SUMMARY:

• Leaving Melaka became a journey through history. Rather than simply cycling south to Muar, I set out to retrace the route taken by Sultan Mahmud Shah and his followers after the Portuguese conquered Melaka in 1511.
• The landscape reveals what the history books can leave out. Rivers, mangrove swamps, mudflats and tidal creeks made the sultan’s retreat a far more complicated undertaking than a modern map might suggest.
• Tun Teja’s remarkable story led me to an unexpected discovery. Her beautifully situated mausoleum near Merlimau commemorates a woman whose life connects Malay literature, royal intrigue and one of the defining moments in Melaka’s history.
• A day of exploration turned into an improvised camping adventure. Between the tropical heat, fascinating detours and a shortage of affordable accommodation, I ended up looking for somewhere to sleep at an almost deserted fishing jetty instead of reaching Muar.

Saying Goodbye to Melaka

After spending an extended period exploring Melaka, I was finally ready to head south. But I couldn’t simply pack my bicycle, leave my hotel and disappear down the highway. This city had become familiar in a way that only happens when you spend enough time somewhere to get beyond the usual tourist experience.

I wanted one last ride through the streets I had come to know so well: Dutch Square, Jonker Walk, Heeren Street and the historic neighbourhoods around Harmony Street. Along the way, I passed temples, mosques, old houses and the places associated with legendary figures such as Hang Tuah, Hang Jebat and Hang Kasturi.

One of the pleasures of staying somewhere long enough is that the city gradually stops feeling like a collection of attractions. You learn the streets, understand the layout and develop your own mental map. You no longer need to consult Google Maps every few minutes. You begin to feel at home.

Melaka had also taught me how much history lies beneath the familiar tourist descriptions. Bridges, buildings and streets often have stories that don’t make it into the standard promotional material. The longer I stayed, the more I wanted to understand what had happened here and why.

That curiosity would shape the journey ahead.

Following the Trail of a Defeated Sultan

Before leaving the city, I returned to Dutch Square to talk about an event that took place in 1511, when Portuguese forces defeated the Melaka Sultanate.

The Portuguese had arrived by sea seeking control of one of the most important trading centres in the region. After a prolonged battle, Sultan Mahmud Shah was forced to abandon Melaka and retreat south with members of his royal household, officials, soldiers and other followers.

This was the beginning of the historical journey I wanted to explore on my bicycle.

Rather than taking the quickest route to Muar, I planned to follow the coast as much as possible, visiting the rivers, inlets and settlements that might help me imagine the sultan’s retreat.

The scale of the undertaking is difficult to appreciate from a modern map. Today, Melaka and Muar are connected by roads that make the journey relatively straightforward. In the early sixteenth century, however, the coastline was a very different environment, and the sea and rivers were essential transportation routes.

The group accompanying the sultan may have numbered in the thousands. There were armed men, members of the royal family, court officials, ordinary families and, according to some accounts I encountered, royal elephants.

How do you move such a large group through a landscape filled with muddy ground, mangrove forests and tidal waterways while being pursued by an enemy?

I couldn’t find a definitive answer. Some accounts suggest the journey took several weeks, although I initially wondered whether it might have taken months. The precise details remained uncertain, but the practical challenges became increasingly apparent as I rode through the countryside.

The history became much more tangible when I could stand beside the very kinds of waterways that would have complicated the journey.

The Coastline Is Part of the Story

My first major detour took me away from the main highway and towards the coast, where I found a working waterfront filled with fishing boats, repair operations and larger vessels.

A conversation with a local businessman introduced me to an entirely different side of the area. His company worked on emergency ship repairs and supplied fuel to vessels offshore. Some of the boats nearby were beyond repair, their owners having run into financial trouble during the COVID period.

It was a reminder that these waterfronts aren’t simply picturesque backdrops. They are working places, shaped by fishing, shipping, repairs and the practical business of keeping vessels operating.

But the historical significance of the location was never far from my mind.

Nearby inlets and rivers would have provided access to boats and local knowledge. Small, shallow-draft vessels could navigate places that larger ships could not. Local fishing communities may have been able to help the sultan’s followers cross waterways, find supplies or avoid the Portuguese.

The Orang Laut, the seafaring communities associated with the Melaka Sultanate, were another part of the picture I was trying to understand.

