Advertisement
23 June 2006
Great big shite KL to wonderful little Malacca
I started the day by watching Italy get a penalty in the 95th minute of the game. What a way to start the day. I slept for about five hours and was up at 9am for a chat with Azmi.
Azmi, according to him, is a Malaysian born New Zealander whose father retired there after serving as military attaché to Wellington. Azmi also let on that he was given an 80 foot yacht as a retirement present by the Indonesian government.
Azmi, apparently, was a commercial diver for a time before setting up an adventure tour company in New Zealand and now has over a hundred employees working for his dive operation, hotel, white water rafting, trekking, abseiling, and rock climbing businesses. Or so he says.
He forwarded an email to Alex and me confirming a diving start date of July 1 and pay of about $500 per day, plus meals, accommodation, and dive equipment. Great! All sorted.
I wasn’t 100%!s(MISSING)ure about the deal: you should be able to get Filipinos or locals Malays for far less than that. One or two things he said
and did sounded a bit unlikely, such as staying in a backpacker hotel when he’s a millionaire or paying his dive masters NZD60,000 a year and instructors NZD 110,000 (USD70,000). Considering that I was paid about USD 6,500 per year as an instructor in Vietnam, the figures seemed a little on the high side, even factoring in the cost of living differential. But he bought us dinner and drinks, spoke to his friend in Labuan, and had nothing to gain by lying to us, so I kicked myself under the table and tried to bury my cynicism.
After our chat, Sarah and I headed to the bus station and then to Malacca.
Six hours on a very cheap, very comfortable bus later we arrived in the old Portuguese town of Malacca. Sarah chose us a guesthouse in the centre of Chinatown, which was also the centre of old Malacca. The guesthouse was old, breezy, friendly, and basic, and was run by a really cool Malaysian guy and his slightly deranged Swiss wife. They were a lot of fun to hang around with for a few minutes a day for two or three days. In fact, there was nothing
in Malacca that I didn’t like.
Malacca, and the Straits of Malacca, are famous for being the first European trading towns in the far east. The Portuguese founded the town over 500 years ago (about 300 years before the first fleet landed in Australia) and it thrived as a trading centre and colonial outpost during Portuguese, Dutch, and English colonial regimes. The legacy is a charming town boasting Portuguese and Dutch colonial styles, mixed in with Malaysian, Chinese, and Indian influences, with Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic and Sikh temples. I allowed Sarah to drag me through a Hindu temple (same as a Buddhist temple, but with more gods) and Sikh mosque temple thing, but the highlight of Malacca is the old world charm and the friendliest people I have met in Malaysia.
As soon as I arrived in Chinatown I knew I would be staying for more than the two nights I had planned. Simply walking down the street is relaxing. Sarah said it had a Portuguese feel to it, but having never been to Portugal (nor Brazil), I made my own comparison with a combination of Smith Street and SouthBank in Melbourne. Although we arrived too late to
see all the galleries (there must have been a hundred or more galleries, craft shoppes, private museums, and cafes within two hundred metres of our guesthouse), the night market started after our incredibly cheap dinner. For some reason I had expected Malaysia to be more expensive than Thailand, but food, accommodation and transport all seem cheaper.
We wandered up the hill to a 16th century church (which the English used as a munitions store), past 17th century government buildings painted the colour of an unhealthy bowel movement (one of the English governors didn’t like white and had a distasteful sense of humour), the Chinese Church, and a dozen or so trishaws covered in enough plastic flowers to decorate a sizeable karaoke bar and adjoining 100 room two star hotel. I still don’t know why they try to outdo each other, but it makes spotting a taxi rather easy.
We passed them again after sunset and several were lit up like Christmas trees, while one or two looked like something from the movie
Men in Black. Back in Chinatown, the night market was in full swing.
The night market sold a whole bunch of stuff that we had seen
A plastic florist
Yup, every one of these flowers in plastic. I guess the trishaw drivers have to get em from somewhere.in one or two craft shops, along with food and drink. I hate markets with a passion, and only dire need, money, or wild elephants would get me back to the weekend market in Bangkok, but this market was decidedly different. It was enjoyable, uncrowded, charming, and full friendly locals without a hint of aggression in their sales pitch. In fact, they didn’t have a sales pitch - they just smiled and chatted.
After an hour Sarah sensed me getting bored (glazed eyes, blank face, monosyllabic conversation etc) and we stopped to watch a karaoke competition. We were saved from it after ten minutes by the rain and made our way, inevitably I guess, me being Australian and Sarah being German, to the local pub for a well earned beer.
The first bar we went to was cheap and had great tables outside where we cold talk and drink in the enjoyable street ambience, until the live music started. To ensure that all the patrons suffered equally, the bar had huge speakers out the front to broadcast the ruckus to anyone trying to escape outside. We finished our beers in a hurry and crossed the road to escape
torture and continue our conversation. It was still loud in the new bar, but we could shout over the noise. Twenty minutes later the music stopped and a guy picked up a guitar and microphone in our bar. Oh well, can’t win ‘em all. But the beer was good.
That night Sarah became the first person I’ve traveled with in two years who didn’t mind my snoring. Perhaps because we weren’t sleeping together (I’m told I snore louder after sex). Maybe my snoring has improved since Perth, where I managed to empty a 20 bed dormitory in three nights, and, ironically, became the owners' favorite guest because all the other pikers left!
24 June 2006
Exploring Malacca
I was woken up at about 10am by the call to prayer from the local mosque (some mosques call all five prayer times on weekends) and the guesthouse dog howling along with the prayer. I’m sure Allah wouldn’t be impressed. I wasn’t!
We grabbed a latish breakfast (11am is late for some and early for others, I guess) at café 1511 (which will be celebrating its 500th birthday in five years) and headed out to the Chinese cemetery. This
This one was really spacy
I wouldn't recommend travelling through Malacca on mind-altering drugs! beautiful area of rolling hills, trees, grass, and old corpses was marked for development a few years ago, but the Chinese seemed to object to their ancestors being dug up and moved, or built on. I guess it’s a common problem in mainland China where about 20 million people die each year. That’s a lot of real estate!
The view from the hill was ok and we could see the straits of Malacca; otherwise the day was simply a pleasant walk up hills, down dale, and over dead people.
We caught a trishaw (cleverly disguised as a mobile florist) to the modern shopping centre which Sarah wanted to see. My eyes glazed over upon entering the front door, so I sent Sarah off and helped myself to a dollar’s worth of ice cream. I couldn’t finish it, but it did me for lunch.
We checked our email at an internet café and joined a couple of Swiss guys for a game of cards. That was the afternoon taken care of!
In the evening we went to an outdoor café to watch Germany beat some poor country at soccer.
The following day we spent looking at some
Tourist traps around Malacca.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.092s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 13; qc: 32; dbt: 0.0366s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
shaq
non-member comment
sorry
hi...just some points here. you should respect the local culture when you visit the place. if you don't like the sound of five times prayer, do not go to that place, no need to mock around with their culture. jesus won't be impressed with you!