VIDEO DESCRIPTION:
Planet Doug heads out into historic Melaka, Malaysia once more for a morning of history, hidden treasure, and unexpected disaster. 🏴☠️💥
In this video, I’m diving into the real story behind the giant Portuguese ship sitting right in the middle of the city. Turns out, it’s not just a fascinating museum – it’s a replica of the Flor de la Mar, one of the greatest lost treasure ships in history. We’re talking gold, jewels, and an entire kingdom’s wealth… sitting at the bottom of the Melaka Strait. And nobody has ever found it. 🤯
But that’s not all. I also:
– Climb aboard the ship museum (and realize it’s way narrower than I expected)
– Visit THREE museums for the price of one (and accidentally overpay because I looked too young for the senior discount… I’ll take it)
– Hike the “Mount Everest of Melaka” (spoiler: it’s a small hill)
– Explore St. Paul’s Church – maybe the oldest in Southeast Asia
– Stand inside the last surviving piece of the legendary A Famosa fort
– Get completely confused by a sign telling me which stairs to use
AND THEN… just when I think the tour is over, I step on a innocent-looking paving stone. It breaks in half. I fall into a hole. A taxi driver offers to take me to the hospital. And I end up covered in horrible, slippery goo. 🕳️🩴
Only on Planet Doug…
📍 Locations in this video:
– Museum Samudera (Maritime Museum) & the Flor de la Mar replica
– St. Paul’s Church & Bukit Melaka
– A Famosa fortress gate
– The Sultan’s Palace (Istana Kesultanan Melaka)
– Dutch Square & the mysterious water wheel
🎟️ Ticket tip: The 20 ringgit (~$5 USD) ticket gets you into ALL THREE museums – the ship, the ocean museum, AND the Royal Malaysian Navy museum. Seniors get 50% off (I found out too late).
💬 Did you watch all the way to the hole? You know the drill. Put “CC” in the comments for the Planet Doug Crunch Club.
🙏 Huge thanks to my Patreon supporters, Buy Me a Coffee crew, and everyone in Malaysia using Touch & Go to help keep these adventures rolling. I literally could not have fallen into that hole without you.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Good morning and welcome back to Planet Doug and welcome back to historic Melaka, Malaysia. I’m heading out on my second what you would call a historical walking tour. I went out one time in Melaka. What I wanted to do was visit a museum to get some knowledge packed into my head. And I went to the main history and ethnography museum that’s located inside the Stadthuys. Really enjoyed that. It was really worth doing. And then I went for a walk around Jonker Street and explored some of the back areas just to get a feel for the architecture and the history of that part of the city.
And today I’m starting with something that obviously would catch my eye here in Melaka. There are a number of things that everybody would notice as soon as you start walking around. One of them of course is directly in front of me and that is the rotating tower, the Menara Taming Sari. So you see that constantly everywhere you go. And then as you walk towards the historic Dutch Square, you pass by a large recreation of a ship, like full scale Portuguese carrack they call it. That’s the type of ship I found out. So that ship is also something that almost everybody will notice as they walk around Melaka.
And it turns out that ship is part of a museum. It is the Museum Samudera. And I had to look that up as well because when I first saw the ship and the sign, I just assumed that was the name of the ship, Samudera Museum. You see a giant ship. Well, that must be the Samudera. But it turns out Samudera is like a Malay Indonesian word that means ocean. So in fact this museum is all about maritime trade tracing basically the history of Melaka pre-colonial era and colonial era all the shipping and oceanic trade that passed through Melaka historically. So that is why it is called the Samudera Museum or Museum Samudera.
And the ship itself, I’m standing right across from it right now. There it is. Very impressive. I think it was built back in the 90s. Like this recreation, I mean, was built in the 90s. The original ship, I believe it’s called the Flor de la Mar, meaning flower of the ocean in Portuguese. I’m pretty sure it was built in like 1502 and it has an amazing history that I knew nothing about until I was doing a bit of reading.
There’s the name of the museum that I’ve been talking about, Museum Samudera, and underneath it has the English Maritime Museum. That’s basically what it means. And when I was reading about this ship in particular, I kept thinking they had really missed a marketing opportunity because every time I passed by the ship, instantly I knew I have to go in. This place I have to go in and take a closer look. I can’t resist a museum. And if you put a museum inside a Portuguese carrack like this, okay, that’s catnip for Planet Doug. I have to go inside. So, I’m a captive audience. But the average person perhaps might look at it and go, “Oh, that’s cool.” and walk on by. But if they knew the history of this ship, I think a lot more people would be interested. And I didn’t know the history at all until I was reading up on it this morning. So, let’s go inside. I’ll buy a ticket.
Here is some history of the maritime museum. So, it’s the model of a Portuguese galleon. And as I said, somewhere in here, it should give the name of it. The Flor de la Mar. Yes, there it is. It took me a while to find it. Flor de la Mar, the flower of the ocean.
And just to give some context before we go in, you have to understand that the Malay sultanate it predates European colonization by over a century I believe. So in terms of the history of Melaka, the modern sort of trading port, you start with the Malay Sultanate from the 1400s up until 1511. That’s when the Portuguese conquered Melaka and the Portuguese era lasted from 1511 to 1641. The Dutch era, the Dutch defeated the Portuguese from 1641 to 1795, a long period of time there. And then we get into the British era, 1795 to 1941, the Japanese occupation during World War II, and then the British returned up until 57 when Malaysia became an independent country, free of all of its colonizers. So that gives a little bit of a context.
And the ship itself, its story, I’ll save that until I go inside. It is a Saturday, by the way, and I’m assuming Melaka will be busier throughout the day because it is the weekend. It’s also Easter weekend, but as you can see at 9:30 in the morning, it’s looking pretty quiet. There will definitely be crowds down at Dutch Square. That’s the heart and soul of the tourism district. But down here, 9:30 in the morning, it looks like it’s pretty quiet.
