Travelling Hopefully - UNESCO Edition

Our bus bounced and lurched down the highway like a vehicular version of Frankenstein’s monster.  Fortunately it moved at a decent clip and we managed to outrun the torch waving villagers following us.  Our destination was Melaka a city which looked unprepossessing at first glance (to be fair the first glance was of a bus terminal) but which rapidly transformed into the highlight of our time in Malaysia.  The historic city centre is a UNESCO world heritage site with a wealth of old buildings, random churches, museums, a river and at least one post office.

For as long as it has existed Melaka (or Malacca if you want to be all colonial about it) has been a trading city.  That means it is home to a wealth of divergent cultures.  Of course it also means that a lot of those cultures turned up to dispossess the existing occupants.  Even the founder of Melaka was an exiled Sumatran prince who turned up, decided he liked the place and stayed.

Following in his footsteps were the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British and (briefly but bloodily) the Japanese.  Melaka was a centre of the spice trade and when you’re a bone of contention between several major powers you’re going to have an interesting history whether you want it or not.

To guide us around some of this history was a living part of it.  An elderly gentleman by the name of Kemal who spoke with pride about his service in the Royal Navy and his father’s role fighting alongside the British against the Japanese.  Kemal gave us interesting facts about Melaka’s history such as pointing out where the Beatles played when they came to town (right across the road from a Buddhist temple lit by an eternal flame that has burnt for four hundred years).  Kemal himself is an indication of the cosmopolitan nature of Melaka, as his name implies he can trace descent from an Ottoman sailor who fell ill in Melaka, was nursed back to health by a local woman, married her and settled down.

Our tour finished in a square adorned with a fountain which was erected on the occasion of one of Queen Victoria’s innumerable jubilees by her loyal Malayan subjects.  At least that’s what the plaque claims.  Presumably her disloyal Malayan subjects just sent a card.

The next day we were given the opportunity of going on a biking tour around the Melaka region.  For reasons I cannot begin to understand a couple of us actually did so.  Specifically my roommate a chap from Chester in the UK and my erstwhile tourism companion from Bangkok.  I planned to take a DUKW tour around some of the soggier parts of Melaka and for reasons best known to herself (I’m not ruling out attempted drowning) the Transylvanian German decided to accompany me.  Sadly the seas were too rough for our amphibious steed and we were reduced to wandering around museums, palaces and churches although we did stop in for coffee and condensed milk on toast (surprisingly good).  Later in the day I went to the post office all by myself.  The sense of achievement I felt upon accomplishing this trivial task was pathetic.