My wife had suggested a side trip to Malacca when planning this holiday. Malacca? I knew of the Malacca Straits, but didn't know there was a town of that name, and that it was getting well known as a tourist destination. (It has a World Heritage listing since 2008.)
We booked a bus from Singapore, which should in theory take only about 3 hours to make the trip across the causeway and up the good quality freeway towards the West Coast of Malaysia. In practice, however, given the crush of vehicles and people trying to get through immigration (especially in the Christmas period) it took us pretty much 5 to 6 hours in each direction.
On the way up, we were stuck in a long line of vehicles to get into immigration control; on the way back, the bus got into the building OK, only to have the humans stuck in a ridiculously inefficient processing line run by the Singaporeans.
About the Singaporean re-entry: I suspect their computer system was having some sort of breakdown. After waiting in a slow moving line for perhaps 20 minutes, I was one of the people whisked away upstairs when the downstairs immigration officer said her computer would not "scan" my passport. While waiting for the escort to take you upstairs, no one in the line behind you would be processed. In the upstairs room, it was a case of sitting with 20 or so others, all perhaps slightly anxious as to why they were the ones singled out, and waiting 20 minutes before getting to desk where after a few simple questions were asked, my thumbs scanned, and after another 10 minute wait, escorted back downstairs, where I found my wife was just reaching the counter from the line she had been standing in! Our bus had long left, but we found another from the same company which let us on to complete the trip. My wife was sufficiently annoyed to say if we visit Malacca again, we should do it via Kuala Lumpur. (I think that the situation must have been unusual, however, because the Singaporean minister responsible did turn up on the TV news apologising for delays, saying many staff were off sick and those that were working were doing extremely long hours, etc.)
Back to Malacca itself. Here's the centre of the historic town, with (still operating) Church from 1753, beside the old governor's complex, which is now a museum:
A short history of the place: tiny fishing village on a river; Islamic Sultanate and the start of lots of trade; Portuguese arrive and pretend to be nice, then give up and take it by force; Dutch for some reason take it over next; Dutch hand it over to Britain as part of some deal with what's going on in Europe; Britain concentrates more on establishing Singapore as the regional trade centre; Malaysia created and Bob's your Iman. So to speak.
So, yeah, a lot of history in a pretty small package.
The town has a smallish river which has pleasant pathways and cafes beside it. It's one of many towns or cities that some have tried to label "Venice of the East" (see the complete list at Wikipedia.)
Note the pub on the other side of the river: it's (from memory) 150 years old and, more importantly, has clean toilets:
Taking a boat ride on the river is one of the mandatory tourist things to do, and it is pleasant, especially of an evening.
The other famous district is the adjacent Jonker Street, which is busy during the day and has lots of shops that reminded me quite a bit of Georgetown on Penang, which I had visited in the 1980's:
Hmm - it looks a bit shabbier in photos than it feels in real life. It has night markets on Fridays which are supposed to be especially good, but we did something else that night, explained below.
The place is pretty keen to explain its history, with one of the venues being this imitation of a Portuguese trading ship, beside the river (housing a museum inside):
There's the remains of old buildings and churches:
and, like Singapore, land being reclaimed from the ocean for development:
We stayed at the Hilton Double Tree, which we knew was going to be a little out of the centre of town, and the view of the area around it wasn't all that inspiring:
The rooms were large and comfortable, with that rather silly idea of a glass shower wall with a blind that must be lowered to ensure privacy. The big screen TV was a generous size for a hotel. But the airconditioning at night was impossible to get right - the room always got too warm, perhaps because the aircon was motion sensored as an economy thing? Also - the curse of the modern hotel: no sheets, just doonas with covers they clean. I wish I could back in time and track down whoever it was who popularised that as a washing saving for hotels.
But, man, did it do a good breakfast buffet. I had probably the best beef rendang I've ever had (yes, for breakfast), but also get a chicken's foot and dim sum too.
In fact, the best thing about Malacca was the food. Cheap, tasty and the distinctive sort of mash up of cuisines known an nyonya. We ate fish in a tamarind sauce and some sort of prawns at Big Nyonya - it was all delicious - for (I think) $40 for four.
