19.11.11 Melaka
First things first - we had to move hostels to Sayang Sayang 2 this morning,
which is much newer. But I couldn't help feeling they've cut corners and a
lot of the thoughtful little touches were missing here, even though the
price was higher and the bedrooms/beds/showers are all smaller!! But, hey,
it's clean and the lady that runs it is helpful and friendly.
Next we crossed over the murky brown river in to the 'historical old town'.
Melaka has a interesting history and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Melak first grew as a trading port and developed an interesting cultural
mix because of this. Melaka has been under the rule of the British and
Dutch in recent history.
As we crossed over the river we came to Town Square or Dutch Square where
tens of competing trishaws are waiting around the Stadthuys, which is the
old dutch-builty town hall and governors build. It's hard to miss as it's
a rusty pink colour. The trishaws surrounding it are solely for tourists and
are all in competition to be the most wacky. Most covered in gaudy plastic
flowers and some even blaring out western music.
When we walked behind the square and around Bukit St Paul towards Porta de Santiago
we discovered there was an arts festival going on this weekend, due to start
in a few hours. We ducked in to the nearby mall for some much needed air-con,
on the way passing an outdoor paint-ball centre. Inside the mall there was
a cinema, acquarium, roller disco and small archery centre. What more could
you need?!
Out of the mall and strolling to the sultanate palace we came across a small
crowd forming around a lone performance artist that to be honest came across
a bit deranged. She was doing some interpretative dance of some sort,
neither of us could really follow what she was doing, work out of there was
any narrative and wasn't very impressed with the actual dance, but it was
interesting!
The Sultanate palace is a wooden replica of a Melaka sultans palace and houses
a cultural museum, that tells some historical stories about personalities
important in Melaka's history and explains how the sultanate is governed.
Not a particularly scintilating museum!
Next we went back to Jonkers walk and one of the hawker stand cafes where
where we had a guess at what we wanted to eat, Ice Ice. We enjoyed a cheap
late lunch of wanton noodle soup. Afterwards we went back to the festival
and listened to a local singer-songwriter, who mixed it up with, of course,
a cover of Jason Moraz! Then we went to sample a cendol each. In Lonely
Planet they describe this delicacy as an ice monstrosity and they're not
wrong! You can have different flavours but the orignal one is coconut with
ice, with a kind of syrup over the top and then strangest of all, at the bottom
are green-bean looking jellies, sweetcorn and kidney beans (of course!). We also
sampled a mango falvoured one, which was a little more familiar tasting as it
was sweeter and fruity!
This evening, we had en exciting dinner! We spent a happy few hours walking up
and down the night market sampling food from different stalls. We tried Tiwanese
sausage on a stick, a 'tornado' crisp (which is a potato cut in to a big screw
and put on a skewer and then cooked, so it becomes a cross between a chip and a
crips) and a popiah (spring roll). We also shared a mango milk tea with pearls,
which is like a milk shake but with small balls of chewy jelly. Later we had
japanese oyster balls. These were delicious parcels that melted in your mouth
hiding chewy oyster. Next we shared a sweet potato cake and finished with a bag
of dim sum.
After we had filled our bellies we clambered up St Pauls hill to the church to
watch some performance artists. Unfortunately we were too late to be able to
fit in to the church,but glimpsed a half-naked man, painted white prancing
around under blue lights and flapping flowing fabric around and thought it may
not be to our taste anyway!
Never mind!
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