MELAKA memang BEST!!!!! - mesti baca
Tuesday, 12 July 2011 | 0 comments
Dipetik dari blog: http://syedsoutsidethebox.blogspot.com/
Road Trip and Memory Lane
My wife and I hardly get any time off for holidays and vacations together. We have to juggle our businesses, the family, classes (both of us are students again), my more frequent meetings, lectures and talks I attend or deliver plus a ton of other things. So when we were forced to close shop last Saturday because of the mobs we decided on a quick road trip down South.
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We took a very leisurely drive to Seremban, then on the highway to Port Dickson. Then from there through winding kampong roads to Linggi, Teluk Kemang, Tanjong Agas, Pantai Kundor, Lereh, Klebang and finally into Melaka. Then back through the Plus Hiway. It was a most interesting drive.
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Melaka is getting to be a favorite destination again. We lived four years in Melaka and I finished my Form 5 there (1977). Of course the Melaka that I knew in 1977 and the Melaka of today are completely unrecognisable. Melaka is almost a different country altogether. The State has transformed itself into a fantastic little dynamo tucked away quietly by the Straits of Malacca. Rahim Tambi Chik kicked off the transformation of Melaka decades ago but Dato Seri Ali Rustam has turned the State into a 'Negeri Maju'. It is still "work in progress" - they are still busy building the new Melaka. I once asked Senator Dato Akbar Ali (from Melaka), 'When will all this development be completed?' and he said, 'There is no completion date'.
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Ali Rustam is going to keep building Melaka until they reach the State boundaries with Johor and Negeri Sembilan. The State is also clean. There is hardly any trash on the streets in Melaka Town. Their philosophy is not 'mengutip sampah' but 'mencari sampah'. In other words their sanitation workers go and search for sampah to be picked up. A minor tweak to the mindset but with major results achieved. Its all about the mindset. We have to change the mindset of the people.
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Anyway our road trip began early in the morning on Saturday. To get started on the right track, I had to get plain sugar free donuts and sugar free black coffee. Semua sugar free. Apa nak buat - engine dah usang.
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First stop was Seremban. Seremban is a very nice town, especially early on a Saturday morning, when there are no traffic jams. We stopped at the Kelana Resort at the Lake Gardens. Got there too late for breakfast though. So we just drove around a little and I took a picture of this Chinese Temple and Pagoda. I dont know about you folks but a quiet pagoda is a soothing sight for the eyes. Its just quiet. Shhhhh.
From Seremban we got on the PD Hiway to Port Dickson (picture below). A few days ago, one commentor in my Blog suggested that the Bersih mob hold their riots on this PD Hiway. This is actually a running joke because this hiway is still quite deserted - it is very lightly travelled. I have some association with the history of this high way. Circa 1996 (I believe) they planned to build this highway. I was Head of Project Finance at Maybank at that time. One day this very young female Chinese General Manager came to see me. She told me about this highway project and wanted Maybank to look at the funding requirements. I looked at it but recommended against participating in the project.
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By that time, many of the new toll highways had already been financed and even commissioned. I also knew the Seremban - Port Dickson roads quite well. Since our sons could walk, we used to drive down to the beach in PD very often. We used to drive through all the quiet kampong roads so that the boys could see the lembus, the kerbaus, the paddy fields and the cute Minang houses. So I knew that there was very little road traffic in that area. Also there was a frequent criss-crossing of kampong roads and connections - meaning traffic could exit and use alternative roads easily, thus easily taking volume away from a toll highway. Plus Port Dickson (until today) has not become a major end destination. (This is where Melaka has outdone Negeri Sembilan. Melaka has now become an 'end destination' by itself for people from KL, Singapore, Johor, Seremban and from all over the world). So I turned down the project. In the end the PD Hiway did get built. But from Day 1, it never had sufficient traffic volume. I have lost track of who owns the road now or how it is doing. But the comment that the Bersih mob should assemble there is not off the target. As you can see the picture, this is the Mambau Rest Area. Little traffic.
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Just before PD, we spotted yet another cute Chinese Temple. It looked new and pretty in yellow colour. The building on the left is a restaurant - most likely associated with the temple. Again a soothing sight as well.
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We bypassed PD and drove towards Teluk Kemang. This is a fishing village at Teluk Kemang. That is a nice long jetty, built by the Government for the fishermen.
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This picture below is just coming down the bridge over the Sungai Linggi - the border between Negeri Sembilan and Melaka. The moment you enter Melaka you know you are going from a less developed to a very well developed State. Thats a hutan lipur on the left with tip top modern chalets built for visitors. The roads are newly surfaced (as you can see) and everything is in order. There was another huge construction project going on at the river mouth (which is right here). As I said, Ali Rustam wants to build Melaka right till its State boundaries.
