Melaka, Malaysia

Coming into Malaysia I had no idea what to expect. I knew the basics, that it was a Muslim country in Southeast Asia, the capital was Kuala Lumpur, things like that. However I had no idea what it was like.

Exiting thru customs and immigration in Singapore was a breeze. Singapore had a clean and modern new building. Malaysia's immigration on the other hand was the opposite. It was kind of grimey and old, but the officers were polite and I got thru quickly. Then for about 3 hours the bus went along the highway towards Melaka. The scenery was mostly uninteresting. A few small hills here and there or a rubber plantation. No big cities, just rural towns along the way. I dived back into The Count of Monte Cristo while I waited to arrive.

The Melaka bus station was a big market/bazaar. It was a bit dodgy so I didn't linger very long. There were people from every culture. The women were mostly muslim, with burkhas. Some had their entire face covered and only their eyes were visible. Occasionally I would make eye contact with them and it would make me feel uneasy. There were also many hindus, Chinese and white backpackers. I did not feel like I stood out or like I was an alien.

The bus station was a few kilometers from the city center, so I had to take a local bus into town. This local bus was an ancient and decrepit old bus. It was like a school bus only old and rusted. As the bus got into the city center I could smell the fragrances of many different spices and foods. I realized that I was truly in Malaysia.

Ruins of St. Paul's Church

The bus dropped me off in the town square. There are a few churches there an old warehouse built by the dutch, lots of shops and restaurants and a few museums. I dropped my luggage off at the hostel and went to a maritime museum. This was interesting to me because I am kind of a history nerd. There was a lot of displays and information about the old sailing ships and the history of Melaka. Part of the museum is a replica of a Portuguese galleon.

Melaka is interesting because it had a long history. The Portuguese conquered the town in 1511 and set it up as a trading port. Melaka is important geographically because it is on the Malacca straight, the fastest way between the West and the Far East. At its glory the port could hold thousands of ships from nations all over the world. Later on the Dutch fought a war with the Portuguese and took the town from them. I thought about how the Dutch at one time seemed to rule the world, they owned New York City, they had a colony on Taiwan and they controlled this essential port.

On the hill overlooking the town the Dutch built St. Paul's church. The gravestones are still there from when the Dutch owned it. The rest of the town still has a European feel. The buildings have an old world feel to it. The authorities probably preserve it this way to keep the tourists coming back.

It was very hot when I was walking around the streets. I came back to the hostel for a bit to relax in the air-conditioned room. From my room I could hear the Muslim call to prayer from a local mosque. I realized how rigid and pervasive Islam is in this part of the world.

I tried some of the food on the famous Jonkers Street. I went to a Chinese restaurant and had some wonton soup and tried a few snacks on the street. In the evening I realized that I fogot my towel in Singapore so I searched in vain for a shop with towels. The town seemed to shut down once the sun set.

The next day I walked around aimlessly and explored a bit more. There were a few more museums but they were uninteresting things like about the history of the Malaysian Navy and the Customs police. In the afternoon I made my way back to the bus station on the decrepit old bus and took an express bus to Kuala Lumpur.

Singapore

Breakfast in Singapore

I took JetStar from Taipei to Singapore. They are an okay airline, but the staff seemed really lackadaisical. We loaded up on the plane and then waited more than a half hour before they finally closed the door and we left the gate. The flight was basically uneventful. It was kinda long about 4 hours during which I mostly read from The Count of Monte Cristo.

Previously I had made some friends on the internet from Singapore. This turned out to be a great bonus. Jeannie and KC are both locals that live and work in Singapore. They met me when my flight landed just after midnight. KC has a car so he was able to drive me into town, saving me a hefty taxi fee. KC is a programmer and Jeannie works in the administration at a hospital. Singapore seemed to have a lot of medical facilities and I think a lot of people go there for medical tourism.

Merlion, the symbol of Singapore

Before we went to my hostel, my hosts wanted me to try some local food. So we went to a street cafe and I tried some Prata. It is kind of like a pancake thing that you can get with cheese or mushrooms or onions. I liked it. I am getting better about trying Asian foods.

They told me that my hostel was kinda close to the red light district. But when they took me there it seemed like an okay place. It was close to the MRT and there were a lot of backpacker hostels nearby. I got into my hostel room and turned in after a long day of travel from Yilan to Singapore.