Surprisingly, there are still ethnic Portuguese (well, with a fair bit of intermarriage, apparently) living there, and on the Friday night, instead of going to Jonker Street, we went to the Portuguese settlement, where the hawker style outdoor eating has a mini Christ the Redeemer to greet you:
The place was lively: there were fireworks being sold and let off by kids (and me) over the water; the food tasty and cheap (we had stingray!), and just a great, distinctive atmosphere, especially within Malaysia.
When you walk out through the surrounding houses at Christmas, many are lit up in very Christian style:
This part of town is pretty close to the Doubletree Hilton, but the shambolic and dangerous state of footpaths throughout the town makes the night walk a pretty scary one - you have to be very, very alert to not tripping over something and falling into one of the smelly, tropical deep drains that pass for gutters. These drains certainly lend a distinctive aroma to the Asian tropics - I remembered them from Georgetown in the 1980's too. You get the occasional whiff of ripeness from Singaporean drains, but nothing like the intensity you can find from many of them in Malaysia. (My son was particularly impressed with a wide one which was bubbling from something. Methane production, perhaps?)
Here's the view to the Portuguese settlement from the building next the Hilton, which has a viewing platform and bar at the top - see where the jetty is? - the food place is just behind that.
As for my impression of Malaysia generally though: I'm not entirely sure they have the hang of this tourism thing. Staff at the Hilton were nice, but in quite a few instances, seemed a tad incompetent. It took two guys about 15 minutes to work out how to make a Singapore Sling at the bar the staff were not allowed to call a bar. (Seriously, it look exactly like any well stocked hotel bar in the world.) I should mention that my wife and I were the only people in the bar, so the 15 min did seem rather excessive, even with the free peanuts. Also, the hotel reception was on the 12th floor, but curiously, on the ground floor, if the concierge was busy, there was not a simple sign indicting you had to catch the life to find your way to the hotel.
The worst thing about Malaysia by far: the awful state of most public toilets, or at least the stalls, given the use of hoses in lieu of toilet paper. These devises mean that toilets are just ridiculously wet all the time; I felt really sorry for women who have no choice other than try to keep clothes from brushing on the dank floors.
I see from Googling the topic "are Malaysian toilets the worst in the world" that many people think they are. (Although I strongly suspect that India and China might take the gold - or brown? - medal for that.) It may be more a case of "the worst maintained, wettest flushing public toilets in the world", but in any event, if the country wants a better tourist image, this would be a good place to start.
Funnily enough, in Malaysia as in Singapore, I found ethnic Chinese seemed to be cheerier. Quite a lot of Malay people carry a vague air of unhappiness, it seemed to me. The taxi drivers were OK, but the cars were pretty old. I even tried talking to one driver about the world's surprise at Mahathir's election, only to find out that he said it all happened due to a corrupt payment of money, and he hated all politicians!
Although I loved the Hilton's breakfast buffet, and we also had one very good evening meal there too, I would recommend people stay in one of the other hotels within more comfortable walking distance to the old centre of town. (There was a shuttle bus that left the Hilton on the hour, but catching it back to the hotel turned out to be very hit or miss. And finding a taxi proved tricky too. If it wasn't so hot and humid, walking the couple of km back to the hotel would not be such an issue, but in the daytime, it certainly is.)
There is plenty of choice in hotels. But I did notice a fancy looking, small hotel while on the river boat - the 1825 Gallery Hotel - and I wouldn't mind staying there next time.
As with Singapore, the heat out in the middle of the day means you get to see less per day than you might expect. There is quite a lot I didn't get to see in the 2 full days were there, and I wouldn't mind going back.
I didn't for a ride on one of the garish, tourist trishaw things, which the town is also renowned for:
So, maybe I do that if I go back. (The Malay tourists still looked a bit unhappy to me while they took the ride.)
And finally, just a photo of a pretty lotus, taken in Jonker Street, I think:
I might update this later, if I think of things I have forgotten...
Updates:
* The most overrated and undeservedly popular dish in all of Asian is to be found here with a slight variation (the rice comes in balls) - Hainese chicken rice. A close relative of Singaporean chicken rice, there is a (not very fancy) restaurant (perhaps one of a chain?) which features photos of celebrities and politicians eating there - God knows why. I do not understand why this dish has any fame at all - overly simple, sure it's edible but it just has no special merit to my taste buds whatsoever. Eat other stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment