Melaka, port of Sultans, Chinese and Indian traders, Portugeese, Dutch, British, Japanese, British again - now, after centuries, once more independent. Each group seems to have spelt the city differently: Maqacca, Malacca, Melaka -

and these spellings fight and compete around the city still today [without wishing to make any kind of political point, I have gone for the most commonly used “Melaka"].

Parts of Melaka are quite beautiful. Indian restaurants patting out flat breads, white walls and cream blinds almost fully let down to keep out the sun; little multi-coloured streets full of archways and shutters; Malay-Chinese restaurants offering the fused "Nyonya" cuisine; wonderful old mansions and colonial offices converted into museums.
Other parts were less appealing. There is a Toy Town feel to "historic Melaka", a rather over-done restoration job by the authorities. The old British/Dutch colonial centre is a uniform dark pink, randomly placed old ships and train carriages which didn't do much for me.

In one art shop I read newspaper articles, both by foreigners and locals, critising the way Melaka was being renovated. In the Chinatown area, streets selected to be tourist centres have been made garish, with bright red banners and large plastic Chinese style masks hanging. For me, the quieter streets of Melaka, made intricate through the necessities of everyday use - half preserved, half functional - lingered in my mind far longer.

The sad additional fact is that while Melaka writhes to attract more tourists, very few of us Westerners seem to have shown up. There are a few people on the more popular streets, but the big backpacker "Discovery Cafe" remains occupied only by a few locals every night. I get my sweet herbal tea there each evening, enjoying the quiet. By far, most of the visitors here look Asian, perhaps internal tourists or Singaporeans? Perhaps this is just not the high season, or perhaps Malaysia is no longer such a popular destination due to fears about Muslims? For me, in the Muslim countries I've been to (Malaysia, Turkey and Morocco), I've always felt welcomed and safe. Maybe this would be different in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan, and, of course, I don't want to be flippant about terrorist attacks - but the nature of these terrorist attacks is that they are unpredictable. Is Melaka a higher risk destination than London?

Some of the images we get from Muslim countries through our media have no relation to what I've seen when I arrived there - or we hear nothing about these countries until there is some anti-American demonstration. Around the time of the anniversary of September 11th, I was on holiday in Morocco. Moroccans actually made fun of me because there were so many Islamic fundamentalists living in London! On the day itself, the town I was staying in held a memorial for the victims of September 11th, proclaimed its solidarity with the American people and reminded everyone that Morocco was (apparently) the first country to recognise American Independence.

My experience so far is that everyday Muslims, just like everyday Christians and Buddhists, have no interest in huaranging me about my decadent values or evil government. The people I've passed on my travels seem interested in me as a visitor, they don't expect me to share the same set of morals. It does perhaps help to dress a little more conservatively, however - trousers are a better bet than shorts. The Austrian girl who I'm sharing a dorm room with commented that Malay women only give her smiles and approach for a chat when she wears her ankle length sari...

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Melaka's great cuisine feeds from its long history of migrants and foreign overlords, mixing Malay, Chinese, Portugeese and others. In Nancy's Kitchen I ate candlenut chicken curry (the sauce made from ground macadamia nuts and tamerind - mmm) with a plate of wild greens mixed with chili. In a street stall I ate a breakfast of Chinese noodles in a thick spicy coconut milk soup, accompanied by an over-sweet ice coffee. In Capitol Satay, I selected raw skewered chicken, shellfish and vegetables and cooked them in the bubbling pot of satay sauce at the centre of my metal table. Not a good way to cut calories I suspect.

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I visited the Melaka Ethnographical Museum, whose lengthy series of paintings began the explanation of "our tragic history". The fifteenth century golden age, where Melaka became a central port for Asian trade, a city where 84 languages were spoken. The conquest by the Portugeese, who tried to convert everyone to Catholicism, but succeeded only in alienating their own missionaries. The Jesuit Francis Xavier, whom the museum seemed to like for some reason, lost his temper when the Governor of Melaka didn't offer him the use of a boat out to his waiting ship. And so Francis cursed the Portugeese grandee during his long wade out through the shore. There was a certain gleeful tone in the museum's voice when it commented, "The Governor later died of leprosy".
The Dutch violently took over in the seventeenth century, and although they allowed religious freedom, they too-strictly controlled Melaka's economic life, it seems, further adding to its decline. I don't know what happened after that - the museum ran out of paintings as the British arrived.

One great moment in the museum was a wax work section of the main groups of Melacca, their clothes and wedding ceremonies. A group specific to Melaka were the Chitty - fathered from Indian traders and Malay women. From their waxworks at least, they seemed like happy people. I don't know about you, but I'd never heard of the Chitty before - indeed Melaka has this quality of just staggering complexity, a reminder that the world is so much more varied than we give it credit. So many religions and strange societies. On one street, I was watching people placing incense sticks in a Chinese temple while the soaring and falling call to prayer wafted out of the mosque down the road. The call was still going strong as I passed a Chinese Buddhist temple and a Tamil Methodist church. And what is the Seng Meng Charitable Association Funeral Rites Hall? Who were the World Red Swastika Society Melaka Branch Women's Section?

My favourite of the museums, however, was the Melaka Islamic Museum, which gave me a crash course in the principles of the faith and its battles with the Christians. The thing that struck me about Islam, from wandering this museum, was the tension between the religion wanting to be derived entirely from one holy source, and the reality of how a society could live by these codes. The rules attached to some of the Islamic criminal punishments make intruiging reading: unmarried adulturers (so fornicators in Christian language) would receive one hundred lashes, but the whip must be kept below the lasher's head, otherwise the punishment would be too harsh. For stoning to death, the stones must be of middling size, made of dirt apparently - too small stones would make for a slow death (too cruel), too large an instant one (not enough deterrent). I learnt that the word, "Fatwa" doesn't just mean "sentence of death", it refers to all kinds of holy edicts. A very revealing paragraph points out that the issuer of any fatwas will have to justify them to Allah in the next life, so they should be issued with care, and especially when involving, "matters of the national interest".

Saturday was my last night in this nice town with many depths. A person could spend a long time in Melaka, I felt, meeting all those different sects and faiths and learning strange things from them. I was heading back to KL to meet up with my brother and Georgina for a quick trip to the beach, and to meet up with Leticia, who was living in KL and had left a comment on my site suggesting we meet for a chat.
I had my last herbal tea in the courtyard of the Discovery Cafe, sipping as Chinese family after family arrived on foot or in cars to drink their healthy tea before bedtime.

Daniel, 12 June 2004, Melaka