I believe this museum opens at 9. Morning, sir. Oh, good morning. I couldn’t see you there. Yeah, sir. Just one adult. 120, sir. 120. Yep. Is that touch and go? Sir, I can do touch and go if you like. Touch and go. Yeah. Yep. The scan, sir. Okay, I’ll do that. There we go. 120. Yeah. 120, sir. 120.
Museum Melaka. No, no, no, no. 120, sir. 20 ringgit, sir. Oh, 120. Okay. I thought Okay. Yeah. I didn’t understand what you meant. Okay. Okay. Wait, sir. Okay. 20 one two. Let’s use SC here. Okay. 1880. Okay. I was wondering about the price. Yeah. 1880.
Okay. Try that again. Yeah. No problem. 1880. Yep. I got it. This time we got it all figured out. Ah, that one. There we go. Ah, this one sir. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir.
And it looks like this ticket is for three museums. For three museums. Okay. Number one. Number two. Number three. Number one. Number two. Number three. Sir. I see. Excellent. Thank you very much.
So, there you have it. There’s a lot of people don’t realize it, but this is only part of the museum. The ship. This is number one, right? And then there’s a building here. And then number three. One. Okay. Oh, the one across the street. Oh, I see. Number one, number two, and number three. All right. Thank you. Bye. Oh, yeah. Got the video. My YouTube channel. Oh, for China, sir. Thank you, sir. Planet Doug on YouTube. Okay. Yeah, I didn’t know that either.
So, I knew about this museum. The ship of course is a museum inside. It has galleries. And then there’s this building number two. But then this one is across the street on the corner. So just to make it clear, museum number one, this ship. Museum number two is this white building here. But then there is a third museum building. Your ticket also gets you entrance over there. Museum TLDM, the one on the corner. So, three different places. So, hold on to your ticket.
I’m inside the grounds now. There’s the ship from the rear. An amazing looking thing. I mean, you see photos of them all the time on the internet. These old, you know, ships from the colonial days, either the Dutch, the British, or in this case, the Portuguese. But you don’t see them in real life that often. For me. Maybe never. Look at that. I didn’t realize it was so narrow. I don’t know if it’s exactly full scale. I think it is. I was expecting it to be wider, more bulbous, you know, when you look at it from the back.
And in terms of the history that I’ve been hinting at, it actually isn’t that complicated a story. So, it’s a very short story, but it is amazing. And it kind of surprises me that you don’t see this plastered all over the place as marketing because this ship, the Flor de la Mar was a treasure ship. It was built in 1502 like I said and it was involved in the conquest of Melaka. So the Portuguese sent a fleet of about 18 ships to conquer Melaka and they engaged in a battle here. And this ship is essentially a cargo ship. That’s its main purpose, a carrack. I guess it did have cannon and guns for defense because of course, you know, if you’re going around the world as a cargo ship, you need to be able to defend yourself. But it wasn’t technically a warship. You can see it did have cannon. You can see one right there. But it was involved in the conquest of Melaka in 1511. And then because it’s a cargo ship, they filled it to the brim with the treasures of Melaka, the gold, anything of value, everything that they were going to bring back to Europe. They basically looted the city of all its valuables, packed this ship full of the treasures of Melaka, and then they sailed back to Europe, and the ship sank. They were following along the Melaka Strait. I believe they were on the Sumatra side. They ran into a storm. There is some talk in the history that the ship was getting older and had some issues. That combined with the storm and combined with the heavy load of treasure, the ship sank and it’s never been found. So this ship and all its treasure, the treasure of Melaka is sitting at the bottom of the Melaka Strait somewhere off the coast of Sumatra. And I didn’t know that story at all. And in fact, you know, the signs here advertising this as a maritime museum doesn’t even hint at that. That this in fact is one of the greatest lost treasure ships of history. The ship and its treasure has never been found and it’s still out there. So, I find that adding that story adds a lot to coming here. So, yeah, let’s climb aboard and take a closer look.
Sure, why not? Ah, sun. How about with my kitty? You want to come say hello? One, two, three. Okay.
This museum and the ship has a pretty cool location as well. As you can see, right on the back side is this body of water and that is the ferry terminal that the boats that go out into the Melaka Strait dock here, including the boats that go to Dumai in Sumatra. The Indomal Fast Ferry leaves from here. Yeah. Beautiful circular park area right here.
All aboard the Flor de la Mar. Got a nice set of steps to get up here. Yeah, I don’t think I have a strong enough imagination to really make it clear in my mind, but like can you imagine being in Portugal in like 1511 and you’re getting aboard this ship knowing that you’re going to be sailing around the world in this over the oceans all the way to here. That is just crazy. Oh, unfortunately. Yeah, the whole top section is closed. Yeah, that’s unfortunate cuz I wanted to get all the way to the top, of course, but yeah, they have it closed.
This reminds me of the museum in Banda Aceh of the giant generating station, the barge that was blown ashore by the tsunami. And they took the interior of that barge and turned it into a museum as well. So, the interior of this ship has also been turned into a museum. I haven’t been down there yet, and I haven’t read the information sign, but I assume this is a display of some of the treasure that was aboard the ship when it sank. I’ve since read through the sign here. And yeah, this is a display of some of the types of treasure that was loaded aboard this ship just before it sank at sea in a storm. Such a crazy story.
And then over here there’s more display. A lot of information on the sides here about Melaka as a trading port. Particularly, I think before the arrival of the Europeans, the legal system and just how trade flowed through the port and how it was controlled, reporting to the harbor master, getting permission from the Sultan to dock and gifts were presented and certain amounts of money traded hands and I guess it was quite a developed system. And then this is a display of all the various types of ships that would have come and gone from Melaka over the centuries.
