My Malaysian Meanderings – Day 2: Malacca

My second day in Malaysia was dedicated to the exploration of Malacca. Legend has it that the city was founded in 1402 by King Parameswara, known as Iskandar Shah after his conversion to Islam. Parameswara had been the ruler of Singapura until it was invaded by the Majapahit Empire, which had its centre in East Java and extended its influence all the way to northern Malaysia and Eastern New Guinea. Exiled from his homeland, Parameswara was once resting under a Malacca tree when one of his dogs cornered a mouse deer. In one last act of defiance, the mouse deer stood up and pushed the larger dog into the river. Inspired by the deer’s courage, the king decided to found a city on the very spot and named it after the tree under which he had witnessed the scene.

Since its founding by Parameswara, Malacca grew into a prosperous trading centre, in no small part thanks to the support and political protection of Ming China. Parameswara first made contact with the Ming thanks to the visit of Admiral Yin Qing, and he made a visit to the Chinese capital under the escort of the famous seafarer Zheng He. For a hundred years, Malacca benefited from Chinese trade, and there is some evidence that Chinese intervention may have prevented the sultanate from being invaded by its neighbours.

This peaceful state of affairs ended in 1511 when the Portuguese Afonso de Albuquerque invaded the city, massacring and enslaving its Muslim inhabitants while sparing those of other confessions. Under Portuguese rule, Malacca became a node in efforts to Christianise Asia, and Francis Xavier made multiple stops there on his journeys between Goa and the Far East. In fact, after the missionary died off the coast of Guangdong, his body was briefly buried at Saint Paul’s Church in Malacca before being taken to Goa. An open grave at the church commemorates this episode, though it is unclear whether this is the exact spot where the missionary had been buried.

With the help of the Sultan of Johor, the Dutch wrested Malacca from the Portuguese in 1641. The Dutch were successfully expanding across Asia at the time, driving the Spanish out of Taiwan in the following year. Just like their fort in Taiwan’s Tamsui, most of the buildings from the Dutch period in Malacca are of a rich red colour. I believe this was due to aesthetic preferences rather than available materials, as some of the important structures were actually built of coral. The Dutch ruled Malacca for almost two hundred years before ceding the city to England under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824. In return, the Dutch received Bencoolen on the island of Sumatra.

Malacca’s lack of a sultan at the time of independence from the British distinguished it from most other Malaysian states, which is reflected in Malaysia’s current political setup. Along with Penang, Sabah and Sarawak, Malacca has a governor who is appointed by the Malaysian king in consultation with the chief minister. The king (dubbed the Yang di-Pertuan Besar) is in turn elected by (and from among) the rulers of Malaysia’s nine monarchies. The king’s term lasts five years and in practice, the states of Malaysia alternate in occupying the throne. Relatedly, the fourteen stripes on the Malaysian flag and the fourteen points on the star symbolise the thirteen states and the unity among them.

I had the misfortune of visiting Malacca on a particularly rainy day. In fact, I was told by a taxi driver on the following day that the whole area had been struck by unseasonable floods during the exact time of my visit. Fortunately, I did not have to worry much about how the logistics of my trip would be affected, as I had booked a guided tour with a driver who took me all the way from Kuala Lumpur and back again. A Christian from Kerala, he had a habit of loudly proclaiming “Praise the Lord” every time we entered a church or walked past a group of nuns. He also explained why it would have been difficult for me to make the whole journey by myself: the railway connecting Malacca to Kuala Lumpur was dismantled by Japanese troops during WWII to construct the Burma Railway and was never rebuilt.

The first stop on our tour was Saint Peter’s Church, the oldest functioning Catholic church in Malaysia. The title of oldest church – and indeed, the oldest European building east of India – belongs to the aforementioned Church of Saint Paul, but this church has been in a half-ruined state for centuries. From there, we drove straight to the centre of Malacca and its famous “Red Square:” a picturesque area bordered by the Dutch Town Hall, the Anglican Christ Church, and the Tan Beng Swee Clock Tower. The town hall houses an expansive museum on Malacca’s history and culture, with some exhibitions focussing on local customs, others on historical artefacts, and others still on myths like the legend of Hang Tuah.

