We left this afternoon for the airport in Johor Bahru.  During the ride it started pouring rain.  As the lightening flashed, I watched passengers rush on board, sloshing out of the rain.  Water dripped from their clothes and umbrella making a sea of puddles all over the bus.  Cars outside plowed through streams of water on the road, and I, thankfully still dry, listened to Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean being played over the radio as I took in my last glimpses of Malaysia.  For a while at least.

 

I usually like to do a wrap-up post at the end of each country just to summarize the place. But I’m not sure that’s necessary for here. I wrote a post during our first couple days here listing all the things that made me like this country so much. My KL post hopefully expressed that its one of my favorite cities in the whole world. Diving was amazing and I think you all know I like it now, especially our trip to Sipadan. KK was great. I even wrote a food post for Malaysia, because Malaysian cuisine is truly extraordinary. Everything I love about Malaysia was summed up in my first impressions post: the food, the people, the diversity, the culture, the easy-going atmosphere. Malaysia’s been a great country and definitely one that we’ll want to revisit in later in life.

 

thanks for the free wifi, little shop on the corner with the graffiti

Melaka is an old, historically important seaport slowly giving way to the new: large shopping complexes, air-conditioned theaters, Carrefour and Starbucks. 

The old gives way to the new.

So anyways, since I see that Matt has typed up a nice little history of the place, I will focus on my three favorites: browsing Chinatown, seeing a movie, and cendol. 

1.)    Browsing Chinatown.  Unfortunately, browsing was all I could do.  But what I really wanted was to buy a couple paintings from the City Art Gallery (just over the bridge into Chinatown).  There was a really great watercolor of food stalls at a night market, as well as others with scenes from local life.  Sadly, I don’t have the cash to spare for a painting of that caliber, much less to ship it home.  After parting with the paintings, we popped into a fun little antique store, which may or may not have been selling actual antiques, but nonetheless the selection was really fun and ranged from colorful tea sets to Buddha statues to brush paintings and everything in between.  I settled for a couple postcard replications of Chinese calendar adverts, since I have no desire to cart around a tea set for the next four months, no matter how pretty it looks.  Outside of the shop, on a mellow backstreet, I enjoyed another form of pottery—tiles.  They made for a cheery addition to the rows of old houses.

2.)    Seeing a movie.  27 Dresses.  So the ending was pretty cheesy, but overall I liked it, and a chick flick in a proper theater was a nice change from watching movies like Die Hard during long bus rides.

3.)    Cendol.  Iced desserts in general are just lovely and refreshing.  For anyone who’s ever had a popsicle on a hot day, this needs no explanation except that cendol and other iced desserts are 10 times better.

Our last few days in Malaysia have been spent here, in Melaka. After two weeks of continuous travel, we decided to just relax here for a few days. It’s a good place to unwind too- its small mellow town, but with enough history to keep it interesting. Our bus ride into town told us a lot right off the bat. We drove south into town, through Little India, then through Chinatown, and finally dropped off in front of The Stadthuys- a Dutch cathedral, surrounded by British colonial buildings and a fountain dedicated to Queen Victoria. Like much of Malaysia, it’s an incredibly diverse place with perhaps the richest history in all of Malaysia.

