Day 4. 16/4/19
Melaka
Catching the bus out of
Singapore was needlessly a faff and Chewy’s mum helped every step of the way.
She drove us to the bus station then worried thoroughly as the bus company
altered the pick-up point last minute and booked us a complimentary cab. As we left,
she handed us a pink envelope with Ringgit in to get us started in Malaysia,
which was far too kind. The plush silky envelope was prettily embroidered with red
flowers.
The bus ride to Melaka
was pleasant, a long journey with comfy seats and large ones at that. We had to
cross the border and I saw how the traffic leaving Singapore was flowing quickly,
while there was a traffic jam on the other side entering the country. They have
really strict laws in Singapore and rely on a lot of imports, so most of the
vehicles in the tailback were vans, lorries and cargo crates. I felt sorry for
the odd Honda Civic with a lone
passenger in it stuck in the sun-blasted queue.
Aidan encountered a
stranded singer of a band, who had a sorry tale about being left behind by a
bus and her musician partner in Johor. She’d had quite a day of it. Hungover
from a party the night before, now strapped for cash and running low on
battery, she had no idea where her belongings or bandmate were and needed to
get to Melaka to save her ill, incarcerated brother from his evil wife. I think
she needed to get a load off her chest and Aidan was a good listener.
We got to Melaka. It was
hot. I was already really sweaty the moment we stepped off the bus on to the busy
main road. We walked carrying our rucksacks through the centre of town, like a
couple of snails. Melaka has a central tourist spot with a replica of a Portuguese
Galleon and an ornate fountain for Queen Victoria; echoes of colonisation the
city has been through. It used to be the most important port town in the
Straits of Malacca (that bit of sea between Malaysia and Singapore, which
actually links the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, making it one of the most
lucrative trade routes), so everyone wanted a bit of Melaka. The sea, however,
is no longer near the city because of re-claimed land although the river still
runs through it.
We were passed by a line
of pimped out trishaws, which are hideous for the ears and abrasive for the
eyes decorated in flashy colours, toys, glitter; banging out bass-heavy, catchy
pop tunes like Gangnam Style or Baby Shark. Real tacky. We got to Omni Hostel
where we were staying and Yalu met us, the earnest, considerate hostel owner.
He gave us a photocopied map of local places then showed us to our neat little square
white room. It was perfect, with an en suite shower, which we never needed to
run hot water from because Melaka was so damn hot.
(Later that night we
would be an audience to a spectacle of a storm. Lightning criss-crossing the
sky, thunder that shuddered the walls and dragon-like streaks that clapped when
they hit the ground. So dramatic. The rain lashed down for ages – at least two
hours – the river looked swollen and buildings close by disappeared behind
rainwater. But we were both perfectly cool and dry inside our room, lying on
our backs watching it all happen through the window. It was fantastic, although
Yalu’s hostel suffered some leaks because of it.)
The first day was spent
walking around and stumbling on stuff. We stumbled on the Dutch cemetery.
[Colonisation history of Melaka goes Portuguese to Dutch to English] Then walked up a great big hill to St. Paul’s: the ruins of a
Portuguese church that the Dutch took over and used as a military store. Historically
there was also a Portuguese fortress built around the old town of Melaka called
La Famosa, but when the English East India Company ruled, they demolished it to
gain greater control over the city and to persuade its inhabitants to move to
Penang instead (a more favourable and strategic port for them.) I imagine La
Famosa would have looked rustic and grand walled around the dusty, hot city of
old Melaka.
Swallows dipped in and
out of St. Paul’s Church, a few stray cats ambled about and I caught a cooling
breeze on top of the hill from the relentless heat. We crossed the river and wandered
over to “China Town” otherwise known as Jonker Street, which is actually the
old name for it, but the new name is difficult to remember, it’s something like
Jalan Hang Jebat. In China Town there were temples mixed in with old colonial
style shopfronts, worn, flaking paintwork amidst brightly licked jobs. Cats
were sleeping in the shadows away from the heat and those annoying tuk-tuks
came past again, but the city is patently beautiful.
We found “Harmony Street”
where three religious buildings co-exist together on the same street: Buddhist,
Islam and Hindu. Aidan was most inspired by the mosque. The ablution pool was
serene with plastic scoops on the side to wash your hands and feet with. There were
ceramic tiles by made Dutch artists from the 18th century decorating
the steps and pillars of the mosque. The colour of the tiles and its copper
domed roof was light green, which gave it a watery quality. At night the few
bare lightbulbs that were working on the outer-side of the mosque shone bright
green like dusty gemstones.
