Within 2 hours of getting to Melaka (Malacca? That confusion I’ll get to in a moment!), Kathleen and I had the following conversation: “This place has an awesome vibe, don’t you think? I can definitely see this as being a 30-day stay location,” and that’s as fast as it took us to reach the same conclusion about this very cool, unofficial historic capital of Malaysia, less than 2 hours south of KL. It was formerly known as Famosa, and was one of the primary shipping ports in Malaysia.

The city and state are spelled both ways, which led me to some confusion when it came to getting tickets–just to be sure we weren’t going to the wrong place! But that 2 hours ride down (early morning Thursday) was better than the Saturday afternoon return, which was about 45 minutes longer due to traffic.

One of the first things we noticed were food options we were not familiar with, including:

> Chicken rice ball, which was really chicken and rice, probably the most common Malay dish, but the rice is more firm and packed into golf-ball sizes, which is unique, but the rice tasted the same to me.
> Nyonya food, a combination of Chinese and Malaysian, and this was the first time we had heard of it. Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to dive in, which was a shame since it’s been around for 500 plus years. The female matriarchal community members are addressed as, “Nyonya,” which I thought interesting.
> Pineapple tarts were offered on every block, vs the pretty common egg tarts we find elsewhere. That I tried, it didn’t rock my world, but definitely need to go back for more!
> We also found a few Vietnamese coffee options which we haven’t seen outside Vietnam, including, egg coffee, coconut coffee, and pandan, a type of coconut with green syrup.

Which brings us to the observation that there were SOOOO many coffee shops in town! Mind you, that is not THAT unique since we find it in almost every country and city we visit, but there were THREE in a row on a small street; all cute, all cozy, so it stuck out. Oh, and very few Starbucks… Jonker Street is their main gig through Chinatown, and on Friday-Sunday they close it off at 6:00 pm to vehicles and you have several blocks of food, drink, and assorted other goodies.

We also did something we don’t normally do– we did a nighttime canal ride. It took about 45 minutes round trip, and all along the route were colorful neon lights and lots of cool buildings.

Some more random thoughts:
> They have more trash cans per block than anywhere we have been! Usually trash cans are hard to find outside, but the net result is that the town and streets are very clean which helps keep its significant title as a UNESCO World Heritage city, one of only two in the country. (George Town is the other)
> Crows: lots and lots of crows, and at sunset the cacophony noise along the JambatanTan Kim bridge is almost a ruckus!

> They had these unique three wheeled bikes all fixed up with dolls and lights and superhero characters, and they would cater visitors all over town playing Elvis music!

We were in Melaka for about 48 hours, but left with the same conclusion we got when we arrived: definitely a town to return to.

Meanwhile, things have been pretty quiet in KL as we come up to our final week. Kat had her cataract surgery– both eyes at the same time!– it all went exceptionally well, and no more glasses! She could not be more excited. We got to visit a few places outside of town, though not as many was we planned. Yup, we have to return to Malaysia as well!