Melaka, Malaysia (also written Malacca)

Saturday, April 12, 08
Up late, John and I start a walking tour around Melaka. We are staying at Chong Hoe Hotel. Doesn't sound like much, and it isn't. There are areas where lots of small food shops sell their specialty - 20 may occupy the space of a small store. Here we first stop for a coffee. Chinatown, where we are staying, is a tightly packed space of narrow streets where night-time brings out the small stalls on the street's edge. No cars are allowed, couldn't occupy the same space, and the vendors sell everything from old coins to small plastic windmills. Mostly junk! Melaka has an old history. The Portuguese were here in the 1400s, building St. Paul's Church on a small hill near the harbor in 1521. It is now only a shell, but interesting to walk through with old tomb stones propped against the outer walls. Also, with only the remnants remaining, is St. John's fort. They were followed by the Dutch and then the British. Christ Church, built by the Dutch with pink bricks brought from Zeeland in Holland and faced with local red laterite was constructed in 1753. Melaka's historical importance is trade. We stop for an early lunch and have a pancake topped with curry chicken. Oh, but it was good, don't let the curry scare you off. Walking around the wharf, looking out onto the Straits of Melaka, known for its pirates, we buy tickets into a replica of a Dutch trading ship. Back in the room, we wash out clothes and ask the receptionist if we can hang them on her line. Done, we return to the bar where, if you buy a drink, internet access if free. Melaka isn't much, now. But, in its day, it was one of the main stops for trade in the East - spices, sandalwood, resin, rubber, and lots more.
Tomorrow is a travel day. We don't have far to go. But, finding a bus which will take us to Gemas could possibly occupy the day. From Gemas we hope to board a slow train landing us, eventually, in Kota Bharu on the East side of Malaysia, near the Thai border.