Friday Apr 23 - Malaka

For our last full day on the other side of the world, Scott took the day off work and guided us to Malaka. This is the last history lesson for those interested.

Malaka:

The area was inhabited many, many years prior, but in 1401, a Hindu prince from Sumatra reached this city and realized its potential as a deep-water port. Melaka was ideally situated halfway between China and India. Business boomed.

In 1511, the Portuguese arrived with 18 heavily armed ships and defeated Melaka’s army. They built the “A Formosa” fortress immediately, which still stands. The following 130 years were full of wars and skirmishes.

In 1641, the Dutch East India Company captured the city from the Portuguese and controlled it for the next 150 years.

The British arrived in 1786, with the East India Company, and eventually settled in Singapore, where business boomed and attention shifted from Melaka. Thus today, Melaka remains a small scale, charming, historic city.

We started with a tour of A Formosa:

Porta de Santiago (one of 4 main gates to A Formosa) (above)

The church housed stones marking deaths of Portuguese and Dutch inhabitants, many of them quite young.

We moved on to the remainder of this adorable town:

Ate some cendol to cool off:

And stopped at the highly recommended Auntie Lee's Chinese-Malay fusion restaurant.