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