Continued from yesterday”¦ We headed another block or so down to the town square. The downtown area is actually quite small. It begins at the mouth of a river and is built mostly along the river. The east side of the river has the old Dutch buildings and a few Portuguese ruins (most of the Portuguese buildings had been destroyed by war). The Dutch buildings are all painted a brick red color, which we are told is how they looked when the Dutch controlled the area. The west side of the river is Chinatown, which has endless rows of two story row houses.

The town square has a church and an old government building that now houses three museums. The road in front of it is cobblestone. There is a round about with beautiful flowers and a small windmill. There are tons and tons of rickshaw bikes lined up on the inside of the roundabout, waiting to be hired. The rickshaws are little two person carts attached to a bicycle, and you sit in the cart and have your driver pedal you around town. The rickshaws in and of themselves are quite basic, but, like the bemos in Kupang, the rickshaw owners have totally decked out their little vehicles. Most have umbrellas, fake flower arrangements, tinsel, and other bits of flashy décor to try to get your attention.

We went into the Continue reading →

There is evidence of humans in Malaysia as far back as 40,000 years ago. The original inhabitants are thought to be the Negrito people that live in the northern mountainous rainforests. They were later joined by the Senoi people who came down from Thailand and the Malay people who came up from Indonesia. By the second century AD, Malaya was already known for gold, tin and aromatic jungle woods and Indians regularly came to buy these goods. The Indians introduced Buddhism, Hinduism, and the notion of Kingship.

During the 7th century, the Malaysian peninsula was conquered by the Srivijaya Empire, which was ruled by a king in Sumatra (the island directly west of the Malaysian peninsula, across the Malacca Straits, and today part of Indonesia). Under that empire, southern Malaya flourished as a trading state. The Srivaijaya empire lost control of Malaya in the 13th century. Malaysia went back to being made up of several small and separate empires ruled by local sultans (kings).

In 1400, a self-proclaimed sultan conquered the town of Melaka and turned it into a thriving trading port where Indonesians, Malays, Chinese and Indians came to trade goods. As Islam gained popularity in India, the Indians introduced Islam to Melaka and it eventually spread to the rest of Malaysia and Indonesia.

Meanwhile, the Portuguese Continue reading →