[21.9.2012] Melaka Trip Part 2

So hey.. continuing on from the first post..

Along the banks of the Sungai Melaka (Melaka River) there were some historical sights and excavations which I had shown in the earlier post. If you keep walking along in you will come upon a bridge which takes you across the river and on to the other side which has Jonker Walk.

"If this is the first time to Melaka, you must go to Jonker Walk".. thats what friends and colleagues keep telling me.

Well what's at Jonker Walk? Basically its a market of some sorts that situated in between these old authentic shop houses.  These buildings basically date back to the Baba and Nyonya period in Melaka. Baba and Nyonya are simply  peranakan people who were originally chinese immigrants who came around during the British Colonization in Melaka.

So when they said that Melaka was a heritage site, this would also be part of it as you can see how some of the old buildings were and how some shops had actually bought the old shop houses and totally made it into something better!

view when crossing the bridge

 So when you cross the street, you will be greeted by this creature. Its a dragon thats hung up and actually shoots water out of its mouth at certain periods of the day.

If you head to your left after crossing the bridge, you can find Hard Rock Cafe Melaka and get some souveniers for yourself.. (seems like one is popping up everywhere nowadays)

So what's in Jonker Walk you might ask? Well basically its a market thats very culturally themed. You can find things like pop-up cards (very pretty), magnets, Chopsticks with family surnames on them (suitable for your chinese friends or loved ones) and also food! 

The market

Chopstiks with chinese surname in chinese characters

Chinese money packets to give to people (used often during weddings in lieu of gifts)

When walking along Jonker Walk/Street you may find that a lot of the shops have been converted into restaurants and cafes and also boutiques selling unique T-shirts...

Unique boutique, they bought the whole length of the shop but they did not allow us to take pictures.. but take it from me, the interior looks awesome! Some parts had been renovated and some parts were kept authentic. The spiral staircase is interesting. 

A unique bistro.. u walk in and it opens up to a nice comfortable looking courtyard of sorts.

this is the famous chicken rice ball shop in Jonker.. The place was closing up for the day.

Unfortunately when we arrived some of the best shops had decided to call it a day or had already closed before we got the chance to try out the food. And seriously Jonker Street is pretty warm even at night.. So i dont recommend any thick clothings... T-shirt and shorts are recommended here.

As we were walking along, we noticed this nice stall selling cards.. The interesting bit about this card was that it actually can be folded up and opened up again.

As it was getting kind of warm, we went looking for this famous shop selling cendol or ice kacang which everyone seemed to recommend.. But again we managed to only see the door as it too was closed.

Closed shop...

we did however manage to go get some ice kacang from the shop next door which is also good and had a long enough line for us to be tempted to try it out. Check here to see how it really looks like. 

Manggo cendol and normal cendol.. 

I do recommend anyone coming to Melaka to try out the cendol as compared to the ones in KL, the gula Melaka here is damn thick... It was a pleasure having some chewy morsels together with the ice and coconut milk. 

After resting our tired feet and cooling down with the cendol, we decided to head out of Jonker Walk and go see the other sites around Melaka Town from the other side of the river. The hotel that was situated on this side of the river is actually a nice one. I would wonder what it looks like on the inside. 

So crossing back from Jonker we found ourselves across from the Stradhuys Building which is the old Dutch dwelling that was left behind. The dutch had built several buildings and coloured them red and as can be seen by the pics below it still looks nice.

You can enter the buildings during the day but as we were kind of late, we missed out on that chance too.

All in all the trip was a great trip and allowed me to finally say I've been to Melaka! haha.. 

But my recommendations when going to Melaka is to go early and have some small understanding of what happened here and who had conquered or colonised the place and what was the major landmarks left by them.

Also I recommend for you to wear light clothing that wouldnt allow you to get too hot as the place is freaking warm. As a Malaysian I can tell you that its warmer than normal there.  But I do recommend the place for people who like culture and walking around to see stuff. Cuti-cuti malaysia peeps!