The next morning Jeannie met me at my hostel. We headed toward Sentosa island on the MRT. First we stopped at a cafe in the mall. We had some coffee and a kind of toasted bread with some butter and spices inside. It is called Kaya butter toast and its a local favorite in Singapore. Next we took the monorail into Sentosa island.

Sentosa island is a kind of resort island at the bottom of Singapore. It is kind of like one big Disney park. There is actually a Universal studios there. The rest of the island is full of beaches, imax theater type shows, underwater aquariums, adventure rides and family type activities. Everything on this island is very expensive so I didn't do any of the family stuff. My main interest was in a fort on the end of the island.

During World War 2 there was an important battle in Singapore. The British built a huge expensive fortress here as the waters around Singapore were the fastest way between the Indian ocean and the Pacific. This geographical location is why Singapore has been so important in history. The British fortified the island for a sea invasion but were not sufficiently ready for an attack from the Malaysian mainland. At the same time the Japanese were bombarding Pearl Harbor they were also invading Malaysia. In a few months they were on the shore facing Singapore. The British were not sufficiently prepared and a battle ensued in which the Brits had to surrender the island. This is the single biggest surrender in British history. This must have been a dark time because it was only a few months after Pearl Harbor and the British were just kicked out of their strategic location in Singapore. The soldiers that surrendered were put in a dismal POW camp and had to wait out the end of the war in appalling conditions.

Anyways, my interest was in a fort because they had a museum there now. There are several buildings with lots of artifacts and displays about the history of Singapore during the war. It was kind of nerdy but really interesting to me.

Sentosa Monorail

Jeannie had to go meet some friends, so I walked around Sentosa island for a bit and then headed into the city. I went to Chinatown to see what it was like. It was an okay place, but after living in Taiwan Chinatowns aren't too interesting. Next I went to Fort Canning park. This is on a big hill in the middle of downtown. This is where the British command was located and it is where they made the decision to surrender to the Japanese. There is another museum here. After that I headed down to Orchard road. This is a very famous road because there are tons of big malls on this road. Everywhere people are shopping. I went to a couple of malls to see what they have. I found an English book store and found a copy of the The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest for only about $12 USD. I am almost done with Count of Monte Cristo, so I am excited to read that book next.

I met up with Jeannie and KC and we went into downtown to have dinner. We went to this cool gallery of shops next to an old church. We decided to have some Western food and they treated me to a good juicy Hamburger at an Australian restaurant called Hog's Breath. Afterwards we went to a series of museums that were having a special night art show. Everywhere there were artists doing interesting things. In front of one building they had a four story temporary structure with artists walking around putting big letters on display. People were sending SMS's to a special number and the artists were putting the text messages on a huge display. The museums were packed full of people and we looked at the displays. We didn't stay too long though, we were all a bit burned out from a long hot day.

We drove around Singapore a bit but the traffic was messed up. They were doing a rehearsal for the Singapore National Day celebrations in a few weeks. We headed back toward my hostel and I fell asleep easily.

White Tiger

The next day we went to the Singapore Zoo. I was really lucky because Jeannie can get a free pass to the zoo from her work. Singapore has a world famous zoo. I was mainly interested in seeing the animals from southeast Asia. We saw so many animals that I lost count. I saw a Komodo dragon for the first time. It was huge, like a dinosaur. We also saw elephants, tigers, jaguars, polar bears and snakes. The zoo was very big and we didn't have time to do it all. It was very hot and muggy and they had a Ben & Jerry's so we all had a delicious scoop of ice cream.

Komodo Dragon

It was my last night in Singapore and I was kinda sad to leave my friends and hosts. We went to a place called the Esplanade in downtown Singapore. The area was very nice and classy. There was an opera house and lots of expensive hotels. I think one night in one of those hotels would cost more than my entire budget for this whole trip. The esplanade is a walk front along the harbor. It is extremely clean and modern. There was a stage set up and there were musicians. There were also stages with Chinese puppet theater and another stage with a Chinese opera. We walked down to see a giant sculpture of a lion fountain. It is called the Merlion and it is like a symbol for Singapore.

After that we drove around a bit to see some more sights. They took me to Little India. That neighborhood was really just like India. The streets were packed with people and there were so many different Indian shops and restaurants. Then they drove me thru the red light district. That was quite eye-opening. I won't say much about that, but you can imagine what a red light district in Asia might be like haha.

