Revisiting Melaka

Recently, we had a wedding to attend on a Saturday afternoon in Melaka @ Malacca. As a Malaysian and especially if you are from the Klang Valley, it’s easy to take Melaka for granted. It’s only 90 miles away from KL and I'm sure that it's been done to death by many. But the fact remains that Malacca is a city steeped in history and heritage. It's a melting pot of cultures from bygone years; of Portuguese, Dutch and Baba and Nyonya. And it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site to boot. So staying a night there was a foregone conclusion.

Accommodation

Choosing a hotel was easy. You are no longer limited to a bog-standard hotel room - recent years have seen an influx of boutique hotels to suit varying levels of budgets. The one that suited our criteria was Estadia Hotel, a Peranakan-style boutique hotel under the same management with the bigger and more popular Hatten Hotel. It’s located within walking distance from Jonker Street (or so they told us) and a 2-bedroom family suite cost RM420 per night (we were travelling with the parents) when booked directly from their website. The room is tastefully decorated with Peranakan elements and I think it is a great value for what we paid.

One of the bedrooms with 2 single beds. The other bedroom
comes with a king bed

The cafe where buffet breakfast
was served

At the lobby of Estadia Hotel

The hotel is in the same building as Hatten Square Mall hence they share the same parking. We wanted to walk to Jonker Street and we were advised by the concierge to walk through the malls and the walk would take 15 minutes. Conveniently, there was a door through to Hatten Square just next to the lobby. However, the time given of 15 minutes did not take into the account that the mall, connected to the bigger Dataran Pahlawan Megamall, was a huge maze. I am not sure whether we sucked at taking directions or the few people that we asked sucked at giving directions but after 15 minutes we were just walking out of one of the exits into the open area parking space.

Trishaw ride

Then Irf saw something that made his eyes open wide. Rows of trishaws or beca, all decked in the brightest and most colourful of lights and all individually themed. Now, I don't have Minions, Hello Kitty and Pokemon in mind when I think of Melaka as a heritage site but if these creatures could take us immediately to Jonker Street without us breaking more sweat, I was all up for it. RM50 changed hands for 2 trishaws and soon we were cruising along in a blaze of neon lights with local pop music blaring in the background. I thought that it was highway robbery to have to pay so much for such a short distance but the trishaw was manually powered and we were no longer living in a feudal era. Tacky and garish aside, I secretly enjoyed the ride. Irf enjoyed it too and that was not a secret.

The trishaws could make up a whole 
new season of Pimp My Ride

Jonker Street

Jonker Street or Jonker Walk or Jalan Hang Jebat as it is currently named comes alive on Friday and Saturday nights with a Night Market. The whole of Melaka tourism industry gravitates towards this 500-metres stretch of beautifully preserved shop houses selling antiques, crafts and food. During the Night Markets, the street is lined up with hawker stalls where Irf went on a Pokemon cards frenzy. Unfortunately, the Night Market is a victim of its own popularity and I couldn't wait to get out from the crowd. I believe the beauty of Jonker Street is walking and exploring its surrounding streets during the day when there are less people, something that we could not do on this trip.

Night Market at Jonker Street

Coffee and ice-cream

No walk is complete without these. We happened to come accross Stolen Cup Cafe on Jonker Street itself, a rustic and retro-looking cafe selling coffee with a local twist. We had the iced Gula Melaka Latte, a delicious and much-needed shot of coffee.

Coffee break to escape the crowd

I was also chuffed to stumble upon Inside Scoop on Jalan Hang Kasturi (just off Jonker Street) especially when I found out that they did have passion fruit sorbet. This flavour is always sold out in the outlet in Bangsar so to be able to have it in Melaka is just lucky. The guy serving us was very friendly and not only did he sell us ice-cream but he gave us an important tip on where to get something that was a specific request by a certain someone.

Kuih keria

My mother has not been to Melaka for many years and naturally I asked her whether she had somewhere specific to go to visit. I expected her to ask us to take her to A'Famosa, The Stadthuys or even go on a river cruise. But no, these were apparently already outdated as far as tourist attractions go. She only wanted to get one thing, she said, which was the kuih keria gula melaka. 

This Kuih Keria Antarabangsa thingy has gone viral in the past few years or so. Apparently people queue up for hours to get their hands on these. Now, I usually try not to queue for more than 5 minutes for food, unless it's absolutely necessary like the country was at war and I had to queue for food rations. So to go to Limbongan for this was an absolute no-no. Here is where the Inside Scoop guy came to the rescue. He mentioned to us that the stall in Batu Berendam would be much less crowded.

The next day, after checking out and before leaving for home, we Waze-d our way to the stall in Batu Berendam. The cosmic alignment must be right at that time for there was no customer and there a was a huge batch of freshly fried kuih keria. Between us, we bought 70 pieces. No that was not a typo, we actually bought RM42 worth of kuih keria. After tasting my first, I am now a covert. The crispy gula melaka combined with the fluffy sweet potato are the stuff of dreams. I can definitely queue up for this in the future - for 10 minutes perhaps.

The queue of 5 people after us

Next to the stall was another one selling coconut shake which was apparently famous too. Irf is into coconuts and ice-cream (as you could tell from previous posts), so this was his stuff of dreams.

Coconuts galore

We ended our Melaka trip high on kuih keria and coconut shake. Time did not allow us to revisit the main attractions in Melaka but it was good enough being there without a fixed itinerary and finding delightful things by accident. We hope to return soon with more time to explore the rest of this historical city.