Melaka

For housing, Melaka was probably the most unique place we stayed.  The family who owns the house (a townhouse in the picture below) rents the rooms from this house out to guests.  They live at a separate property. The family takes a personal interest in all their guests and offers refreshments upon your arrival and advice for getting to local attractions.

Here is our hosts.  The wife is Malay and the husband is Indian.  So everything they do in life is a blend of the 2 cultures.

Right across the street (from where the above picture was taken), there was a supermarket and little mall.  This was Oliver's favorite as they had a play structure inside.

Then they had these ride on toys that were free!  The kids just hop on, push a button, and ride for as long as they want. Oliver just wanted to live here!

The 1st full day of our stay in Melaka, we were able to watch the solar eclipse!

This was the first point that I photographed this, but this bathroom was very typical of bathrooms throughout Thailand and Malaysia.  There was a sink to the right and the shower was right in the middle with a drain off to the side. I understand the function of this but the floor was always wet!

We arranged with our guesthouse owner to take us to a traditional working Malay village. Here is a typical Malay house. This specific house is set up as a tour house and showcases special events that a house would have been decorated for.

This is the receiving area on the porch where a bride and groom would greet their guests.

This would be the bridal chamber all decorated for the bride and groom.

Once outside we ventured into the areas where Malay families still live. They had chicken coops and fish ponds with supplies for food. 

Here, behind the laundry is a little fish pond where they raise fish for food.

This is a glimpse into a real Malay home.  On this particular day there was a wedding in the village so everyone was hard at work in preparation for the big celebration.

In the evening, we ventured down to the historic part of Melaka.

The city was very charming but because we made it down close to 4 or 5 pm, many things were closed.  So this made our adventure into the city a little less exciting.

The old fort walls are really cool.  Carson was double checking that things were unloaded and safe for tourists.

Here is a replica of an old water wheel which would have been on this waterway hundreds of years ago.

As the sun went down, we hopped on a boat tour that runs along the river.  Although the river is very polluted and stinks pretty bad, it was a very informative tour.  We were happy to see that it was open!

The highlight/adventure of our trip down town was that we walked a decent ways to the bus stop and sat waiting for the bus stop for quite a while before a local came by and told us the bus wasn't running any more!  This was close to 9 pm! But it helped that we stopped along the way to grab some ice cream and then were able to locate a taxi to take us home.

Full day 2 in Melaka, we figured out how to use the bus system and went to a stingless bee farm.

Here we are sampling fresh honey both from stingless bees (honey is very sour!) and stinging bees (super sweet honey).

We also sampled honey comb from the stinging bees.  Again the honey comb was very sweet.

Inside was a small museum on bees.

Here is a sampling station of different mixtures of honey.  Some had ginger or vinegar among other things to help with health benefits.

Right around the corner was a nature park.  There were several fun things to do here including playground equipment.

These monkeys were also within the park and were so cute.  But moments after we captured the below cute photos, they turned territorial and chased us out of the park!

At the front of the park there was a waterfall and some tanks with fish in them.  As we calmed our nerves from being chased by monkeys, we enjoyed the beautiful scenery.

Outside the park we were able to rent bikes to stroll around the park.  This was a great way to get around although the bikes were not as nice as our Kwaj bikes!

Our last day in Melaka, we took cooking lessons from our hosts.  

This was also a blend of Malay and Indian style foods.

I think I had tried some fresh tamarind paste here.  It was super sour!

After we stuffed our bellies full of the yummy food we helped prepare, it was time to return to our homestay, read, and relax!