One night in Melacca

We spent one night in Melacca, at the gorgeous Puri Hotel.  Rooms are a little tiny, but who spends any time in their rooms?

01 Melacca Church

Our first experience in Melacca was the pleasant shock of its bus station.  KL's bus station is very crammed, old, and chaotic.  That's where we borded our luxurious (yet still cheap) bus to Melacca.  The bus is equipped with extra wide, executive-class airplane style, seats.  We disembarked the bus to step into an ultra-modern bus station equipped with food court, shopping mall, internet caffes, and a helpful information booth.  What a contrast from KL!

Thank's to Richard and Sharron's recommendation, we checked into the Puri Hotel (great value for such a posh looking place).  We wandered around the town, which is full of beautiful old buildings from the days of Portugese rule, Dutch rule, and British rule.  One could spend weeks visiting the dozens of museums scattered throughout town, but we strategically limited ourselves to one, around 30 minutes before closing.  We quickly dashed through the Maritime Museum, which is built into a large model ship.  While we were still in the lower level of the hull, the curator shut off all the lights in the building, ready to go home for the night!  Using the flash on our camera, we found our way to the steps, while hollering at the curator to let him know we were still there.  Who would have thought a museum could be so exciting!

02 Mud Skippers

After enjoying a delicious spicy Pernacan dinner, and as we were making our way to a rooftop restaurant for a night-cap, the lights in many city blooks around us went out.  A power line had been cut at a construction sight.  The dark streets reminded us to start carying a headlight with us whenever we go out.  The panicky tourist in the elevator at the restaurant reminded us to avoid taking the elevator from now on.

On our way back to our hotel, we were encouraged to join some locals at a pub, which was playing live music.  One of the locals was a very talented singer, of Portugese desent, who kept getting up and joining the band.  One of his buddies was a Christian Chinese, and the other was a Muslim Malay.   Soon after we sat down, they successfully encouraged another tourist to join us.  He turned out to be a dilusional scitsophrenic Canadian who's convinced that the Canadian government is evil and out to get him.  Needless to say, the last few hours of our night in Melacca was very entertaining.

03 National Pride

04 Hotel Puri

05 Melacca pause

06 Rickshaw