"In the eye of the tiger."-- "Eye of the Tiger", Survivor

Malacca is calm, laid back and beautiful… it’s a completely chill place, very clean, and reflects its colonial roots. It is a place that takes pride in its history… so much in fact it has about a bazillion museums. Malaysia was originally inhabited by the Portuguese… after 40 years, they had completely botched everything… so the English took over, like they do. The legacy of the Portuguese is that the Malaysians put an egg on everything… often a raw egg…

They also wanted all of the houses to be white… so they kept repainting them white… but the dirt and sea water and everything kept changing the white houses a reddish color… so, desiring conformity, they painted everything red…. This here area is Portuguese Square

In the middle of the square is a road sign w/ distances to various locations around the world

“Whats your favorite dish. I’m not going to make it for you but we can order it from ZANZIBARS”… yes that’s exactly what motivated me to take this photo

Here is A Famosa, which has a church on the top and I think was a fort… it wasn’t exciting… I did not climb this hill.

Now some of the individuals on the tour were really frustrated w/ our guide… and the grand breaking point was that he said there was no China Town in Malacca… Please see pictures above and make your own decision on that.

Please note the incredibly creepy eyed children on this decorative thing in the street.

OOOO… I don’t have pics of this… put feel a need to jot it down… there were big ass lizards in the rivers…. We aren’t talking gekos, we’re talking lizards in the family of the kimono dragon… they are mean looking things… and then there were things swimming in the river that were terrifying.

Cool old guy statute

Cool Malacca flag

This is the Cultural museum, Muzium Budaya, replica palace of Sultan Mansur Syah… it is entirely made of wood

Inside there were all sorts of cool wax figures… here they replicate people coming and meeting the Sultan

Malacca also represents a strong mix of religions… in this one area there is a beautiful Mosque and down the road a Chinese temple.

Inside the Chinese temple they were having a religious ceremony, and there was this cool dragon window.

Ok… this takes some explanation… these stone dogs have balls in their mouths… but there is a trick… the sculptors carve the ball in the mouth, so its impossible to take out… so it provides some entertainment to try and take it out even though it is impossible

Finally, to close out Malaysia, Malacca’s symbol is the tiger… and there were all sorts of tigers around as you can see from above.