So I was worried we wouldn’t find as good a breakfast place after we left Flaaah.But we found this gorgeous place in the old colonial district. The Daily Fix. OYogurt with fruit and chia and passion fruit sauce and homemade granola – so so good!Bakery case included “cube croissants” which I never did try. The donuts were only on weekends so I had to get the strawberry balsamic one. Then out into the city in Chinatown to see what we can seeBeautiful temple. I love the Tiger wall king of all beasts or king of the mountain. Celebrating year of the dragon!The most over the top band of trishaws I have ever seen. Spider-Man, Hello Kitty, Pokeman, any era any music, they’ve got youEven more impressive at nightMind blown! A blender inside a watermelon – just poke a hole and do it for an amazing juice!Kampung Kling Mosque founded in 1748!With Portuguese tiles, moorish cast iron lamps and a Victorian chandelier.The outside you can see is influenced by Malay, Sumatran, Hindu and Chinese architecture. Definitely a testament to the blend of cultures trading here. Cheng Ho again. We learn about these famous European explorersDoing their fancy things with 2-30 ships and a few hundred men in the 14th and fifteenth centuries. (1492 is barely in the 13th) Cheng Ho started in 1403 and had up to 300 ships and 30,000 men! He was trading prolifically for China before any of these guys were born! Again why do I not remember learning a single thing about him in school?!Night marketGorgeous by the river. Next morning they put pansies in my smoothie! I love this placeAnd have poached eggs ever looked so perfect! With a sprig of thyme no less. Then we took a bike tour with Alias at “Melacca on Bike” we “put the fun between the legs”…We started near a rubber farm. Getting the sap to flow. Then wait, empty the cups and add an acid to make it into a stable form of latex. He was joking that while many things now can be made of synthetic rubber, condones still need to be made with the natural stuff for more reliable products. It was so nice to be on a bike. The self made wind is enough to keep you cool in the morning. Palm fruit clusters. He said they can be more than 50 kg! I cannot imagine this guy’s job. He is essentially using a small saw on a pole to get them off.Finding the heart of palm in case we are ever lost on a plantation…?This is a dragon fruit cactus. It’s crazy how I have no idea how so many things grow. Newer edition built on to the right of an old traditional Malay house. Alias was a great leader and we had a good ride. The fields are young rice. Next morning smoothie bowl with chia, toasted coconut and granola. With pansies!And lemon cheesecake, better than any I’ve ever had. yeah, yeah, I know it’s breakfast but….We went to a Ramadan Market at a beach in the edge of town on the recommendation of a barista and found…the weirdest little fish ever!Mudskippers look like that picture of fish coming up on land in the theory of evolution… kind of a fish, but “walking” on land. They can even jump up on a rock 15 or more inches up even though these are only 3-4 in at most. Then the sun went down and the egret flew away. we couldn’t really find food we wanted. So we wandered across the street to the little carnival that said it was open… but no one was there. I was almost creepy. But we could ride the rides all by ourselves!Even kinda scary ones. And be as silly as we want.At the very top of the highest hill overlooking the harbor is the Church of St Paul. Built 1566-1590 by the Portuguese It had amazing big trees Neat inside and to see some of the tombstones they kept and put “inside”Nearby at the bottom of the hill is what’s left of A Famosa. Built almost immediately after the Portuguese took the city in 1511 it had 3 meter thick walls surrounding the big hill with the Church of St Paul and had a 40 meter watchtower to protect from possible attacks from sea. In 1807 the British were about to hand control back to the Dutch and they wanted to blow it up so it couldn’t be used against them. But they saved this little bit. They also have a museum about the shipping industry built on a replica of a 16th century Portuguese ship the Flor de la Mar. It takes you through the very strict and well running port the Melacca sultans were running for more than 2 centuries with 84 languages spoken and able to accommodate >2000 ships in the harbor at a time. There were different tariff rates to the sultan based on nationality with wealthier nations paying more and local areas just bringing some gifts. Then in 1511 when taken by the Portuguese who mostly wanted control of the spice trade and charged too high of taxes and tried to force everyone in the area to dock in Melacca even if they didn’t want to, and then the Dutch in 1641, who actually just wanted to suppress Melacca so their port in Batavia (Jakarta) to rise to the most important. Both had tariffs way too high and caused much business to go to other nearby ports instead. And then the British came in 1809 during the Napolianic wars then Dutch again then British again in 1824 until 1941 when the Japanese came and then British again and then independence in 1957. Whew… Melacca lost its dominance but kept its history. After the Dutch captured Melacca they allowed some people to stay and granted them the Portuguese quarter. Which now is looked after by this statue I dumbed “sad Jesus”. Then there was a cool museum about the customs agency and how it worked over the years. These are scales with weights and hooks for the goods to be weighed. Ways to smuggle drugs Pronographic images for a Muslim country. I love how they make them more descent for the museum goers. Opium related items. After a month in Malaysia it was actually weird to see Christian alters in the gardens of houses here. Our last night we actually found a very cute Me Ivan restaurant and there was a beautiful singer playing American classics and just making them better than the originals often. We ended up dancing with a British woman who has lived in Singapore and now KL and gave us a couple places to look for when we moved on. Very lovely wrap up there. We had fun here after all.
2 responses to “Melacca important center of trade for centuries”
Henry Schroeder
Wow- A dizzying array of counties taking over the area for hundreds and hundreds of years… It must have had a trade system that was hard to resist and very profitable! What a cultural smorgasbord… so interesting! Love, Marilee
Yes, it was right by the spice islands and it was a narrow channel to get through to get from Europe or the Arabian peninsula to China or vice versa. It also had two monsoons going opposite directions to help the boats along.
Jessica Wandering 
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