I’m still looking for the type of ship that I’m on right now. And that looks very, very similar. Right, that one right there. That could be exactly the Flor de la Mar would probably have looked very similar to that. Another one over there looks very similar, but I think this one is closer. It’s higher. This is a very tall ship. I suppose it has to be tall to carry all the treasure, all the cargo.
Each deck has a new display. So, this is the deck that I just explored. And then going down a circular staircase. As I walk around, the wood floor is creaking underneath me. And that kind of gives me a sense of being a sailor cuz I imagine a ship like this out at sea. You would live with that creaking sound all the time, being tossed about by the waves, the ship bending. I bet it just creaks and moans all the time. They should have a soundtrack playing down here of wind and waves and creaking wood just to sort of give that feeling like you’re out at sea.
And the story of the Portuguese conquest of Melaka is quite interesting from like a military point of view. This apparently is Afonso de Albuquerque and he was in charge of the Portuguese fleet that came to Melaka and they were vastly outnumbered by the people of Melaka by the Melaka Sultanate but they had advantages in firepower in armor in organization like the soldiers were highly organized and they I think they outnumbered like 10 to one. And the Melaka Sultanate even had some war elephants. I don’t know how many, but you can see one of the war elephants there. But even though they were badly outnumbered, the Portuguese won the initial battle and took over Melaka, they didn’t manage to capture the Sultan. The Sultan retreated out of Melaka with his entire royal court and soldiers and his whole like a very large entourage and they went off into the countryside and they were constantly fighting against the Portuguese over the following decades.
And though they don’t have a soundtrack like you’re out at sea, some of the displays actually look like they’ve been out at sea for a very long time. I don’t know if this is part of the display or not. Like all of this looks like mold and mildew. Makes it a little bit difficult to read and the photos are obscured. I don’t know if that’s just because the displays are very old and that’s actual mold or maybe it was designed to look that way. Make it more authentic. I’m not really sure.
As I was leaving the boat, they actually had printed out my photo. At least it looked like they had. Maybe it was a digital Yeah, I’ll bet it was a digital frame. That makes sense because, you know, they took my picture when I went in and I posed sitting with the cat. They took that picture of me with the cat and then they put it in like as if I was on the deck of the boat and then they showed it to me and said for 20 ringgit about $5 US I could buy that photo and I was thinking oh well you know now they have to throw away that picture but I’ll bet it was a digital frame showing me what it would look like and then if I pay for it then they will print it out. That makes sense. But I don’t know that for sure.
Yeah, I’m at the entrance to museum number two. Museum Samudera. It’s contained Oh, bathrooms, which is nice to know. And the entrance fee, by the way, was also 20 ringgit for me. And that’s about $5 US and gets you access to three museums in total.
I’m inside museum number two now. Looks like they have a bit of a movie theater here where something can be shown there. The interior is also modeled on the inside of a ship which I really like. Gives a lot of interesting atmosphere. In this exhibit, all the exhibits here are more about kind of a top level view like talking about the ocean in general and what it means for the planet and for the human race, the role the oceans have played in history, for maritime trade, but also I think for fisheries and things like that. So, it’s more of like a philosophical idea about the meaning of the oceans in the world and how humans have benefited from the oceans.
Yeah, some very nice displays in here. The written signs are a little bit tough on the eyes. I’m finding it’s an older museum. This one and some of the signs for me anyway could benefit from larger text, better lighting, and then sometimes the text is placed on top of a photograph. Like there’s a lot of displays in here. It might have, you know, very interesting information here, but those really start to get to you after a while. You try to read those. The background is just way too busy. So, I couldn’t read very much of that. A lot of statues of famous historical figures throughout the centuries, both European and Malay and Chinese. Little bit hard to learn about them though, cuz yeah, I can’t read that text comfortably. It’s way too dense and way too dark. But I actually I know all these guys already. I’ve come across them in various museums from time to time.
And a Planet Doug pet peeve is on display here where the information gets below the exhibit. So I have to bend over in order to read any of this. I would like to have those moved higher, you know, so I can read it at eye level. But yeah, so I end up kind of bent over trying to read all of this. It’s not a very comfortable position. There’s Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Sinbad, Francis Drake. Yeah, it’s kind of interesting to see all of these portraits of these famous explorers from history. And in there’s Magellan, Marco Polo, of course, Tasman, I don’t know who that is, and James Cook. And then on this side, Raja Munshi Abdullah, and this man I learned about at the other museum, Zheng He. So as they say here, he was born at Kunming in China as a Muslim and he led seven huge trade and exploration and diplomatic expeditions all around the world. So he was like quite the explorer. I think he had like 25,000 people with him on all his ships.
And here we have a hawksbill turtle. Quite a large turtle. And it’s inside a display all about the marine life surrounding I think focusing on surrounding Malaysia for the most part. At least the sign says these are the turtles of Malaysia. And upstairs there was an exhibit all about sort of maritime stuff like more a little bit more modern lamps and radar and scuba diving and scuba diving on treasure ships, things like that. Just sort of a whole collection of items that you might find on a ship. So, as I said, this part of the museum is yeah, just about ocean stuff in general, not specifically about maritime trade and Melaka. There’s like a mixture of all kinds of things in here. Even an exhibit about the sandy beaches of Malaysia.
Heading across the street to museum number three. I was looking at the price structure, like the ticket prices at the gate there, and I just realized I could have gotten the senior citizens price, which is 50% off. So, I ended up paying 20 ringgit, as you saw, but senior citizens, I qualify. Yeah, would be 10 ringgit. So, yeah, I didn’t see that. And I guess I should take that as a compliment because the guy didn’t look out the window and instantly go, “Oh, look at this old man, you know, tottering onto the ship. Let’s give him the senior citizen discount.” I still looked younger than the senior citizen cut off, I guess.
