This is Part 2 of the photos of Melaka Trip 2011. A friend of mine just came back from Melaka and he told me that the place was crowded especially in Jonker Street. I told him to avoid going there during the school holiday season. The months of November to December are always the time when parents would bring their kids for holidays; and Melaka is one of the easiest and favorite place to visit for the Singaporeans.

I notice that a lot of buildings and houses in Melaka are painted in red. Red must be the auspicious color; and indeed many Chinese consider the color red as lucky. Personally I do not liked the stay in a home painted red. I find that it is too bright and glaring. There is a hotel called Aldy Hotel in Stadhuys which is near the river and historical site and it is painted totally red.  If you looked carefully, even the airconditioned compressors are painted in paprika red – which I think is quite awful. Anyway one man’s food or delight is another man’s poision, so to speak. The Aldy hotel location is really good as you can walked to Jonker Street, visit historical sites and shopping malls nearby. If you don’t mind staying in a simple and comfortable hotel with good location, then this is the place.

I liked the decorated doors of some of the historical shops along Jonker Street. It is artistic and is liked having Chinese calligraphy art on the main door.  You can also see a signage written in Chinese on top of the main door. I asked a friend of mine and she told me that the Chinese characters are the surnames or names of the family staying in that home.

The Stadhuys Museum Complex is a historical building that was built in 1641 to 1656 and it is also painted red. Back in the old days, it was formally used by the Governor as his residence. Now it is a museum. The Christ Church was built in 1753 and it is the oldest Prostestant Church in Malaysia. I understand that it took about 12 years to build this church; and it is constructed without joints. And again, it is painted red, naturally. The Church does not allow taking of photos inside their premises. The Christ Church is a beautiful historical church and it is just next to the Stadhuys Museum.

As I continued walking along this historical site, I saw a few antique canons rested on the old brick walls.  There is nothing much too see beside the old canons which is facing the river. Most tourists would simply take photos and move along. These old canons reminds me of the poem from Lord Tennyson – The Charge of the Light Brigade. I used to read his poems in my younger days. Here is an excerpt of it –

“Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.”

And near to antique canons, there is also a watermill and it is called The Melaka Sultanate Watermill. It was built quite recently in 2007 and it is the largest watermill in Malaysia.The cost of building this mill is RM1.5 million and it stand at 13 meter. The building of this watermill was based on Islamic technology. At the time when I was there, the watermill was not moving at all.

And as I walked along the river, there is a huge old ship which is called the Replica of Flor De Lamar. It is a replica of the Portugese galleon and you need to buy a ticket in order to visit this exhibition.

For shopping, I visited the Dataran Pahlawan Megamall and the Mahkota Parade Mall – both of them are near to Holiday Inn Hotel. These 2 malls are very spacious but they don’t have a supermarket as an anchor tenant. I would normally buy beers and snacks and would consumed them in my hotel room in the night while watching TV; and the best place to buy beer and snacks is the supermarket. Anyway, I couldn’t find any shop selling beers in Dataran Pahlawan Megamall and also in Mahkota Parade Mall. There are plenty of fast food outlets over here, so you will never go hungry.

That is the end of my photos of Melaka trip for the year 2011. I will put up more photos of Melaka when I visit Melaka next year in 2012. Many thanks for taking your time to visit my blog.