Day 25, Year 4: Second Day in Melaka
Date: Sunday, November 16, 2008
Weather: Beautiful, Sunny Day, but HOT
Location: Admiral Marina, Port Dickson, Malaysia
Can you know more about something but understand it less? I think you can, because today we visited a Buddhist temple (yes, another one), and a gentleman took us under his wing and tried to explain the religion to us. I got as far as understanding that first came Taosim, then Confusionism, and then Buddhism (I think.). And then I understood that there our four essential elements-energy, soil, air, and water. But then I got lost when the gentleman tried to explain Guanyin, the Goddess of Compassion, with eighteen arms. This is a modern Qianshou version of this Goddess and she is way out of my comprehension range. Mark and I have both decided that we have to take a good comparative religion course when we get home. And we might have to take it twice to even begin to get a bit of understanding. But our visit at the Guanyin Temple today was at least a start for Buddhism.
We slept in this morning and then went to breakfast at the Baba House Caf� since breakfast came with the room. We then started a marathon walk to visit every temple and mosque in the historic district of Melaka. The first stop was right beside where our car was parked. Buddhist monks were chanting for someone who had died. When we returned to the car six hours later, they were still chanting. We visited the newest temple, the oldest temple, and a mosque with a meru roof stacked similar to those of Balinese Hindu architecture. Dutch tiles were seen in many of the temples. Melaka’s multicultural development is expressed in the architecture and building materials of all of her buildings. After the temple and mosque tour, we hiked back across the river to the Maritime and Naval Museum. Either we were tired or this museum just didn’t measure up, but we did see some interesting replicas of local vessels and of the trading ships that made Melaka a port of call. The Portuguese replicas looked just like the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. This reminded us that we still hadn’t found the Portuguese part of town, so a gentleman in the museum gave us directions and we went to get our car and headed out once again to find Medan Portugis. This time we were successful, but we have to admit that we were a little disappointed. Portuguese Square looks like any other shopping square and the architecture in the area was not impressive. Country music was blaring from a speaker stacked on a bicycle in the entrance to the Square and the Restoran de Lisbon served decent Chili Prawns but nothing spectacular. So the Portuguese heritage in Melaka is not its shining star.
We drove back to Port Dickson a different way than we drove down to Melaka and we drove through miles of palm oil plantations. It felt good to get home and start thinking about where we are going next. We will leave here late tomorrow morning and head for Penang, two days and nights from here. We will spend just one day there and then do a long day-sail to Langkawi. We will be there for just a day or two before we will be hauled out of the water to do a much needed bottom paint job. Once that
is done, we can enjoy the Langkawi area until mid-December when our friends Kevin and Claire arrive and we all head for Thailand. So on we go.
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| 081116 Day 25 Melaka, Malaysia–Melaka Tour, Day Two |
