My Two-day Trip to Melaka (Malacca), Malaysia

Last Saturday and Sunday, I went to Melaka (In English: Malacca), Malaysia. I went there with two-other friends. Melaka is a historical city centre that has been listed as a prominent World Heritage Site of UNESCO since 7 July 2008. Beside for its historical attraction, Malacca is also well-known for its food. Most notable of all is the Nyonya Asam laksa (Nyonya-Baba Cuisine) and Chicken Rice Ball. Nyonya Asam laksa is not made with curry powder, instead, it rich with various spices and taste a bit sour. I like the taste... it’s really good. Another food is Chicken Rice Ball. These rice-balls, about the size of golf balls are taken with boiled chicken flavoured with sauce and sesame oil. The rice itself is best taken with pounded chilli-sauce. We ate Nyonya Asam laksa and Chicken Rice Ball in Jonker Street. I already forgot the name of the shop that sells Nyonya Asam Laksa and Chicken Rice Ball, but in Jonker Street, we can find those two very easily. Another food (it’s a desert actually) that I like in Melaka is Cendol covered with brown Melaka Sugar. The cendol is tasted very sweet.

(from: www.jonkerchickenriceball.com)

Nyonya Asam Laksa

Cendol

Other than enjoying the food in Melaka, we also went to other places, most of it historical places. We went to Christ Church, which the structure reflects original Dutch architecture and has hand-crafted benches, jointless ceiling skylights, copper replica of the bible, headstone written in Armenian language and replica of “The Last Supper”. Other place that we went to is St Paul Hill, where we saw St. Paul Church which is part of the Malaccan Museums Complex. The St. Paul Church is easy to recognise because it has Statue of St Francis Xavier. St Francis Xavier was Roman Catholic missionary who spent several years in Melaka, serving the poor and sick and translate all simple prayers and instructions to Malay. The body of St. Francis Xavier was interred here temporarily before it was taken to Goa, India. We also passed through the Proclamation of Independence Memorial, didn’t have time to enter the museum.

St. Paul Church

Beside the historical places, we also went to Jonker Street and two modern shopping complexes, Mahkota Parade and Dataran Pahlawan Melaka Megamall. Jonker Street (or Jalan Hang Jebat) is famous for its antique goods, foods and carnival-like atmosphere during weekend nights. We went there to taste the food and went shopping.... there is a lot of unique stuff there, and the price is still reasonable. I bought a t-shirt there; the shop keeper said that they only made 1 t-shirt for 1 design and 1 colour. So, there would be no one that has the same t-shirt (in same design and colour) like I do. At Dataran Pahlawan Melaka Megamall, we went shopping again. We bought several items in Padini Concept Store that sell all clothes, shoes, and goods from Padini Holdings brands, which are Padini, Seed, Vincci, PDI, Padini Authentics, P & Co, Miki Kids & Miki Maternity. Padini is a well-known Malaysia-origin brand. Another shopping mall that we went to was Mahkota Parade. We went there just to eat Nandos. One of my friends is really like to eat Nandos, she fall in love with its famous peri-peri chicken. So we went there to eat it. I order ¼ of chicken with very-hot peri-peri flavour. In my opinion, Nandos’s peri-peri chicken is too spicy and that’s all that I can taste. I cannot taste other flavour because it was too spicy. I think for the next time, I will choose mild-spicy flavour, so I can still taste other flavour.

I almost forgot, at night, we took river tour. It is almost the same with River Taxi in Singapore. The River Tour took about 45 minutes to travel 9 KM river. The scenery around the river is very nice, especially at night; all the lights make the scenery more special. During the river tour, we could see the Eye of Malaysia, Maritime Museum, water-wheel and other scenery. I really like the scenery and it made 45 minutes flies.

That is the story of my two-day trip to Melaka, Malaysia. I can wait for another trip ....

NB: All picture (except the rice ball) provided by Helda....