After a fairly long journey from Kota Bharu we made it to Malacca for mid morning. We were initially greeted with an interesting looking garden and a locked gate. After a few messages Miss Emily appeared from the house and let us into her home. Miss Emily (real name Tina) had contacted us on Couchsurfing offering to let us stay at her guesthouse, which is also on airbnb, for free if we could help her with some gardening. Miss Emily’s house was amazing, so unique, just like her. There was a small garden out front; the actual house and rooms were wooden in the old architectural style for the area. The bathrooms were small outhouses and then there was a small garden out the back with a path that led through to the open kitchen/ communal space area. The path went over a small pond filled with fish, past a larger pond with much bigger fish and several terrapins, that I didn’t realise were real at first, and past her duck. Miss Emily also introduced us to her two cats and told us that there was also a rabbit running around the garden somewhere that would bite us if we got too close. The kitchen area was filled to the brim with bits and bobs for baking and cooking with lots of treats in jars on the tables too. Miss Emily herself was lovely and quirky. She was full of life, making us feel welcome instantly telling us stories and asking us questions about our lives and travels. She was very generous too and we got to sample some of her delicious baked treats.
After speaking to her for a while, she showed us our room and we were able to freshen up before heading out. We joined her and a long-term guest there- an older guy called John for some lunch at a local restaurant. John spends much of the Australian winter in places in Asia and has been coming back to stay at Miss Emily’s for a number of years. We went to a chicken and rice restaurant with a twist- the rice was in ball form. Not really that much of a twist but the restaurant was able to charge a bit more for it due to the novelty and apparently it is a “thing” in Malacca. After this Emily took us to a different restaurant where we sampled a Malaysian dish we had been meaning to try and is considered very local to Malacca called Chendol. Chendol is made up of green grass jelly, palm sugar syrup, red beans, coconut milk and shaved ice. As the only ingredients I like in that are shaved ice and palm sugar it was not for me flavour wise or texture wise but Dave really enjoyed it.
Instead of returning to the house we went out for a few hours to get our bearings. We ended up being incredibly lucky as Miss Emily’s house was practically in the heart of Malacca. It took us 10-15mins to walk to the Dutch square past several large modern malls, old planes/boats to where the architecture changed to old colonial buildings surrounding a fountain. Here there are a huge number of tricycles in the square offering tours around the city. These really don’t match the style of the place though as they are covered in really bright different characters such as pokemon or hello kitty, flashing LED lights and blaring out music which tended to be either Despacito or Shape of You by Ed Sheeran (we swear these were the only two songs we ever heard in Malaysia!!!). Once we had a short wander around we returned back to the house and went out for dinner with Emily and John again. This time we went to a close 24-hour Nasi Kandar restaurant. Nasi Kandar is a buffet where you chose what curry or meat you want with your rice, often getting a multitude of sauces if you want it and you can purchase other sides such as spring rolls, eggs etc. We went and chose our selection, which ended up being huge portions but it was delicious so we devoured it all. We said goodbye to John and Emily at this point as they were considering going to the cinema. Instead we ended up going to Starbucks so we could use their internet to actual get a few bits done and have a coffee.
As Emily had leant us her keys the night before (she has an outside gate she locks to keep people out of the guesthouse) we returned them to her in the morning. Miss Emily said she was popping out briefly for some baking bits but would return shortly and we were fine with this as we weren’t quite ready to go out at that point, thinking she would only be 20-30 minutes. However 1 and a half hours later and she still had not returned. We had been waiting for a while as we wanted to go out and spend the day actually exploring the city. We sent several messages and then planned to knock on John’s door to see if he could let us out as we were actually locked into the house. He turned out not to be in and luckily at the 2 hour mark Emily returned oblivious to our messages. It was a bit frustrating but did not ruin the day. We still managed to get out and see everything we wanted to see. We walked around all the major sights and headed over to Chinatown to explore Jonker street area with its old style Chinese shophouses selling trinkets, traditional Chinese-Malay snacks and coffee. In this street we found a small little chicken and rice restaurant that was cheap (5.50 MYR) and very tasty. After exploring for a bit we headed to the Ole Lavenderia café to try their local cheesecake and cool off in the air-con. Again Dave really enjoyed it but it wasn’t for me. We headed along the riverfront seeing all the interesting street artwork depicting scenes from Malacca’s culture and history before wandering through Little India (literally a single street) and back to Emily’s. We chatted to Emily about both of our days and enjoyed being in her lovely home.
In the evening we headed to Pak Putra an infamous Tandoori restaurant raved about on Trip Advisor as we really fancied good Tandoori. It turned out to be incredibly good. We arrived to find that the restaurant, as well as the parking lot, which was covered in tables was heaving. Luckily a couple left just as we arrived so we dived into their seats whilst there were some free. We ordered basic Tandoori chicken and naan sets (me trying the local cheese naan) for 14 RM each. The whole thing was an incredible operation. Several tandooris were alight which were cooking the tandoori chicken at different stages manned by a couple of guys. For the naans there were several guys working different parts of the process- bringing out huge vats of dough, turning it into hundreds of small balls, making it into the naan shap and then actually cooking it in another tandoor. It was impressive to watch as well as to eat; the naans’ being super doughy and the chicken full of flavour and really juicy. We walked off our meal a bit before heading back to Emily’s when she let us know she was in.
We were up bright and early the following morning where we helped Emily to weed out her front garden and pond. We actually both enjoyed doing it, nice to do some physical work every now and again. For lunch we headed out into Chinatown and to the Baboon House. In order to get in to this special restaurant you have to ring a buzzer and wait to see if there is any space before they buzz you in. The house is architecturally beautiful, in its old style with house plants, artwork and restored interior features. One downside is that they don’t let you take pictures in there though. The menu is a bit limited so we ended up with burgers, me with the standard one and Dave with a pork belly one (18.90RM and 19.80RM). They were pretty decent though. Very full we stumbled to the waterfront to catch a peak of the mosque on the sea there and the huge development city that is going. It is incredible the scale of housing that is being produced. One of the hotel/ flat blocks is going to be so huge it has a rollercoaster attraction going around the outside of it. Malacca is just a place that is going to get busier and busier in the next few years. We got too hot on our way here though so after Dave finished admiring the mudskippers on the mud/river we grabbed an ice cream and headed back to the house for a while.
In the evening we went out with another couple from the guesthouse that had arrived that day, Emily and John. We ended up walking through the UNESCO Malacca celebrations where hundreds of people were dressed in traditional costumes from different historical stages for Malacca- Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, Malay and Baba and Nyonya and re-enacting different parts of Malacca’s history. We then headed over the bridge where we spent time looking around the Saturday night market in Jonker street, eating street food and then going for a drink by the river. Unfortunately, it started to rain very heavily and we were pinned against the wall of the bar for shelter, then hid in their kitchen for a bit before using black plastic bags as rain shields to get to somewhere a Grab could pick us up!
In the morning we had a quick tea with Emily, signed her guestbook, took some pictures with her and then we got the local bus back to Malacca Sentral (35 mins) so we could get another cross country bus to Kuala Lumpur. On arriving there we booked a bus for 12pm at the Delima counter to KL for 10RM and 2 hours later we were in KL at Bersapedua station. This was another Couchsurfing experience that we will definitely not forget! Make your way to Miss Emily’s if you are ever in Malacca she will make the place for you.
Alex
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