Malacca (Day 1)

Our bus to Malacca is at 9:30 AM today, so an we woke to an alarm going off at 6:45 AM.  We showered, packed, and were downstairs ordering a Grab (Uber) around 8 AM and arrived at the bus station 30 minutes later.  

The bus arrived on time and we loaded up.

Two hours later we were getting out of our Grab in front of our Malacca lodging.  It was only 11:30 AM, so our room wasn't ready.  We left our bags at the desk and went out for day one of our self-guided walking tour.

Our hotel is right at the entry of the UNESCO portion of Malacca.  This wall is actually just across the street.  George Town, Penang (we visited there 28 April) and Malacca went in together to apply for UNESCO status and got it in 2008.

We were pretty hungry and was looking for a restaurant to eat in.  we passed a table on the sidewalk that had some street food, so we picked out what we wanted and ate lunch for $2 USD total.  The chili in the rice was pretty spicy, so I ordered an ice cream for dessert that we shared.

Today's tour starts right outside our hotel at Dutch Square aka Red Square.  All the buildings around this square are made from red brick shipped from the Netherlands.  On the way over, the ships used the bricks to add weight for the ballast. On the way back, the weight was made up of goods such as spices, textile, tea, and coffee.

This area had a huge fortress.  It was built in 1511 when the Portuguese conquered the city.  The Dutch defeated the Portuguese in 1641 and enlarged the fortress.  The British took over Malacca in 1807 and destroyed the fortress to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.  There is some of the fortress still standing, but a majority is gone.

This Bastion is one part of the fortress that survived and was restored.  There used to be 9 bastions, but this is the only one that remains.

We continued our walk and came across this airplane.  Tim has never seen this particular kind of aircraft before. According to a sign, it is a Twin Pioneer CC MK 1.  According to Wikipedia, this is a Military version of the Twin Pioneer built for the Royal Air Force in the late 1950's.  This one was owned by the Royal Malaysia Air Force.

This is A’Famosa AKA Porta de Santiago.  It is the only major part of the fortress that is still standing and is considered one of the oldest European architectural remains in Asia.

Unfortunately the next part of the tour is at the top of a hill.  It is so hot out here today.  We sucked it up and climbed the stairs to St Paul’s Church, built in 1521.  It is the oldest church in Malaysia and Southeast Asia.

Inside, lining the walls, are old tombstones found on the grounds.  I love tombstones with skull & crossbones on them.

There was a monument outside the church with this plaque attached,  It interested me that 5 people of this family ages 2 months to 24 years old all died within 3 weeks of each other in 1856.  I wonder what happened.

According to the tour, we were supposed to walk through a Dutch graveyard and then down the hill, but that path was closed due to a tree falling and damaging it.  This required us to make quite a long detour to get to the next stop on the tour, and it is so hot.  

After multiple breaks, we arrive at Poh San Teng Temple at the foot of Bukit China.  Bukit China is the largest Chinese cemetery outside of mainland China.

After relaxing inside the cooler stone temple, we headed up to hill of the cemetery to the viewpoint over the city.

The area was quiet and serene.  The hillside was covered with 12,000 graves, some dating back to the 1600's.

We walked back down the hill and back to the river.  The walking tour took us back down the river to the starting point.  This area has obviously gone through some revitalization and has been cleaned up.  It was very nice to walk along although it was still very hot.

When we got to the river we crossed this very nice bridge that lead to Kampung Morten, a traditional Malay-style village that is still intact and has been saved from modernization.

There were many really nice bridges of all colors and shapes.

Also along the river were many murals painted my local students.

While walking around the river we were constantly surprised at how clean this area is.  During our stay we noticed many people sweeping the path, touching up paint, and even a boat with a guy fishing garbage out of the river with a net.

​This is interesting...you see that wall of signs on the left side of the river?

If you peak through the spaces between the signs, you can see a hidden fishing village back there.

More nice river scenery from our walk.

We are finally almost back to the starting point of the tour after over 4 hours of walking around.  Here is the Church of St Francis Xavier built in 1849. It looks like it will topple over any day now as it tips to the right.

We made it back to the hotel around 4:15 PM and were able to check-in.  We were hot and sweaty, so took showers and relaxed in the air-conditioning for for a couple of hours before heading out for dinner.

Check out this cool place we found call Geographer.  The prices were a bit higher than we have seen in Malaysia, but it was worth it.

I ordered sweet & sour fish and Tim ordered a Hawaiian Chicken pizza.  We both had watermelon juice which is now my favorite non-alcoholic drink.  The total price was 68 MYD => $15 USD...still a very good deal.

Walking back to the hotel, the sun was starting to set which made for some really nice photographs.

Oh...they have these corny-looking rickshaw type vehicles that are pedaled by locals.  The are crazily lit up at night.  And of course, the obligatory I ♥️ "Fill in the blank" photo.

We arrived back to the hotel around 7:30 PM and watched some TV.  There is actually a English language channel on the TV that shows movies all night long.

Tomorrow we have another walking tour of Malacca.  Hopefully we can get an earlier start to avoid the afternoon heat.  I guess we will see.