So, here we are. Museum TLDM. So, that is going to be the big mystery. What does TLDM stand for? Let’s figure that out. Things are starting to make sense. You have to show your ticket, of course, from the main museum to enter here. But this is the other museum that I’ve seen so many times. There’s like a Royal Malaysian Navy Museum and you see the big gray battleship out there or whatever kind of Navy ship it is. I thought it was a separate museum and it is. It is a separate Royal Malaysian Navy Museum, but it is included in the Samudera complex. So, three museums in one. Bargain of the day. Oh, very cool. Helicopter. A marine helicopter, I assume.
Yeah. This family with the two young boys, they’re really having a hoot. It’s like they’re competing with each other to be more impressed with every display that they come across. I don’t think they’re actually that impressed, but they’re having fun oohing and aahing at everything that they see. Yeah, this is very cool. A lot of cool things to look at here.
Looks like this is a Wasp helicopter. Wasp HS Mark 1. And I guess it all fits together now when you think about it. You’ve got the Flor de la Mar Museum about the Portuguese ship and Melaka. And then you’ve got the Ocean Museum and now the Navy Museum. Kind of a nice trifecta. Various classes of naval vessels here. I’m down on the main floor around in the main exhibit area. This is where the helicopter is. You can see it directly behind me. And then we’ve got some missiles and other types of weapons, radar or sonar, whatever that is. And I figured out what TLDM stands for. It’s kind of what I suspected. This is the Royal Malaysian Navy. But TLDM that means Royal Malaysian Navy but in the Malay language. So in English it’s RMN in Malay TLDM. So let’s go outside and take a look at the ship.
Just exiting and it’s closed. I guess it hasn’t been maintained, so it’s not safe anymore. Yeah, both stairways are blocked off, so you can’t actually go up onto the ship anymore. It was funny. It says temporarily closed, but going by that sign, the age of that sign, it has been temporarily closed for decades. So, I don’t think they ever have any plans to ever open it again. Unless, I don’t know, somebody donates a whole lot of money. It’s got to be expensive to refurbish something like this and make it safe again.
Yeah, the side as well is the stairways are closed off. You actually get a better view of the boat from outside the museum than you do from inside. You see it more clearly from the street than you do from inside here. It’s kind of funny.
There are a couple of other sites I wanted to visit as part of my morning’s historical walk around Melaka after leaving the set of three museums. What I want to do is go up onto what I think is called St. Paul’s Hill. And the church up there, according to what I read, is the church of St. Paul and it is the oldest church in Malaysia and perhaps the oldest church in all of Southeast Asia. I read that this morning on like in a Google Maps comment. Someone wrote that. I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but you’re supposed to get a nice view of the city from up there. And yeah, the church itself, I think, was built in 1521. So whether it is the oldest in Southeast Asia, it is very significant set of ruins. There isn’t much left of the church anymore. I don’t even think there’s a roof anymore. Just walls and doorways, the foundation, but I want to walk up there and take a look at it. And to do that, we have to go up St. Paul Hill. I’m not quite sure how you get up there, but I think we can figure it out. I think that’s the hill up there.
The funny thing on the Google Maps reviews, people make a big deal out of the climb to get up there about how you have to be in good condition and bring water and protection from the sun and hiking gear. And I was like, I don’t know. I don’t remember seeing a hill quite that large in Melaka. So, I don’t think it’s quite as serious a climb as they make it out to be.
But before I begin the climb up this hill, the Mount Everest of Melaka, I’m standing right beside an excavated site of I think what they call a bastion. It’s right across the road. There is the Middelburg. I saw that in my first walking tour recreation of a Dutch portion of the fort. And these are another section I talked about in the other museum that the British destroyed the entire fort. They dismantled it and blew it up with explosives when they took over because they didn’t want Melaka competing with Singapore and Penang as a trading center. So they actually dismantled A Famosa, like the entire fortress and the wall that goes around the city. And then they dug up parts of it here as a sort of an archaeological dig.
And I was reading about the word bastion and it does get a little bit confusing in all the signs here like the difference between a bastion, a fort, a bulwark, a this, a that. I think those terms kind of get used interchangeably. But maybe a bulwark is just like a fortified position on the corner. Like if you have a fort and on the corner you build up a big tower that’s fortified. That might be a bulwark. But my understanding of a bastion is that a bastion is a part of the wall that sticks out so that soldiers can go into the bastion and then they can see down the wall and shoot at the enemy. Cuz if you think about it, if you have just a flat wall and the enemy gets underneath that wall, like you can’t see them anymore and you can’t shoot them, you can’t defend yourself. So they built they developed this technology in Europe I guess fort technology a bastion which is like a bulge in the wall that sticks outward and then when you go into the bastion climb onto it you can see down both sides of the wall and if enemy are down there you know you can sort of shoot them and that is what a my understanding of a bastion please correct me if I’m a thousand percent wrong but I believe this is marked as an example of a bastion.
But to be honest, the more diagrams and photos that I see of the fort of Melaka, A Famosa, like this here, kind of the I still don’t really understand how it all fits together, but who knows? Maybe this is a bulwark and this is a bastion cuz it’s like a part of the wall that sticks out and gives you a strategic view down both sides of the wall. And this bulwark is more of a fortified position. I don’t really know. But yeah, so this is the Bastion Frederick Hendrik basically. There you go. And I think there’s a whole bunch of these around Melaka. They’ve uncovered a whole bunch of these that they’ve identified as bastions. But just looking at the ruins, I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking at. I need a photograph to show me like what is this exactly? And if you built up the walls and the platforms, what would the original wall and bastion have looked like? I’m not smart enough to be able to put it together mentally.
