Flawed-Democratic Federation of Malaysia
Melaka aka Malacca
Kancil Guest House +6062814044 kancil@machinta.com.sg
Basic double room for MYR 50.- or US$ 14.- per night.
Click below for an interactive road map of the Kancil Guest House in Malacca, which we would recommend, and for directions:Enjoying a nostalgic journey into Malacca’s glorious past (unfortunately, this UNESCO World Heritage Site has been disneyfied and commercialised to a degree that has to be seen to be believed; in 2008 CE National Geographic ranked Malacca amongst the worst preserved historic destinations in the world), flip-flopping in the footsteps of Sumatran and Malay sultans as well as Chinese, Indian, Arab, Portuguese, Dutch and British merchants (who traded in silk, spices, gold and china and who waited out the monsoons in this area) in the historic streets of old Malacca and enjoying the commanding view from St. Paul’s Church down onto the infamous, for her pirates, Straits of Malacca where many large vessels plied in both directions.
Indulging our tourist-tacky desires by taking a ride on one of Malacca’s uniquely kitsch trishaws (bicycle rickshaws) and meeting at kampung Morten Abdul Rahim Haji Hashim who showed us around his 100-year-old traditional Malay house (Villa Sentosa) - built on wooden stilts to improve the air circulation and packed to the brim with old furniture and family relics.
Strolling through the tottering lanes of Malacca’s Chinatown, visiting a bouquet of (i) colourful temples (including the oldest Chinese temple in Malaysia, built in 1646 CE, the Cheng Hoon Teng Temple), (ii) sober mosques (including the Kampung Kling Mosque with its uniquely pagoda-like minaret) and (iii) functional shophouses (including the one of shoemaker Wan Aik who crafts doll-like shoes for bound feet [“lotus feet”], once the height of gruesome fashion for well-to-do Chinese women in Malacca where only a girl with bound feet could be a wife or a concubine; those with normal feet were peasants, servants, low-class prostitutes, amahs or workers, and despised) and regaining afterwards our strength with Chinese dim-sum and endemic Nyonya pineapple tarts (buttery pastries with a chewy pineapple-jam filling).
Taking the KKKL express bus from Malacca (Melaka Sentral) back to Kuala Lumpur's
Click below for a summary of this year's travels
Recommended books - click below for your Amazon order from Germany:
