Melaka: A Picture Tour

Room #2's customers chatted loudly amongst themselves while waiting outside my room last night (despite my protests), costing me some much needed sleep. Budget accommodation is quite scarce in the historic district so I think I'll have to spend another night here.

I'll spare you the details of my walking tour of Melaka. Here are a bunch of photos instead:

Store front water lillies on the way to breakfast:

This pooch came to see what I was so interested in:

Old minimalistic Indian temple:

Visitors of Chen Hoon Teng, the local Chinese temple, honour their ancestors by burning paper replicas of household items. It is believed that the burned items will be used by their departed loved ones in the afterlife. If you look closely at the picture, you'll see items ranging from slippers to toiletries to cars (Mercedes Benzes being the most popular among Malaysian Chinese):

Ice Kacang (like a snow cone)- perfect for a hot day:

Eng Choon Association:

Graffiti in a back alley:

Pimped out rickshaws:

Beautifully restored shophouse:


There were basically two reasons I went into this naval museum/Portuguese vessel replica. It was good place to escape the daytime heat (I parked myself on a bench under an a/c vent by the brig) and it was a perfect excuse to talk like a pirate yarr.

St. Francis Xavier:

17th century Dutch grave inscription:

Old man reading his book aloud:

Melaka: A Night in a Brothel

Cabin fever set in yesterday so I decided to take a quick bus ride out to Melaka for a couple of days of sightseeing. Melaka is one of Malaysia's oldest port cities, influenced by years of occupation by the Dutch, Portuguese and British. The architecture reflects this quite evidently, but more on that later.

I arrived at the bus station at around 11:00 in the morning with a vague idea of my surroundings based mainly on a built in compass in my watch and the map in my lonely planet guide. Given the lack of street signs at the station, I headed in what I believed was the general direction of the town center. None of the street names further down the road were showing up on my map and I was starting to think I took the wrong bus to the wrong city. It also brought to question the state of my sense of direction. It turned out the lonely planet guide had marked the bus station at a different location and I had inadvertently wandered about two kilometers into the suburbs. I took a cab to re-orient myself with the town and everything worked out in the end.

I went with the Cheong Hoe hotel, right in the historic district of Melaka because of its convenient location, low room rate and Chinese shop house ambiance. The architecture, much like many of its surrounding buildings and Chinese temples, has an open courtyard in the middle, allowing sunlight to flood in during the daytime. It seemed idyllic at the time.

Nothing all that interesting happened until later that night when I headed to the shared bathroom for my shower. An old man sitting in the common area outside my room (I think he was waiting for me) offered a late night massage by two freshly imported Thai Chinese girls. $RM60 ($18 CAD) cheap? The room was ready and all I had to do was say the word. Now, my aunt in KL tells me how great legitimate Thai massages are - she gets one every time she's in Chiang Mai. This late night offering, however, seemed a little suspect. I told the guy "Not tonight buddy, I have to wake up early to see the town, but thanks though" before rolling my eyes and continuing to the showers.

Though my Chinese isn't so good, I did hear the girls talking about Aids in the lobby later in the night.

I'm going to have to check for suitable alternatives for accommodation in the morning.

Blog Widgets

I do apologize for the backlog (today's actual date is March 14th). I've been a bit busy (read: sleeping a lot and playing typing of the dead) over the last week. In the meantime, you may have noticed a couple of additions to the blog, namely, the link to an MSN space and a super neato flickr badge. Both will lead you to a bunch of photos from the last month.

Flickr seems to have a 200 photo limit so the older ones will just disappear or something. I just put it there cos it's right purty.

The leech therapy pictures are posted in the msn spaces blog under the Feb 28th album.

Enjoy.

Scandalous

The article was a bit of a letdown.

I Think I'm Turning Japanese I Really Think So

For whatever reason, most people here think I'm Japanese. I've been asked at just about every guesthouse I've been to so far. Street stall proprietors call out "Konnichiwa!" or "Aregato, Aregato" to get my attention. Satay (Malaysian kebab) vendors tell me they serve "yakitori" (Japanese BBQ). I'm not sure where they get it from. I still maintain that we Asians all look the same.

Anyway, I've started using this to my advantage. You see, there are many locals here who hang out at bus terminals and tourists traps with the intent of making money off the dumb tourists. They find a suitable target, begin a sales pitch and latch on when the reply is in English. Usually it's just harmless small talk but they yammer on and on until the poor tourist gives in and buys a trinket just to get rid of them.

So to prevent them from getting that important foothold, I've started pretending I'm Japanese. This is how I respond when approached:

Me: "Nani desu ka?" (what is it?)
Local: [insert sales pitch]
Me: "...eto" (...um)
Me: "No speaku Engrish." [shakes head]

It works, let me tell you.