I could imagine how local people sympathetic to their defeated ruler might have helped him and his entourage. But imagining a plausible scenario is not the same as knowing precisely what happened, and I found myself with more questions than answers.

The tides added another complication. At low tide, boats sat stranded on the mud, and the waterways looked very different from how they would at high tide.

I kept returning to the same question: how did the sultan’s followers actually get through this landscape?

The elephants were particularly difficult to account for. I couldn’t establish how they were transported across the rivers and mudflats, or whether the group divided into separate parties to make the journey easier.

The more I looked, the more I realized how much of this remarkable episode remains difficult to visualize.

A Fishing Jetty, Some Iced Tea and a Glimpse of Pulau Besar

Exploring the coast also meant following my curiosity into places that had little to do with the original plan.

I revisited a waterfront area with an old concrete walkway extending over the mudflats. Much of it appeared neglected, with missing railings and sections that no longer looked particularly safe. Beyond it lay mangroves, exposed mud and the hazy outline of Pulau Besar.

The island has its own connections with Melaka’s maritime past. Ships travelling through the Strait of Melaka could stop at islands along the route to replenish supplies, including fresh water.

I was tempted to visit Pulau Besar again, but taking my loaded bicycle on a boat wasn’t possible through the ordinary passenger service. Hiring a private boat would have cost considerably more than I wanted to spend.

Instead, I settled for something much simpler: a couple of cold drinks.

Cycling in tropical heat has a way of making an ordinary iced drink feel like an extraordinary luxury. After sweating along the roads, stopping to explore and wrestling with my equipment, I was more than happy to sit down and enjoy it.

Merlimau and the Tomb of Tun Teja

One of the most important stops of the day was near Merlimau, where I found the mausoleum of Tun Teja.

Tun Teja is a fascinating figure in Malay historical and literary tradition. She was associated with Sultan Mahmud Shah, and her story is told in works such as the Hikayat Hang Tuah and the Sejarah Melayu.

According to the version of her story presented at the site, Tun Teja was renowned for her beauty and attracted the attention of Sultan Mahmud Shah, who sought to marry her. Hang Tuah became involved in bringing her from Pahang to Melaka, using a mixture of persuasion, cunning and, in some versions of the tale, a love potion.

The story includes secret plans, a nighttime departure, a pursuit by forces from Pahang and a battle at sea. Eventually, Tun Teja arrived in Melaka and married the sultan.

It has all the ingredients of a sweeping historical drama: a celebrated beauty, royal ambitions, a legendary hero, deception and a journey across the sea. As I studied the paintings illustrating the story, I found myself thinking that it could easily provide the foundation for a film.

There are obvious parallels with other famous stories about beautiful women, political intrigue and journeys that change the course of events. The difference is that this is a story rooted in Malay literature and the history of the region I was travelling through.

Of course, the distinction between literature, legend and verifiable history matters. The Hikayat Hang Tuah, in particular, is not simply a modern historical record. Its heroic episodes have a literary and legendary quality, and the different versions of Tun Teja’s story do not always agree.

Still, the tales offer a fascinating window into how people have remembered and interpreted the past.

A Beautiful Place to Discover

What surprised me most was the mausoleum itself.

I had known that Tun Teja’s grave was somewhere along this road, but I hadn’t expected to find such a beautiful site. A flower-lined walkway led towards the tomb, with rice fields stretching out around it.

The setting was extraordinary: peaceful, green and seemingly far removed from the dramatic events associated with her life.

The connection to 1511 made the location especially compelling. After the Portuguese drove Sultan Mahmud Shah and his followers out of Melaka, Tun Teja travelled with the royal entourage towards the south. She died during this period, and her grave is traditionally associated with this location.

The precise cause of her death wasn’t something I could establish from the information available to me. It is tempting to imagine that the hardships of the retreat contributed to her death, but I found no evidence that conclusively explained what happened.

What I could appreciate was the remarkable historical connection preserved at this site. More than five centuries after those events, a quiet mausoleum surrounded by rice fields still connects the modern landscape with the story of Melaka’s defeated royal household.

I was very glad I had made the detour.

Portuguese Wells and the Defences Beyond Melaka

Another stop brought me to the Portuguese well near Merlimau.

At first glance, a well might not seem particularly exciting. But its location raises an interesting question: why would the Portuguese have established a well so far from their main stronghold in Melaka?

After capturing the city, the Portuguese had to defend what they had gained. Their fortress was central to their position, but the surrounding countryside and approaches to Melaka also mattered.

