Midway between China and India, Melaka was the first major trade port in SE Asia. With the prime location, came several brutal invasions and conquests first by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, the Japanese and probably someone else that I am forgetting. The city holds SE Asia's oldest Christian church and Malaysia's oldest Muslim mosque and Hindu temple. We toured all of these as well as a history museum and replica of the Portuguese ship that held all of the city's stolen treasures. It promptly sank en route to Portugal and has never been recovered. We saw dozens of insanely decorated modified bikes called trishaws...but they were expensive and we already had a cab, so...we just ogled.
We finished up a hot but educational day with a visit to a traditional Malaysian home. There is an entire neighborhood filled with these little wood houses- it was very charming. The owner of the house we visited dragged Jim around to tell him how old everything was, what he bought it for 'back when', and what it is worth now. And let me tell you...well...Bonnye, Nina and any other antique fans...perhaps you should start looking at Malaysian antiques! :-).
We learned alot on this excursion but Addi was quickly bored and didn't much enjoy the weather approaching 100F and 100% humidity. Couldn't really blame her!
I regret that we are leaving Malaysia without getting out of the cities to see any of the central rural or coastal parts of the country. Our experience is kind of like visiting New York and Boston and saying you've seen the North East. We will be doing alot of hopping around in Indonesia and Cambodia though, so I thought base-camping was important for Addi.
Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.6
Seems like asian cultures have more interest in ornate, colorful decorations?
ReplyDelete100 deg 100% humidity---how will you ever return to winter???
Thanks for keeping up the blogs....we log on twice a day, just to make sure we catch them hot off the presses!
cool! good to know since thai antiques are either a scabillion dollars for the real thing or slightly less for a repro. so, antiquing in malaysia it is! i also see another bike purchase in our future to add to greg's collection of eclectic, two-wheeled vessels. malaysia looks like fun for the whole fam!
ReplyDeletemiss y'all!
Hot peppers grow in warm climates.
ReplyDelete100 degrees and 100% humidity? That's sounds like Texas in August!
ReplyDelete