There’s a cool location for a hotel. The Aldi Hotel essentially right downtown. It doesn’t look bustling from this angle. It doesn’t even look open, but I don’t know, maybe it is. And it’s right across the road from Bukit Melaka, the Melaka Hill, which maybe is the same as St. Paul Hill. Anyway, I don’t really know. That’s why we’re doing the walk to figure all these things out.
In this reddish building over here, that is the Stadthuys, and that’s where the big history and ethnography museum is located. Climbed up a little bit. Not exactly views from Mount Everest, but you get to see some of the big buildings of Melaka starting to appear. And this is the backside of the Stadthuys, which was built many, many centuries ago by the Dutch. It was their basically city hall for the Dutch. And then this building, the Stadthuys, has been used ever since then. So, it’s still in amazing condition. And now it houses the history and ethnography museum. It’s beautiful building. A highlight for me of Melaka so far was my tour of that museum.
And I’m guessing that the church is up there. I could be completely wrong. There doesn’t seem to be any access in that direction. And that’s where Google Maps wants me to go, but there’s a gate there that’s blocked. So, can’t go that way. So, I think we have to go around the hill and get up there the other way. Oh, yeah. They give you some handy dandy arrows here. So, there’s the gate to St. Paul. That’s St. Paul Church, the monument to St. Francis. So, the arrows are pointing me in this direction.
Looking down over Dutch Square and Jonker Street. It’s right over there across that bridge. More and more people starting to show up. Though, I thought it would be busier today than it is. It’s a Saturday and there are people down there, but I thought it would be a lot more crowded, a lot more people.
There’s the tower. My hotel is in that cluster of buildings on the far side of the tower. And the Melaka Strait and the lost treasure ship is over there somewhere across the strait nearer to Sumatra.
A beautiful walkway. I didn’t know this walkway was here. They have a very helpful tourism board here in Melaka for those who are photographically challenged. They actually tell you where to take your pictures. So, this is indicated as a panoramic point for photography, a photography panorama. So, they’re telling you that if you take your picture here, it’ll look good.
Ah, there’s St. Paul Church. It looks like the front part of it has been restored there, but then I assume the walls behind it are original. But yeah, it’d be extremely old dating back to 1521. It’s probably been even those walls are probably have been like reconstructed, I’m assuming. But here’s another way to get up here. Another set of stairs.
I didn’t realize this, but there are actually a number of tombs inside and maybe around the church. And I guess these markers show you all of the tombs. And they even know exactly who is buried at each one of the sites. They have them numbered. Well, not all of them. There’s like three unnamed persons, but you get a sense of the history from the dates, of course. 1600s, you know, 1660, 1545. So, yeah, the Dutch era, the Portuguese era. A real piece of history here.
And of course, my favorite stone, laterite. The whole thing would have been made of laterite. There it is. I need to live in a house made of laterite. Much larger than I expected. I was expecting just a tiny cabin like church, like a chapel almost, but the scale of this is much larger than I expected. Much larger. It’s not a cathedral or anything like that, but imagine building this back in the 1500s with laterite that you’re basically digging up out of the ground. That’s crazy.
Benches. Planet Doug approved, but no shade. So, you don’t want to be sitting here midday like this.
I have this habit. I always walk around things before I go inside. I think I’m like a dog that way. It’s part of my dog DNA. I can never settle down until I go around in a circle a few times. But yeah, check out I’m glad I came back here cuz look at that rear wall. You see all of the exposed laterite. So I imagine it was all covered up like it was built out of laterite, but they probably had smooth plaster on the outside cuz I was reading that. As amazing as laterite is, it’s full of holes and it can be quite soft in a way. The rain can wear it down, so you have to cover it up with something so that it doesn’t wear quite as quickly in the rain. Look at that. That’s amazing.
Here we go. On the other side, there’s one tree remaining. Trees, man. They make all the difference in the world. Just having this one huge tree here just transforms the place, provides the shade, beauty, atmosphere. I imagine there used to be trees all around maybe on the other side, but not anymore. But yeah, this is where you come to get the shade provided by mother nature, right beside the church. Okay, I’ve circled it, gone all the way around. So, my dog DNA will let me go in now.
So, these are markers for grave sites, but I don’t know if they are actual tombstones. Like, is someone actually buried here? So, here buried Theodoris Herbers died in ninth year of his age. So, a 9-year-old back in 1659. But, yeah. Wow, that is quite the marker. Look at the size of these. I wonder why these particular people were given this site of honor to be buried. That is an incredible site though. Wow. An interior room here, a lot more markers. And again, I don’t really know if these people were actually buried in these locations or whether these were just put up as markers, as monuments, and they were actually buried somewhere else. I don’t know. It’s nice and cool in here. Laterite at work, keeping us nice and cool. Natural air conditioning.
I don’t know if I’ve ever come across the idea that a lot of people would be buried inside a church building. But my main reaction to this place is just being surprised at the scale of it. The scale of these walls, the thickness of them feels almost fortresslike rather than church-like. And even the size of these with the size of this stone. Can’t imagine what the roof structure was like. Wood, I imagine, of course, all made out of wood, but they’ve reinforced that arched doorway. Very good idea for that heavy duty metal structure. Yeah, these ones are not reinforced, right? That window, the doors.
Yeah. When I was coming up here, I speculated that the place had been rebuilt, reconstructed, but now that I’m looking at it from the inside, I don’t think so. I’m sure like it’s been maintained over the centuries, of course, rebuilt and by the Dutch and the British, but I think in modern times, I don’t know how much of this it just doesn’t look rebuilt to me.
Down at the base of St. Paul’s Church, there is a Dutch cemetery. So, I just walking through here to take a look. Just have some large grave sites here. Just a couple of them. And then a few over here. And again, this is what I think of when I think of a grave site. So, I’m just wondering how all of these grave sites could be, you know, inside that church building or like are they underground or something? I don’t really get it. So, someone will have to explain that to me.
