Melacca, Malaysia

Jan 9- Jungle Railway to Melacca
Today we were super excited to ride the 'Jungle Railway'. Instead of taking one bus (with a transfer), we decided to spend the extra time and money (2 trains, 3 buses) to get to Melacca via the Jungle Railway. We were planning on getting up for the 7:30 bus this morning but we we're pretty tired from the last two days in the rain forest and decided that the 10am bus would be better. After eating our last meal at the floating restaurants, we headed over to the bus station. About an hour or so later, we arrived at Jerantut. After a brief walk from the bus station to the train station, we found out that we had a couple hours to kill and went to eat some delicious chicken and rice, eventually boarding our train to Gemas at around 1:45 (30 minutes late. Our book quotes that these trains can run as much as 2 hours late, so I think we got lucky). The ride ended up actually being quite lame. Perhaps the northern part of the railway is more jungle-y, but it felt more like the 'palm-plantation railway' than the 'jungle railway'...oh well. We got to Gemas at about 4pm, at which point we once again started to ask around about where the bus station was. It turns out that we didn't need to take a bus and instead hopped onto another train that took us to Tampin, about an hour away. Once we arrived at Tampin, it was a 1km walk over to the bus station which included a stop for a snack of delicious pork buns. Once we were at the bus station we found our bus and took another hour long bus ride to Melacca. In Melacca we were dropped off at the main bus terminal and had to hop onto a city bus that took us close to our hostel for the night. So, in total, it was a pretty epic travel day, but 2 trains and 3 buses later we had finally arrived in Melacca. Now in the city we grabbed some naan and mutton masala and soon found ourselves exhausted and heading to sleep.

Jan 10- Historical Bits of Melacca and "Little India"
Today we slept in really late, had a brief internet session, and ate some lunch before heading off for the days sightseeing. After lunch we started walking towards the Maritime Museum. The Maritime Museum is located inside a replica of a Portuguese trading ship, which you get to climb on top of and inside to see the rest of the museum. The museum outlines the history of trading and shipping in Melacca, which is basically what this city has done since the 1400s. In 1511, Alfonso de Albuquerque of Portugal took over the city and the Portuguese controlled it for a while before, in1641, the Dutch defeated the Portuguese and controlled the city. Then, in 1824 the city got traded (yeah, apparently you could trade cities at that time. awesome) to the British in exchange for a city in Indonesia. So the British ruled until finally in 1946 when finally the Malaysians controlled Melacca. Wow. Long History. After this sweet museum, we headed out to see some of the other historical sites of the city. Our first stop was at this old waterwheel, which was pretty sweet. Next we saw some of the original wall of the city built by the Dutch and Portuguese that still have some old cannons on them as well as an old crane. After checking these out we found an old church (Christ Church, built by the Dutch) and then some more museums. We wandered through the Museum of Ethnography, the Education Musem, and the Stadthuys, which are basically just old buildings built by the Dutch. After this, we headed up a big hill and found ourselves at St. Pauls Church, the church in Melacca built by the Portuguese. Here there was this Asian guy playing guitar and belting out oldies, which was awesome. After this we walked down the hill and found ourselves at Melaka's Sultanate Palace, which is a replica of where the Sultan lived hundreds of years ago. The Palace was a long wooden house built with no nails and now houses a history of the Sultans of Melaka, laws, and other cultural information. By now we had had enough of museums and history for one day and decided to wander through the streets of "Little India" which was either really little, or we just didn't go to the right place (when I say small, I mean there were only a couple places selling sari's and blasting Indian music). After a while we wandered upon this place selling what looked like delicious burritos, so with high hopes we bought one. It turns out that we were really, really wrong. It was a burrito-esque thing, but it was filled with noodles and other Asian ingredients and really wasnt that good. Needing something a little better to eat, we went in search for chicken rice balls, which we hadn't had yet. We found a spot to have some and ate some dumpling soup, rice balls, and an enormous mound of barbecue pork (dumpling soup was the best of the three). After some dinner we decided we were tired and started the long walk back to our hostel to read and eventually go to sleep.

