January 28, 2019 - Malacca, Malaysia - Monday, Day 22

I have just completed my 3 mile walk around the deck of Maasdam and am writing this at 5:30 on Thursday morning January 31. This is the first sea day since this 20 day voyage #2 began. We have been busy and this is the farthest behind I have been since boarding on January 6. We will have 3 sea days in a row before we reach our first port in Sri Lanka

January 28, 2019 - Malacca, Malaysia - Monday, Day 22

We cruised all night through the Straight of Malacca. This is the narrow body of water between Indonesia and Malaysia. It is one of the busiest navigable waterways in the world. Ships are required to observe a traffic separation pattern imposed by the authorities. While that does not provide the right of way, it does assign a course to shipping. Vessels then negotiate passing patterns among themselves. This works fine, and we arrived in the city of Malacca on schedule. 

What a delight this day turned out to be. This is a tender port and we are using a combination of ship’s tenders and local vessels for the 30 minute ride into the city. 

The ship’s lecturer had nicely described the points of interest and mentioned a tourist information center. We planed to go directly there from the tender pier. First we had to navigate through the hoard of pedicab drivers pleading for our business. Their pedicabs were all brightly decorated. I look forward to the day I will be able to upload pictures to this blog.

There were no signs directing us to the info office. We joined a lot of people heading towards what appeared to be the city center. We ended up in a park without a clue where we were relative to anything. I remembered that I had downloaded some city maps to my iPhone many months ago in preparation. Was Malacca one of them? YES!

I opened the map and there we were. A blinking dot in the middle of the park. At the far end of the park and up a block was the info center. Our walk to it led past many museums and a trail along the river that divides the city. We walked over to the trail and took some pictures of the river and bridges. Then we got to the information office. 

The gentleman provided a map and indicated on it the sights that Alice had organized for this visit. We were off and running. Between his map and my iPhone we had no trouble making our way around. 

As it turned out this office was very well placed in the heart of the city. Across the traffic circle was the landmark, Victoria Fountain. Chinatown was over a bridge to the left. It was very attractive, but we decided to do it later. It turned out that later will have to be another visit. The Bucket List never seems to get shorter. 

After the fountain we parted with about $12 for a nice casual dress for Alice at one of the surrounding stalls. From there it was over to the old city hall and then up St. Paul’s Hill. At the top of the hill we had beautiful views of the city. The remains of old St. Paul’s Church were here with many ancient and interesting grave stones. 

As we descended the backside of the hill we walked through the old Dutch cemetery before walking the ruins of the old Portuguese Fort. Back at sea level we found a public restroom in a very nice shopping mall. Then we walked back to museum row. 

We were looking for the kite museum, but discovered that it was actually part way up St. Paul Hill. We decided that going up the hill once in a day was enough. As much as I would like to learn about Malaysian kite culture we decided it would have to keep until another time along with a visit to Chinatown.

We walked through the park again and crossed the street where there was less traffic. On our way into town this morning we had watched a crew installing a full height glass wall on a third floor balcony of a building facing the park. Now the glass installation was complete and a man was painting the front of the building. Next to the high lift for the basket he was working from was a man supervising. As we approached he seemed pleased that we were interested. He explained that he was the building owner. He was converting it to a hotel. The balcony where the glass was just installed was going to be used to project his sign and advertising on the interior wall. This way he would avoid having to buy permits and paying a tax to have an outside sign. Clever! He was very proud of himself and his property. We wished him well as we turned toward the tender pier. He encouraged us to stay with him when we come back to Malacca.

Our tender ride back to Maasdam was on a ship’s tender. It was quick and comfortable. Onboard we dressed for Mass and then dinner. This is our first Gala Night for this cruise. This new group of passengers dressed more formally than the first cruise passengers. There were many more jackets and ties on men. The women’s wear was also more upscale. Dinner was excellent. Service was great.

Tomorrow we dock at Penang Island, Malaysia.  Tonight we retired early in preparation for tomorrow. But first we reviewed our day and marveled at what a fine experience it was. The city was clean and nicely laid out. The people were very friendly and helpful. The architecture was very interesting. We had a grand time.