A Day in Melaka

When I was in Kuala Lumpur, I quickly realized that its many malls and crowded streets were not going to entertain me for the full four days I was going to be there. So I decided I was going to do a day trip. Lonely Planet could tell me that there is an old Dutch colony close to Malaysia's capital: Melaka. Besides the fact that this was the biggest city that was close enough for a day trip, its history sounded intriguing. Melaka has not only been a colony of the Dutch, but also of the Portuguese, the Brits and the Chinese. My travel guide promised me  mix of culture and heritage, so it seemed worth a trip.

 

Getting there was quite an adventure. I took a coach from Kuala Lumpur to Melaka and then a regular bus line into the city - just like a local. It's a small miracle I managed to get there and back, but I did! The biggest tourist attraction was clearly Jonker Street, which sounds very Dutch, but is actually the China Town of the city. From there I took a really nice temple tour back to the main square. There I found the Stadshuys Museum, which of course I had to visit as a good Dutch person. The museum turned out to be a collection of smaller museums and was pretty much deserted (everyone was eating tjendol at Jonker Street). This afternoon I also managed to squeeze in a boat tour before having to head back to Kuala Lumpur. I even managed to do my usual routine of getting lost and finding many interesting things.

 

As you can imagine, I was pretty exhausted after all of this. At that point, I still needed to find my way back to Kuala Lumpur. Once again an adventure of getting on busses of which I was not quite sure where they were going and having to find out which one of the many busses my ticket was for.

 

When I finally got back I treated myself to some delicious street food in Jalan Alor and an early night of sleep.