DAY 158 (Sunday 25 December 2011)

CHRISTMAS DAY

Well today was our trip to MELAKA, the transport was late in collecting us from the hotel, but we had a different place to go to to get on the coach that was to take us to MELAKA.

Charlie & Me on the coach to Melaka

When we got to MELAKA our first stop was at the PORTUGUESE SETTLEMENT which is situated next to the MELAKA STRAIGHTS, as we passed through there all the houses had ‘OPEN HOUSE’ with all the Christmas Decorations (a bit like some of the villages in the UK do with their gardens)

From there we went to the largest Chinese cemetery outside of China holding around 12000 graves, the picture below is the temple prior to entering the cemetery.

After leaving the Cemetery we headed for lunch at the KENG-DOM restaurant, the food was a set meal and was very nice.  On from there we headed to ST PAUL’S CHURCH which was at the top of a hill, within the walls of the old ST JOHN’S FORT.

Old Tombstones inside the ruined walls of St Paul’s Church

History behind St Paul’s Church

On from there we headed down the hill to the DUTCH SQUARE which is where the CHRIST CHURCH that was constructed in 1753 from pink bricks that were brought over from ZEELAND in HOLLAND. 

Christ Church with Queen Victoria’s Fountain

The fountain in the square has 4 images of a very young QUEEN VICTORIA face in profile; this fountain was erected in 1904 by the people of MELAKA in memory of QUEEN VICTORIA.

We eventually got to CHINA TOWN to do the walk down where there were some shops, the street is called

There were sides streets that you could go down to see more temples and other buildings, but as we were on a short time as we only had another hour to go before getting back on the bus for one final building to see, both Charlie and me just headed straight down JONKER WALK into CHINA TOWN to see what they had in the shops, we finally got back to the bus and the final stop was ST PETER’S CHURCH
 

St Peter’s Church

This is still the oldest functioning Catholic Church in MALAYSIA, this church was built in 1710 by early Portuguese settlers.  Inside the church there are stained glass windows

Now I am not really a church goer, but it was really nice to see inside this church, I only stayed long enough to take a couple of photos before heading back for the bus to come back to KUALA LUMPUR

We finally got back to KUALA LUMPUR just after 1900hrs, so it was a pretty long day as you can see by Charlie’s reaction to the coach trip home.

Charlie on the bus back to Kuala Lumpur

Tomorrow is our final full day here in KUALA LUMPUR so we are off to the KL TOWER to get our lunch and have a look around before we do any last minute shopping before getting our flight back to NEPAL on Tuesday.