And there is one other site here that I wanted to see as part of my historical tour this morning, and that is the famous A Famosa. And A Famosa kind of confused me when I first came across it because it seemed to be just a certain place here like a chunk of wall a gateway of the original fort that still exists and it’s called A Famosa. So the story that I read, the legend goes that the order went out to tear down the entire fort structure, the wall, the fortified positions, everything. And during the British rule and then Raffles showed up and he tried to stop it but he was too late and he but he managed to preserve this one section. It was not destroyed and that is now called A Famosa. This place where I want to go. But now that I’m reading about it, A Famosa was the name for the entire fort. Like when the Portuguese built the fort here, the fortifications, the walled city, they called that A Famosa. That was the name for the whole thing, not just for that one tiny piece. But anyway, I’m going to go take a look at what they call A Famosa today. And I think it’s down here somewhere. I think I’ve got to circle around.
One funny language thing I came across. I came down this stairway from St. Paul’s Church and there was a big sign at the top that said with a big arrow, “Use the stairs on the right.” And I’m looking at that sign and I’m thinking, “Oh, so cuz these stairs I have to turn left.” And I’m thinking, “Oh, I’m not allowed to use these stairs.” And I’m looking around like, “Where are the stairs on the right?” I couldn’t find them. And I finally just these are the only stairs. And I went down and on this side it said use the stairs on the left with an arrow. I was like, “Oh, so I don’t know what stairs to use.” And I see people stopping. They go to go down the stairs and they see the sign and then they stop and they’re looking around. But what they mean is walk left and walk right. So cuz it gets so crowded here, you get traffic jams. So they’re telling people stay left or stay right. But I completely misunderstood the sign cuz yeah, it can get quite busy here on a weekend. And actually for A Famosa on Google Maps right now, it says as busy as it gets. So it never gets any busier than what I’m about to see right now. But yeah, so that’s what the sign means. You’re supposed to stay to the left, stay to the right. But the way it was worded just completely confused me. So I’m sticking to the left all the way down. And I think that’s it there. That is A Famosa. So that is the only real part of the wall that was preserved as the British were tearing it down and blowing it up. Just that little gateway right there. Can you imagine if all of it still existed today? What a historical treasure it would be.
But hey, I was thinking about that the other day and at the time, of course, when the British were tearing it down, it was just in the way of development. It had no historical value for them. It was just a bunch of rock and they wanted to get rid of it so they could build businesses and houses and yeah, just get rid of all this stuff that they didn’t need anymore. They weren’t thinking of its value to history. But yeah, I can’t stop thinking about what Melaka would be like if it still had the complete wall and all the fortifications going all the way around it. That would make it such an amazing city.
There’s A Famosa and you can see clearly where it sits in relationship to Bukit Melaka and St. Paul Church. There’s some very good signs here in terms of understanding the history and this talks about the destruction of the wall that I was talking about essentially the destruction of Melaka by the British and it’s much more nuanced much more detailed than the story that I was trying to tell but according to this history in Europe the Dutch were in a war with France and they ceded control of Melaka to the British. I don’t really understand that deal, but they basically the British agreed to take over administration of Melaka with the understanding that when the war is over, they would give it back to the Dutch. And while the British were in control of it, that’s when they started tearing it down. So it says here that Francis Light founded Penang in 1786. Fearing the resurgence of a Dutch-held Melaka with its strong fortress and superior harbor, the British under William Farquhar initiated a systematic destruction of Melaka’s defenses. And only the intervention of Lord Minto and Sir Stamford Raffles put an end to this effort which managed to save the main gate and the surrounding houses. So eventually the British returned Melaka to the Dutch 1819 and the city was pretty much in ruins by that point. So this whole story, the relationship between the Dutch and the British and the destruction of the wall is sort of explained much better there. Yeah. I guess this must have been a gateway into the city. Like exactly how wide the wall was. I don’t know. I mean, is this a part of the wall? And is that how wide the entire wall was? That doesn’t seem to make sense. It feels like it would be much bigger than that, but this would be like a much wider section, which is essentially an entrance or a gateway through the fortifications.
All made out of magical laterite, of course. Oh, it gets so nice and cool in here when you get some shelter from the sun. Yeah, there’s laterite. Amazing stuff. Let’s see what it looks like from the outside. The invasion of the Pikachu. That’s what the A Famosa is designed to keep out. And Hello Kitty. Whoa, that’s impressive. That’s far more impressive than I was expecting. I didn’t anticipate seeing the detail, the carving on the outside. That’s very nice, huh? Ah, A Famosa. Yeah. Worth the walk down the hill to check it out.
Something that really jumps out at me about Melaka that makes it such an attractive city for tourism, for visitors like me, is how compact the historical district is. Everything is all in one place just about. So right here, of course, you’ve got A Famosa up there, St. Paul Hill. Just go up this hill down the other side. You’re right in the heart of Dutch Square. The river is right over there. And then right beside A Famosa is this museum which I believe is a recreation of the Sultan’s palace. Again, don’t quote me on that. I remember reading that, but it’s a museum. Now, I won’t be going in there today as part of this historical tour. I don’t have the energy for that today. I wouldn’t appreciate it after all the walking I’ve already done. But yeah, Istana Kesultanan Melaka. So the palace of the Sultan’s palace, but now it’s a restored museum. I don’t think there are a lot of exhibits in terms of talking about history. It’s more about seeing the architecture and the furnishings and the artwork and what all of that was like back in those centuries. Sure is beautiful from the outside. Very impressive.
Just stop here and look at it directly from the front. And it’s just a short walk away from A Famosa right there. And then there’s the modern downtown core with all the shopping malls. Imperial Heritage Hotel. Mega Mall is over there. Yeah, it’s a very compact city when you look at it from the perspective of a visitor or a tourist.
