Malacca is a smallish coastal city, full of historical interest, with colonial influences from both the Dutch and those perennial colonial offenders, the British. It's also a popular holiday destination for Malaysians as well as Indians, Chinese, Japanese and Koreans among others. It overlooks the Strait of Malacca, which is one of the world's busiest shipping routes: it's the main shipping channel between the Pacific and Indian oceans.
The bus here from Kuala Lumpur was cheap as chips and very nice. After two nights in a quiet hostel, I then had one night in a plush Holiday Inn, where they kindly upgraded me to a Club room on the seventeenth floor, with a full wall window overlooking the Strait. A huge thunderstorm made for a rather dramatic night's sleep.
Otherwise, my three days here have been fairly quiet, so I'll keep this blog entry short rather than bore everyone senseless by writing about nothing!
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| View from the 17th floor |
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| A bit of local wildlife seen on the riverboat cruise. Eeek. |
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| Monorail...monorail...monorail!!!!!! Sadly it stopped working about 15 minutes after it was opened, in 2010, and has lain idle since. |
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| Gardens of the Melaka Sultan palace |
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| Jalan Kampong Pantai. All the buildings in this road are lit up in red at night, and it looks really nice in real life. Unfortunately it looks less nice through a cheap camera operated by an incompetent. |
