Merdeka Weekend

This weekend was the celebration of Malaysia's 51st year of independence. It was fitting, I suppose that we traveled to Melaka( Mallacca) to spend the weekend. Melaka is about 2 hours from KL on the west coast. It was one of the first states in Malaysia. It was a city state similar to Singapore for many years. It was first established by a Hindu prince in the 14th century as a stop-over for spice trade sailors. It was taken over by the Chinese in the 1400's, the Portuguese in the 1500's, the Dutch in the 1600's, the French for a tiny bit and finally the British in the 1800's. The neat thing about the city is that all the influences are apparent in the architecture, culture, and cuisine. There is a little India section of town and a couple of China towns. I've included a couple photos of the sights of Melaka.

Small Chinese temples like this are scattered through-out the town.

The were a number of shops selling wooden shoes. I imagine that's a Dutch thing.

This is Dutch Square.

Most sections of town have this type of architecture. Shops on the bottom with living quarters up stairs. The shuttered window and balconies face onto the street.

The only real Merdeka celebration we took part in was watching the parade. Very different from here. It consisted of dozens of groups marching down the street. They would be led by a couple people carrying a banner and everyone else would be marching behind. The signs were in Basa Malay so I couldn't really figure out what the groups were. Most just marched but some played instruments or sang.
This is one of groups in the parade. They were singing and beating drums. The women are wearing the head dress that most of the Malay women wear in Malaysia.

We went with one of the other teaching couples from the school, Christian and Cindy. They are originally from Arizona but have been teaching overseas for a bit and have just come here from Latvia. We took the bus. I didn't feel quite brave enough to try driving there yet. One of the highlights was taking a trishaw ride through the town. I'm trying to include a video of some of the sites and sounds.

There are a couple of big night markets in the town. Maureen had fun checking all the offerings out. We did manage to come home with a couple of batik paintings and carved masks. We will definitely go back to Melaka as it was a nice reprieve from the big city of KL.

We came back early today. We actually had no choice about that. The only seats we could get were on the 7:00am bus. It was nice to have the day here. We went for a bike ride, showered, went to the market, showered, played a little tennis, showered, and spent a short time at the gym. I think were are getting a little more used to the humidity and heat but that doesn't stop us from sweating. No lawn cutting or yard work to do unfortunately.