South to Melaka, Malaysia

Dear Friends and Family,

Melaka fun centers around UNESCO World Heritage protected Jonker street, a Chinatown filled with shops, food stalls and goings-on, geared towards Malaysian Chinese tourists. Though there are Indian and Malay venues nearby, the area is mostly attractive to Chinese tourists. They come in droves to buy and browse, take photos, and ride gaudy flowered trishaws blaring English and Chinese pop music. It’s a real carnival atmosphere, centered around the British clock tower, Queen Victoria fountain, a Dutch windmill, and the Melaka river cruise. We sampled durian ice-cream (blech!), biscuits from the oldest Chinese biscuit shop, established in 1856, teas, licorice and coconut candies, and several unknown “goodies.” We took a lovely river cruise. Some of the buildings we saw date back to the 16th century. Melaka has done a great job refurbishing historic buildings, painting multi-cultural murals, and landscaping. Our skipper pointed out a couple of gigantic monitor lizards, basking in the sun along the bank of the river. They were 3-4ft long. At first, we thought they were Caiman crocodiles! 🤣

We spent some time at the Maritime museum. This served as an import/export house for more than 100 years. We saw confiscated illegal goods on display. These included guns, swords, drugs, porn (even a copy of Playboy magazine!), animal skins, ivory tusks, cigarettes and tobacco. The surprise items included clothing imprinted with words from the Koran holy book and wooden carvings of nude women. These are considered “indecent” in the conservative Malay culture. The carvings were “clothed” to hide otherwise exposed breasts. We learned about the thriving opium trade, and how it was later eliminated. An airport sign with a noose and the words “bringing drugs into Malaysia is punishable by death.” 👀

We spent two nights near Jonker walk and one night near the modern town center. The town center has broad streets and sidewalks and more upscale hotels. It also has lots of massage parlors and Chinese medicine venues. Melaka offers a lot of Indian and Malay food. We stayed away from those spicier cuisines and enjoyed Chinese favorites like BBQ pork and wonton soup.

Melaka is much cleaner and more commercial than Penang’s Georgetown and attracts a richer crowd. The restaurants and infrastructure are more like the U.S. Cheap public transportation is not so easily available. We needed pricier taxi service twice. It took us five hours to bus back to KL from Melaka. It should have taken 3 hours or less. We found the heat and humidity of Malaysia oppressive, but we’re really lucky we avoided all stormy weather the U.S. has been experiencing over the past two weeks. You can’t drink or even brush your teeth with tap water in Southeast Asia. You drink bottled water or boil water in your hotel room kettle to kill the bacteria. So far, on this trip, we’ve stayed healthy. Our hotel rooms have been quiet and the beds have been firm and comfortable. We’ve been spoiled with beautiful swimming pools and gyms. The food has been great. Tomorrow night, and for the next few nights, we’ll encounter rainy weather when we travel through northern Taiwan. We’ll blog from there next week. We hope you are all doing well.

Love, BnL

Author: bnlmos

We are a retired couple, together nearly 35 years, who love International travel. Having a "blog" is brand new to us, so have patience as we do our best to keep in touch with our friends and family. Please feel free to comment on this blog or contact us via personal email. brucemos@hotmail.com View all posts by bnlmos