After climbing up to the Church of Saint Paul, which offers views of the sea as well as a glimpse of the Portuguese Famosa Fort, we crossed the Malacca River into a more commercial part of town. This is where most of the historical religious buildings are located, including the Hindu Sri Poyatha Moorthi Temple, the Kampung Kling Mosque, and the Chinese Cheng Hoon Teng Temple. Interestingly, the mosque does not have a dome, instead reflecting the traditional architecture of Malaysia with its tiered roof and segmented minaret.

Walking back along the bustling Jonker Street, my guide and I ate at a South Indian restaurant before driving on. We made a stop by the Selat Melaka Mosque, a new structure that stands above the sea in a very striking way. My guide told me that the entire area is being reclaimed from the water and built up with tourist amenities, which are to serve a planned influx of visitors on cruises to Malacca. Each of these is meant to be built in a different style, and posters around the area we visited showed plans for buildings with distinct Middle Eastern features.

Having seen everything on the itinerary far faster than my guide and I expected, I asked whether we could stop by the Sultanate Palace Museum and take a few pictures. The guide assented, but after some time on the road, I could see that we were nowhere near where Google Maps said the museum was supposed to be. I did not need to wait long for an explanation. Soon, the car stood by the heavy gates of the current sultan’s palace, which was only partly visible behind a tall fence and a smattering of thick trees. Unlike the reconstructed Sultanate Palace Museum, this building was obviously not accessible to tourists.

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur at around half past four, having received the day’s last downpour on the road. Since I had plenty time to spare, I asked the guide to leave me at the Central Station, from where I took the train to the Batu Caves in the north. A symbol of Malaysia’s Hindu community, the Batu Caves are a holy site that contains a number of temples dedicated to various deities. The largest and most colourful among them stand at the very foot of the rock, but the caves also contain several heavily decorated shrines. To enter the latter, tourists and worshippers pass by a giant golden statue of Kartikeya, after which they ascend a brightly coloured staircase to the mouth of the cave.

I am sure any visit to the Batu Caves is a strong experience, and mine was no different. Right off the bat, I was struck by the sheer number of animals and prayed I would not get pooped on by a pigeon or bitten by an angry monkey. While most visitors kept a sensible distance from the simian scroungers, there were still enough people to break rank and encourage the monkeys to lose all boundaries. Besides feeding the monkeys by directly handing them food, some people were actually helping them drink water straight out of plastic bottles. No wonder, then, that one of the particularly brazen monkeys tried to swipe a visitor’s phone from his back pocket as he was walking past.

Arguably a stronger experience was the Hindu ceremony I got to witness at one of the temples. The ceremony was led by two bare-chested priests wearing body paint, and two men provided musical accompaniment while seated on the floor by a nearby pillar. One of them was playing a long, whining black pipe to the droning sounds of a big radio player, while the other joined in at the climax of the ceremony by beating his drum with wooden thimbles. When the priests emerged from the inner shrine, they were carrying a silver vessel ringed by small bowls with lit wicks. As they proffered it to the gathered crowd, people put their hands above the flames and stroked their heads.

Once I finished my visit to the Batu Caves, I followed the suggestion of my Malacca tour guide and called a Grab taxi to the royal palace, called Istana Negara by locals. As far as I know, the palace is not open to visitors, but tourists can see the impressive golden-domed building from the square in front of the main gate. There was a sign between the gate and the retractable bollards cautioning visitors not to go farther, but after a friendly conversation with a nearby guard, I was allowed to snap a few pictures through the bars.

It was still quite bright when I finished my quick visit to the Istana Negara, so I called another taxi to a lookout point on a nearby hill. Located to the west of central Kuala Lumpur, Changkat Tunku offers panoramic views of the city skyline and its tallest buildings: the Petronas Towers, Menara, and Merdeka 118 (which was inaugurated in 2023 and measures 678.9 metres). As the sun set, its dwindling rays slowly clambered up the sides of the Petronas Towers in brilliant reflections. Once I returned to the city centre, the towers had already been lit up from within. The last place I explored was the Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park, which spreads out below the Petronas Towers and offers many glimpses of the twins between its trees and above its pools. I ate dinner at a mall not far away from the park, having found a well-rated vegetarian stall on Google Maps.