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The picture here is that of an astronomical observatory (the Balai Cerap Al Khwarizmi - the famous Arab philosopher, mathematician and astronomer) which is located just inside Melaka. Firstly I dont know why we have to name anything after Arab people. Ini Melaka bro, Negeri Tanah Melayu. Why cant they name it the 'Balai Cerap Sultan Mansor', 'Balai Cerap Raja Pasai' or something more relevant to Melaka. Anyway it is an imposing complex. But quite frankly I dont know what they do here. Maybe try to spot the moon in the sky. There are websites which can tell you exactly where the moon is at any given moment in time. Have you heard about this place?
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Then we came to Tanjong Gong. This is close to the Pantai Kundor, Tangga Batu area in Melaka. That is the Powertech Power Plant (IPP). And there were cows walking around, sitting by the road, chewing the cud and watching things quite lazily. (I hope they dont put these cows behind a kandang. It was just cool to see cows walking about and sitting around. I think the one on the extreme right is called 'Big Mac')
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Across from the cows was a small market - Pasar Tanjong Gong. We stopped to check out the prices. The ikan tenggiri was selling at RM26.00 per kilo !! The sotong (quite sizeable) was selling at RM20.00 per kilo. Folks at this price, if I was living in Pantai Kundor in Melaka, I would dive into the sea and catch the fish myself. Mahal lah bro. Orang kampong nak makan apa?
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Just around the corner, we came across a kakak selling durians. Of course this required an emergency stop. Durian is in season and the crop is good. These fruits were from Gemencheh. They sold for RM6.00 a kilo. Not to bad. The Mrs and I (mostly me) ate just that one durian in front of me. Had an interesting conversation with the kakak and her daughter.
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This picture here is Pantai Kundor beach. We used to go fishing and bathing here. All along the Melaka coast you can catch ikan gelama. Until today gelama and ikan parang are plenty in Melaka. The last time I bathed here was in 1976 when I was 16 years old. (A future Cabinet Minister was with us too). At that time it was natural beach. Now the kampong houses have disappeared and casuarina trees have been planted. The beach is still nice. The water is clean.
Here is an old mosque in the area. In Melaka the mosques look like pagodas too. They have a unique appearance.
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This house below here is in Klebang Kecil. It is almost completely covered by that Banyan tree. Just to the right of this house, there is a very cute mosque that is being renovated. The sea is just beyond the house (you can see it). My late father and I used to come to this mosque for Friday prayers. The prayer hall was just slightly bigger than an average living room. I used to sit along the side facing the sea and just stare at the sea. I can still feel the wind that blew in from the sea. Sadly, the mosque is now being doubled or tripled in size. I think they should just leave it alone.
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Then we entered Melaka Town and saw this post box. This is the sturdy, old post box. Does anyone recall these rugged post boxes? I am just so glad Melaka still has them. I dont know why we replaced these post boxes. They have character and are tourist attractions by themselves.
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This is Jonker Street. We lived for about a year in the next street : Heeren Street. Both Jonker Street and Heeren Street have changed completely. Ali Rustam has done a really fantastic job here. The streets are clean. They have been declared a World Heritage site.
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Both Jonker Street and Heeren Street are very commercialised. As you can see, most of the people visiting here as well as those running all these businesses are Chinese and other non Malays. In Melaka the Malay traders as well as Malay visitors can be found in the Dataran Pahlawan area. The Government provides space for traders including a large Pasar Seni type building (but much much larger) at Dataran Merdeka. In Jonker Street and Heeren Street, it is more commercial with many shops, restaurants and souvenier sellers all competing with each other. Among the famous foods that you must have are durian cendol (which is available everywhere) and tau sa piah (vegetarian). I cant eat these anymore because of the high sugar content. This durian cendol was 'kurang kurang' manis.
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One of the antique dealers on Jonket Street had this bottle on display. My wife thought it was some type of old beer bottle. It looks like some glass 'Alladin's lamp'. If you are over 50 years old you may recognise that this is a baby formula bottle (a baby's milk bottle). These bottles had two openings, over which you would fix two rubber teats (puting). Babies will somehow get bored drinking from the same rubber teat, so you could turn the bottle around and feed them from the other end. They were selling this bottle for RM198.00 each !!
When I lived in Melaka, the water in the Melaka River was the colour of teh tarik. Here is a picture of the water in the Melaka River today. It is super clean. Congratulations Dato Seri Ali Rustam. They have done the impossible. They have cleaned up the Melaka River. The method is simple : channel away all drains and sewers from the river. So there are no drains emptying into the Melaka River. Then just allow the tides to fluch out the river and this is what you get.
