Malaysia Part 2: Melacca

We left behind the hustle and bustle of Kuala Lumpur and headed to the coastal city of Malacca. Malacca started out as rocky as its beaches. We arrived at the Bus Station and went looking for a taxi to take us into town. Our travel books told us to always negotiate prices with the local cabbies. However, before we really started to negotiate, the driver asked in a very irritated tone, "Who are you going to trust, me or your book?" You see, I had a Lonely Planet book in my hand and I don't think he was a fan. We walked away and found a much nicer cab driver, who by the way was very proud of his Malaysian built car and it's two different fuel sources.


Malacca is a city of 760,000 and we were staying in the Chinatown part of town. This area was full of shops blasting music in a variety of languages, restaurants, bars, and places to stay. We were extremely fortunate to be staying in a former Dutch Mansion turned guesthouse named, Twenty. What does "Twenty" stand for? The owner's cleverly named the guesthouse after it's street address. It would like you naming your guesthouse 1012-c or something like that. This place was beautiful. The room was large, the views were great, the breakfast was included, and it was right smack dab in the middle of things. We were even able to hear the calls to prayer from this place. The only drawback was we had to share a bathroom, which big picture, really was not that big a deal. We never ran into many of the other guests, so instead of it feeling like a hostel or a guesthouse, it was more like we were staying at hotel. The amount of interactions we had with others was very minimal. But, the place was beautiful, had a comfortable bed, and a fan that didn't make a lot of noise.

So, we had some fresh digs, now we needed to explore the town. We went for a walk down the street to start checking out some of the shops. We knew we were going to do some shopping while we were in Malaysia, but we also knew that we didn't have much room in our packs. Fortunate for us, the street was lined with stores selling trinkets and stuff that would barely take up any space at all in our bags. We learned a very valuable lesson right away. We bought this lamp which is made of four wooden sticks creating a square framework with red paper in-between each of the sticks. Very Pretty. We decided right away we wanted one. Lo and behold, it was even on sale. NO WAY!!! (Some of you might be shaking your heads at us, but don't worry, we shook our heads at ourselves later on.) So we paid 32 Ringgits for the lamp. Roughly 4 dollars US. Then, as we walked into another store of a similar nature, NO WAY, there were more lamps. You betcha, they were nearly a dollar less. This is where we shook our head at ourselves. We saw those same lamps being sold at many of the shops we visited. In fact, at one point, I even told the lady she was selling her lamps for way too much. She argued with me for a moment until I pulled out mine and showed her that it was nearly a dollar cheaper than she was selling it for, and her neighbor was selling the same lamps for even cheaper than I paid for mine. We had a good laugh and moved on, but not before I noticed some beautifully decorated what appeared to be back scratchers for Ken and Barbie, but no silly, those are ear wax scrapers, duh!?!




The next day, we went for a nice long walk and ended up near a mall. We thought the mall was very out of place because it was filled with modern stores, mall type music, fast food restaurants, and bright fluorescent lights. It fit into the town of Malacca like a square peg in a too small round hole. The kind of peg where little toddlers notice they won't fit, so they try to pound it through with their mallets. We probably would have heard the banging sound if it weren't for the lovely mix of techno, disco, and cheesy 80's hair band power ballads being played on the loud speakers of the flamboyant trishaws passing by. No, No, No! Don't get the wrong idea here. The trishaws were magnificent. The bikes were all painted yellow, had sidecars for riders, and were decorated with everything from flowers to horses to flags. The ornamentation was just as loud as the music and we loved it. At one point we were in a state of shock and were not sure what to do, so we got in the most festive trishaw we could find and went for a ride. The driver was a nice man who stank, but so would you after pedaling tourists around all day in the hot sun. He was also very proud to be a driver and especially proud of his bike. He explained to us that he spends several hundred dollars adorning his bike with the best plastic flowers. It sounds funny, but the bike was a beaut.

Here is a taste of the Malaccan trishaw for you.




Malacca was a great location for us to visit. There was never a shortage of things to do, but the vibe of the place was very relaxed and contagious. Well, except for the wine bar we decided to visit. We had a lovely table with a view of the river delta. It was fun to wave to the tour boats as they cruised by. There was usually several people as dorky as us who waved back. If you were to take a picture of the place, you would think it was perfect. But, that is because the picture would not be able to capture the sounds coming from the kitchen. The cooks must have been listening to some very very loud industrial metal. We could have dealt with the music by itself, but the bar was also playing some mood music. It was some lady with a pitchy voice singing classic ballads. So, when you combine the two types of music, we were slightly annoyed. The night did get much better. We found ourselves sitting at a restaurant on the corner of the river and ocean one night and were blessed with the beautiful sounds of a local band. The band started with just a woman singing some very nice songs in English and in Malay. Then a man joined her onstage for a rendition of "Endless Love" which although cheesy, seemed to be a perfect song for the moment since Sarah and I were feeling all mushy at the time. They sang several songs together and as they took a break, so did Sarah and I.



We also decided to visit a tea house that had been calling our name. To get to this place, you had to walk through a long (100 Meter) hallway that was covered in ivy. The lady showing us the way told us the path used to be the way the servants got around the house when it was still a mansion. When we got to the tea house, we were treated to a lot of tea. In fact, I don't think I have ever drank so much tea. It was really good, and the host who sat with us for a while was filled with lots of tea knowledge. I was surprised to see that my tea loving wife was even learning a thing or two about tea. As we left, we wished we would have found the place earlier because then we would have been able to tour several of the dutch mansions located on our street. After seeing how beautiful our guesthouse was, we were definitely intrigued.




I know you are wondering why am I looking at a Giraffe's butt. I figured if Sarah and I were lucky enough to see this on our way to the tea house, then we should share it with you.

On the main street of Chinatown we found a corner restaurant call "The Geographier." The food was good, the location was great, and the beer was cold. We actually like the place so much, we went there twice. What can I say, it was comfortable. There was a TV showing a video of the place during a weekend night. I guess they shut down the streets to cars and it becomes a very happening place. The images on the screen were filled with people smiling, dancing and having a great time. We were too, but we both wished we were there for a piece of the weekend pie. But, it was not meant to be, and there was more pie to be had at our next location. We just had to get there first.