I suspected the well was associated with an outlying defensive position, possibly supporting soldiers or scouts watching the approaches to the city. That interpretation fits the broader military situation, although I couldn’t establish all the details of the site’s original purpose.

The well is built with laterite, and local tradition holds that it has never run dry since it was constructed. As with many such stories, I couldn’t independently verify that claim.

What interested me was the reminder that the Portuguese presence extended beyond the famous fortress ruins. Their struggle to hold Melaka involved a wider landscape of settlements, waterways and defensive positions.

It was another example of how a seemingly minor historical site can raise questions that lead you well beyond the usual tourist narrative.

When the Heat Changes the Plan

By this point, the day was catching up with me.

I had spent hours cycling, stopping to explore, recording video, changing camera batteries and microphones, and repeatedly loading and unloading equipment. The tropical heat was becoming increasingly difficult to manage.

At Tun Teja’s mausoleum, I had already needed an extended rest because my heart was pounding and my breathing wasn’t settling down. Later, I continued to feel faint and struggled with the physical demands of the day.

My original plan had been straightforward: ride south, keep the stops relatively brief and reach Muar by the end of the day.

That plan was long gone.

The sensible thing was to slow down and stop pushing towards a destination simply because I had decided in advance to reach it. But finding somewhere affordable to stay in Merlimau proved unexpectedly difficult.

In Malaysia, smaller towns often have plenty of homestays but fewer conventional budget hotels. Many of the available houses are rented as entire properties, which makes little sense for a solo traveller looking for one inexpensive night. I couldn’t find an affordable option that worked for me.

I had already booked two nights in Muar, so I wasn’t facing a crisis. I simply needed to figure out where to spend the night before continuing the journey.

And that led me to a rather different accommodation plan.

Home Sweet Home: An Almost Abandoned Fishing Jetty

I returned to a fishing jetty I had visited earlier in the day. It seemed quiet enough that I might be able to find a sheltered corner and spend the night there.

The place had a strange atmosphere. Boats, fishing equipment, abandoned furniture and other remnants of working life were scattered around, but there were few people in sight. Cats wandered through the area, and the surrounding countryside was full of wildlife.

I joked that the place looked like a setting for a zombie apocalypse.

Yet the jetty had some unexpected advantages. There was a shower room, and I discovered that electricity was available. I could sit down, turn on a fan and recharge my camera batteries.

That last detail was particularly important. I had filmed so much during the day that I was running through batteries faster than I could comfortably manage. Without somewhere to recharge, I risked beginning the following morning with cameras that wouldn’t work.

Dinner was less promising. I had hoped to eat at a pizza place I had passed earlier, but it was closed by the time I returned. My remaining option was a sandwich from 7-Eleven.

Not exactly a grand culinary finale to the day, but it would do.

There was still the question of whether anyone would object to me sleeping at the jetty. I hadn’t fully settled that issue, and I still needed to decide where to pitch my tent. But I had a roof, a fan, electricity and somewhere to sit while I sorted out my equipment.

For the moment, that was enough.

I Shot a LOT More Video Than I Planned

This was supposed to be a relatively straightforward cycling day between Melaka and Muar. Instead, I spent much of it exploring fishing harbours, examining historic sites, talking to local people and trying to reconstruct a journey that took place more than 500 years ago.

I didn’t reach Muar. I didn’t follow my original schedule. And I certainly didn’t produce the short, efficient travel video I had imagined making.

But I learned more about the landscape surrounding Melaka, discovered the remarkable story associated with Tun Teja’s tomb and began to understand the practical difficulties faced by Sultan Mahmud Shah and his followers as they fled the Portuguese in 1511.

There is still a great deal I don’t know. Some of the historical details remain uncertain, and some of the questions I wanted to answer have no easy answers.

That is part of the attraction for me. Every time I investigate one aspect of Melaka’s history, I uncover another layer, another connection or another question worth pursuing.

Tomorrow, I’ll continue towards Muar, following the coast and the story of the sultan’s retreat a little farther south.

For tonight, though, my plans have become considerably simpler: recharge the batteries, find somewhere to sleep at this quiet fishing jetty and hope that tomorrow’s ride is a little easier.

Notable Quotes and Reflections

“The more I read, the more layers I peel back, the more I learn.”