I stepped a few feet away just to get the scale of the place, try to get it all into the video frame. There’s a huge courtyard out here and you can get a look at the entire palace. Yeah, beautiful park over here as well. I was watching the videos from American Hobo who came here on his bicycle tour of Malaysia and he’s much more of a night owl. At least he was at that time. So, a lot of his touring around Melaka was done on his bicycle once the sun had gone down. And then the city has a completely different look to it. He was up on Melaka Hill where I just was, but he was there in the middle of the night. And of course, he was there all by himself. There’s nobody else up there. And everything is lit up. Like the entire city has lights strung everywhere. So, it’s probably worthwhile to go out at night at least once to get that mood.
A beautiful park back here. All very symmetrical and the entire park points directly at the center of the palace. So if I walk up here and stand on this pedestal and turn around, we should have a very nice view of the palace right behind us. Let’s see what it looks like. Yeah, check that out. What a view. Perfectly centered.
Those are all the places that I wanted to visit this morning. Mainly the maritime museum, those that cluster of three museums together with the Flor de la Mar, the ship, the story of the lost treasure ship. That was mainly what I was interested in. But then I also wanted to see Melaka Hill up here, St. Paul’s Church, the tomb of St. Francis Xavier, which is up there, and then A Famosa, and then a bonus sighting of the palace, the palace museum right here. So, from here, instead of walking up and over the hill to get back to the Dutch Square, I can go off in this direction and I can go around the hill. I came here the other day because a plan subscriber bought lunch for me and it was at a restaurant just down in this direction. So actually I’ve come this way before and I remember seeing this palace from the side and noticing it, but I had no idea what it was at the time. But yeah, I’m becoming a Melaka expert, becoming very familiar with the streets in a very few days. But yeah, you could stay here for a very long time. I’ve barely scratched the surface of everything there is here to see. It always surprises me how quickly you get oriented in a new place. Couple days ago, I was completely lost. I didn’t know anything about Melaka. I didn’t know where I was. I just was completely disoriented. And now I kind of feel a bit like an expert because yeah, a minute ago I was at A Famosa. Then I knew all I had to do was come around here in a circle and bang, here I am at Dutch Square.
So yeah, made it to Dutch Square without any difficulty at all. And I have a really strong sense now of the orientation of the city. I basically know where everything is. There’s Christ Church, Melaka, the Stadthuys right here. This giant building and I know where my hotel is. I know where Jonker Street is. I know where the river is. Yeah, I feel quite at home in a very short amount of time. From a distance, it seems confusing, but once you spend some time here or anywhere, yeah, you get a feel for a place very quickly.
I still haven’t figured out the river cruises though. I mean, I know the boats and you buy tickets and away you go. But I don’t know if there’s one company or many companies or whether you have to pick and choose which tour company you go with. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know anything. Different boats. No idea. So much fun. And I remember I think the American Hobo spent a lot of time at night on his bicycle along the shore of the river. All the restaurants and cafes and bars and everything here is lit up nicely at night. So you really have to come here at night at least once, I think.
And there’s the Stadthuys and the Dutch Square. Little tribute to the Netherlands here. Windmill. Some cows.
And right here, right off of Dutch Square, is the entrance to Jonker Street. I went walking down there the other day and I was talking a lot on video and the entire time I was calling it Yonker. I thought that was how it was pronounced. So all through the video I was saying yonker, yonker, yonker street and then I stumbled across the fact that it’s actually Jonker. So, actually, I went through the whole video very carefully and tried to carve out every time I said Yonker Street. So, every time I referred to the street by name, I tried to delete that chunk of video. And I think I was pretty successful. Though, it does end up making it sound a little bit weird from time to time. And since I’m busy doing corrections, junker and yonker, things like that, there’s another thing I think I got completely wrong. Right in front of me is what they call the water wheel. And I saw this water wheel the other day on my first historical tour. And I got the impression that the sign was telling me that this wheel controlled the level of the river, that somehow it caused the depth of the river water to go up and down so that larger ships could come in. And that made no sense to me at all. So I was very confused about that. But then I did some research later on and I learned what it actually does. And what it actually does is something I’m very very familiar with. I’ve come across things like this in the past many times. It doesn’t raise the river level. What it does is it takes water from the river and raises it up to a higher level and then dumps it into a trough or some sort of a canal. So, it’s basically the wheel goes around pushed by the flow of the river, but it scoops up some of the water and then dumps it on land at a higher level and then that water would be used in the city for irrigation, for plumbing, for whatever they’re using the water for. And I was partially confused about that because even though it is a historical site, it is the water wheel, the wheel itself doesn’t exist anymore and they didn’t rebuild it. So you see the brick structure, but there’s no wheel there. So I was like, water wheel? What the heck does this thing do? And here it is. And I guess I read this sign and it’s the sign that confused me. You can see it says Malaka Malay Sultanate water wheel. So I’m going to read it again and try and figure out how it was I got so confused. I guess I was reading too fast or not paying attention. But what it actually says is that the water wheel, usually located in fast-moving waters, was used to channel water for the large number of traders. That’s all it says is that it channels water. But in fact, what it does is it lifts water. So as the wheel goes around, it picks up a scoop of water, lifts it up, and then dumps it up here. And then the water flows onto the land and then they use it inside. I for some reason I thought this somehow in like somehow worked like a dam or something and raised the water level, but that’s not what it does. But the wheel itself, for whatever reason, they never made a model of it. They didn’t reconstruct the actual wheel. So that’s what I blame for the confusion.
