Malacca, little Venice of Malaysia

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Too easy to fall in love with Malacca! Colourful streets, bars, restaurants, museums, shops, night market, rickshaw and canals (almost) like in Venice… Malaysia is worth a visit!

 

Malacca or Melaka is about two and a half hours from Kuala Lumpur. Very well served by many buses, it is easy to get there for a day or weekend visit.

The city of Malacca has many well-preserved influences
Colonised successively by the Chinese, Indians, Muslims, Malays, Portuguese, Dutch and then by the English and Japanese from 1941 to 1945 Malacca is rich in an incredible European and Eastern heritage.
This is where all the beauty of Malacca lies: a real cocktail of cultures still very much alive. Listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 2008, Malacca largely deserves this distinction: its cultural mix is exceptional.
To learn all about this tumultuous past, the museum tells the history of the city from A to Z. This allows a good understanding of the city because for the uninformed visitor, it can be surprising.
 

The historic centre of Malacca is very well preserved and still very much alive

Malacca has a very well preserved and restored historic centre. A period city centre is not easily found in Asia, where buildings are often modern. It is therefore one of Malacca’s major assets. The city is still alive and has not turned into a sterile museum. In the old buildings you can now find shops, restaurants, businesses…
Buzzing with activity during the day, Chinatown’s main street, Jonker Walk, turns into a popular night market several times a week. Crowds flock to the market and restaurants are full. The atmosphere is festive, with paper dragons and Chinese specialities guaranteed!

It is possible to stay in Malacca for a whole week without being bored for a second

 

In Malacca, you have to take the time to go into detail. Visiting a Chinese grocery shop for example is a gastronomic and cultural adventure not to be missed.
In the evenings the city is adorned with a very romantic aura, illuminating bridges and canals where it is good to stroll, in a quiet place far from the bustle of the streets. 
The monuments are not all ancient but worth a visit. The floating mosque (Straits Moschee) is recent but its special location promises some beautiful pictures: it sits on an artificial island which gives the impression that it floats on the surface, especially in the morning mists. Just next to it, the 18th century Chinese temple Cheng Hoon Teng with its flamboyant architecture exhibits the glazed emerald tiles of its cascading roofs. Everything is gilded, handcrafted, chiselled and strong in colour: total rococo!
Continuing the walk, it is the turn of the Kampung Kling mosque (18th century) with its Javanese style, white on the outside and golden on the inside that invites the traveller to visit. Just next to it, the Sri Poyatha Moorthi temple is one of the oldest Hindu temples in Malaysia. The proximity of these religious buildings has given the street a nice name: Harmony Street.

Malacca is exceptionally diverse
Malacca is an amazing city. Neither clean nor dirty, neither Chinese, Indian nor even Malaysian. Here you can find a Dutch windmill, cathedrals, mosques, Chinese and Buddhist temples. A Portuguese fort, bazaar shops, gigantic shopping centres, a very pretty river all lit up in the evening. Very artistically painted walls, thirty-storey buildings, tin shacks and practically no pavement!

So who lives in Malacca?

 
The local fauna of Malacca is made up of Chinese of course, Indians in sari, with a marked forehead, Malay men in baggy trousers, veiled Muslim women, Eurasians and tourists from all over the world.
The Chinese are all dressed European style with a remarkable detail: they all wear the most incredible T-shirts. Boys often wear impeccable blow-dry, coloured or bleached hair, depending on the style. Sunglasses, sling cameras, eccentric shorts and flip-flops.  
In the tiny neighbourhoods of Malacca, at nightfall it seems as if there are millions of people living in the tiny neighbourhoods of Malacca.
In the evening, everyone crowds onto a large stage for karaoke. Young and old alike, everyone will sing a song in front of a crowd of spectators in full communion. Abba, Chinese celebrities or American hits, everything goes on there.
But they don’t just sing. They dance too! Especially the women who are rather middle-aged or more. Fifty to sixty people faithfully reproducing simple and rather chaste choreographies on wild rock rhythms, the most serious in the world, without any complexes, is a most enjoyable show.
 

Malacca can be discovered on foot, by bike or by Rickshaw

A bit of fun now by taking a ride in a Rickshaw, these incredibly kitschy rickshaws. Rickshaws are a means of transport for tourists. A bicycle attached to a bench where two people can sit. They are decorated with artificial flowers arranged in hearts, butterflies, dragonflies, pennants, light garlands, beads and feathers in profusion. All of this to the rhythm of the driver’s pedal stroke, illuminated like Christmas trees. 
We then slowly make the (small) tour of the city to the thunderous sound of the disco hits of the 70s.

An immersion in the night market is well worth a trip to China on its own

 
The four streets that make up the Chinatown district are filled to the brim with stalls of all kinds: vendors of miracle stain removers, a Chinese pharmacy selling the merits of an extraordinary elixir made from the slime of a few molluscs. All the possible and imaginable gadgets are there, made in china.
On the gastronomy side, one can be tempted by strange fruit juices, strange cakes, woks with unknown contents. Waffle makers, moulds with unexpected shapes are cutting out things that can be eaten but which remain mysterious because, obviously, it is written in Chinese.
Some stalls are filled with old banknotes, coins, talismans, calligraphic cards, lucky charms and horoscopes… always in Chinese.
 

In Malacca, you have to allow time, there are so many things to see and do!

All the districts are worth the diversion: Kampung Tetek and its red buildings, the Chinese district, of course, but the Indian and why not, a few kilometres away, the beach! 
Time passes quickly in Malacca as there are so many things to do: visit museums, churches, temples, walk, eat, drink, shop, hunt (with a camera of course) the countless iguanas that live along the banks… and finish in beauty with a karaoke in the public square. 
Melaka is Venice, Calcutta, Beijing, Amsterdam and Casablanca in the same salty-sweet-sour cocktail. A beautiful place to stop and learn about Asia.
 
All said and done, for details see directly on the spot because whatever your budget, your interest or your style, Malacca will surely satisfy you.

Not to be missed in Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur: Bukit Bintang’s street food and bars, skybars and towers 

Kuala Lumpur is a city of contrasts! Tradition and modernity, high-tech, temples and mosques rub shoulders with futuristic architecture and old suburbs… And everyone meets in Little India or Little China… A city to discover!

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