Going Dutch...And Portuguese, And Chinese, And Malaysian

6 October 2009

Melaka's quite a contrast to KL--colonial and laid back and very low-rise. The food is Portuguese and Malaysian and Chinese, though the beer remains stupid expensive. Drinks at the Geographer, trying hard to be an FCC-sort of place with fans and palms...dinner last night at a Portuguese/Malay place, really nice calimari and something called chicken diablo. Lunch at the 1511 Cafe, in an old Chinese house set with beautiful art nouveau tiles, also beautiful mee goreng and laksa.

We're staying in Chinatown, the main street of which is called Jonker Street--the Dutch were here for like 125 years, and left their mark in names and buildings, as well as the odd decorative windmill. The Stadthuys is bright red and creates the (poor) illusion that you're in a 17th century Dutch village...next door is Christ Church, also bright red. Chinatown itself is full of antique shops and tat shops and Chinese tourists...apparently it's a big place for weekend trips. The city is located on the Melaka River--boat tour up and back, highlight of which was the enormous water lizard swimming evilly along next to the boat. Personally, I believe the only good lizard is a handbag.

   

We've been through the gamut of museums...the rebuilt Flor del Mar for example, a Portuguese galleon that sank trying to get back to Europe with ill-gotten booty aboard...this is the sort of museum that puts it down to the Will of God. And also has animatronic sailors. Awesome. The rebuilt Sultan's Palace (I suspect they got a bulk rate on the mannequins, all of which look like underwear models from Wisconsin) with examples of the many nationalities who traded in the Port of Melaka before the nasty Europeans got here. I'm sure the centuries of ongoing issues between Thailand and Malaysia had nothing to do with the fact that all the nationalities are pretty dignified (in an underwear-model sort of way) except for the Thai ones, who are grinning like lunatics one chopstick short of a set.

Then on to the Museum of Enduring Beauty--the aircon was down, so we sweated our way through six rooms stuffed with images of the bizarre things people do to themselves to be pretty...tattoos, neck rings, lip rings, ear stretching, scarification, teeth (ick) filing. No clue why this place is here, but it was certainly entertaining. David would like to say that he thought it the crappest museum ever.

The Chinese part of town includes the ubiquitous clan temples...David had a little fight with a ceramic tiger at one last night. Lanterns, painted fronts, a beautiful mix of western and eastern.

Tonight off to Capital Satay, which is either an institution or just really good at marketing. There was a queue outside, metal tables inside with boiling pots of peanut sauce to dip your raw meats, your unidentifiable vegetables, your gigantic prawns. Shared a table with two girls teaching English in China who had some great stories about boys who call themselves Rachel and Honey. Apparently all of the Chinese are a bit strange, not just the ones we've met.

Staying at the Hotel Puri, which is boutique and beautiful and has wifi in the rooms. There's a courtyard with flowers and tiled floors and a garden cafe. It was a Chinese family house once upon the 1920s. This afternoon we trekked up Bukit St Paul, where the Portuguese established their church inside the fort they built after crushing the local sultans. It's a ruin now, with fantastic Dutch gravestones propped up inside, and views out over the Straits of Melacca...all very romantic and tragic. The hill is full of ruined bits of wall and gates and fortress-y things. There's a crumbly cemetary, with things like a tomb holding seven members of one British family who died within three weeks of each other in1856. It's a lovely place, so many themes running though such a little city. Death, the Chinese, souvenirs, satay, windmills, religion, rivers, Indians, sultans, spas, colonialism, nationalism, pedicabs playing old dance music. Worth a few days.