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Showing posts from July, 2024

Malacca - The Old Town

  I was lucky enough to have the company of a friend’s father yesterday who was able to fill me in on the remarkable history of Malacca. It was first settled (colonised take your pick) by the Chinese… …then the Portuguese… …then the Dutch… …and finally the British. That means the city is stunning… …full of tourists… …beautiful things… …sad things… ….remarkable things… …memories… …and to my eye… …weird things. I really enjoyed… ….wandering round… …and looking at all the remnants… …of a remarkable… ….and often… …bloody past… And this massive duck. No idea what this was about!

Malacca - The Spice Grinders

  So much to see in Malacca that I’m going to cut it up into different posts. Our visit started with a stop in ‘Little India’… …where we saw some ducks… …and visited a spice grinder. The smell was absolutely fantastic. And it was great… …to get a peek… …at everything being prepared. Sad to see such beautiful buildings… …in such a poor state of repair.

Visit to Parlimen Malaysia

My friend’s husband Wong Chen was kind enough to take time out of his busy MP’s schedule to show me round parliament…  …including the wooden boards where all new MPs names are carved… …and a trip to the library to see the first piece of legislation. The building itself… …dates from the 1960s… …and has some beautiful pewter.. …and wooden details. I was amused to see a red postbox outside. A reminder that Malaysia  was once a British colony.

Greetings from KL

Hello from Kuala Lumpur…. …where I am staying in the leafy suburbs… …well….kinda… I am staying just down the hill, from…. …my lovely friend Yu Leng… We have been catching up over tea (of course)… ….and other delights. If I haven’t put on 3 kilos before I leave, she reckons she won’t have done a good job!

A snapshot from ‘the other place’

 A  quick jaunt to Cambridge, which meant tea in bed… ….a charming companion…. ….properly labelled tea… …exotic knick-knacks… …a buffalo… …a lovely little porch… …and these amazing fleurs.