{"id":81,"date":"2005-12-25T18:25:58","date_gmt":"2005-12-25T16:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yachtquovadis.com\/?p=81"},"modified":"2009-09-28T19:55:40","modified_gmt":"2009-09-28T17:55:40","slug":"melaka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yachtquovadis.com\/?p=81","title":{"rendered":"Melaka"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Melaka, previously known as Molucca, is a town with history…It is a 90 km taxi ride down the coast from Port Dickson. Our first visit was only for the day, but as we hadn’t done it justice; we went again overnight.<\/p>\n

Prior to the 1300s, Melaka was only a small fishing village there, but then it developed as a Hindu prince saw it’s strategic importance as a staging port halfway between China and India on the spice route.<\/p>\n

During the early 1400s the Chinese arrived in large numbers and stayed, but there were always Arab and Indian Muslim traders passing through.<\/p>\n

The Portuguese arrived in 1509, at first they were driven away, but returned 2 years later and over-ran the city setting it up as a fortress, discouraging other traders. The town declined until the Dutch arrived, expanding their territory from Indonesia and they took it over after a siege in 1641.<\/p>\n

The Dutch redeveloped it as a trading centre and stayed 150 years.<\/p>\n

However, as part of an exchange deal, the British took over in the early 1800s and with the influence of Stamford Raffles, Melaka (along with Penang and Singapore) became one of the ‘Straits Settlement’. It was the smallest however, and slowly declined, but as a result, unlike Singapore where all the old has been destroyed to make way for the new, Melaka still has many of it’s historic buildings standing.<\/p>\n

More recently as a result of a restoration programme the town centre has become an important tourist destination and the whole city is growing once more. The extent of the restoration has caused some controversy among local people; as being too much too quickly, spoiling their little town, but it has worked.<\/p>\n

Melaka is popular for it’s culture, history and probably most importantly, it has wonderful food!<\/p>\n

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The centre of town is still the Town Square where there is the Stadthuys, the old Dutch Town Hall built in the 1600s with the adjacent clock tower and Christ Church.<\/p>\n

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It’s also the invariable first stop for tourists, they are quickly met by very persistent drivers hawking escorted town tours in their highly decorated trishaws.<\/p>\n

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The greater the embellishment, the better the ride? -not from what we saw…passengers often ended up pushing those trishaws decked with sound systems, chrome and flowers!<\/p>\n

Staying around the square for any time can be patience testing…
\nThere’s a very good museum in the Stadthuys well worth a look around, but after a good dose of history and culture it’s time for a little something…<\/p>\n

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Over the Melaka River is the main Chinese part of the old town<\/p>\n

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with Jo and Dennis, we set off looking for food, -but in different directions?
\nBut it’s not difficult to find there are good food outlets everywhere, the problem is which one to choose.
\nTo us the most interesting was the Peranakan (or Baba-Nonya) food and we couldn’t go past Nancy’s Kitchen, -on more than one occasion!
\nNonya food is that which has developed as a merging of the Chinese and Malaysian cultures, spicy, lots of vegetables seafood and pungent shrimp paste flavouring.<\/p>\n

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Chinatown is full of little Chinese shops,<\/p>\n

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the obvious Chinese touch,<\/p>\n

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and I just love those Chinese doorways…<\/p>\n

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There’s the grand Cheng Hoon Temple, built in 1646 it is supposedly the oldest still standing in the country.<\/p>\n

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But Chinatown’s not exclusively for the Chinese as there is the Kampung Kling mosque. It’s in total contrast to the Chinese as it’s so plain; but also said to be among the oldest in the country.<\/p>\n

Next page \ud83d\ude42 <\/p>\n

However, the most interesting culture in this part of Melaka is the Baba-Nonya, the title doesn’t refer to the fusion of Malay and Chinese food only, it was a whole way of life that developed in the Straits as the wealthy Chinese bred with local Malays.
\nAs there was plenty of money there was an extravagant Baba-Nonya dress style, art and dance, and they built large houses.<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong>Some were clearly overstated, like this Chee Mansion, but mostly they were multi-storied with a comparatively modest, but decorated street frontage,<\/p>\n

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the house extending a long way back from the street to become deceptively large.<\/p>\n

As in the hotel where we stayed, the house was typically built around a small courtyard,<\/p>\n

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unroofed and with the upper rooms opening onto it. It’s a place for a few plants and is a delightfully quiet bit of the outdoors inside the home.<\/p>\n

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Some of these old homes have been converted as this was to hotels, but one of the best preserved is now the Baba-Nonya Heritage Museum and well worth visiting to see the best and richest of the old style.<\/p>\n

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There’s a mix of Chinese and European furniture styles, mostly ornate with a lot of mother-of-pearl inlay and displays of ceramics and tileworks.<\/p>\n

Other restored Baba-Nonya houses are now shops selling ‘antiques’.<\/p>\n

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and this one extends right through to the stables out the back.<\/p>\n

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Cool and relaxed, they’re more like galleries. There’s little pressure to buy and adjacent shops openly display identical antique items; there’s no pretending that they’re not modern reproductions,<\/p>\n

Next page \ud83d\ude42 <\/p>\n

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A little walk away from the town centre is the Bukit China. In the mid 1400s a Ming emperor’s daughter was brought in to marry a sultan, she brought 500 handmaidens with her, they set up residence on this hill. It became a Chinese cemetery.<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong>Although there are still many of the old circular (womb-shaped?) graves remaining, it’s now largely unused for such and has decayed but it’s become a nice open park in town.<\/p>\n

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Back in the main tourist area at the base of St Pauls Hill is the A’Famosa Gateway, the one remaining entrance to the old Portuguese fort built in 1511.<\/p>\n

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Nearby is a replica of the old Sultan’s Palace, and on top of St Paul’s Hill<\/p>\n

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is the ruined St Paul’s Church, also built by the Portuguese<\/p>\n

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Now it’s open to the elements but there are many very old headstones lining its walls.<\/p>\n

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The old port is down on the river, ferry boats still leave there to go to the nearby Water Islands and Indonesia. On dry land nearby though is a large wooden replica of the Portuguese ship Flora de la Mar which houses the Maritime Museum full of historical relics and re-creations.<\/p>\n

At night the town centre is lit<\/p>\n

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and the tourist business continues.<\/p>\n

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But on Saturdays Jonker’s Street in Chinatown becomes Jonker’s Walk and the whole town seems to crowd into it.<\/p>\n

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The street becomes a night market.<\/p>\n

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It’s colourful, busy, with entertainment and a lot of junk for sale, but most importantly, in Melaka there’s excellent food!<\/p>\n

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<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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