Happy Chinese New Year! -- Malacca, Malaysia

I'm starting this post from the common area of Jalan Jalan hostel in Malacca, Malaysia. I've booked a bed for five nights in a long room with ten beds and nothing else. The fellow in the bed directly across from mine is an older Asian guy. And he spends the majority of his time in bed, feet hanging off the edge of his mattress, staring at me. 

This. This is why it was nice to have a private room for five weeks. 

 I listen to Roo Panes to drown out the noise floating in from the street behind me. My body itches all over from a dozen mosquito bites and the only respite from the sweltering heat is the fan that ineffectively whirs above me. 

I've only been away from Nepal for what, two full days? And I'm already missing the cool nights, the crisp mornings, the perfect afternoons. 

Carl, the German and I wandered around Malacca for the stifling afternoon.

 

"Traffic is so easy!" I exclaimed. "There are all these crosswalks. CROSSWALKS. Ah! Not so many motorbikes. I can get from one side of the road to the other without fearing for my life."

"Maybe this is easy for you," the German protested, voice cracking a little. "But coming straight from Germany, this is not easy."

How is this not easy? It's only the occasional pony, bunches of cars and a few hideously gaudy rickshaws. 

I'm grateful for the company. But... but I'd rather be with my Kiwi. Or just someone who already knows me. To whom I don't have to explain the basics. 

"What do you do in the US?"

"When I'm in the US, I teach yoga and try to find a non-profit to work for. But I'm hardly ever in the US... so..."

"How long have you been traveling?"

"Since June." 

"How do you afford it?" 

"Well..." 

...

This is the tedious part of meeting new people. Introductions. I want to skip them. Always and forever. 

For someone who likes starting over so much, the massive dislike I have for introductions is awfully inconvenient. 

I need to figure that out.

The quiet and the orderliness of Malacca are disorienting.

I feel like something's missing. This kind of world seems stark and empty after spending forty days in Nepal. My senses aren't being assailed all the time. 

And I... I kind of miss it. All that assailing.  

No water buffaloes contentedly chewing their cud in the middle of busy roads. No chickens bobbing about. Hardly any honking. No dust. No child beggars asking for, "five rupees." No buses flying down bumpy dirt roads, trumpeting their elephant horns. No women with baskets of fruit calling out, "Oranges, very sweet!" No shoe-shiner sitting on the curb, asking me for the umpteenth time if I'd like my filthy boots cleaned.

Doesn't the fact that I've allowed my boots to become this disgusting demonstrate that I do not care whether or not they're polished?

There are no stray dogs lazing about the sidewalks. 

There are, however, giant lizards hiding behind fences. 

Malacca was founded as a port city in the early 1400s by Parameswara, the last raja from Singapore.  

The raja found himself sitting under a Melaka tree when one of his hunting dogs was kicked into the river by a particularly gutsy mouse deer. Instead of mourning his drowned dog, Parameswarma was like, "Wow, that's pretty cool. Maybe I'll name the city after the tree under which I sat when the mouse deer catapulted my dog into the river. Super." 

In 1511, Alphonso de Albuquerque besieged the city with 18 ships. The Portuguese commander conquered Malacca within a few months and proceeded to slaughter or enslave all the Muslim inhabitants.

Malacca's mosque. I had to wear a burka to enter. It was stuffy. And awkward. And I like my sarong is much better than burkas. 

The Dutch defeated the Portuguese armada in 1641, and left a few landmarks of their own.

Somehow, Malacca shifted over to the British in 1824 (I doubt the Malaysians had much to say about the matter). I haven't found any relics of British rule, but I did come across a cafe advertising Full English Breakfast.

After a brief fling with the Japanese (during WWII), Malacca joined the Malaysian Union in 1946.

I slipped in and out of temples, trying to take sneaky photographs of people lighting candles, waving incense, bowing at the entrances and removing their shoes. 

I'm so over churches and cathedrals. This is a welcome break from all the crucifixes, sad apostles, holy water and stoic Madonnas. 
 

I love the dragons. The vibrant lanterns (I almost wrote, "I love lamp, but halfway decided against it. So now you're left with this monstrous sentence. Because I wanted to be funny, but couldn't quite commit to it). 

I appreciate the abundant aromatic incense, the bright bouquets of flowers.

Offerings for the gods.

I stroll along the Malacca River and feel relieved to observe very little trash clogging its current.

That's one thing I won't miss about Nepal. How careless people are about disposing of their waste.

I buy a personal watermelon. The vendor drills a hole into the fruit and then blends up the insides with an egg beater of sorts. He hands it to me with a stout straw and a plastic spoon, and I continue my stroll down the river, slurping up my refreshing watermelon in the humid heat.

Today is Chinese New Year. Year of the Rooster. A welcoming of spring celebrated every year on the first day of the full moon between January 201st and February 20th. This year's full moon happened to be on the 28th.

I spent the evening wandering through the Jonker Street Night Market.

The ubiquitous, smelly durian.

When I see chocolate now, I miss my Kiwi. He would have bought seven of these.

I ordered a non-threatening coconut milkshake, and then decided that coconut milkshake should probably not be my entire dinner. So I bravely branched out into the world of fish balls. Five fish balls for four ringatt, served in a bag. 

Which tasted... fine?

The paneer curry at Easy was better. 

No. Bourget. Stop it. Stop it now. It is not useful to compare these balls in a bag to the paneer curry my Kiwi and I would share at Easy. 

These things are terrifying in the dark. I will have nightmares. For ages.

The night was full of bombastic fireworks and the most bizarre, intimidating food things I've observed in my life thus far.

Confession.

Food in Malaysia scares me a little bit. The chicken feet in soup. The slimy green worms made from been flour that I discovered in my ice cream earlier in the afternoon. The brightly colored fish balls I consumed out of a plastic bag.

I could just eat watermelon for a week. But... but that wouldn't be any fun. And I would have the most boring stories to tell. 

I didn't leave Nepal to eat watermelon and tell boring stories. 

I'll just try to steer clear of the chicken feet.