Malaka (Malaysia)

Eating fruit with Kamal our guide in Malaka
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From Singapore we took an early bus to cross over the border to Malaysia, and from there we drove onto Malaka which is a relaxed Malaysian port town in the Melaka Straits.

Malaysia is a Muslim country, so I've had to put strappy tops and anything else even slightly revealing to the bottom of my pack in favour of T-shirts and longer skirts and trousers, as most of the people dress very conservatively here with Muslim women wearing head scarves all the time. Soon after we crossed the border, I noticed that all the public toilets were the squat kind. I'd forgotten all about this since I'd left South America, so this is something that I'm going to have to get used again during my time in Asia.

A deserted train left in Malaka which was used to carry prisioners of war to Burma in WWII
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Although Malaysia it is technically a third world country, it seemed fairly developed to me with good roads and modern petrol stations. It's pushing to get its status changed from "third world" to "developing world", and around Malaysia there are signs saying 2020, which is the date that they plan to achieve this new status by.

The people in Malaysia are so genuinely friendly, and people in the street are always asking me if they can help me if I look even slightly lost. There seems to be no catch with mst of them either, no "I will help you, but only if you come into my shop". This was refreshing and I hoped that the rest of Asia would be like this.

Maria and me in a tiny tuk-tuk in Malaka
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Malaka was the first town we stayed in during our visit to Malaysia. It has an interesting history and has been conquered by the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British and nearly by the Japanese most recently in the Second World War over the centuries. It's now thankfully independent, and several different cultures thrive in the town, including Malay, Indian, Chinese, Portuguese and Dutch. They all seem to get along well, and whenever there is a festival all the other cultures in the town join in to celebrate together.

We had a fantastic guide called Kamal who took us around on a trishaw ride though the town. It turned out that Kamal had been a Second Lieutenant on HMS Hermes. He told us some stories about his time in the Navy, people he had rescued and showed us his pride and joy, which was an HMS Kittyhawk brass belt buckle given to him by the daughter of the Captain of HMS KIttyhawk, whom he'd saved some years earlier whilst out at sea. He carried this around with him in the back on the trishaw all the time. His English was really good, and he had a great knowledge of Melaka's history. He even got us to try some Melaka fruit that we found lying under a tree in the Square, which is apparently very very high in Vitamin C. It tasted like the most sour gooseberry I've ever tasted, but I kept thinking of all that Vitamin C.

We walked up a big hill in the town to see St Paul's Church built by the Portuguese in 1521. It's mostly ruins now, but we had a great view of the town from up there. At the bottom of the hill strangely there were two deserted train carriages. Apparently they had been used by the Japanese during World War II to take prisoners of war up to the Thai/Burmese border to help construct the railway line there. The Japanese plan was to build a railway line for their westwards, and to eventually invade India. It gave me shivers down the back of my spine looking at the empty carriages imagining what it must have been like for the prisoners of war there sixty years ago.

Coffee is big in Malaysia, and each state has their own type of coffee. Whilst at a local eatery I browed through the menu and noticed that the state of Melaka's coffee was 30% salt and margarine! Can you imagine salt and margarine in your coffee?! Apparently they fry the coffee beans in the salt and marg to give them added flavour. Yum yum!

We visited a strange little museum called "The Museum of Enduring Beauty", it had a fascinating display of all different kinds of cultures round the world, and what beauty means to them. Including lots of pictures of tribal people with rings around their necks to make their necks appear longer, and pictures of people with big rings in their ear lobes to stretch them. They also had Chinese shoes that women who had their feet bound and broken wore. Quite an incredible and unexpected collection.

I was sad to move on from Malaka, but Kuala Lumpur was calling.