We stumbled across a miniature
Chinese temple on the side of a road. It didn’t look like much but while we
were admiring its brash colours and basic swirling dragons, an old man rode up
in his ice-cream cone trike. He was a vendor and it was probably the end of his
working day. He bowed and made a prayer with his hands together at the shrine,
as we two tourists faced him, watching. It was resounding to see him in that
moment because I appreciated that these relics weren’t relics, they were being
used. I guess that’s also the “old Melaka” that travel blogs say is fast
disappearing.
There was another
appealing moment when one of those awful pimped out trishaws was driving
towards us down Harmony Street. As the driver passed the Hindu temple, he
switched off his shit banging music, to switch it back on again further up the
street. I can only assume he was doing it out of respect.
After enough wandering
and me whining for food we ended up at the Geographer’s Café. I had beef ho fun
that was so fresh and tasty, a clear broth soup with glass noodles and slices
of beef and leaves including my favourite summer time thing: bittergourd. Aidan
had yummy satay chicken on skewers with rice. There was a Mister Universe memorial
garden that we passed on the way home, which featured an enormous carved stone
statue of a muscle-man, next to a smaller statue of a deer and a cockerel. It
was sort of surprising to see, but there had been a Mister Universe from Melaka
in 1956 and it turns out Malaysians seem to do pretty well in the body-building field.
On the opposite side of the
riverbank from our hostel, there was a local family taking their pet tortoises
out for exercise and feeding. The largest tortoise, probably weighing in at
about 250 kg and generations old, plodded towards its owner who fed him spinach
leaves folded over to make a kind of dense spinach sandwich. The giant tortoise
snapped at her wads of spinach cleanly biting through it and munching. The middle-sized
tortoise ate loose stems of spinach scattered all around lovingly watched over
by children, and the littlest tortoise didn’t move at all and stood still on
the grassy patch. When the tortoise family left, the owner led the largest one
by clicking her fingers and the tortoise responded to her movements following her
slowly down the road. A child picked up the middle-sized tortoise by holding it
carefully under its soft belly, while the littlest tortoise was placed on a red
trolley with the leftover spinach and wheeled back home.
Day 5. 17/4/19
Melaka
The morning was great! We
went to Dim Sum Garden on the outskirts of town for breakfast, a twenty minute
walk over streets that were heating up steadily. I walked over cracked tarmac
with shoots of grass poking through, passed many a stray cat with spindly legs
and scrawny stomachs. Hungry cat eyes. All the jungle cats have stumpy bushy
tails and the most colourful eyes, yellow like shining gold or bright lively
turquoise.
Dim Sum Garden was
super. The staff showed us to a large round teak table and immediately offered up
many types of dumplings! Baskets with steaming little buns that looked like
jewels in clouds of mist were opened before for us and we pointed and picked out
which ones to devour. I also had conghee, a Chinese breakfast porridge with
crunchy onions sprinkled on top and a tasty rice gruel with coriander,
mushrooms and egg. Delicious. The prawn dumplings were my favourite, I gobbled
them up washing it down with my jasmine tea and was satisfied.
The proprietor looked
like a cool and friendly mama, stylishly dressed, watching over her restaurant
and her kid eating breakfast and playing on her iPhone at the table. So many
women look stylish and graceful in Melaka. They wear well-tailored clothes and
fitted drapery in different materials and colours that compliment each other.
Headscarves and shirts and flowing skirts, also brooches and hair pins. Beautifully
applied make-up, while I grossly sweat from all pores on my body and face, how
do they do it?
Going back through the
centre of town, we stepped in to a proper market where they were preparing food
for sale. A dude was cleanly de-scaling a fish with the back of his knife, the
slivers of fish-scale fell to the ground like sprinklings of snow. I saw a
basket on the ground filled with sooty black eggs. There was the animated smell
of raw meat. It was all happening. Outside people were selling cabbages and
stems and leaves and bowls of nuts, maybe? One dog was sleeping in the shade to
escape from the dire heat. So, we did the same and drank ice kopi (extremely
sweetened milky coffee) in a shop. The back of my legs trickled down with sweat
and my forearms and face were constantly moist.
The Sultanate’s Palace is
where we were heading but for a while, we couldn’t find its entrance. When we
finally did it was the hottest, most clammy part of the day, so I was ecstatic
to go inside this replica Sultanate’s Palace museum, made of dark wood with
barefoot entry. Yes, cooling planks, fans and a/c. There were panoramas and
mannequins of the legendary princes of Melaka. An epic tale of honour,
brotherhood and loyalty. A tale of a queen who gave herself up to protect her
country. Heroism, tragedy, dynasty. These were the themes of the ancient
culture here, when the sultan ruled in the 15th century.