This captures what made my time in Melaka so rewarding. The city’s history wasn’t something I could absorb in a single visit to its famous landmarks. The more time I spent exploring, the more complicated and interesting the stories became.

“But back in those days, the ocean was the highway.”

Modern roads make the distance between Melaka and Muar seem almost trivial. Thinking about the same journey in 1511, through tidal rivers, mangrove swamps and muddy coastal terrain, completely changes how you understand it.

Sometimes, the best way to investigate history is to get on a bicycle and see what the landscape itself can tell you.

FULL VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Assuming everything goes right in the next hour or so, it looks like I’m on the road and I’m actually leaving from the city of Melaka here in Malaysia heading down the coast maybe at the end of the day arriving at the coastal town of Muar which has a strong historical connections to Melaka. So I’m looking forward to that and I guess I’ll talk about that along the way. And because the city meant so much to me, I can’t just leave for my hotel and disappear. I can’t just ride up the road and say goodbye. So, what I’m doing right now, I haven’t actually checked out of my hotel yet. I’m riding to Dutch Square and I’m just going to ride a little bit around Melaka just to say goodbye all the places I know well and we’re cycling through Dutch Square right now and perhaps when I come back here pass through again I’ll stop and talk a little bit about it and how this particular spot relates to where I’m going today. So, crossing the bridge, learned so much about this bridge again that you’re not going to find on the normal tourism blurbs. The bridge being much more important to the history of Melaka than most people realize.

The beginning of Jonker Walk, but because it’s a one-way street, I go this direction. And while I was here, of course, I learned so much about the architecture of the homes here. And this is the very beginning of Heeren Street. Heeren Street right here.

I did as deep a dive as I could into the history of this street and the buildings along it. That was quite fascinating. It’s nice to spend a lot of time in one city. As I said, you get to know the history, but you also get to know the streets so well. So, you feel like you’re home. You don’t even have to think about where you’re going. It’s like your hometown. You don’t even have to consult Google Maps. And here’s the far end of Jonker Walk.

We just passed the mausoleum for Hang Kasturi right there. Big part of the history of Melaka. The tales of Hang Jebat, Hang Li Po, Hang Tuah.

Guess I don’t know the city as well as I thought because I thought this was a one-way street in this direction, but I’m going to go against traffic just to get out of this neighborhood. There’s the Buddhist temple here, the famous Masjid Kampung Kling up ahead on the corner here.

And this part of the street is Temple Street. And I believe once you cross this side road, now you are on Goldsmith Street. And then once you cross this street here, then you find yourself on Blacksmith Street. Of course, if you come here as a tourist and you’re consulting all the guides and the maps, you would know this street as Harmony Street. A lot of the tour groups and walk up and down this street pointing out that these the Hindu temple, the mosque, the Chinese temple all side by side. Yeah, as I said, I just wanted to go up and down these streets one more time just to sort of say goodbye to Melaka. Heading in this direction a little bit for a look at the Melaka River.

Such an amazing town to visit, spend some time in. They’ve got everything here in such a compact area. It’s worth spending some time here.

I said that I wanted to say something about Dutch Square, where I am right now before I leave the city, but it’s actually more about Melaka Hill, which is directly behind Dutch Square. And we have to go all the way back in time to the year 1511, which is a key year in Melaka’s history when the Portuguese fought the Melaka Sultanate here. The Portuguese arrived with their fleet of ships, engaged in a battle with the Melaka Sultanate. They wanted to take over this city, control the trading routes, all of that. And the battle went on for a lot longer than most people realize. That was a fascinating thing that I learned about that the ongoing battle starting from the Portuguese blockade until the fall of Melaka was something it was over a month something like 40 days. It was a major major battle between the two but eventually the Portuguese won. They defeated the Melaka Sultanate. This was back in 1511. And then like up here on the hill behind me, that was the royal compound of the sultanate. So the palace was up there, the grand mosque, all of the buildings associated with the Melaka Sultanate, the leaders of Melaka. And when they were defeated by the Portuguese, the Melaka Sultanate, Sultan Mahmud Shah, he retreated. He fled from his stronghold and started heading south along the coast getting away from the Portuguese moving eventually towards Muar and Johor. So that is when when I’m riding my bicycle outside of Melaka this morning. Hopefully I end up doing that. We will be retracing the retreating path of Sultan Mahmud Shah, his whole entourage, his fighting forces, the other leaders of Melaka and a lot of the people of Melaka were fleeing after the Portuguese defeat and there was a wave of people heading south eventually finding refuge in Muar, Johor. So, we’re actually going to be retracing a huge part of Melaka’s history, and I’ll talk about that a little bit more, I guess, as I go down the coast. It’s been a long time since I’ve been on the bike with all of my gear, my trailer behind me, pannier bags.

