Historical City of Melaka

Monday 12 – Wednesday 14 October 2009

I’ve been to Melaka on travel assignments and as a tourist countless of times so I won’t say much about the historical city of Melaka. All I can say is..thank god we’re staying in a hotel! Hooray for civilization and modern amenities.

First stop was the Botanical Café for lunch where the Melaka Menteri Besar came to welcome us. We are THAT important. There was Wifi!! We moved to Mini Malaysia next for some cultural shows but at least this was done professionally and it was quite entertaining too. A pity we didn’t have much time to explore the houses in the park. These were true authentic traditional houses from all the states, not like the so-called ‘modern’ ones we’ve been staying at.

Cultural performances at Mini Malaysia

Chamlong, Tourism News Editor from Bangkok Post, brought 4 canggih professional lenses worth thousands & thousands of bucks (5 figure ok!) and he loaned me his 2nd smallest telescopic lens to fit on my 450D.

OMG the zoom! And the pictures that that lens take! Sharp features capturing expressions against a blurry background. Fell in love on the spot. Don’t need that much skill too. Hmmm good pictures are a result of good equipment instead of the photographer’s skills then? Something to ponder eh? Only drawback is that it’s damn bloody heavy and I don’t think I’ll be able to lug that long big equipment around.

Awesome profile pics taken by me! See, not much skill needed haha

We had to go to another homestay in Parit Penghulu for dinner bout ½ hour from town. Was expecting the traditional Melaka houses with the colourful stone steps but nope, the houses looked just like any kampong house. It was actually the most modern one we’ve been too so far.

Homestay Parit Penghulu

Was supposed to go for a river cruise at night but the rain didn’t allow us too. Again. We were on the boat for 5 minutes and had to turn back cause of safety reasons. 2nd time during this trip that an activity was cancelled because of the weather.

Melaka at night

Went round the historical area to the usual stuff – the church, museums, A’Famosa, St Paul’s hill, etc. Since the Malaysians have been to these places countless of times already, we decided to turn the visit into a photography excursion instead.

Me as the model

Me as the photographer, but with my standard kit lens

Since time was permitting, the organizers brought us back for the river cruise which began operations in Nov 2005. Now why haven’t I been on this before? Was quite nice, the cruise, Malaysian’s version of Venice. Cruise takes 45 minutes for the 90km trip which takes you around the city to see the sights from a different angle.

We passed a little café that was featured in the movie Entrapment, the one with Catherine Zeta-Jones and passed a bridge where the Japs used to behead the Chinese. There are also many large biawaks around the swampy area which are being fed dead chickens every day cause the mgt cleaned the river, resulting in loss of food for these huge lizard-like creatures. We saw a few!

Cruising along the river in Melaka city

There are other new attractions in Melaka as well that I have not been too such as the Taming Sari Tower and the Eye of Melaka which the Melaka govn bought for RM23 million. This is the same one from Lake Titiwangsa in KL. Only diff is, Melaka charges RM10 for a ride while KL was RM30. Sheesh. Milking us KL folks.

Night was the closing ceremony at Equatorial Hotel where the winners are announced. Hafiz’s team won the first prize of RM3000 given in a bundle of Rm1 notes! Haha good stack. Went clubbing at Arena disco after that. Finally! Alcohol. Awesome. Was surprisingly packed for a Tuesday night.

Prizes on closing night

Clubbing at Arena Disco

Homestay in the State of 9

Saturday 10 – Monday 12 October 2009

Our next homestay is in the village of Laman Bangkinang, Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan. As with the first one, we were greeted by traditional music and the throwing of yellow rice. Sakit juga terkena ia. Made a pack with Sofian, one of the participants, to wear our 2009 Rainforest t-shirts. Semangat only we boria like that. Rainforest rocks!

There are more families involved in the programme here, around 30 of them and ours foster family was Mak Saadiah. Thank god her house was one of the nicer ones. Some were saying their foster houses were not as well equipped or clean as ours. 4 of us were placed in the room upstairs. I booked the bed.

Rainforest borias and our kampong house for 2 nights

The village folks held a mock wedding for us that night to show us how it’s done the Minagkabau way. The grooms are not allowed to walk to their brides so they were carried on their best man’s shoulders instead. The rest of the night was spent watching cultural activities by the village folks and also the Temuan tribe. All of us had to wear baju kurungs which we borrowed from our foster family.

Mock Minangkabau and Malay wedding

Visited the Istana Seri Menanti the next day to check out the Minagkabau architecture which came from Indonesia. Unfortunately, the palace was closed for renovations but we had to complete a few tasks there such as looking for information about the place, playing tenteng, a traditional Negeri Sembilan game and drawing a part of the palace.