Melaka’s origin story is
that Parameswara, a Javanese prince (who may also have been the last king of
Singapore) met a white deer fawn one day whilst out hunting. He ordered his
hunting dogs to get it and during the chase they reached the Melaka River, whence
the white deer fawn bucked with agility and kicked the king’s hunting dog in to
the river. Parameswara saw this and thought it was a good omen of tenacity and
fighting spirit; a tiny but mighty ideal, and so built Melaka here.
It was still too hot outside,
so I persuaded Aidan to stay put and play a game of mancala with me at the
museum, so we sat on a grass-mat while I whopped him at the counting-beans
strategy game. Then we ventured outside in to the blistering heat and A walked
around admiring the gardens, while I waited under the shade of a tree fighting off
mosquitoes.
To kill some time before
the Baba Nonya Museum opened after lunch, Aidan and I hopped on a Melaka rivercruise. It was a nice way to pass the time. Not very eventful as we rode on a
boat up the river one way, then back down again. On the return leg there was
some tour guide information spoken over the built-in speakers about various
architectural features of Melaka, street-art (nothing special, though there was
good graffiti of an orangutan) and it pointed to some Melaka trees on the
riverside, though I’m still not sure what they look like.
I infinitely preferred
the jangly music they played on the way up the river and watching the gaggle of
grandma/obaachan tourists in the boat, who were the best dressed people I’d
seen so far on the trip. They were making each other laugh and taking group
selfies. One obaachan wore a hot pink sun-visor with frills on it like a sea
anemone that matched her lipstick. Tinted shades, powdered skin, bleach-white
clothing, leopard print scarves, these were the ultimate grannies on tour.
In China Town there is
the Baba & Nonya heritage house, which is a family-run museum with
personalised descriptions of artefacts, all from the same Peranakan family
(half Hokkien and half Malay.) They owned a plantation and so were important
people, and Baba means the father of the house and Nonya refers to the woman. I
quite liked the Baba Nonya Museum because it was idiosyncratic. Interesting
labels telling personal stories of the family.
The bridal bed story was
vivid, where they would get a young boy with a compatible zodiac sign to the
newlyweds, to roll over the bed three times to ensure the nuptials went well
and the first-born child would be a son. Or, the superstition about the length
of time it takes for the wedding candles to burn down to their bases at the
newlyweds’ table, prophesying who will die first, although out of respect for
the couple the servants would snuff the candles at the same time.
The Baba Nonya house had
two enormous courtyards in the back letting all sunlight and rain pour in to
their parlour, which would neatly drain underground. There were colourfully
painted window shutters and cool to the touch stone masonry, wooden ornately
carved staircases, which did not use any nails because of the old superstition;
the only nail you’d ever want in your home is the nail in a coffin. Classic Baba Nonya homes had small fronts facing the street, but super large and
deep at the back. I also heard that the sea air used to rush in through the house
when it was built, showing how far the city had retreated from its shores.
We then ate a late lunch
of chicken rice balls, a Melaka speciality, at Hoe Kee. It was delicious and
really simple. Small round balls of rice steamed in a light chicken stock, served
with tender juicy chicken parts and slices of fresh cucumber. That’s it. Simple
flavours but a rich taste, sort of perfect for the hot weather conditions. We
returned to Omni Hostel and had a shower, then got a Grab (Malaysia’s answer to
Uber) to the Mosque by the Sea aka. Melaka Straits Mosque. A majestic
mosque built on stilts out in to the sea, so it looks like it’s floating –
pretty cool.
White and very simple, with stained glass windows running around the top of the building below the great bulbous domed roof. There were tour guides who were very interested in Aidan, asking him questions about Islam like, ‘Who is Mohammed?’ and ‘Did he write the Qur’an?’ Aidan answered scholarly like, ‘He was a prophet’ and ‘No, I think it was Allah’, and the tour guides were so impressed they asked to get a selfie with him. Whilst all this was going on, I had to go and get changed in to a robe so I was fully covered up. They provide you with a nice selection of hijabs at the mosque in synthetic silks and floral patterns.
We walked the mosque perimeter
over the lapping water, viewing the vast ocean in front of us and feeling the
cool breeze rush in through the wide open doors. I watched a bunch of school
boys in matching red and black sports kit, wearing their skull caps, facing the
same direction; praying, kneeling, kissing the floor together. I see why the
ablutions are so important now. There’s a guy out here on the mosque perimeter
taking a time-lapse of the setting sun. It’s becalming. More tourists arrive as
the sun sets and we make our journey plans for the next day, when we’ll be
heading to KL.
