Eliza's Malaysian Journal

When we arrived in Johor Baru everything was very gruby and sooo hot. Sarah and I needed the loo so off we went. It was very hard to carry the suitcases around everywhere as there were loads of steps to go up. It was lunch time and I was starving so mum caved in and we went to good old Macdonalds. Typical as Sarah ended up getting something spicy by mistake which she ALWAYS does so she had to swap with Mum.

After that it was time to go on the bus to MELAKA!! But first mum thought she lost a ticket so she had to go and get another one leaving me and sarah all alone, everyone was staring at us and we got really nervous, mum finally came back, phew! The bus ride took forever, it was lucky that mum brought the ipod though. I noticed that there were a lot more people on their motorbikes than there were in England.

At last we were there, the air-conditioning was lovely and I was ready for a swim in the nice blue pool. The elavators werent very nice because there were boxy and small I didn’t want to get my long hair caught in the nasty elavator door. It didn’t help that we got stuck once.

The pool was good fun but we had to get out for dinner which was extraordinary. Mum came across a slusher, she asked what it was for and then the lady gave mum a huge bowl of ice and vegtables and sweet jelly topped with milk and syrup, ugh, it looked disgusting and mum said it was the worst thing she ever tried!  After that we were really tired so we hopped into bed for a nice snooze. The Air conditioning was noisy but it was better than being too hot and in a sandy bed.

The next day we went down to breakfast it was scrmummy. We decided to go to the shopping centre looking for rash vests we were succesfull cos we got them and they look fab!

We went on a tour around Melaka. It was very intersting but a bit hot and we were grateful for the cool taxi.

How A City Became

Today Malacca has a population of around 750 000 people. Now back in the fourteenth century Malacca didn’t look as it does today. It was just jungle until a Prince, Parameswara from Sumatra took interest in making the area his home.

He chose this area because he saw a largish rodent push his favourite hunting dog into the river. He took this as a sign that a creature that could be so weak could become so strong.

He asked around to see if anyone lived here and there were just fishermen from Indonesia. Their reply was a simple no. So the prince asked the fishermen what the name of one of the indigenous trees was. They said that in Indonesia the tree was called Malacca so the Prince decided to make this area his new home and call it Malacca.

The prince travelled to China, India and Indonesia and he visited kings, princes and rich people about what a wonderful port and trading post Malacca would be. The Chinese spice traders came to visit and agreed with the prince and the village of Malacca started to grow.

Then something dreadful happened. The Portuguese became jealous of Malacca and decided to take over. The killed many people and burnt temples and palaces. They ruled four nearly 150 years.

Next the Dutch decided to come and conquer the Portuguese and fortunately the Malacca people preferred the Dutch to the Portuguese because the Dutch let them worship and/or follow which ever religion they wanted and let them lead their own lives as long as they paid taxes.

Next the British wanted it! They traded an island in Indonesia with the Dutch and got Malacca. Eventually in 1956 the Malaysians said hey, why can’t we rule ourselves, so they asked Queen Elizabeth if they could so she said let the people vote and they voted Yes so they became independent from Britain!

The moral of this story is that animals came make big things happen. From one small rodent to a big city!

 In around 1650 the dutch started to build this church.

It took twelve years to build because they didn’t have the material to buld the church in Malaka so they had to bring bricks and materials from Holland. That took five to seven months to do.

Then they built a bit and then there wasn’t enough so they had to go back for more.
Also the town was very very small in those days and there weren’t many people to help build it.

v