So, it certainly feels heavy, a lot heavier than I’m accustomed to.

I had to really concentrate there for a while as I was riding down a busy road, but just a riding on the outskirts of Melaka here in a way. This is St. John’s Hill on my right. St. John’s Fort is up there and the Portuguese settlement is just up ahead on the left.

Navigating Malaysia involves figuring out a lot of one-way streets. So, in order to go straight, I have to do this big loop around St. John’s Hill, St. John’s Fort up there. I visited that fort before. Yeah. very interesting in the sense that when you’re in Melaka and you’re looking at the fortress ruins there and thinking a lot about the fortress that the Portuguese built fighting off attacks from the Acehnese, you know, from so many different forces from the Melaka Sultanate. You forget that they had they would have had outposts out here kind of on the outskirts, defensive positions set up around Melaka all the way out here for example.

So I’m about 12 km outside of Melaka or I should say 12 km from my hotel and I’m on the main highway. I think this is highway 5 that goes straight to Muar. And if I stayed on this highway, it would be a very easy, very quick ride to Muar. But what I wanted to do is I’m cutting to the right to try to go down to the coast cuz according to Google Maps, I can follow some smaller roads following the coastline for a little while anyway. Not all the way to Muar, but part of the way. And the fact that I rode all the way here on the main roads in order to finally turn right is sort of connected with that story I talked about that that historical story of the Melaka Sultanate after being defeated by the Portuguese and they retreated from Melaka in this direction.

You can just imagine how difficult it was for them to do that because the reason I came all the way here and then turned right is because I wanted to get past all the rivers because there is the Melaka River right in Melaka. Everybody knows about that and Muar has a huge river much much bigger than the Melaka River today. The Muar River. But in between those two rivers, there’s dozens of little creeks and streams and rivers coming from inside the country down to the shore. So like right here for example is one of them. You know, it doesn’t look like very much, right? You can see it here with my GoPro Hero 9. It doesn’t look like a very major river, but imagine you are Sultan Mahmud Shah with his whole entourage. And according to some historical records, I mean the Portuguese, there were some Portuguese chronicles wrote down the story as far as they knew it. I think the story is recorded in some of the classic Malay literature like the Sejarah Melayu tells the story of this retreat from Melaka and they left. I mean one of the things I read said that he had two to three thousand armed men with him like defending his retreat. He had of course his whole family, the royal family, wives, children, consorts, all of the noble, the bendahara, the temenggung, the laksamana, all the officials, the leadership of Melaka, just regular people like noblemen and craftsmen and families. And he had his entire royal elephant corps with him according to some of the history that I read. So imagine all of that massive group of people trying to go over land, not on boats, but on foot. And they have to cross a dozen, another dozen, another dozen of these little creeks over and over and over again trying to make their way through this really difficult landscape. Jungle, mangrove swamps, mud flats, creeks, rivers. Like what an incredible journey that was. With a modern highway like highway 5, I could get there in half a day on my bicycle. You can drive your car from Melaka to Muar in less than an hour. It’s like 40 to 50 kilometers, you know, very easy to get from one to the other on the highway. But back in those days, the ocean was the highway. There were no road highways. Everybody used the Melaka Strait and the rivers. So now that you were trying to go overland, hacking your way through the jungle through this muddy mangrove coastline, how in the world did you do that? Honestly, what a journey that must have been. And I tried to figure out how long it took him and his whole the whole group with him to get to Muar. And I couldn’t really nail down, but some people some sources said like 3 weeks. To be honest, I thought it would have taken them months to do that trip. Like months to go overland from Melaka to Muar. Oh, actually we can yeah, I remember seeing this on Google Maps. There’s we can come down here to the shore, take a look at some ship building. Some interesting visuals down here. And then there’s a little fishing harbor right here, like a little inlet lined with dozens and dozens of fishing boats. And something like that would have existed even back in the 1500s. So as Sultan Mahmud Shah and his entourage and his army basically were retreating, they could pick up boats along the shore here and use them to get by some of the rivers. How they got their elephants across, I have no idea. No one’s been able to explain that to me.

