Looting Malacca

Malacca is Malaysia's oldest city, and was once Southeast Asia's greatest trading port. The Portuguese, the Dutch, and the British were attracted here to haggle and barter, and make their fortunes ...and the pirates soon followed. Some found loot, others found gravestones. These days, there's a safer way for you to find treasure.

International Living Postcards-- your daily escape

Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2006
Malacca, Malaysia

Dear International Living Reader,

Start your explorations at the brick-red Stadthuys (town hall). With its matching clock tower, Protestant church, Dutch graveyard, and ornamental windmill, you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Holland. But the trishaw drivers congregating outside the Stadthuys give the game away. Their contraptions are bedecked in tinsel and flower garlands, and every one seems intent on honking his horn or ringing his bell the loudest.

But you won't only find a strong Dutch legacy. Malacca (or "Melaka") also has a Portuguese settlement complete with Portuguese restaurants and the remnants of the A Famosa fortress, built to keep enemies at bay. In a Muslim country, it's strange to see pictures of Catholic saints hanging above the doorways of cottages--but every Malaysian I've spoken to takes immense pride in the fact that so many races and religions live together in harmony.

Still referred to by its old Dutch name of Jonkers Street, Jalan Hang Jebat is a long laneway of antique and curiosity shops. Here you're at the heart of Malacca's vibrant Chinatown with its moneychangers, medical halls, and incense wafting from tiny wall shrines. Business below, accommodation above, you'll also see old shop-houses with wooden louvered windows and elaborate cornices. Unfortunately, many are dilapidated, but others have been spruced up to find a new lease of life as cafés or art galleries.

In this part of town, another sign of the former Dutch presence is the extreme narrowness of the shop-houses. Like in Amsterdam, residents were taxed on the width of their house fronts. To lessen the tax, shop-houses were built as narrow as possible, stretching back a long way to make up the area.

At 57 Jonkers Street, Beyond Treasures brims with masks and carved heads from all over Asia. The number of "heads" run into thousands--every inch of space is taken up by weird and wonderful faces staring down at you. It's owned by a chatty Chinese guy called Rena Pok--and even he doesn't have a clue how many items the shop contains. Prices start at around $11 for small carved dragon heads.

There was no hard sell--Mr. Pok was more intent on urging me to visit Cheng Hoon Teng, Malaysia's oldest Chinese temple. Resplendent with red and gold lacquer work, it has an array of mythic characters adorning its roof. Just around the corner from Jonkers Street, the temple was founded in 1646 with all the materials imported from China. Residents recently raised the equivalent of $5 million to restore it to its former glory.

Malacca is a two-hour bus ride south from Kuala Lumpur. You can take an organized day excursion from the capital, but if you brave the Third World horrors of Puduraya bus station, one-way tickets cost $2.40 with the Transnacional bus company.

Steenie Harvey
Roving Asia Editor, International Living