Port Dickson to Pangkor

We arrived in Port Dickson and were helped to tie up by Urs from Better than Shares—yet another cruiser from the past!! We had met him in Vanautu but had not seen him since. We arrived at 4pm tired and grubby and assumed that we would do our clearance in the morning but apparently the powers that be have decided that yachts need to clear as soon as they arrive. The marina phoned the various agencies and arranged for us to get a taxi in and do our clearance. At least we would not need to go in the next day. We were back by 7pm and Urs and Maggie were leaving the next day but invited us for an enjoyable dinner. The following day my intention had to be to laze at the pool but the skies clouded over and after a quick dip the rain came down and it poured the rest of the day. The rainy season seems to have arrived. The next morning we caught the bus to Melaka which was a city we had not had time to visit previously. It is a UNESCO World Heritage City with an amazing colourful history. It had been a small fishing village but in the early 1400’s was discovered by Cheng Ho of China. He was a eunuch of the emperor and voyaged 7 times to establish trading routes. He would travel with an armada of over 200 boats and 2800 people and Melaka became his favourite base. Although he was Muslim and solidified the religion in the area many of his crew were Buddhist and he built temples for them. When a new emperor came to power his “closed door” policies stopped the trade which held for centuries and allowed Europe to enter the trade corridor. In the early 1500’s the Portuguese laid claim to the region for the next 150 years. They imposed Catholicism in the area. As the Dutch consolidated their hold on Indonesia they forced the Portuguese out and held it for the next 150 years. After this time Holland was occupied by the French and the British “looked after” their territories for them. Britain managed to exchange it with them for a port in Sumatra and then held the corridor along with Singapore and Penang until Independence of Malaysia. As Singapore became more important Melaka reverted to a fishing village and later into a tourist mecca. Of course it was central to the piracy in the Malaka Straits which was prevalent right up until 2009 when it was “cleaned up” by local enforcement—oh if only Somalia was dealt with in this way. It is a lovely picturesque town centred on a vibrant Chinatown. It was reminiscent of Antigua in Guatemala and Cusco in Peru with its old buildings which have been restored and immaculate little streets. It houses the oldest functioning Mosque, Catholic Church and Buddhist Temple in the country attesting to the tolerance still found today. It has a river running through with a lovely path along both sides and tourist boats travelling up and down—we enjoyed the happy waves of all of the local tourists as they rode past us as we walked. Highly decorated trishaws was the other mode of transport. We loved the little stores and wonderful eating places and spent 3 days happily wandering around. The museum of Cheng Ho took up several hours and was astonishing. The sizes of the boats built at that time in China were massive compared with anything coming out of Europe. They had rudders to steer and used a variety of navigational tools. It certainly gives pause when considering the hypothesis of Gavin Menzies with his book “1421” in which China discovered the Americas, Australia and New Zealand. On the third day we caught the bus back to Port Dickson and cleared out of customs for an early morning departure. The first day was long but uneventful and we anchored for the night in Port Klang. The following day was nasty with thunderstorms, choppy head seas and headwinds and we had a long uncomfortable wet day. Ken had a bad cough and was feeling ill so I had to deal with the squalls as he tried to sleep. Thankfully we reached a secure anchorage just before dark—the highlight of the day were the birds who were used to returning fishing boats cleaning their catch as the came in so assuming all boats should do the same frantically flew to try and get what may be thrown from the boat—sadly nothing!! The next morning was a short trip to Pangkor where we will spend a couple of days where hopefully Ken will recover from his flu and I can avoid catching it.