It's Been Real Malaysia

Today we left Kuala Lumpur and entered Malacca. It was a 3 hour bus ride, but I'm starting to really appreciate the time we have in the bus because I slept almost the whole time again. Once we arrived in Malacca we went on another walking tour before anything else. The first place we went to was a church, specifically the first Dutch church in Malacca. Apparently it was taken over by the British, just a little fun fact. Then we went to the ruins of a Portuguese church, which was actually a fort as well. 

This place was pretty cool because somehow the church lost it's roof and the view from up there was amazing. There was even a ladder that led to a lookout because that's where the Portuguese would go to keep watch. Unfortunately when we climbed the ladder we saw that the hatch to get into the lookout was locked. I was definitely disappointed by that, but it didn't take away from the beauty of this place. 

Then we went to a museum, it was the "Proclamation of Independence Memorial". Apparently, the idea for Malaysia to try to gain independence from the British was started in Malacca. We learned about how important Malacca was for trading, which is why the Portuguese, Dutch and British fought so hard to conquer it. 

Following that we ate lunch at a mall food court and it was probably the most disappointing meal of the whole trip for me. I got a bowl of rice and literally 5 little pieces of chicken, I counted. After that snack, we walked to Jonker Street. This place had a lot of nice shops and was the only place that had a specific souvenir that I was searching for the whole trip. We got to look around and shop for a little bit, but then we walked down harmony street. So far almost every place we went to had a harmony street and I really love the idea of it.  Usually harmony streets have a mosque, a Buddhist temple, and a Hindu temple all on the same street. There hasn't been fighting or conflict between them since the 16th century because of Malaysia's efforts to promote tolerance and peace. We got to visit the mosque and the Buddhist temple. The unique thing about both of these places is that they are the oldest functioning places of worship for their respective religion. The mosque was the oldest one in Malacca and the Buddhist temple was the oldest one in all of South East Asia.



That was the last stop on our walking tour, so after that we were able to walk back to the hotel. On the way back I noticed some captivating street art and a pretty nice view from a bridge that we crossed.



The hotel we stayed at was by far the nicest hotel that we've stayed at and it had the best internet, which was just icing on the cake. My friends and I went up to the pool on the 9th floor and it was outdoors! I didn't expect that because it was a 20 story hotel.



We hung out there until we got hungry and went on the hunt for some food. This was our last meal that we had to pay for in Malaysia so I blew all of the ringgits that I had left. The food was good, but definitely not the best meal that I've had. So I was a little disappointed to leave Malaysia on that note. After dinner a bunch of people met up in one of my friends room and we had a movie night and it was really fun! We watched the movie "No Good Deed" and it was pretty bad. Although it was really suspenseful, so if you can get past all the plot holes it's actually very entertaining. I'm finally back in bed and ready to hit the hay because tomorrow we are going back to Singapore. My time in Malaysia has been unforgettable!

Sal Puma