Melaka

After celebrating the last days in Borneo, Sabah, with the kadazan family that hosted me for 3 months (a time that will never leave my mind & heart) I flew back to Kuala Lumpur. I met up again with Lizan and the day after to Melaka. A very old town in southwest Malaysia, with a rich (malay & colonial, Dutch, Portuguese,..) history. Pretty touristy however. I was a bit disappointed with the historical site. I didn’t feel the history anymore, as they made it into some kind of very clean open-air museumpark.

The part I liked was chinatown, with its old houses, antique stores, smiths, etc. Also strolled a bit around the outskirts of the centre where I found some street poetry, rows of old abandonned houses.

Here some snapshots.

Sint-Pauls church

old Dutch language (300-400 years) on the tombstones, quite funny to see this here.

the forbidden garden of the sultan’s queen

the back of an old firemen truck. Do you also see the robot faces?

just pull the trigger…

most famous & photographed tourist spot of Melaka.

Indian workers with a smile

nonya cuisine

detail of old chinese temple

cozy

little Holland

the street where I stayed

frontdetail of the old chinese (guest)house where I spend two nights.

nightshots. Melaka bades in a red glow after sunset.

playing with lights.

belajar Malay-Bahasa

Selamat pagi orang,

When you stay in a foreign country, it’s always rewarding to learn the local language. Out of respect for the country, people and their culture and to receive respect. Even given the fact that most malaysians are able to speak english, it will bring you further. And it’s fun!

Malay is the main language in Malaysia, Bahasa is Indonesian. However, the two are very close. The difference is mainly in the way they pronounce the words and some minor differences in the vocabulary.

If you studied classic latin, its easy to read. Only a few lettres you pronounce differently. The vocabulary is not to compare though. Most of the grammar is fairly easy. No present, past or future tense. Plurals are used by saying the word twice. Numbers are peace of cake…If you can count from 1 to 20 you only have to learn 100, 1000, etc…

You also learn where some words come from.
eg: orang-oetan: orang (people) hutan (jungle)

I just hope when I dive into tagalog (filipino language) I won’t get too confused. tagalog resembles more like spanish. yeyeye….

1400+ km cruising, 3 marriages, life with the locals…another 5 days of unforgettable memories

It’s hard to write it all down in a few lines, dear readers…Ever since I’m in Malaysia I hook up with the local people and every other day is another surprise. I’m simply living and loving it to the fullest.Let me stick again with a wholelot of pictures (and some comments) who may give a tiny glimpse of what my life is like in this fabulous country.

muslim wedding in Perlis. Ain, Akma, Leilah the bride, Miza, Zira and euhmm Zira’s twin?

the official ritual…groom gets his ‘commandments’ before he gets to see the bride.
Meanwhile I was struggling with a worm in my pants. haha.

I felt kinda weird there however. See why?

The official kiss. I slept later that night in that corner. Glad that worm didn’t came after me again.

On the way to Perlis (it took us about 10 hours) we often stopped, enjoyed the food, nature and its beautiful waterfalls.

Miza doing the jump

dont ask…hehe

Ain, Miza,…

Yan and me, all enjoying the fresh seafood

these leeches got me…yeah, my blood there ))

Its monsoon season…

animals on the road

our car…hehe

more roadshots

hurry up, its gonna flood here…and so it did in some parts at the east side.

Ok, back in Kuala Lumpur after two awesome days. Now I’m staying with Lizan in a Malay community in KL. And oh surprise..he dragged me to two other marriages. A chinese one and another Malay one, though rather high class. So all 3 marriages were total different experiences.

Here’s the chinese one.
Mary, Norah, me with a shirt of Lizan (i didnt had decent clothes for this stuff) & Lizan his boss.
!!!Click on the pic to see a short movie!!! It was too funny weirdness.

The Malay one the day after. I’m starting to get titties?

Lizan and me after the Chinese wedding and some clubbing…(its been a while since I got some good amount of alcohol…Malaysia is mainly a muslim country…and uuh, the Chinese did know how to solve that)

Putrajaya, the new citypart of KL (all major buildings are moved to this brand new place coz KL itself is getting a bit stacked)

Well, that’s it for now again. Next will be Kuching, Borneo. Flying there on the 19th.
Take care everyone!