Rickshaw ride in Melacca

Our half an hour rickshaw ride started from the base of the steps leading to Fort A Famosa. We rode and reached the Stadhuys Square where there is a fountain, a clock tower and several handicraft shops as found in every nook and corner of Malacca.

The rickshaw puller (a Tamil fellow with marvelous English) then took us to a street which he proudly declared "a street with three different religious buildings". True! There was a Hindu temple, a small church and a Chinese monastery on one side of the street, but I think he exaggerated a bit too much about the buildings, forced us to get down and peek into the monastery and convinced us to have a few pictures taken with the monastery as the background.

We wished to go to Jonker Street which is popular among tourists for its buzzing night market which displays attractive-looking foodstuff, handicraft goods, lighting and other decorations. We went there in the daytime, so it was comparitively empty. We bought a mask from a Chinese shop ( the Chinese community largely resides in Jonker Street). We were again forced by the rickshaw-puller to take pictures of a shop which sold bound shoes (the kind the Chinese women wore in ancient times). We did.

As we were about to conclude the ride by asking the Tamil guy to drop us near the clock tower, we got the aroma of freshly baked biscuits. My mother, overwhelmed by the smell, immediately told the rickshaw-puller to stop and rushed to the shop. Before I knew she was out, carrying a packet of pineapple cookies (which turned out to be delicious when I tasted them later) and we made our way back to Stadhuys Square.

Though it cost us 270bucks for the ride, it was worth experiencing!