The next day we wandered back into town but, we took the back streets and came across this charming Temple being tended by someone who filled up bowls of water for the horses of the gods.
It is so hot and humid it’s almost like we walked in slow motion. We turned up an alley and met a woman I’d met in the bus station before we set off for Melaka, ‘Catherine’ of Indonesian decent but from the Netherlands. What a peculiar place to meet again! After a chat, Tatjana and I carried on up St Paul’s Hill (originally Melacca Hill, then St Mary’s hill when the Portuguese arrived) to visit the ruins of St Paul’s. It’s a rather sad place with the inscriptions to children who died, (presumably after they landed in bygone days). We found that none of the palace museums nearby were open so we meandered down to Heeren Street.
Now we got a bit of a glimpse of this the night before. It’s got a complicated history and the name is a remnant of Dutch Colonisation, it was a rich area. It was favoured by the Wealthy Chinese Peranakan, who descended from an ethnic group from the first Southern Chinese people to travel to South Asia. In fact they are really a mixture of races. In Melaka they are known as Baba and Nyonya (father and woman) or simply Peranakan. However all over the east are Peranakan (of differing mixes) Here it simply means they are born within the straights of Melacca (or Melaka as it is now). There is a group of Peranakan Portuguese south of the town who still speak 16th century Portuguese “Cristao”.
The properties are terraces, narrow fronted (because they were taxed on the frontage and number of windows) they have a bit of a Mediterranean feel. They extend back a long way with rooms/courtyards that are open to the sky often with pools to cool the air.
The museum was very much from the late 19th century.
We went into some of the properties that have been converted into restaurants, shops and galleries.
Wandering back through the town it began to rain so we ducked into a shop and found the biggest packet of crisps I’ve ever seen.
Then after waiting for the rain to stop, we thought we’d just get wet and headed along the river to look at a replica Portuguese Ship but unfortunately that was closed too.
To round off the day we met another Servas Host Christine who took us to a Hawker Center for dinner. Basically you can have anything you want from the different stalls. It looked to be mostly Chinese and Malay, no European faces except us. I chose a Japanese dish and our host chose Satay.
So that’s our stay in Melaka. As we move on, weirdly my lasting memory this time was almost being skewered by ‘Tatjana the cannibal’ when we purchased so Dim Sum from a street stall. I was holding the bag and as Tatjana tried to get one onto the skewer provided, she got my hand instead and made me yelp! And laugh of course!
Next, Taman Negara and the scary bus ride!
The Travelling Bee 