Malaysia’s most historic town is also one of the country’s most culturally cosmopolitan.

It’s worth risking vertigo to stand on the glass-floored balcony of Melaka’s Shore Sky Tower, cantilevered 153m above ground. The panoramic views afforded from the 43rd floor of the Shore complex, across Melaka, are breathtaking and unparalleled. Let your eye follow the sinuous curves of the Sungai Melaka, the Melaka River, and over the tiled roofs, minarets, and temple towers of Chinatown, to the Strait of Melaka, one of the world’s key shipping lanes. The waterway gave birth to this harbour on the southwest coast of peninsular Malaysia over seven centuries ago.

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Seafaring traders and colonial invaders from China, India, Portugal, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom all staked their claims here – each bequeathing diverse cultural ingredients to Melaka’s rich melting pot. When its historic core gained World Heritage status in 2008, UNESCO said Melaka bore ‘testimony to a living multicultural heritage and tradition of Asia, where the many religions and cultures met and coexisted.’  A stroll along Chinatown’s Jalan Tokong offers living proof of this statement: within metres of each other are centuries-old Chinese temples, a mosque, and an Indian temple. No wonder this lane is also called The Street of Harmony.

Legendary Beginnings

According to the Sejarah Melayu (Malay annals), Melaka was founded in the early 14th century by a Sumatran Hindu called Parameswara. Perhaps of noble birth, more likely a buccaneering pirate, Parameswara and his dynastic line exploited Melaka’s fortuitous location to create a bustling, cosmopolitan entrepôt, as well as a system of courtly governance that endured across the Malayan peninsula well into the 19th century.

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Parameswara’s successors adopted Islam, styling themselves as sultans. Strategic alliances with China brought that country’s culture to Malayan shores in the form of Hang Li Po, who became the fifth wife of Sultan Mansur Shah in the mid-15th century.

The Ming dynasty princess is said to have arrived with an entourage of 500 men and women, many of whom intermarried with the locals.

Herein lies the origins of Melaka’s Peranakans, also known as Baba-Nyonyas or Straits Chinese. The most successful of these Peranakan families occupied elegant Chinese-Palladian-style townhouses like those seen along Chinatown’s Heeren Street. For greater insight into Peranakan culture a visit to the Baba & Nyonya Heritage Museum is recommended. The museum combines three terrace homes that were occupied by four generations of the Chan family since 1861.

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Village Communities

Another, more modest family home that has been turned into a museum is Villa Sentosa, a cornerstone of the Malay village of Kampung Morten. Sandwiched by a U-bend in Sungai Melaka, the kampung is a charming community of traditional wooden stilt homes with painted window shutters and potted flower gardens. A member of the family will show you around Villa Sentosa, pointing out heirlooms, including evocative old photographs, Ming dynasty ceramics and a century-old Quran.

Melaka also has a small contingent of Chetti, offspring of the South Indian traders who intermarried with Malay and Chinese women. Arriving in the 1400s, the Chetti (or Chitty) have their own enclave, Kampung Chitty, a short walk west of Chinatown, where you’ll find the architecturally distinct Sri Poyatha Moorthi Temple, Malaysia’s oldest Hindu temple.

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Colonial Remenants

Visitors to Melaka typically start their explorations of the town’s heritage zone at Dutch Square. Look beyond the garishly decorated trishaws that congregate here to notice more of the fascinating layers of history that Melaka wears so casually. Against the backdrop of the blood-red painted buildings of the Stadhuys and Christ Church, both dating from the 17th-century Dutch colonial period, is a marble fountain erected in 1904 to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, and an 1886 clock tower built in honour of the Chinese merchant Tan Beng Swee.

Follow in the footsteps of St Francis Xavier by climbing nearby Bukit St Paul to view the ruined shell of St Paul’s. Built during Portuguese rule in 1521, it is the oldest church in Southeast Asia and was where the Spanish missionary’s body was brought for burial in 1553. A year later it was exhumed and transferred to Goa in India.

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Eat Up

If all the sightseeing has given you an appetite, then you’re in the right place to satisfy your hunger. Melaka’s choice of cuisines is superb. As well as Chinese, Indian and Malay recipes, there are Peranakan dishes, such as Nyonya laksa (noodles in a coconut and lemongrass flavoured broth) and pai ti (crispy pastry shells, stuffed with savoury goodies) to savour.

Lovers of punchier flavours should sample curry debel, a spicy stew that comes from the Kristang cookbook: the result of Portuguese and Dutch intermarrying with Malays, the Kristang is yet another of Melaka’s creole people.

And a final tip from savvy locals: skip touristy Jonker Street Market in Chinatown in favour of Kee Ann Food Street in Melaka’s Little India. Among the tasty treats available from the stalls here are satay, chicken rice, and otak-otak (spicy fish paste grilled in banana leaves).

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