Anyway, yeah, I’ll pick up that story maybe a little bit later. Just wanted to take a look at this bit of shoreline here. Going to park my bike maybe and walk around a little bit.

Kind of a travel video. Yeah, it’s good. You have your YouTube? Yeah, YouTube channel. Yeah. So this is predominantly owned by the local people. They are more on this boating and the fisherman. Yeah. And this lucky guy they have attracted a few company to be in for repair and dry docking. I see some bunkering. So this is my ships. So my boat is a small boat. Small boat. That’s a big boat. No, no, no. This is a small boat. Oh, come on. That’s huge. We have few tankers. But now we are on the emergency repair because our propeller is damaged. I see. Then we need to repair and replace it. And once completed then we sell this to bunker all this vessel. Aurora. This vessel needs fuel. So we are the boats bunkering them you know I see we have a few big ships around then they call us for bunkering. So that’s our job actually. So your job is repairing these ships supplying the fuel to the ships. I see. But you own this ship. Yeah. This one belongs to you. That’s right. That’s right. We have three right now. So it is a fuel ship. This is all the ships all the compartments having the tanks. Okay. So the maximum capacity of this boat 170 metric ton of fuel. Fuel and then you have a pump system. Yeah. Inside you refuel those boats like that. Yeah. We go alongside them then refuel them. Ah how many of these do you have? Now we have this is the smallest one. Oh wow. We have about three right now and another four is coming. I just came back from Shanghai. So we do have a few arrangement now the contract. I see. Hopefully we’re going to be bigger later on. So this is belong to my friends. So they have a few ships. Okay. They have the what we call it the fish trap there. Fish trap. Oh, okay. They build on their own fish trap. They have a water boat there. I see. This belong to them and then a few boats there. They belong to them. Wow. So this is local people. They have a few boats. Looks like these boats need a lot of work to fix them. Yeah. This one and this one. Will it ever go in the water again or is this one finished? No. Finished. Finished. Finished. Scuttled. Scuttled. Scuttled. This one too probably. Yeah. Maybe they use it to get parts. What happened those days when when during COVID they face this problem. The owner of the ships are bankrupt, you know, right? They cannot pay all this repair. So no money, no splash. So they keep it until they see that they cannot cope up to it. No money, no splash. You mean like splash to put the boat in the water? Yeah. No splash. And these are fishing boats. Some at the middle there is a fishing boat. Yeah. Here is a tugboat. Tug boat LCT we call it light cruise transit. On the other one is the OPL offshore port limit boats taking care of this signing off signing off the big ships there. I see. So they send for the provision send for anything they want. So it’s much much cheaper here because it’s local from here. The established company they charge quite a huge amount of claims. So it’s better to take care from them.

So right beside this area here with all these large boats that I was just looking at and that man was telling me about them. I’m right on the shore, the Melaka Strait. And then right up here ahead of me is an inlet, like another river. And right up here, if I’m not mistaken, there should be sort of like a fishing harbor. Lots of fishing boats docked up and down the river.

