Me and Mark go roadtripping Part 4

I like Melaka. I like its easy confidence in its culture and history and its informality. I like how the old fits in with the new and I like how you can just wander around for hours and make friends so easily. I like how you can find something for yourself, no matter if you’re looking for a drinking-hole tucked away in a corner or a more middle-class eatery by the river.

All this is on the menu in Melaka, sometimes despite the worst  efforts of politicians, cvil servants and planners. Like almost everywhere else in Malaysia, Melaka is not without fault - one of which would be the need for land reclamation. Still, it remains one of my favourite destinations.

And talking about menus, you can find quite an array of cuisines here of course and after dabbling with and abandoning some - like Ikan Bakar where the hype is better than the actual thing - I have a few favourites now. The last trip with Mei and my in-laws unearthed one or two more, but generally I promised Mark some Satay Babi and some Eurasian/Portugese food.

We had booked into the Baba House, a hotel I’ve stayed in many times before. It’s not swanky but the location along Heeren Street is unbeatable, and there’s a free car park. Add to that now the free wifi too and you’ve got a fantastic mix.

Mark in the lounge area of the Baba House.

First thing we did after settling in was to go for a walk. The new riverside project has prettied up the river banks at the expense of a few things, but it’s quite a nice stroll now and that’s what we did before going past that swanky new condo/hotel/retail thing called Casa del Rio. I must say they’ve done a decent enough job with this place and the river-facing side has restaurants and clubs which, as we strolled past, were in the process of opening for the evening and night.

We walked along the new esplanade and into the Kota Laksamana area where Sun May Hiong’s Satay Babi shop is… only to discover the owners closing up for the day. A quick chat ascertained they would be open for lunch the next day so we were not to be disappointed.

We walked back and that’s when we discovered Melaka now has a revolving tower. A tall thin tower was the spine of a revolving elevator whose glass sides gave a panoramic view of Melaka city and the surroundings. I thought it was a rather clever idea.

As we walked I pointed out various landmarks, some of a personal nature and others of historical significance. We imagined what it must have been like in the old days when Melaka was a bustling port and the centre of an empire and when the Portugese then the Dutch and finally the English colonists came and waged war. The river we crossed would have been a hive of activity as well as probably a scene of bloodshed at various points in the last 600 years.

The banks of the river now are a great place to enjoy a stroll. Or a sit-down-and-look-at-the-map-to-figure-out-where-we-are moment...

A new development called Casa del Rio

I have no idea what this fake water wheel is all about...

This dragon floats in the air above the little roundabout. 

The rivercruises have been modernised. You can see the spine of the tower in the background.

Mark near the main roundabout near Christ Church and the Stadhuys.

I've never figured out what this building is along Heeren St. It's set back some ways and looks very nice.

The Cheng Ho Museum was already closed at this point in the early evening so we went past and up the hill. Just outside St Paul’s Church is the statue of St Francis Xavier with his right hand broken off. In Goa, his right forearm - the arm used to baptise and bless his followers - was detached and placed elsewhere. In Melaka, a tree fell across the statue and broke off the right hand in eerie synchronicity…

We wandered around the church and the nearby cemetery, trying to soak in the atmosphere of the place and what it must have been like years ago. I sometimes wish I had had a better History education and that somehow my teachers had made History out to be more exciting. Because that’s what it is to me now - when I vista old places, I imagine the sights and sounds and smells of the place years ago. Melaka is a huge repository of history. Sleepy village, bustling port, centre of an empire, colonial territory, it’s seen it all and sometimes as I wander its streets I wish there was a wormhole or a tear in the fabric of space-time that would allow me a momentary step into what it was 300, 400, 500 years ago…

Mark on the way up to St Paul's Church. The statue of St Francis Xavier with the broken hand can be seen in the background.

Mark at the last remaining gateway at A Famosa.

 Mark reading some inscriptions on a burial chamber.

 The resting place of St Francis Xavier before his body was moved to Goa.

At the bottom of the hill was another museum - does Melaka have the highest concentration of museums in one town centre? - and a motley collection of planes, trains and automobiles. We clambered into the railway engine and found it surprisingly intact. The cabins on either end were dusty, cobwebby and rusty but still had most of the controls in place. The large diesel engine sat in the middle and there was a narrow corridor on either side of this engine through which the driver or engineer could move. It must have been a noisy, throbbing environment with little by way of creature comforts.

A couple of planes and even an airport fire tender represented the rest of the display and standing beneath the twin-engined propeller plane made me marvel how fragile these early airliners looked.

This area was a concreted and tiled area but smack in the middle of the area was a large hole in the ground, barricaded with railings. The excavation revealed some crumbly stonework in the ground and we later discovered these were the remains of the fort that once stood here. Works had revealed these centuries’ old archeological remains and to the credit of the Melaka authorities, all work stopped and the area became a tourist spot instead. I told Mark how it was the same in Rome and that is why you see so few high-rise buildings there - if the builders had unearthed anything, they would have had to stop work and the project would grind to a halt.

We wandered back to the hotel, going through Jonker Street and past The Orangutan House where we'd shopped a little earlier. This is one of my favourite T-Shirt places and I love the work of Charles Chiam who has now returned to Malaysia after years away in Hungary. Both Mark and I bought a few shirts including a couple of ‘I’m Hot’ ones for Mei and Megan.

We rested a bit before setting off for dinner with my old friend Amaranathan.

More on my Melaka friends in the final part.