KL Tourist info center. Melaka tour started here.
Palm plantations line much of the road. Harvested mostly for Palm Oil.
Roads are as good as any autobahn!
Fast and well maintained. Good signage.
Tolls are cheap. Maybe RM2 from KL to Melaka. About 70 cents US.
Enterning Melaka. Chinese graves on “Bukit China” (bukit = hill). Shape symbolizes mother's womb.
St. Peter's Church, built during Dutch rule.
Melaka is a popular Sunday tourist spot. Narrow streets and slow traffic!
St Francis Xavier “Missionary to the East” came in 1542. Ultimately not successful here and moved on to China, but still buried here.
Entrance to Chinatown
Typical shop on bottom and cramped living quaters on top. Merchants only here part of year so did not put much into living area.
Lots of colorful clothes
Chinese Temple
Chinese temple
Our tour guide
How cute... Outside the Chinese temple
About 6 ft across and great colors
This pic does not do it justice. Colors were really much more vibrant!
Typical “trishaw”
Adjusting the umbrella on a trishaw
Very busy temple
Richly decorated
Great carvings everywhere you look!
Gold paint and inlays on many things
Hindu Temple
Mosque, Hindu Temple and Chinese Temple all on same block
Mosque
Fountains like this make every Mosque inviting
Mosque with minaret
Now leaving Chinatown
Melaka River from downtown bridge. All the Europeans lived on the East side and they made all the Malays, Indians an Chinese live on the West side.
Dutch Square in central Melaka with clock tower (built 1886 to honor Tan Beng Swee, a rich Chinese merchant) and Stadhuys (Dutch administrative buildings) on right
Dutch Square
Fake windmill on Dutch Square (built 1980's) to remember Dutch history
Dutch Square, one of the oldest surviving parts of Melaka, is busy on Sunday
Christ Church on Dutch Square. Fountain built 1904 for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.
Many trishaws are very colorful
For RM3 (about $1 US) you can get a photo with this around your neck!
Independance Museum
A basketball tournament for kids in the 95 degree heat and 95% humidity. The kids did not seem bothered by it!
Kids in b-ball tourney.
Bukit St Paul, the hill around which the Portuguese built A Formosa, a really impressive fort. The Britts blew it up when they ran the place so nobody would use it against them.
Our tour group.
Our tour group. Guide in center
Tour group including me!
The Gate, Porta de Santiago, is all that remains of the Portuguese fort
Cannon at Porta de Santiago
The fort walls were 15 ft thick!
From the top of the hill in the fort looking southwest to Melaka Straights
St Paul's Church on top the hill.
St Paul's
Inside St Paul's. Britts stored gunpowder here and let it decay and was never rebuilt.
Inside St Paul's
Looking south from top of hill with Porta de Santiago and Merdeka Parade gounds (large grass area) and Straight of Melaka
Islands in Straight of Melaka
Artist I bought watercolors from.
Reconstruction of Malay Sultan's house. Four levels, no nails or screws, in typical Malay tradition. (remember, they did not have much metal to make nails and such)
Shallow bay in 'Portuguese Settlement' where they were pushed (not so gently) to by the Dutch and Brits.
Very nice hotel in the Straight of Melaka in Portuguese Settlement
Watching the Straights
The tour group. Time to get back in the bus for the drive back to KL.
