Yesterday my friend Faye – whom I had met in New Zealand 3 years ago – took me on a day trip to Melaka, the birth place of Malay civilization. The saying goes: “the one who has seen Melaka has seen Malaysia”, and that is almost true.

Melaka became in the 15th century the capital of the Muslim Malay Sultanate, although its founder was originally Buddhist (prince Paramesvara had fled the falling Srivijaya empire based in Sumatra in the end of the 14th century). Soon Melaka became an important trading port and many Chinese sailors ended up finding a Malay wife and settling there.

The result is Melaka: a Chinatown with its pastel colors and colonial architecture (some English and Portugese had also settled there for a while) that makes one feels like in Merida (Yucatan, Mexico) and yet it is Chinese speaking, an indian looking mosque (the minaret is built like a stupa), european styled street planning (no sense at all, not like the squared American cities)… The list goes on.

But the best of all is that the city gives the feeling of having a soul, a history, as the buildings look old and aren’t necessarily restored, which is an amazing thing in Asia (I found the Forbidden City in Beijing absolutely boring); although this is maybe the point of view of the spoiled European that I am, as 2000 years old Roman buildings are everywhere in my home town, Arles.