Melaka Day Trip – St Paul’s Church

Short Note: I have an extra bus ticket here worth RM17 from Melaka Sentral to Singapore departing on the 9th of Feb (third day of CNY) at 9am, drop me an email at nicootan@gmail.com if you're interested to buy.


With a class at night on a Friday evening, my cute born and bred South Africana professor from Australia wanted to explore the city in the day time and since she’s been around KL city before and wanted something cultural, I volunteered to show her around my hometown, Melaka.


Holy man at St Paul’s Church


Yes, that means driving two hours down to Melaka, tour the city, have some food, and two hours drive back to attend the class at 6pm.

Why do I do this? I don’t really know actually. But I’m glad I did, because it was a superb trip and my professor and her friend were wonderful guests to host.


Fort A Famosa: built by the Portuguese in 1511, severely damaged during the Dutch invasion.


Ursula and Gene (the one on the left) are two great examples as to life starts at 30, 40, or even 50 and above. Life doesn’t end at 30, it doesn’t end when you’re married, it doesn’t end when you have a stable career with a PHD and are at 38 years of age and two aged parents you want to take care of.

n
Ursula donating money to the poor


No, in fact, she did the exact opposite most people would do. At the age of 38, she moved out from South Africa and to America to pursue her academic career and later moved to Australia to be with her husband and is now traveling around SEA teaching master students of all races.




She is now 44. (I know, she looks nothing like 44!)


Anyway, Friday morning I picked Ursula and Gene up at Kelana LRT station and head straight to Melaka.

On the way, we exchanged our background and culture and it was fascinating to learn that South Africa is pretty much like Malaysia, corruptions, corrosive government laws, low currency, even the food they eat is a fusion of many cultures with strong Malay influence due to a large Malayan population residing there.

We later moved the topic to Baba Nyonya culture in Melaka. A Baba Nyonya is a descendent of mix parentage Malay and Chinese back in the 1500s and IS NOT a muslim, therefore a dying culture and race. Nyonya may originates from the word ‘dona’ in Portugese which means “lady”, hence Nyonya is referred to as the female descendent and Baba the male.

I brought my guests to have lunch in a Baba Nyonya restaurant in Melaka Raya. (no photos here)


After that we visited the famous St Paul’s Church situated on top of the St Paul’s hill which is just behind the ruins of A Famosa Fort.




The A Famosa was originally a chapel, “known to the early Portuguese in Malacca as the Chapel of the Mother of God (Madre de Deus) or Our Lady of the Hill (Nossa Senhora do Oiteiro). It was built by Duarte Coelho, in 1521, as a result of a miraculous escape from an attack on his ship by a fleet in the South China Sea.

Read about the full story here.




The building is so old and worn out due to years of rain and storm torments, numerous restorations were carried out till it looks like the pathetic structure it is today.




Yet it is so immaculately beautiful.


Some tourists taking photos at the church ruins


Turns out my professor is a great photographer. But she likes to take slanted photos for some peculiar reasons.


Me attempting the same pose.


I’m a very vertical and horizontal photographer




This is a ruin stone written in old Dutch. How do I know? Because Ursula and Gene can read them?!! OMG!!




Apparently South Africana learns to converse and write in Dutch in school at very young age. You learn something new everyday.

Ursula later asked me to go by the window to sit there and pose.




I love this photo! She brought my camera skill to shame.

We finished our journey with a photo under the famous Melaka Tree.




The tree that started it all, marks the beginning of the history of Melaka (which was the name of this country when Prince Parameswara founded the land).

You can still see his footprint here if you visit this place, though I doubt that is his actual footprint.


At 4pm, we got into car and drove furiously back to KL just in time for our class (okay, we were half an hour late, blame the speed limit).




I know, I should be paying attention in class.

*whistle*