VIDEO DESCRIPTION:
I just happened to be walking through Dutch Square and the parks and river beside it at night in Melaka, and I thought I would capture a few minutes of video on my smartphone.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome to Melaka at night. And this is not just any night. It is a Saturday night or Sunday. I’ve kind of lost track of time. It’s a weekend anyway. And not just any weekend. This is Merdeka weekend where Malaysia is celebrating its independence day when it achieved independence from the British. So yeah, things are pretty busy. I’m not often out at night to see all of the night activity. So, I thought that since I’m here, you can see some of the pedicabs roaring around with all their competing music playing. So, I thought since I’m going to be walking through the heritage zone right now, I would fire up my smartphone, don’t have my GoPro with me, and record some of the activity, Melaka some of the lights and the sounds as I walk through.
I’ve still I mean I never will I don’t think but I haven’t gone on a ride in one of these things so I don’t really know if they follow a specific route because they all do seem to kind of head in the same direction.
You can see all of these ones basically everybody’s turning, almost everyone turning to go in this direction. So, it feels like they’re following an established route. I mean, look how many of them there are. That is just crazy.
And some of the museums of Melaka that I talked about in a recent video, the Islam Islamic Museum right there.
And right up ahead is Dutch square. When we get there, we’ll probably see a lot going on, a lot of life over there right now. Just arriving at Dutch Square. And on the weekend it completely transforms of course all the food stalls laid out over there and drinks trucks move in set up buskers. Looks like we got a group of drummers over there.
Normally when you’re recording video, you can’t record a street busker because of the music copyright.
But this this drumming should be okay.
I saw this guy earlier setting up his Transformer, so I thought he would be all dressed up making money by posing for pictures. But maybe something went wrong. Maybe he’s taking a break. It was a couple hours ago that I saw him.
For me personally, of course, I’m more interested in Melaka as a historical site, kind of a window into the history of Malaysia, Melaka Sultanate. But this is an entirely different side of Melaka. I think most people when they come here, this is what they’re expecting to experience. This is why they come here. Not really for the history, but the history is kind of a backdrop for all of the night life like this, all the food and drinks.
And I’m not going to cross over to Jonker Street. It’s going to be way too crowded tonight.
But there’s the the bridge and that bridge leads over to the bottom of Jonker Street. So if you want the full-on Melaka experience, that’s where you would go tonight. Go snacking up and down Jonker.
But my new hotel, my new youth hostel I should say, that I just moved into is down here. Which is why walking back to my hostel, it’s natural now to go through this part of the city.
I really like it that they block the road to cars. So, this whole area is pedestrian only. No cars, buses, trucks.
You can see just how busy it gets here at night.
looking back at Dutch Square.
And this is the street that leads to my new home, the Discovery Guest House just at the end of this street. I might turn left up here just for the chance to go down to the river. Add a little bit of the river to this video. See what’s going on down there. And then heading back to my hostel
Impromptu dance performance.
Yeah, here’s the river. I was just curious to see how busy it is on the other side where they’ve been doing all of the construction.
Yeah, the difference as it was explained to me is that on the left side of the river here, it’s all halal and then on the other side they they do serve alcohol. So there’s a lot of bars there. On the river side, you can get a cold beer. So you tend to see most of the foreign visitors, the the westerners sitting over there having a drink.
Earlier today, when I was walking around, I I didn’t see any cruise boats at all. And even the day before, very, very few. I don’t know what was going on, but I just saw one go by. So, I guess the river cruises are ongoing.
And that’s it. I’m almost back at my hostel. I just wanted to record just a couple of minutes of the night life of Melaka just for fun. So that’s it. Shutting down and see you in the next video.