There’s an interesting story to how the word Minangkabau came about. Back in the days, provinces in Indonesia used to wage war against each other with the victor conquering the loser’s province. The leaders of two provinces decided against their people’s bloodshed and sent two kerbau or buffalos to fight against each other instead.

One province sent an angry female buffalo whose calf had been taken away from her. Seeing that, the other province sent a buffalo calf with a knife tied to his nose. The female buffalo died when the calf went to suckle her and the knife pierced her belly. The word win in Indonesian is ‘menang’ and they won using ‘kerbau’ so that’s how Minangkabau came about.

At Istana Sri Menanti

Visited Jeram Tengkek, a waterfall near the village but it was quite pathetic. Water was slow as it’s the dry season and there were rubbish all over the place. Selangor has much better waterfalls. There were a few families having picnic there though. Did a stand upper there. You’ll think it was that awesome after Juliana’s done editing with it. Never believe what you see on TV.

Jeram Tengkek Waterfalls

We had to participate in more kampong games and the organizers went all out this time. First was hitting balloons with a blowpipe, rolling a hoop with a stick, then running with a bamboo pole between our legs, walking on coconut husks, shaving coconuts and balancing on pinang tree trunks. The last one was tough as none of my team mates wanted to get wet so it was yours truly for both tasks. Fell down in the muddy waters twice! Sheesh.

Village games

That night, we had more cultural stuff and a ‘Ratu Kebaya’ beauty contest. All of us had to take part. I wore my kebaya made out of Thai silk I tailored 6 years ago. Damn tight already wei.. buttons were bursting. Shy only. Was 5kg thinner then L. It was more cultural stuff again. Learning about culture is all good and all but there’s something called TOO much culture. I need to speak English. Help. I don’t think I can survive a kampong life. Will go absolutely bonking mad.

‘Ratu Kebaya’ and cultural night

My first Malay Homestay Experience

Thursday 8 October 2009

Homestays are becoming an ever popular activity in Malaysia both with the local and international guests as many city folks have never experienced life in traditional Malay villages. Realising the increasing demand for these sort of activities, ANCM Creative together with Kembara Travel & Tours and Tourism Malaysia have invited around 70 participants from Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand for an IMTGT Homestay FAM Trip to experience local Malaysian life in villages across Kedah, Perak, Negeri Sembilan and Melaka.

The programme aims to encourage interaction with the village folks, promote local tourist attractions as well as sports tourism through the various ‘eco-challenge’ games organised at each homestay. It will be a whole week of traditional malay culture with limited internet access, not a single drop of alcohol or night life in sight. Good detox for me. Wonder if I’ll survive?

Our first homestay required us to travel six hours by bus to Kampung Raga, a small Malay village in the district of Yan, Kedah. We were greeted in full traditional splendour by the sounds of the kompang and serunai, accompanied by village folks carrying ‘Bunga Magga’ and ‘Bunga Telur’. Three young boys performed a silat demonstration as well.

Silat demonstration & lunch at Kg Raga

There are about 20 families involved in the Homestay Programme and we were divided into groups and introduced to our foster families. Each foster family can take up to five guests, depending on the number of rooms in their house.

Besides acting as a journalist and writing an article on the programme, this would be my first time as a TV host as Juliana, videographer from multimedia came along to produce a few mini snippets for Staronline TV. Wonder if I’ll freeze in front of the camera or forget my lines? Should demand 3 salaries from Star – 1 as a journalist, 1 as a photographer and 1 as a TV host. Haha.

For city folks who have never stepped foot into a village, staying in a traditional Malay house can come as quite a shock. Don’t expect the modern amenities and luxuries of city life – village life runs at a much slower pace. It’s going back to basics and living a simple life. Our foster mum, Umi, said that most of her guests are university and exchange students, corporate and team-building groups from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Korea.

Homestay experience at Kg Raga & my foster mum

Lunch was served on mats by the river before returning to our foster family’s house to get ready for the ‘eco-challenge’ games organised by the village folks. There were a total of 11 teams of four and each team had to complete different challenges involving local cultural elements such as weaving jackfruit baskets out of leaves, making local kuih out of flour, playing ‘Tarik Upih’ (pulling a person on a pinang tree leaf), tug-of-war and catching ducks in the muddy paddy field.

I think I did pretty well in front of the camera. You guys judge for yourself. Still have 6 more days to go…

The night ended with a cultural show by the local village folks playing traditional Kedah music and a nasyid performance by the women village folk. We were invited to try the local instruments and play along with the musicians. It was a cultural night indeed.

Playing traditional games at Kg Raga

Took a pic at the nearby Pulau Dayang Bunting before heading off to Perak