Melaka aka: Malacca

A small tourist city with a lot of architectures of Dutch style.

It was more of a religious visit when I first went there, but it turned out to be such a pleasant experience that I wouldn’t mind going there again.

It’s all historical and lovely but beware it’s pretty haunted… I swear!

Peranakan culture! Some of my ancestors…

I was in Melaka for a project at Infineon for two weeks. The people were really friendly (they wanted to “order out” for KFC or McDonald’s, thinking that’s what I would be comfortable with) and wanted to make me feel welcome. I enjoyed the food (lots of Portugese) and experiencing a culture so different from ours here in the USA.

What I can honestly say I liked aside from what I’ve already mentioned is the driving…the absolutely crazy driving of these people! Back in The States, there would be lots of road rage due to how people drove, but I thoroughly enjoyed the orchestrated chaos. When someone needed to come over into your lane, you just moved. No big deal. People made three-lane roads into five-lane roads. The lines on the pavement seemed to be more of a “guide” than lane markers. I also enjoyed driving on the “wrong” side of the road. ;)

I went to Melaka when I was a kid..yet still can not forget the yummy Nyoya food there!!!

Great historical sites to see. Mixure of Malay, British, Portugal colonia culture. Nice food.

only went there for a day (no time!) but i loved it. all the colonial history behind it – i’d love to read more about it!
i liked the colours of it, the dutch orange, the multicoloured chinese statues, the blue that only tropical skies have…
i also loved learning about the baba nyonya culture (chinese-malay) and trying the food – had some of the best spring rolls and banana cakes there!
finally, there’s the night market in jonkers street, which offers you everything a south east asian market can offer you, just more chinese and more typical… without leaving out the open air karaoke and the dancing lessons inside the chinese shophouses!

Melaka has its beauty that no one can take away from her. The colonial sites as well as the chinatown are well worth a visit. Malaysian cities in general has limited history inside their walls but this one makes is up for everything.

Stadthus, the orange/red Dutch complex with a large museum is well worth visiting as well as the old fort. A big department store has been built on a man made island so the cannons would be of no use today as they don’t face the waters.

Its seems as almost all colonial states has been here. The dutch, portoguise, english and japanese has had their time in the most important city Malaysia ever produced. Kuala Lumpur has for an instance very limited history to tell and as this is just some hour away with a bus from the capital, be sure to make this a priority on your iternary.

question – can anyone tell me why they call it gula melaka?

anyway, ive been to malacca a couple of times, most memorably when i was 11 with the primary school. we stayed in a haunted hotel. HAHAH! that was hilarious =0)
really nothing much to do there..