed a cool flow downstairs. There were a lot of displays about the previous rulers; I didn't learn much about them however, except they were wise and noble and devoted muslims. Yeah - but what did they do? It was hard to get a sense of history.

Then we decided to get a ride in the tri-shaw, which is basically a bicycle with an extra wheel supporting a carriage. They were decorated insanely bright and happy, with most of them having hello kitty motifs. Many of them played songs on their iPods, with the majority of song heard being "Let it Go" from Frozen - how do these guys not go crazy!?!?! So what did we do? We hired one and demanded him to play Let it Go. To toy with us, he had a chipmunk-y version.

We walked back through the crazy part of town again, before meeting our driver and the rest of the group in the Dutch Square. The ride home was quiet, except for me yelling to coworkers who were still working on the same problem as the Wednesday before...

We got taken to the mall again where we got a crappy dinner at some noodle place - seriously it was awful. Then we did another Escape Room called The Cage - we were so close to the end! We asked the guy for 15 more minutes, which he gave to us and while we escaped in that time, we didn't correctly guess the murderer (hint - it was stupid). So much fun though!

Then it was time to go home and to bed after another wonderful day in a beautiful country!

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Photos

We finished The Cage, but not in time...
I think I was blamed for our second failure...

Palace Gardens
I really miss trees....