Then we headed back to my hostel and I packed up and got ready for the next day. I would be going into Malaysia to the old colonial town of Melaka.

Back in Taiwan

I only had less than a week back in Taiwan before my trip to Singapore. I landed in Taipei early on Monday morning. After paying a visit to Miguel before he left for Shanghai I met up with Sam for my favorite Taiwanese breakfast: dan bing. Next I made a surprise visit to Uncle Sam to see my former co-workers and the children I taught. This was pleasant. I didn't realize how much I missed the kids. Ya Chu came to Banqiao and we had lunch with Caleb and Dino at the rural park. Later I went back to Miguel's and read a little bit of The Girl Who Played With Fire before I fell asleep from the jet lag.

The next morning Claudia came up from Hsinchu and we made our way to the East coast. Along the way we went thru the Xueshan Tunnel. This is a long tunnel that goes thru the mountains and shortens the distance between Taipei and Yilan considerably. We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant near Yilan then continued down the coastal highway. The coastal highway is a windy road similar to the Columbia River Highway or the 101 on the Oregon coast. It rides along the cliffs of Eastern Taiwan and cuts thru countless tunnels on the way south toward Hualien. It is only 2 lanes wide but it is very busy as it is the only highway from North to South on the East. There are many trucks, buses and cars, and a few hours to get to Hualien. We finally made it to a hotel outside of Hualien near the entrance of Taroko Gorge.

Taroko Gorge is one of the most famous natural parks in Taiwan. It is a very deep cliff cut by a narrow river between the limestone and marble mountains. The road is literally carved into the cliffs and it presents many beautiful vistas. It is also a bit of a dangerous road as the rocks on the mountains above are unstable and can fall without warning. The government is doing constant work to protect the road from rock fall, but occasionally rocks the size of baseballs can come tumbling down. 

Fortunately we were safe as we rode in Claudia's air-conditioned Nissan. At one point there is a place where you can get out and hike along the cliffs. This is called the River of Nine Turns. It is a nice walk where you can breathe the fresh air and listen to the loud torrent of water as it courses thru the canyon.

The road is one of the few cross island highways that can reach the other side of Taiwan. However we wanted to spend a few days on the East coast, so we came back down to Hualien after spending the morning exploring the gorge.

This was the first time I visited Hualien and I then understood that it was a beautiful city on the ocean against the backdrop of the mountains. We went to the beach and walked around a little bit, but it was really hot, so we continued going south looking for a hotel. The highway we were on before was 8, but then we went on a side road that followed along the coast. This was more like the PCH as the 8 is like the 101. The side road, highway 11, had sparse traffic and it was easy to forget that we were in Taiwan. There were only very small towns and no 7-11s as we ventured further south. Claudia told me that the people in these towns were native aboriginals that were a different race and spoke their own languages. Most of the towns seemed to be Christian owing to the influence of missionaries.

Finally we found a sign for a hotel at the top of a narrow gravel road. We decided to check it out. The road went down steeply with sharp switchbacks to a flat area near the ocean. The hotel owner made a sort of village near the beach. There was a main building with a restaurant and about 5-6 little one room huts that were the hotel rooms. There was also a kind of open air building with several platforms where people could set up tents. I envied these tents as they were high enough to catch a cool ocean breeze in the summer heat. There was a little courtyard full of artwork and there was somebody playing saxophone in the shade. It was kind of bohemian, every where there was artwork made out of trees or the local nature.

Our hut didn't have a/c, but we had a fan and we kept the windows open. After the sunset (unfortunately we were on the east side so the sun set behind the mountains). We left the windows open and could hear the ocean waves on the beach. I woke up early the next morning and started reading from my next book, The Count of Monte Cristo. We drove back into town and checked out the university campus in Hualien. It seemed like a cool place. Very new and clean. There weren't many students there because it was summer. Then we headed back up the highway towards Yilan. It was almost time for me to go to Singapore and we were still a long ways from Taoyuan airport. We stayed near Yilan one night. I did some laundry in the bathroom sink and the next morning we headed back toward Taipei. We got back pretty early so we decided to see that new movie Inception. That was a good movie, I think it will be one of the best movies of the year. Claudia and I dropped me off at the airport and I waited a few hours for my flight to Singapore.

For the next post I'll talk about my experience in this new country and some new friends I made here.