24 Jan 2003 Malacca, Malaysia

[Eric's journal]  We had a good day seeing the sights in Malacca.  We took a boat tour up the river.  The guide was very funny, reminded me of the jungle cruise at Disneyland.  He pointed out that several scenes from the movie "Entrapment" were actually filmed on this river, including one where you see the Petronus Towers of Kuala Lumpur as the camera pans out.  Apparently the government wasn't too happy about that.  Saw lots of large monitor lizards swimming in the river and lounging on the rocks on the side.  Had lunch at the Geographer Cafe then took a tour through the Nonya and Baba house.  It was fascinating to see the inside of the house and how these Malay born Chinese lived.  We wandered up the hill past St Paul's church (where St Francis Xavier was interned for many months upon his death) and the remains of the original Portuguese fort from the 16th century.  Then we wandered in the cultural museum which is a replica of the original sultan's palace.  This town is a fascinating mix of colonial Portuguese, Dutch, and English along with the cultural mix of Malay, Indian, Chinese and Islam.  I still haven't learned the background of the windmill along the river across from Christ Church and the Stadthuys.  it obviously was never operational and is only 10-15 feet tall.  It looks very tacky.  The last notable Malacca trait is the bike rickshaws which the drivers have lavishly decorated with plastic flowers, tinsel and any other shiny and ornate trinkets you can imagine.

Tonight we went back to the Geographer Cafe for dinner.  On the weekends, the main road in Chinatown is shut down to traffic.  All the restaurants put tables out in the street and there are lots of food vendors and any other kind of vendor.  It is like a county fair.  There are magicians, craft people who will put your name on a shell key chain or fashion it out of copper.  Any kind of nick knack you can imagine is for sale.  The street is covered by Chinese lanterns. 

As we wandered around we heard "Tennessee Waltz" coming out of one of the Chinese Association buildings.  We looked in and they were line dancing.  There were men and women, old and young, all wearing matching red-collared shirts ( guessing it is the association shirt).  After a pause, "Achy Breaky Heart" started up and they started again with a different line dance, clapping and spinning, one woman had her hands stuck in the top of her jeans, just as you see Americans do when they are line dancing.

Further down the street there was an even unfriendlier sound than country music, the bad Chinese of a man doing karaoke was coming out of a different association building.  There were rows of chairs set up and the machine was up front.  The chairs were filled with people enjoying (?) the karaoke. Several different people got up to do numbers before we had to move on.  It is one thing when it is background noise in a bar but who would want to go just for entertainment?

As we continued on you could hear the call to prayer from the mosque the next street over float over the hustle and bustle of the Chinatown market.
 
[Emma's journal] Today we spent the day wandering around the town- it has quite a lot of historical buildings but in some ways they have ruined it slightly by adding too many touristy things- mainly the illuminated sign for the Stadthuys ( looks more like it belonged in Vegas) also the imitation windmill!

We took the river cruise which was very entertaining, the guide was quite funny.  He pointed out a number of large monitor lizards along the banks; he had given them all names of movie stars.  He also told us that the river and some of the shanty buildings along the river had been used in the movie "Entrapment".

We had lunch in the Geographer Cafe- very nice spot in Chinatown- so good we went back there for dinner.  We visited an old typical house of the area which has been turned into a museum.  it was very interesting and well worth the visit.  The lady told us that they have different colour dishes for different occasions- those blue and white ones which mum has are only used when someone has died!

I think the funniest thing we saw in Malacca was when we walked through Chinatown- there were about 40 Chinese people doing line dancing in a Chinese temple to "Achy Breaky Heart"!  We couldn't help but laugh!  Our hotel in Malacca was really nice.  It was an old typical style house which had been converted.