Jan 11- Enduring Beauty and China Town
Today we woke up and decided to hit up a museum we missed the day before, the Museum of Enduring Beauty. It turns out this museum is in a building with two other museums, which were the People's Museum and the Kite Museum. In the People's Museum displays the various cultural influences on Malaysia's people, mainly Chinese, Indian, Muslim, and Malay. It also mentions the Chitty People, who are a cross of Malay and Indian peoples and have their own food (Nyonya food, basically its a variety of Chinese food) and their own language. The museum also had a decent exhibit on this game called gasing, which has nothing to do with farting, but is a game of spinning tops. I guess in Malaysia top spinning is something of a national sport. The Kite museum was mostly boring, but they had some cool kites. The Museum of Enduring Beauty was really cool. The basic idea of the museum is to display people who are literally enduring things which make them beautiful, like tattoos, lip plugs, scarring of the body, feet binding, neck stretching, head distorting, and other wacky ways that people have physically changed their body in the pursuit of beauty. The pictures in the museum were mostly horrible, but there was enough information and so-so pictures to keep us plenty interested. People do some pretty crazy shit to make themselves attractive within their cultures. After these museums we walked over to Chinatown and did some shopping. After a while of shopping, we stopped into a place for some coffee and a bite to eat. We ordered mango chicken (delicious) and some naan and curry, which turned out to be fake naan (aka pita bread, wtf?). While we were eating it started pouring, so we ended up staying in the restaurant for a while to wait out the rain. By this time it was getting late and it was still raining, so we caved and took a taxi back to our hostel, where Steph took a nap (I was reading The End of Mr. Y, an awesome book, so I couldn't sleep). Later that night we walked around looking for food but it was semi-late by Melaka standards (it was just past 9:30... whew!) and lots of places were closed. We ended up eating at this place that was basically the Malaysian version of a Chillies or Applebees, and really wasn't that good at all (in all honesty, it was horrible).

Jan 12- Boat trip, Fancy house, and Walking around forever looking for the ocean
Today we got up and went back to Chinatown hoping to go to the Baba Nyonya Museum, which is basically a big fancy house you get to tour. It turns out we got there at the exact wrong time (it closes for two hours for lunch) and so we instead headed to the river hoping to go to the Portuguese village by a boat. We got to the boat station and bought our tickets but had about 25 minutes to kill so we went to the bathroom and ended up going to the free Malaysian Customs Museum. This museum was actually really cool because they had a bunch of stuff they've confiscated over the years (like sexual or revealing figurines, porn, opium pipes, shoes with stash holes in them, animal hides, taxidermized frogs playing instruments, etc.). As we were leaving they guard asked us to sign the notebook since it was a brand new museum and they wanted to know where we were from and whatnot. As we were exiting the museum we saw our boat being loaded and started walking over to get on, but it turns out those two minutes Steph was signing the guest book made us miss that boat, so we ended up waiting another half hour for the next boat. The boat ride didn't take us to the village like we thought it was going to but instead was a tour (DAMN!) and was all in all pretty tacky. It was interesting to see the different buildings along the river and see how some were more European and others were more Chinese and Malaysian. There were also some pretty sweet murals on the walls and some monitor lizards in the river itself. After the tour, we ended up right back where we started and tried again for the Baba Nyonya Museum. This time we were victorious and got there right as a tour of the house was starting. The house itself was pretty interesting but both of us decided it wasn't quite as cool as the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion in Georgetown (another big fancy house in Malaysia). Either way we got to see some pretty interesting antiques, including bottles of 100 year old cognac and an old school ice-cream machine (hand crank operated). When we had finished the tour we found it was raining outside (in Malaysia, it is always raining) and decided to get some coffee and a snack to wait it out. When it stopped raining we stopped at Hang Jebat's tomb, and then we headed over to the mall to grab a trinket we couldn't find at the market and ended up buying a Prosperity Burger at the McDonalds (the advertisements were so good...and I think it's probably bad luck to not eat one). It turns out, as we could have expected, it wasn't that good. At this point Steph had here mind set on trying to reach the ocean so we spent the next good while walking to try and find a way to get there. Eventually we found a good spot and ended up in this lot full of really long tubes. It was really weird. Seriously, there were just these tubes everywhere. I think the site was under construction for something, but must have been abandoned because these tubes were just stuck in the ground pretty randomly. After some pictures by the tubes, we started walking back towards our hostel and grabbed some more Nyonya food. Tonight we tried to find the Light and Sound Spectacular, a nightly show mentioned in our guidebook. While we were walking we saw a wooden shack that said "tickets for light show" on it and there was this guard inside. So we walk up and I say "two please" and he just gives me this awkward look. Steph then asks if this is where the light show is and the guard just points behind him. So we walk a little further and find out that, in fact, the light show has been shut down. I guess the only reason I mention this is that Malaysians are often too polite to disappoint you (meaning that guard could have just told us the light show wasn't happening but instead pointed behind him). Disappointed and tired, we headed back to our hostel for some sleep.

Wanna see more pictures of our adventures in Melacca? click here