So.... after heeding no warning, whatersoever, from our parents on the do's and the do not's of South East Asia, we arrived in Malacca and promptly jumped into the car of a strange man handing out flyers for his 'new' hostel. Sorry to all loved ones for such irresponsible behaviour, but Anderson, as he has now come to be know, was a very lovely, kind man with a very nice, clean and fairly priced hostel called Global Travellers. In all honesty we did make him ring the hostel so we could speak to the reception and prove his affiliation with the hostel. We were put through to the co-ower, Andresons wife, Joanne, who found the whole thing more than a little funny.
The car ride to the hostel allowed Anderson to give us somewhat of a guided tour of the town and information on the history and heritage of Malacca, recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
Malacca has an interesting and intriguing history amd has been ruled by a number of countries, over powering one after another for hundereds of years. The reign of these individual countries can be seen in the architecture of many buildings around the town. Notably the Portuguese, 'A Famosa', the Dutch, 'Stadthuys', and the British influence, Town Houses. We arrived at the hostel much more knowledgable about the city we were about to explore and were shown to our lovely twin, airconditioned, private room for a mere 45RM, the quivelent to 10GBP. It was peaceful, quiet and a true delight, the 5GBP per person, per night only sweetened the deal.
After a quick freshen up, there was no time for resting as we left the comfort and safety of the hostel and headed out for our first taste of real Malaysia. It was immediately apparent stepping out the door that we weren't quite prepared for the heat and humidity as we both glaced at one another vaguely amazed and confused at this rapid climate change.
First stop on our hit list was Chinatown, which is where we found the infamous Jonker Street. Jonker Street is a shopaholics delight and supplies a never ending source for browsing, eating, bartering and generally the ability to have a really good time.
We literally spent hours pinballing from store to store untill we conceeded defeat and rested at a small cafe by the river for some light refeshment and truely needed rest.
It was here that we had our very first encounter with the standed of toilet available to the public in Malaysia. On the whole, squat toilets come as standard but with very varying degrees of disgustingness. Susie naively requested directions to the toilet and left immediately still needing relief. Now, we must stress here, we are not being precious, we kid you not, these toilets make your eyes and nose run.
Jan had mentioned in passing something about Chicken Satay Sticks, this immediately become a fixation for Susie as she started asking passers by... "Where's the Satay place, you know, the Chicken on the stick dip dip place?" There were of course a Macarena of hand guestures that accompanied this question. After strolling around for more than a little while, we found Capital Satay, easily identifiable by the queue of people spilling out into the street waiting to get their Satay fix. After queuing patiently next the the cess pit that was the open gutter running along the front of the resturant, we were finally shown to our table where our own vat of bubbling, peanut sauce, lava was waiting to be violated by the two of us. With a very significant language barrier, we were pointed towards a fridge full of uncooked meat and veg, with of course, no labels. With no one to ask about the self service produce available, we blindly loaded up our tray with almost one of everything. Maybe out of curiosity or maybe out of madness we picked up a Century Egg as a side dish, Eww!
Following our selections, we now had to try and safely cook the tepid meat on a stick. We were totally out of our depth and after consuming the resonably well cooked food (if we do say so ourselves), we happened upon a lovely English speaking lady who informed us that we had just consumed the following, Liver, Kidney and Intestine, all lovingly cooked in delicious peanut satay sauce. We had well and truely done ourselves proud as our understanding of Satay is obviously very different. Last but not least... The Century Egg!!! For those of you who do not know, Century Eggs have been preserved in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, quick lime and rice hulls for several weeks to several months, giving the yolk a dark green to grey colour and the whites of the egg become a dark brown transulcent jelly. Theses are a delicacy for the locals, but we literally found the comcept rather hard to swallow. It took maybe 5 minutes for us both to comsume our divided portions, but we were not to be defeated, and with some gentle oesophogeal massage we managed to get it down the trap with only a gag here and a shudder there.
With the fusion of Euopean and Malaysian influences doused with a splash of Little India and a Pinch of Chinatown, we were fast falling in love with Malacca. The sudden change from the very westernised Singapore to rough and ready Malacca really rang true the saying, 'Malaysia, The True Asia.'.
Peace and Love,
Jan and Sooz
No comments:
Post a Comment