Note to self: what's fascinating to UNESCO might not be the easiest travel spot for little kids.
The cool thing about Singapore is that it is literally a hop and a skip away from all sorts of other places. Malaysia is literally across a short bridge so we decided to visit Melaka (also spelled Malacca) , a UNESCO World Heritage site on the West Coast of Malaysia, south of Kuala Lampur. Melaka was a major trading port for the Portugese, Dutch and British. Visiting Melaka was the first time I felt like I was in Asia. Not many folks speak English there and things weren't shiny and new like in Singapore or the resort area of Bintan, Indonesia (see earlier blog entry).
Like any good traders, we spent our one and only night on Jonker Street, the shopping "mecca" of Melaka. The entrance to the street has a Chinese dragon draped above the square. Maisie loved it!
We got there just in time to see the quaint, shop-lined street transformed into a flea market. In other words, we got there just a little too late. The tables were mostly filled with crap - different crap from other flea markets, but crap just the same. Some of the tables did have interesting foods. Tom and I sampled some deep-fried durian balls. Uh no. The taste was okay, but the smell is just too strong. No wonder the fruit is banned on subways in Singapore! I think the shops probably had some really wonderful trinkets in them, but we couldn't really access them, especially with our gigantic stroller with a sleeping Hudson. There were also some really cool religious-looking buildings.
Hudson woke up on the wrong side of the world, too - screaming his hungry, little head off for all he was worth. Hudson is already an attraction all his own in Asia, but a crying, blond, curly-headed kid? You'd have thought I was walking around holding a tiger on a leash. Once again, Maisie thought all the attention was for her and she did her best Vogue moves!
Luckily, we found Melaka's version of restaurant row and got some kind of yummy Asian food. I was hoping for Portugeuse food here, but kid-friendly food was a must with our hungry little man. I miss just picking our restaurants for us. Now? The big requirement is does it serve something that resembles chicken nuggets which this place did. What would traveling kids do without nuggets and french fries?
This meal was nothing like our lunch! Let me backtrack a little.
Tom wanted to take a bus, but I thought a bus ride with toddlers would be sheer hell. According to Google, the drive was to take 3 hours, a bus ride 5. I always think it's a good idea to be able to stop with toddlers for things like bathrooms and food. Plus, driving is always a big more adventurous - if not a bit terrifying when the driver sits on the right front seat and the car is on the "wrong" side of the road. Tom did a great job even though I gasped in fear every 15 minutes. Poor guy!
Then again, driving was kind of a pain. We had to wait to pick up the car til 9:30 which meant 10. Then Tom had to come get us and the car seats. Then we had to figure out how to get out of town. We didn't really get on the road til 11.
Going through Singapore customs was simple. Malaysaia? Ouch. We had to get a toll card. Nobody told us that until we got there. Negotiating with Singapore dollars didn't really get us much of an exchange rate. So at the first rest stop, we pulled over to get more ringgits, the Malaysian currency, to buy more mone for our toll card. By then, the kids were hungry so we got some food.
This wasn't like our rest stops - no McDonald's here. Nope. Nobody really spoke English either. Tom fetched some food and I was a little nervous at first glance, but it was actually really good. Imagine getting a fresh-cooked, hot meal at one of our roadside rest stops?! I really loved some sort of okra dish. Who would have imagined okra here? I always think of it as deep-fried, Southern food! I used to eat leftovers cold for breakfast! I really miss my mother's okra fried in cornmeal. This okra wasn't fried, just sliced and cooked in some sort of spices. Yum!
The kids weren't so impressed. Once again, thank God for french fries. The great thing about this rest stop is that they had a playground for the kids to burn off energy. Brilliant! Why don't our rest stops have playgrounds?
Then we drove for a couple of hours passing hundreds and hundreds of acres planted with palm trees for palm oil. The red oil is used for cooking (french fries cooked in this are gorgeous!) and biofuel. The plantations are controversial because to plant them, they've had to cut down lots of rainforest endangering orangutans and tigers in the Sumatran plantation areas.
We finally got to the Renaissance hotel at 3:00. By the time we got to our room, the whole day was practically gone! The hotel was really tired, but one of the nicest in town, I think. Oh what a view out of our window!
The guy told us that we could easily walk and the stroller wouldn't be a problem. HA! Sidewalks - where they existed - were multi-level - up a few steps, then down a few steps. Getting to town took forever. It didn't help that we stopped to buy sunglasses (I just heard my brother groan because he knows how long it takes Tom to pick out a pair!) Both of our sunglasses have been casualties of traveling. Replacing them in Malaysia was FAR cheaper than buying in Singapore. That's why we were so late to Jonker Street.
After dinner, Hudson cried and cried until we let him walk. Keeping up with our short, little man on the world's busiest street was no easy task. Back at the room? The kids screamed and played for hours before going to bed. Hotel rooms and toddlers are not fun for the adults. I'm a little worried about our upcoming two weeks in China!
Sunday, we did a little better. After a less interesting breakfast at the hotel, we went swimming then took a long walk along the river that runs through town. This was a FAR better way to get to town. Maisie loved that we saw an alligator scampering into the water. Well, she heard it and I saw it. What I found really interesting about the river is that on one side there sat all these beautifully, painted buildings while on the other side Malays lived in shanties. Seriously. Extreme poverty looked directly at extreme wealth.
We grabbed lunch at a little cafe along the river. The kids were thrilled to get some french toast! Finally, we made it into the old city - the reason UNESCO preserves this place.
There's an old Dutch square with a cool, red church and a zillion trishaws each beautifully decorated with flowers. We were going to take a ride, but we needed two of them to accommodate all of us plus our stroller. It was a little much to manage.
So we walked in the hellishly, hot sun. I didn't think it was humanly possible to be hotter than I'd been in Singapore, but I was hotter in Melaka. I think that's because there's no shade there. Whatever the reason, it felt like the sun was literally sitting on our skin. Maisie said, "Man, Mommy. I'm really sweaty!
The historical area has an old fort called A Famosa, built in the 1500s. It's among the oldest European ruins remaining in Asia. This area is also littered with museums, graveyards - you name it.
There's even a replica of an old palace where the sultan once lived. The kids loved the palace! By the way, this was the first time I've ever had to take my shoes off to go inside a museum! We mostly just walked by everything, getting to really study very little - another casualty of traveling with kids.
We left the hotel at 3. Big mistake. HUGE mistake. Many Singaporeans took a four day weekend because of National Day on Thursday. We had to wait - are you sitting down - TWO hours to go through Malaysian customs! Luckily, we stopped to get gas just before we got in line. There was a KFC for the kids! (KFC is big in this part of the world). Tom and I grabbed some really yummy satay from a big grill in the middle of the rest stop. We also bought some local cookies. Wow! No wonder my clothes are starting to fit tight.
I keep forgetting I'm LIVING in Asia. This isn't a vacation. It definitely still kind of feels like one. It's also a big strange being back in our Singapore apartment. It's like we took a vacation from our vacation. Okay - back to reality.