"Melaka"

Melaka, or Malacca, as some people prefer to write in English, is a smaller city than KL. Nevertheless, it stretches out over a much greater area than I had expected it to. When we arrived there after a good bus ride in a bus with only three seats on every row, we were on the main bus station in the outskirts of the city. The local bus, number 17 took us to the city center from the modern star shaped "Melaka Sentral". The city center is located by the river, with the old Dutch "Stadthuys" (City hall) as the first taste you get of this cozy city center. A short walk across one of the many small bridges took us into Chinatown. The sun was really strong, and the heat was about to break us, carrying all of our bags. If it had not been for the lower humidity and a small breeze from the ocean, I would have paid up for the first and hotel I could find. We walked up and down some streets, looking for a cheap place to stay, but there was not all that much to look at. There were a lot of hotels, but we did not want to dig that deep in our pockets. Walking down a nice and narrow street, I felt like checking one of the side streets. They are usually a bit cheaper, and as I headed down there I struck gold. It was a cozy little place Called Han Tang Inn, and among some monkeys painted on the wall, it said "Bed and breakfast". I started talking to the owners, and Matt, who was waiting out on the main street, did not know what was going on. He thought I had just stopped in some shop to ask for a good place to stay, and wondered why I was taking so long. The Tang house is run by the Tang family. They descend from China, but even the daily manager, and mom, was born and raised in Melaka. I negotiated a good deal, and ended up with a twin room with air-condition. Located at the corner of the building so that we could look out through our windows, admiring the calm and casual life that played out down on the street level. Including a decent breakfast we paid 40 RM. For us that was expensive, but for Melaka it was cheap. The place was by far the cleanest and nicest I have stayed in so far on this trip. Wooden floors, and free Wi-Fi were secure signs of luxury.

Melaka is one of those "walking-cities". To me, every city has been a walking city, but Melaka was made for it. As we came out on the street, checked a couple small stores to get a picture of the prices in this town, I ended up buying a necklace. I had been thinking about getting one ever since the night market in Luang Prabang in Laos, where I ended up regretting not to buy one. This place was the first I had seen since then, that I felt was worthy my business. The shopkeeper was an old cozy man, who had made a great effort at learning some English. His prices were listed, and they were reasonable. Constantly smiling, the old man was happy to show us how to use one of the spinning toys he had in his shop. He had put up a sign saying "One minute free demonstration to foreign tourists", and even if he knew we were not going to buy any, he did show us how it is done.

The rest of the city is in many ways just the same. Everywhere you have older people running shops. They are all smiling, asking where you are from and looking up in the air as they try to place your country on a virtual world map. Unlike salesmen in Bangkok and the Canary Islands, they don't ask just to figure out a price range for you, but they ask only out of personal interest, and to practice their

English. When talking to one old man, the ones from the neighboring shops are soon to join in.

The funniest thing about it all is that they never try to sell us anything, and they are all so happy we are there.

Business mentality here in Melaka reminds me a lot about Laos. I am sure that people in Laos who are not severely poor share this quite unique, relaxed way of doing business. In many shops in and around Melaka, they have posted the business hours. However, they all tend to close up their shops between half an hour and one hour before posted closing time. Even if you walk up to a shop that is closing an hour early, and ask to buy something, you might end up being turned down. Not impolitely, but you just realize that these people have got it. They understand that life is more than doing business, and they will rather go home for dinner today, than to make sure they will have dinner next week. The contrast to Koshan Road in Bangkok could not have been greater.

When we left KL, we were not sure how long we waned to stay in Melaka. But before we even found the place to stay, we knew we would stay at least two nights. This gave us two full days to explore, so we did. After doing some laps around the river, we had a look at the town square. Around it we found the old city center with the Stadthuys, the old churches, the old mill wheel in the river, the replica of a Portuguese sailboat from the 1500's, and the "Eye of Malaysia", not unlike "London Eye".

For lunch we had some great food in a very cozy Chinese restaurant. Despite being on the main tourist street of Chinatown, it was relatively cheap. I had a Chicken curry noodles, and some fish balls. The fish balls were very good, and I went back to have them again several times. They were served with a special mix of sauces. One sauce reminded me about a slightly spicy sweet & sour, and the other was closer to soy sauce. They mixed these two together, and put a lot of grind peanuts in it. While enjoying the taste of one fish ball, I would roll the next one around in the sauce, using the chopsticks. I really enjoy eating with chopsticks, so it was good to be out of Thailand, where chopsticks are rather unusual. South of Bangkok that is, anyway.

Sitting down under a large umbrella at a small café along the river, enjoying a cold beer, is the best thing to do in such heat. Just sitting there, watching the random people who would walk by every once in a while, and waving to the tourist boats going by, made us realize how lucky we are. We are out in the world, just relaxing and enjoying life. Every day.

One time we decided to go for a walk through some residential areas, trying to find a shortcut to the ocean. As we walked along a quite polluted and dry channel, I saw a bunch of fruits in the trees. They were quite small, but the shape reminded me about mango. There was no way out of it; I had to figure out if it actually was mango. In the Thai jungle, I asked our guide Beer whether or not we would be able to find mangos in the jungle. He said it was not season for mangos yet, but that he often did eat them out there around May. In Melaka I reached up and picked one of the green fruits down. As I broke it off from the branch, some liquid came out, and I recognized the smell instantly. It was mango. The fruit was really hard, but I wanted to taste it. I thought it would be very sour, but as I started peeling it with my teeth, I did not feel too much of a sour or bitter taste. As I pulled off more and more of the skin, I started biting off pieces, further and further into the mango. As always, the mango is the most ripe around the seed, and this was also true for this one. I ate the whole thing, and enjoyed it a lot. Mangos you pick yourself do definitely taste better than the ones you buy in Norway.

Down by the ocean there were people playing with kites, and children running around along the waterfront.

The next day we made similar walks in other parts of town, and we encountered a lot of different ways of living. Both when it came to standard of living, and open-mindedness. In the less well-off areas, the community mattered a lot, and large groups of kids were playing together. Some of the older kids invited me to play football with them, and despite the heat, there was no way that I could decline that offer. The surface was cement, the ball did not bounce, and the Malays did not play very organized, but it was a lot of fun. One time I made a really hard shot, I hit the crossbar and went straight at a window. Luckily it hit right bellow, so the window did not break it.

We also got in some time to work on our various business and personal projects. Since our room was air-conditioned it was pleasant to work there, and the Internet was relatively fast. There is really not much time for the personal projects, so that is why I am always lagging behind on the blog. (As I am finishing this post I am no longer in Malaysia, but in Hawaii!)

After a quick breakfast served by the Tang family, we headed to the bus, well rested and in good spirits. Weather we would stay one night in Johor Bahru, or go on to Singapore the same day, was still unclear.