When Penang was known only for its
oysters and Singapore was just a
fishing village,
MELAKA had
already achieved worldwide fame.
Under the auspices of the Melaka
Sultanate, founded in the early
fifteenth century, political and
cultural life flourished, helping to
define what it means to be Malay.
The town grew rich by
trading
spices from the Moluccas in the
Indonesian archipelago and textiles
from Gujarat in northwest India. A
levy on all imported goods made it
one of the wealthiest kingdoms in
the world and it gradually expanded
its territory to include Singapore
and most of east-coast Sumatra. Yet,
beginning in 1511, a series of
takeovers and botched
administrations by the Portuguese,
Dutch and British, caused the
subjugation of the Malay people;
Melaka's modern-day authorities are
still working towards reversing the
city's decline.
Legacies of all phases of
Melaka's past remain in the city,
constituting the main tourist
sights. Of these, the most
interesting are the ancestral homes
of the Baba-Nonya community ,
a new racial mix also known as
Peranakan that evolved from the
sixteenth-century Chinese merchants
who settled here and married Malay
women. For a one-stop introduction
to the city's history, watch the
English-language Sound and Light
Show on Padang Pahlawan (daily
9.30pm, 8.30pm during Ramadan; 1hr;
RM5 - closed for renovations at the
time of writing).
The City
The centre of Melaka is split in two
by the murky Sungei Melaka , the
western bank of which is occupied by
Chinatown and Kampung Morten , a
small collection of stilted houses.
On the eastern side of the river
lies the...
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