Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Amy's travels
Greetings from Melaka,
We have been here for three days and it has been a real change of pace. The town is a very sleepy port (nothing opens until after about 10am and no-one is in any sort of rush to do anything) with lots of history.
On Wednesday we arrived at lunchtime and spent the afternoon walking round the old town. The town centre is very quaint with traditional 19th century Asian buildings and is very well preserved (it is applying to be a world heritage site). The streets are narrow and winding and a lot of the houses are decorated in the local 'baba-nonya' style with elaborate tiles and carved wooden doors and shutters. We walked up to the top of Bukit St Paul (St. Pauls' hill) which has a ruined Catholic church from the days of the Portuguese occupation. The view is amazing from the top, you can see the small town below you and the sea and habour.
The buildings in Melaka are a real mix of styles as it has been ocupied by the Portuguese, Dutch (hence the town square looking like a town in Holland) and British, as well as being a major trading centre so exposed to lots of other cultures. The town is packed with museums - ranging from the museum of 'ethnographi and literature' to the 'museum of enduring beauty' to the 'melaka stamp museum'! We haven't been in them all.....our favourite was the maritime museum as we got to clamber all over a replica Portuguese ship (I'm still a child at heart).
Yesterday we shopped in Chinatown and had a ride on a trishaw. I have been desperate to do this since I got here and selected the tackiest one I could find - all decked out with fake plastic flowers, fairy lights and playing classic tunes from the 60s. It was good fun but we did feel a bit guilty when the trishaw rider got off his bike to push us up part of a hill. We went to a bar last night by the river as they were offering free drinks for 'ladies night'. Seeing as each lady in the bar got three free drinks I can't imagine that they made much money but it was good fun.
Today we have been quite lazy and just wandered round. We got the bus to the nearby Portuguese settlement but sadly most of it has been destroyed by the new developments.
We head back to KL tomorrow, for four nights, then on to the Cameron Highlands on Wednesday.
I hope all is well at home,
love Amy x x x
- comments