After 3 months in Malaysia we needed to make a border run so off we set our compasses towards Sumatra. In order to stay in shape and make the trip as humanly difficult as possible, we opted against inexpensive asian air travel and decided on over crowded buses (a Muslim woman with a birka made from a 70's polypropa-something curtain was on my lap, thank you), slow and overly air conditioned ferrys (12C or 53F), cologne drenched drivers and the dilapidated old creatures they called taxis, and cramped sunblasted rickshaws. These options, when totalled cost us at least twice as much as flying and I am almost completely gray now. Anyway, our first stop was Malacca on the west coast of Malaysia.

We stayed in the Historic District, or Chinatown, which is a 10 square block nook tucked among the high rise apartment buildings and mega malls that are scattered through the port town. Within the quarter is a myriad of Zen, Tao, Buddhist, Muslim and Christian temples and churches mixed in with old mansions, dive bars, local eateries, cemetaries, foot reflexology shops, and antique stores. It's a real melting pot of culture which was exemplified by a muslim burial site next to a Zen temple. We stayed in an old mansion that had been converted to a hotel 50 years ago. From the outside it didn't look so big but once inside it just kept going and going. The swalllows were nesting in the foyer.

Across the Malacca River is the old Dutch Fortress complex and museum district where we learned of the origins of Malacca. So here comes the history lesson: a real long time ago an Indonesiasn prince and his followers were being chased from his home by the Chinese. When Parameshwara came to what is now Malacca his hunting dogs got hungry and took off after a little white mouse deer. When the deer was cornered on the river banks, instead of cowering to its death, it turned and opened a can up whup-ass on all the dogs. Seeing this as an extremely auspicious event the prince layed stake and built his new kingdom which flourished beyond his dreams – and in typical South East Asian fashion the little white mouse deers were hunted to extinction....

During the 1500’s and 1600’s Malacca was one of the most strategic spice trading ports in the world and was fought over by the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, English, and Chinese. It is the only place where we felt the presence of any culture in Malaysia. Unfortunately, it seems that in their quest to become modernized the Malaysian government has eradicated much of their tradition except for a few “artist renderings of how it probably looked back when” which hang in the museums of Kuala Lumpur. I loved the replica of a 1500's Galleon which is now a maratime museum. Unfortunately, instead of recreating the real interior of the ship, the it was full of dioramas with really bad western manniquins adjusted into Sears action poses and wearing very flammable polyesther toupee's. The forts, however, were amazing and the guy in the old church playing "Country Road" certainly warmed my heart. He let me sit and sing very off key with him. As expected, our duet didn't make any tips but he didn't seem to mind. For those of you who don't know there's a show on MTV called "Pimp My Ride." It's all about how B and C list celebrities spend rediculous amounts of money on their cars. Well, these guy's take the cake on "Pimp My Rickshaw."