I grew up in Melaka, a historic city with British, Dutch, and Portuguese influence. After completing my education, I started working in Kuala Lumpur. My two good friends and I decided that we needed to capture some shots of various places before everything was gone. So, three buddies decided to go round the town. We captured shots of A Famosa, St John’s Hill, the Stadhuys, and a few other places. That was decades ago.
Recently, a friend sent me a picture taken in Melaka at night near the riverfront. I could not imagine it. It was simply lovely. So, I decided to explore more about this historic town. Malacca was awarded the UNESCO World Heritage status in 2008. The influence of the British, Dutch, and Portuguese has left its mark on the architecture, cuisine, and way of life in this historic city.
Now as a retiree, I have more leisure time. So, I make frequent visits to Malacca. As a food lover, I go for the comfort food of my childhood days. The numerous food courts and eating places in Malacca are a great place for adventurous food lovers. Even the same dish can taste different due to the texture and the way it is cooked. Usually, I go for the wantan mee. The wantan mee in Malacca looks pale and is tossed in chili sauce, unlike those in many other towns. I also try not to miss the dim sum shop that sells big pau that oozes out delicious gravy with every bite. I wrote about Malacca's good food sometime this year. Do you know that you can still get a cup of good local coffee for only RM1 in Malacca? I discovered this during one of my recent visits. That place, “Five Loaves And Two Fish Kitchen” is in Jalan Tengkera. In fact, they even came up with RM3 lunch in April this year.
Other than food, the Malacca River cruise in the evening is a good experience. The history of Malacca is artistically depicted as murals on the buildings along this river. Take a morning or evening walk along the riverfront and treat yourself to a nice drink in one of the many cafes along the river. Then enjoy a trishaw ride. Trishaws were a common mode of transport to short distances in my childhood days. I still remember getting down from the trishaw so that the load was lighter for the trishaw man when our trishaw had to go up a bridge!
Take a break. Let’s go cuti-cuti Malacca. For those who are retirees or have flexible work schedules, you may consider visiting Malacca on weekdays to avoid the crowd and traffic jams.
By Mei Wong
Submit your #CutiCutiLocal travel stories and stand a chance to win fabulous prizes worth up to RM10,000! Find out how you can participate here.
Mei Wong is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact Newswav.