Although small today, Melaka was once the center of a large trade empire and its importance drove many historical events. It first came into the European consciousness when Vasco de Gama reached India, in 1498, and discovered that the spices Europe was after didn’t come from India at all, but from even farther east, from a place called Melaka. You see, prior to de Gama’s voyage, Europeans got their spices from Arab traders, who got them from Indians, who got them from ports in present-day Malaysia, with Melaka being the largest. De Gama’s voyage was necessitated by the fact that Arabs controlled the trade route between India and Europe. But once de Gama found a “direct” route to India, this all changed. Attempting to by-pass the Arabs and Indians, the Portuguese set out to trade directly with Melaka. In typical colonial style, they took Goa is 1510 and attacked Melaka in 1511 and held it (although under constant attack and rebellion) for 130 years. The Reformation changed all this, as the Dutch declared themselves Protestants. Besides all the excommunicating that the Pope must have done, he also banned the Dutch from anchoring at the important port of Lisbon. Well, the Dutch said “to hell with Lisbon, we’ll go all the way to Melaka ourselves.” So in 1640, the Dutch East India Company teamed up with the Johor ascendancy (the monarchy that had been thrown out by the Portuguese) and lay siege to Melaka. It took five months, but by 1641 they had Melaka. They ran the city and port for another 150 years, until political and military circumstances forced them to hand it over to the British East India Company (which was actually a trade for parts of British-held Indonesia). Dutch circumstances, of course, never improved and neither did Melaka’s. The British established Singapore as their major port in the region, followed by Penang, and lastly Melaka. It was a long, slow death for a prominent port that once drove the spice trade. Another interesting sidenote that I learned at the museum: I forgot the name of the fellow, but a Malay Melakan was taken prisoner by the Portuguese to be sold as a slave in Goa. Along the way, he befriended Magellan, who bought his freedom and took him back to Portugal and then west on his famous circumnavigation of the globe. The story comes full circle as the man met Malay-speaking peoples in the southern Philippines, who confirmed that Melaka was west and thus confirming that the earth was round. Magellan didn’t get to enjoy the discovery too long as he was soon executed because he slept (or raped) a chief’s daughter in the southern Philippines. Melaka still sees a lot of maritime action though, as it overlooks the famous Straits of Malacca, one of the most pirated regions of the world. Oil tankers are frequent targets of Indonesian pirates who after the captains’ safes, which usually only hold around 50,000 USD. I guess we’re getting a tour of modern piracy, as the South China Sea, especially the Sulu Sea off Sipadan, is the most heavily pirated region of the world. Luckily, the Malaysian side has a strong military presence. Anyways, back to Melaka…

The legacy of the British is evident everywhere in Melaka. The great British Empire brought people from all over the world to Melaka. Although there were already traders from everywhere between Arabia and China in Melaka, the stability that came with British rule encouraged many more pilgrims, notably Indians and Chinese. The Chinese took over the Dutch parts of town, converting the Dutch-style homes and mansions into shophouses. This is why Melaka’s Chinatown is one of the most distinct and unique I have ever seen. The Chinese, Indians, and Europeans married into Malaysian families to a large extent, which is why Melaka is the center of these distinct mixed-race communities and cultures. Chinese-Malay men are called Babas, women Nyonya, Malay-Indians are called Chetties, and I forgot what Euro-Malays were called. Each of these cultures has a distinct cuisine too, the most available in Melaka being baba-nyonya cuisine. Besides the people and food, the British architecture is still pretty prevalent. Several cathedrals can be found around town, while the ruins of St. Paul’s cathedral overlook the city and ocean from a hilltop. In front of the roofless walls is a statue of the Catholic Saint Francis Xavier. If you’re a long-time reader, you may recall that we saw his body in Goa. For new readers, here’s the story: He died somewhere in South East Asia and his body was sent to Melaka for burial. Apparently his body did not decay in the nine months that he was being transported to Melaka. Several years later, in order to canonize him, the Vatican demanded his body excavated and ordered his right arm severed and sent to Rome for verification. Apparently his arm dripped blood when it was cut off. The arm went to Rome and for some reason (that I cannot remember) the rest of the body was sent to Goa, where it rests now (and is put on full display once every 10 years). Back to modern day Melaka, the funny thing about the statue is that it only has one arm.

these guys didn’t hit the bulls-eye everytime, but they did hit the color on the target they wanted to almost every time…scary! (part of Melaka’s cultural week festivities or something)

You can probably tell by now that we did a fair amount of sightseeing. We checked out a few museums (but skipped even more, like the philatelic museum, baba-nonya heritage museum, and Museum of Ethnography to name a few). But we did accomplish our goal of slowing down our pace a bit and relaxing for a few days. We saw 27 Dresses, which even I thought had its funny moments. We strolled through Chinatown a few times, as Joylani combed the antique and curio stores for interesting things, along with a couple excursions into Little India for some food. Melaka has been a good place to soak up our last days in Malaysia.

