Feels like home, Melaka - Day 106-110

Melaka. When talking to all the guys living in our guest house (Voyager, we recommend) we learned that most of them have been here for years/months and keep coming back again and again.

Why? is the question Ruut and I asked ourselves.
Melaka is the 'historical city of Malaysia'. An important and convenient stop for trading ships, Melaka was a busy town with 84 languages spoken... but then came the Portugese, after them the Dutch and then finally the Brits and thus Melakas glory days as an important seaport was over.
Now Melaka is a popular tourist location, filled with museums and a beautiful 'old town' and Chinatown. Not far away lies modern Melaka, with huge malls and traffic jams. (oh, wait, even the narrow streets of Chinatown are constantly filled with cars.)


Yeah, it's charming, but we wouldn't describe this as 'the perfect place, with all you need. When you've come here you don't need to travel anymore'.


Or so we thought. After spending 4 days in Melaka (that's 3 more than planned) and meeting some of the most wonderful and kind people there are, we just might have changed our minds...

Newly arrived in Chinatown, Melaka.

Looking for somewhere to eat with Matt.

 Our rooftop, you could hear about 3 different calls to prayer plus church bells up here.

 Climbing out here wasn't that smart after all...

 The Dutch left their mark...

 Decided not to fly home just yet, so needed to post home some stuff. A lot of stuff.

 Doesn't look that delicious,but this vegetarian version of the local dish 'chicken rice' is something I'm gonna dream about for years to come.

 The British left their mark as well, destroyed the fort the Portuguese had built, and painted all the buildings red.

 Melaka just might be the warmest place we've been so far, so we tried to escape the heat by visiting as many museums as possible.. and the museums are numerous.

 Water bottle refilling station

 Night market in Chinatown

 Sorbets, snow ices, ice creams and fresh juices are a necessity... why don't they have fruit shakes though?

 Everyone's preparing for the Chinese New Year (3-4 Feb), so even Ruut.

 Visited the Hot Springs with Attila, Edwin and Maia in the middle of the night...

 ..why? It's way to hot during the day, but in my opinion it was way too hot even at 2 am. Basically one just had to splash a little water on oneself now and then, otherwise it hurt. (Kind of like an extremely hot sauna... but with clothes on)

 Afterwords you don't take a shower, but yet another bath.

 In Atilla's (origianlly from Hungary, lived here for a year now after just a quick dayvisit gone wrong, or right, Maia is from KL, Edwin from Melaka) sweet ride. 'I ran out of money in June!'

 Since Attila has lived quite some time as penniless, he knows where to get free food, and woke us up 7.30 for breakfast at a Sikh temple.

 Heads have to be covered

 You show up, get free (vegan!) food, wash your dish, leave. Not bad.

 Ruut posing. In China I was Chinese, in Cambodia I was 'beautiful Khmer women!', in Thailand and Malaysia the locals are so sure I'm half thai/malay they don't even ask me, and take it for granted that I understand the language... Ruut still keeps on getting plenty of attention.

 Local dessert, ice, beans and what not, all smashed in to one. Sounds horrible, looks horrible, but is, according to Ruut, 'okay'.

 Local treat. Mmm.

  The fact that there are up to three places, that we know of, where you can show up three times a day and be served 100% free, vegan, food, definitely makes me and Ruut love this place yet a little more.

 Nightmarket again.

 Ruut has discovered a new found ability to fall a sleep... anywhere, anytime.

 Waiting for the Voyager Cafe crew to finish counting the money, so we can spend yet another night without sleeping...

 ...since apparently the Malay never sleep. Either they spend their nights at Hot Springs or then drinking tea at hawker stalls.

Night time is the only time when the temperature is tolerable though.

 Yalu's car

 Maia making us try yet another local food, basically a weird green soup which you mix with all the beans, nuts, ricecrispies, vegetables etc. that you have on the other plate. We loved it.

 Maia helping us buy bus tickets.

 Rocky, closing the cafe.

 Yalu, Maia, Edwin, Ruut, Hanna

 Our dorm, daytime.

 If you ever stay at Voyager, all you have to is sit for a couple of minutes in one of these chairs/sofas, and we promise you've soon got a bunch of new friends with a whole lot of interesting stories.

 We didn't run out of Vegetarian restaurants to try...

 Yalu's other car

 Okay, sorry for the close up, but these mock meats are amazing! 

This is of course a 'chicken wing'.

 Goodbye Ruut.

Last picture taken of Ruut, on the bus to Singapore.

....now Ruut should have arrived in Singapore and Maia in Kuala Lumpur, and I'm all alone with my rinkka and fever.
Or then not, since as said this town is packed with overly friendly people, and at 9 a clock Edwin will pick me up and drive me to the bus station.

At 5:30 tomorrow morning I should arrive in Georgetown, and I see that as the starting point of a very different adventure, no Sophia, no Ruut.
Ruut is still in Singapore till the 25th, and will blog from there.
(Luckily she should not be all alone either, since we've got some amazing friends over there as well...!)
We discussed the blog, after all it's supposed to be about our trip, and our trip basically came to an end when Sophia flew home.
However, I'm still in Asia, and Sophia and Ruut both agree I should keep on blogging, so I will. It's still the same Asia, 'our' Asia.
And maybe there's a bigger chance I'll actually live up to the name of the blog, now that I'm 'alone'... ;)
//H