And this is what it looks like today. But I think in the days of 1511 with Sultan Mahmud Shah retreat, there also would have been boats here. I mean, we’re only like 10 11 km from Melaka. So this river would have been used by local people for fishing boats, probably traders as well, merchant ships. Small boats though, not talking about huge ships or anything like that. I mean the big ships would dock offshore off Melaka and then smaller boats I believe would ferry all the goods from the big ships you know to the dock. So, we’re talking about shallow draft boats, right? So, here, yeah, this gives you a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about. This river, two things about this river. One is what I was just talking about, that there likely would have been boats here, and the people here would have been sympathetic to the Sultan Mahmud Shah, right? He was the local ruler being driven out by the foreign invaders, the Portuguese. So as he retreated with his forces through here, the local people that lived here would have given him support, offered him boats, ferried him across with the rest of his group. Again, how the elephants got across that, I don’t know. But yeah, even crossing these rivers requires timing because you can see the tide is going out right now. You can see the water. It’s flowing in that direction. You know, the river flowing into the strait. But at high tide, of course, the water would flow in. You can see all the boats are sitting on the mud right now. So for the sultan’s forces to get across, they would have to wait until low tide or high tide, depending on whether they’re getting across by boat or on foot. Yeah, it’s fascinating to think about. I mean, if somebody gave me the job of making a movie about that, I think it would be like an astonishing movie. So many good movies could come out of the history of Melaka. Movies that are have yet to be made, but I wouldn’t know what to say like how to film that because I don’t know exactly what it looked like. The more I read, the more layers I peel back, the more I learn. So, for example, I learned that as the Sultan was retreating here with his big group, he was being harassed by the Portuguese. So again, when it first came out, this this idea of them retreating, I was wondering, well, why didn’t the Portuguese chase them down and defeat them? But then as I’m reading asking these questions, they told me that well the Portuguese they only had a fighting force of about a thousand men you know and and Melaka at that time estimates vary but it might have had a population anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 people. It was a pretty large city and I think they were outnumbered by like 20 to 1 in terms of fighting forces. So the Portuguese due to their military tactics discipline things like that they managed to defeat the Sultanate forces and the Sultanate forces were forced to retreat but the Portuguese didn’t have enough their army wasn’t big enough to send to keep chasing after the sultanate like once he left from Melaka Hill from Melaka itself you know the Portuguese couldn’t send 500 men to go chase him down. They had to consolidate where they were and build defenses and protect what they had gained. So they weren’t chasing them down right away with large forces, but according to what I read, the Portuguese did send out boats after them. And then the Sultanate forces were forced to stay one step ahead of them. They’d cross one of these rivers, build stockades, like temporary defenses, kind of regroup, and then the Portuguese would come up the coast in small boats, and then come up these rivers looking for them to pin them down and then call in more forces and then fully wipe them out. So, yeah, the Sultanate forces were on the run. And then as the Portuguese sent out scouts to locate them, they kept having to move further and further inland to get away from the Portuguese scouts and the boats, the expeditionary forces that were trying to find them. So yeah, it’s an amazing story. Fascinating story.

The last time I was here at this harbor, they had a really nice coffee shop. I got a nice coffee, but they’re not open today. At least not open yet. But before I leave here, I thought I’d just ride. I’ve crossed the river on this bridge here where they have the sluice gate, but maybe just ride down here just for a second. Take a look around. And over here on my GoPro facing forward, you can see the top of that boardwalk over there. So, yeah, you can walk out on this dock. Well, come on. Why don’t I just do it again, right? I have been here before, but maybe you didn’t see that video. So, let’s just do it real quick. Actually, the last time I did this, I brought my bike out here, so I rode my bicycle along this boardwalk. I mean, it’s a cement walk really, but hey, I think a boardwalk is what the word you might use in English. Yeah, all these boats.

But yeah, you can see how it’s largely been abandoned. It’s probably not even safe anymore. I know when I walked all the way out to the end, the upper parts were falling apart. Didn’t look very safe. But again, look at that mud flats. Again, I’m thinking of the historic retreat from Melaka in 1511. And this is the landscape that you’re dealing with along the coast, the muddy flats, these mangrove growths. I mean, how in the world do you make your way along this? Look at that root structure. Isn’t that amazing? What a pattern. Of course, when the water comes in at high tide, you know, that will all be covered up. But yeah, you can see the railing here is completely gone.

And this side here, the stairs look to be in good condition still.

I think on the other side they looked like there was a little bit more trouble.

It looks like they used the whole boardwalk used to go all the way across the water here and then along the shore. And I think there was going to be a big hotel complex right over here, but I don’t think it was ever completed. But yeah, look at the bridge here. Suspension bridge. I’m not walking across that.

Yeah. And it’s so hazy right now you can’t see it, but there’s the island out there. You can there’s just a with my eyes I can just make out Pulau Besar. And that would have a very interesting history too connected with Melaka where ships could stop there, pick up fresh water. Another place where they could ships could dock and regroup and reset, get fresh water and then continue their journey up the Melaka Strait.

Wow, look at that mud down there.

You’re not getting your royal corps of elephants through this sort of landscape. The elephants, I imagine, had to go farther inland in order to find more solid ground. And then maybe the whole retreat was done in segments. The human party going this way and then the elephants and I understood that Mahmud Shah would leave behind a small group of soldiers to sort of defend their retreat in case the Portuguese came up and then they the soldiers would catch up with them. Something like that. I don’t know. It’s very hard for me to visualize exactly how that happened.

Hello. Hello. How are you?