I’ve never walked down this section of the boardwalk before. Right across the river from the Casa del Rio five-star accommodation over there. Be very nice to stay there. And this is I guess where you get the river boat cruises. So I thought since I’m walking along here, I can take advantage of the time to figure all this out. Like I said, I don’t know if there are different companies. Like, is this one Malaka River Cruise Company and that one over there is a different one? They’re competitors and there’s a third one there and they all go to different places. I have no idea. I guess it doesn’t really matter much. They probably all just go up and down the river in the same way. And speaking of how close together everything is, that’s where the day began at the ship, the Flor de la Mar. And then right here is the one of the river cruise companies. This is the second one. And to be honest, now that I’m here looking at the boats and thinking about it, I don’t see any particular reason for me to do the cruise, especially since I have my bicycle. I’ll probably get on my bike and ride along the river at some point. And that might even be a more Planet Doug kind of experience. Anyway, we’ll see. Maybe on impulse I’ll hop on a boat someday, but it doesn’t feel like it’s something that I have to do.
I’ve made my way back around the Dutch Square. The historic district. On the other side of the tower, there’s the tower way up there, which means I’m almost back at my hotel. This morning’s historic tour Melaka walking tour number two is just about done. Yeah, this tower, it probably falls into the same category as the river cruise where I mean, I could do it, but I don’t really feel like I need to. Since I’ve got my bicycle, I can use that to explore some outer areas that the average person can’t reach. And I was watching, as I said, American Hobo’s videos of his time in Melaka, and he did all those things. I don’t think it’s normally his speed, but he was feeling inspired and to do something for his viewers to watch. He actually paid to go on the river cruise. So, you get to see the river cruise in his video. And he even paid to go up in the tower and he shot video the entire time on a beautiful day. So it’s like I can kind of cheat just by watching his video. I could see all the views from up in the tower of the city. And I’m already so familiar with the place that I mean everything looked totally familiar. And if I want that view, I can do it for free just by watching his video. Maybe that’s why some places where they tell you like you’re not allowed to shoot any video here like in a museum or something because if you document the entire trip up and down and all the way around on video of the tower then other people can see the view for free without paying, right? Of course, it’s not the same as doing it yourself. It’d be much more entertaining to go up by yourself and have the whole experience. But yeah, I don’t know. We’ll see.
And I was wondering about this Melaka. Well, it looks like Melaka duck tours. It’s like a marine. What do you an amphibious truck? So, it looks like you get a tour of the city and then they take you into the water as well. That’s kind of cool. All kinds of things you can do here in Melaka.
But as far as things to do in Melaka go for this morning, I think that’s it. I’m shutting down. My hotel is right around the corner. Going to get out of the midday sun. So yeah, I hope you enjoyed that. I learned a lot. I hope you learned a little bit too about Melaka and its history, particularly about the maritime museum and the boat, the one of the great lost treasure ships of history. Who knew that was here in Melaka? I didn’t know anything about that at all. And it was really nice to see up on the St. Paul’s Church much more impressive than I expected. I thought it would be interesting just because of what it was like if not the oldest like one of the oldest churches in all of Southeast Asia. I thought that would be its claim to fame. But it was actually really interesting just as a building. The construction of it, the style of it, the look of it, it’s just a really beautiful structure. Really impressive. Much bigger, grander than I thought. And then A Famosa. So yeah, that was a nice little tour of Melaka. I enjoyed that quite a bit. And it probably ended up being a pretty long typical long Planet Doug video. And if you watched it all the way through to this point, you know what that means. You’re now a member of the Planet Doug Crunch Club. Those who watch the video all the way to the end. So, put CC in the comments to let me know you watch the video all the way to the end. I always love seeing that. And a big shout out to everyone who has been supporting me lately or for a long time in fact on Patreon. I have some longtime supporters on Patreon who are helping me with my travels. I appreciate that very much. All the members of Patreon and people who have supported me through buy me a coffee. Links to all of that is in the description and on these QR codes that I’m putting up on the screen. One of them of course being for Malaysia’s Touch and Go e-wallet. People in Malaysia have been very kind to me supporting me through Touch and Go and yeah, I appreciate that very much. All the things that I’ve been doing lately would not have been possible without that help, without that support. I appreciate it very much. So, shutting down for this morning, turning off the GoPro, and as always, I’ll see you next time.
Well, how about this for a bit of an adventure? I keep joking about the holes in that you see all over Asia. Malaysia has a lot of them in the streets. These. And I joke about how you can trip and fall into them, but check that out. Oh, I was right over here at the side of the road and then a taxi came here and needed me to get out of the way. So, I stepped off the street and I stepped onto one of these paving stones. And look at that. The whole thing split apart and I fell into that. Look at that. How gross is that? Yeah, that the cement actually broke in half. I guess I’m getting fat or something. I weigh a lot more than I thought I did. I stepped onto that and it just broke out right from underneath me. I fell into that. The taxi came right up beside me and I was jammed in there for a long time. The taxi driver. He rolls down the window and he’s looking out the window, looking down at me because I was actually down inside that hole lower than his car cuz I kind of fell over at the same time. And then he’s looking at me, “Sir, sir, are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital?” And I’m thinking, well, I don’t know yet. You know, I feel some pain, but I don’t think I need to go to the hospital just yet. Yeah. I haven’t even checked for damage yet. This my right leg is kind of hurting. Not sure if I cut my leg. Let me take a look. No, it’s okay. It’s just scraped. I thought maybe I got cut open, but it’s just bruised and scraped the skin. Yeah. Only on Planet Doug, man. Only on Planet Doug do these things happen. Oh, yeah. It’s going to be hard walking back to my hotel like this. My sandals are so gooey. Just covered in horrible goo. It’s like really, really slippery. Yeah. Yeah. I bruised up my leg pretty good there. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I don’t think you can blame me. Like, look at all those. You would normally step on those, right? Why not? They look pretty solid. But now I’ve learned my lesson. Don’t walk on those. They’ll actually break right out from under you. Yeah, I just stepped on one of those and it broke in half and down I went crazy.