Malacca (Melaka)

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We said goodbye to Sabah and Borneo and flew back to KL - our Intrepid leader Felix arranged a taxi for us back to the airport (it was the same guy who took us to the Proboscis monkeys the day before!) Smooth flight back, we arrived at KLIA 2 (Air Asia terminal but much better than terminal 1) and picked up our bus tickets to Malacca. Its still not clear to me why the English spelling is more frequently used than the Malay 'Melaka' but I'll use the english spelling as its more common. Easy bus ride in and taxi to our hotel, we freshened up and walked around the historic city centre before retreating to a lovely rooftop bar of another hotel and had some drinks and dinner.

The next day we spent wandering around the local shopping centre and the city itself. In 1511, the Portuguese conquered Malacca and in the early 17th century the Dutch launched several attacks on the Portuguese rulers and in 1641 claimed victory. This is why the famous city centre has remenants of old Portuguese and Dutch buildings such as the Stadthuys (which was white back in the colonial era but later painted red), A'Formosa Portuguese fort, city church and of course what is more Dutch than a windmill and cows (totally not remnant of the colonial era!) We visited the ruins of the Church of St Paul and went into the city church. We walked around the river and onto the famous Jonker st. Unfortunately the night food markets were only on Fri, Sat and Sunday nights and we were leaving on Friday! We got some really good photos that day. For dinner we decided to try the local Peranaken or 'Nonya' food which is a blend of Chinese cooking techniques with Malay and Indian flavours. So a meld of all the flavours that make up Malaysia. Our Laksa's were delicious.

The next day we did much of the same but took it a bit easier. And we also visited the A'Formosa fort. In the evening we did a river cruise which was a lot of fun and way better at nighttime (also cooler). We found another Nonya food hotspot for dinner that night. Malacca was definitely one of the highlights of Malaysia (but there were so many highlights!) Sadly that was our last night in Malaysia - next stop Singapore 🇸🇬

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