Family Trip: Hunting for Joy and Malacca delicacies (Part 1)

It was a continuous holidays following Hari Raya as public holidays which fell on 8th -10th August (weekends). My family and I had decided to have an annual family trip to Malacca. As usual, it was a sudden plan since last month and we faced difficulties in booking hotel. Nevertheless, we managed to rent a room with Joel's help. When visiting Melaka, food is always something on top of the list when travelling in the city. The main purpose of the trip was hunting for foods apart from joy!

We arrived Malacca during noon and we headed to have our lunch. The mee sua here is the best one I ever ate. The food had been cleared before we remembered we should at least taken a photo of it. :P

Parallel to Jonker Street, there is a street named as Harmony Street (officially Temple street or Jalan Tokong), containing the prayer houses of Malaysia's three main faiths - the Cheng Hoon Teng Chinese temple, the Sri Poyatha Vinayagar Moorthi Hindu Temple, and the Kampung Kling Mosque.

Sri Poyyatha Vinayaga Moorthy Temple

Sri Poyyatha Vinayagar Moorthy Temple is the oldest Hindu temple in Malaysia, located at Jalan Tokong, or Temple Street, within walking distance of the Kampung Kling Mosque and Cheng Hoon Teng Temple. It was built by Hindu community of Malacca in 1780s and dedicated to Vinayagar or Ganesh, the Elephant deity. 

Masjid Kampung Kling

 Majid Kampung Kling was built in 1780s along Jalan Tukang Emas in Malacca, is among the oldest mosques in Malaysia. The minaret was built entirely of masonry in contrast to the accompanying timber mosque. It has the appearance similar to a Chinese pagoda or stupa form, another Malacca characteristic.

马六甲青云亭

The Cheng Hoon Teng Temple is Malaysia’s oldest Chinese Temple. The temple was founded in the 1600s by a man named as Li Kup, who fled China when the Manchus toppled the Ming dynasty. 

Walking past the road, we dropped by Orang Utan House. The Orang Utan House is originally set up by a Malaysian artist, Charles Cham. I was impressed with the remarkable paintings and t-shirt designs which deliver some funny yet sarcastic messages. I bought a t-shirt from there not long ago, which emphasizes on human rights. More details, please click here .

We spent the whole noon to walk along Jonker Street. My mom was excited to shop for cookies here. There are dodol, pineapple tarts, biscuits, and confectionery here, there and everywhere around Jonker Street. Anyway, dodol is not my choice. The first stop was LW Nyonya Pineapple Tarts House. The retailers were generously served us to taste various types of cookies for free. Of course, we ended up buying many types of cookies back. 

To quench our thirst, we had gone to San Shu Gong to have their famous durian cendol. My siblings had their cute egg ice-cream along the way heading to San Shu Gong. The durian cendol is refreshingly delicious and rich with durian taste, gula melaka and coconut milk. However, my mom said that the durian cendol had failed her expectation as she felt the cendol was too sweet and lacked of durian taste.

The view of Jonker Walk from San Shu Gong. The road was full of tourists and we decided to come at night after our dinner.

One of the photos I liked the most! Captured from San Shu Gong.

An advice to be given: Never visit to tourists destination during public holidays. We chose to have dinner at Portuguese Settlement but we ended up being told that the whole place was fully booked. Even given a queue number, the ingredients might have finished that time.Eventually we had our dinner at Ban Lee Hiang Satay Celup House. Satay Celup is basically a type of steamboat with the raw foods on the stick to be cooked in a boiling spicy peanut sauce. It was an unprecedented experience for my family (except me), yet they felt the way of eating the same pot of peanut sauce which had been eaten by others was unhygienic. Okay, let's just conclude it as a good experience to enjoy local delicacy at Malacca- the famous Satay Celup!

After having dinner, we went back to Jonker Street to have a walk. The recent news that Jonker Street may be closed down due to politic issues. I hoped that the Chinese culture here would be continued. Along Jonker Street, we can find plenty of nice cafes or pubs with live bands playing throughout the night. A great night that we ended it with a nice walk along Jonker Street and piping hot putu piring :)



Click here for reading Family Trip: Hunting for Joy and Malacca delicacies (Part 2).
Click Malacca Delicacies You Can Try for more details :)