Once again we have a room with no window.  It’s always strange waking up without the morning light.  I need that reference.  Adding to the strangeness is that our ac unit sounds more like a swamp cooler with water running down the back (though I think it must be ac since its not really humid in our room at all) which pleasantly sounds like rain on a window.  Only we have no window.

The market here is amazing; it one of both of our favorites we’ve seen.  There are numerous kinds of interesting fruit and veggies, sea plants and a great seafood section (made all the more interesting after our recent Sipidan trip).  Spotted rays, squid, octopus, yellow fin tuna, parrot fish, and a few other things we saw under water, but have never seen in a market before.

The food stall section is equally wonderful—murtabak (peanut-filled pancake), cendol, and BBQ chicken and fish.  I don’t know what else to do here besides eat and pass through, but we had a good time doing both.  Well, maybe just eating.  Picture below: waiting for the rain to lighten up so we can cross the street and find a hotel.

I’m not really the food connoisseur that Joylani is, but I feel that the food in Malaysia is good enough to warrant a post even from me. I can confidently say that it’s the best food all trip. But first, lets review. European food was pretty bland and unexciting. Besides being pretty familiar to my American palate, its also cost-prohibitive. There were aspects that I enjoyed though. Who can argue with having a glass of red with every meal, in Italy and Greece. And I ate about 5 kebaps a day in Turkey. Indian food was generally pretty good. Good flavors and spices, cheap enough we could order whatever we wanted whenever, although we were also continually sick for a few months there. Everyone in Nepal eats dal bhat for every meal and while its okay sometimes and the ingredients vary a little from place to place, how can you get excited about the same dish at every meal? Thailand was a wonderful change after Nepal. Thai food isn’t my favorite, but there’s always something good available. I can stand eating pad thai, noodle soup, and barbequed meat at every meal. Plus, two 7-Elevens on every block helped quench our thirst and snacking needs. Lao pho is the best meal I’ve had all trip. When possible I always had some beef pho, sometimes 3-4 times a day. The baguettes were okay too. Not too many dishes, but my favorite dish so far. Cambodian food was okay. Not the most sanitary stuff, but there were a handful of dishes that were okay. Now, Malaysian food. Like Thailand, good food is always available. But your average dishes here are not just good, they’re great (like Frosted Flakes). Chicken or beef satay with peanut sauce beats pad thai any day. And a roti canai with a hot cup of teh tariq is equivalent to my favorite meal in India: Keralan parota and chai. Plus, there’s always Chinese pork buns or red/black bean buns to snack on. And the shaved ice deserts cendol and ABC are musts every post-meal. The only food I don’t really like is the Chinese food. I’ve realized on this trip that I don’t really like Chinese food, I like American Chinese food. Broccoli beef, various types of fried chicken meat, and other stir-fried dishes. But judging by Lao, Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia, Chinese food usually consists of rice or oily noodles with chicken or pig entrails- chicken gizzards and nasty pig parts are favorites here, although pig faces and unmentionable cow parts are favorites in mainland SEA. It seems to me, that Chinese food is basically prepared by chopping up an animal and throwing some random parts on a pile of rice. Hopefully, I’ll like the Chinese food in China better than SEA. While I’m on the subject, I’ll get all my gross food aversions out. Lao and Cambodia’s fertilized eggs were pretty grosso. Carts full of fried insects, spiders, and larvae all over the place in Thailand weren’t too appealing. Goat heads and buffalo hooves for sale at the butcher shops in Kathmandu weren’t too appetizing either. So I guess Chinese restaurants in Malaysia aren’t too bad, relatively speaking.