Old, New or Abandoned

This morning Henry took us to a traditional Malay foodery for roti canai.  Once we had arrived and parked (parking at times is a highly competitive activity), I opened the car door and came face to face with the locals pictured on the right.  They were quite friendly and totally unfazed with happenings around them.

Once in the foodery (in is a relative term as there are no walls, only a tent type roof), we got our table and then made the acquaintance of the folks preparing the food.  They were, as has been everyone I've met so far, very friendly and accommodating, kindly allowing me to take photos as they prepared the food.  Breakfast was delicious and as we left we got friendly waves, not only from the workers, but from some of the patrons.  A good start to the day.

Our next stop was the Cheng Hoon Teng Chinese temple.  This temple is the oldest in Malaysia with its initial construction in 1673.  It is equally devoted to three doctrines - Taoism, Confucianism and Chinese-Buddhism.  When exploring the temple it tells a story about the Chinese in Melaka, covering their lives, their beliefs and their concerns.

This is the temple that Kim went to when she was a child and growing up so there is a lot of Gee family history here as well.  We didn't just go to visit, we went there to pray as well, as there is great meaning for Kim there.

While exploring around the temple we saw many different, and interesting, people from all over the world.  There was an East Indian lady and her daughter, who was deaf, and they kindly let me take their photo.  There were a number of monks, likely from a variety of places, who were busy taking pictures of the temple, and each other, with their cameras and smartphones.  There were Westerners (besides me) sightseeing and locals praying.  It was quite a place.

Then, across the street, was a "new" version of the same temple, built to replace the original at such time it might become unusable from age.  This had definitely not happened yet as those who care have worked very hard to keep it in very good condition.  Both temples seem to be in continuous use.

Later, Henry took us to the Portuguese section of Melaka to show us some of the old Portuguese buildings.  When we got there, lo and behold, there were no old buildings but rather a new hotel.  A bit disappointing to say the least.  We understand that there is another way to get to the old Portuguese buildings and we will do some more exploring.


Off we traveled then to another example of what I consider to the be big inconsistency of Melaka.  We visited a beautiful beach area (certainly in my opinion) that is unused, complete with a very nice bricked walking area between the road and the beach, lined with trees.  The beach is littered and the walk is falling into disrepair.


There is a ship docking area close by, which may give people second thoughts about swimming, however for the area to be unused totally doesn't seem to make sense.  On top of that, there is a hotel, and not a small one, across the road which is entirely abandoned.  There was some activity at the front entrance but is was not hotel related.

This blog post had been delayed due to Wi-Fi issues, hopefully they have been resolved so the next post will appear shortly.

Thanks for reading, comments are always welcome.