Ah, that fiberglass. Fiberglass. Fiberglass. Ah, for a boat. Fix a boat. Yes. Oh, interesting. So, he’s got fiberglass in that container and then spreads it out. And the roller presses it down. Or maybe the fiberglass was applied differently. And now this is a liquid to hold it in place. That’s probably how it worked. Oh yeah, there it is. There. Okay. A sheet of fiberglass like that. And then the liquid to bond it into place inside the frame. Cool.

Yeah. I just noticed this big roll of fiberglass. I guess that’s how you buy it. A big roll like that. And then you roll it out and cut it using this bar. Yeah. And just measure it with a measuring tape. Cut off the size you need. Put it inside the frame and fix your boat.

Yeah. I remember on my first ride along the coast here. This ferry terminal came as a big surprise to me. Big surprise, you know, that there was a ferry and that there was an island. I had no idea. But yeah, Pulau Besar is quite an interesting place to visit. I wonder if anything is even open. I might have to pay two ringgit if there’s somebody here to open the gate for me. Let’s see. Yeah, there’s nobody here. Oh, there’s a sign.

And touch and go up here.

If you can see this over here. How do I use touch and go? Do I push this button? Calling. Please wait. Oh, hello. Oh, hi. I was just trying. Can I use Touch ‘n Go e-wallet to go through the gate? You have a Touch ‘n Go. I have Touch ‘n Go e-wallet on my phone. E-wallet. Can I not, sir? No, can’t do that. Okay. Okay. You have cash? Yeah, I have ringgit only. Yeah, but there’s nobody here. Okay. I open the receipt. Then you come to lobby at counter, you pay two ringgit. Perfect. Thank you. I open. Okay. I’m at the bicycle or the scooter gate. Okay. Wait a moment. Okay. Hey, modern technology. Call ended. Call ended. So, they’re going to open the gate automatically from a distance and then I will go through. I have no reason to go through. I just want to get a cold drink down at the dock and show it to you guys basically.

Morning. Morning. How are you?

Cash two ringgit. Yes.

Uh-oh.

I only have five.

Okay. Two ringgit. Three ringgit.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Island. Island. No, not today. I just go look. Maybe cold drink. Yeah. Come back.

Just go there. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Oh.

Yeah, here’s another river right on my left. Another inlet. And again, going back to 1511. That’s probably a place where there would been a local fishing boats. The Orang Laut, the famous seafaring people who were supporting the Melaka Sultanate would guide them to places like this, help them out, get boats for them. So, I’m here. There’s my bicycle. And since it’s a weekday, probably not very busy, but I got a few cars here. Quite a few scooters. So people went out to the island. There’s Pulau Besar, big island. And I guess they call it big island because it has all these other ones around it. And those would be the small islands. So, I guess you can do island hopping trips. There’s one of the docks.

Yeah, they need a better photo. That’s completely blurry.

So, I think that’s the time for the boats going out to the island. And I think they have boats going in between. You can kind of show up and ask them when’s the next boat and they might have a special arrangement for you. Yeah, I couldn’t resist. I saw someone walk by with an iced tea basically. So once I saw that. So yeah, it’s one good thing about being in a hot country riding a bike. You really develop a thirst and then man do you enjoy a cold drink. So it’s heaven on earth.

So good. As you can tell, I knew I would have two, so I ordered two. And I did ask about the boats, like maybe, you know, can I put my bicycle on the public boat, 24 ringgit, and go out to the island and then you can camp out there for free maybe if you can put up with the hardship. But they said, “No, you can’t. You can’t put a bicycle like that. You’d have to hire your own private boat.” And then you’re talking about 100 150 ringgit or something like that. So yeah, it gets too expensive.

All right, from here could head up to the main highway, but I think there’s still some coastal road that is still open to me for a little while here. Eight or nine kilometers.

And there’s a very special well three places actually up ahead near the town of Merlimau something like that. And I think Merlimau would have been a key place on the retreat of the Melaka Sultanate forces. I’m pretty sure they would have stopped here. And the reason for that is something a historical monument up there that we’re going to stop and take a look at.

The town Merlimau. I was curious about the name and as always there was a disagreement about the origins of the name. But one story that came up quite a bit was that Malay warriors and Bugis warriors every Thursday night would gather and then they would clean their daggers, their kris. So they would clean their kris daggers, the blade with lime limau. And it was a kind of a ritual to take care of their daggers and it had kind of a ritual aspect to it as well, which I just saw some sugar cane juice down there. So, I’m going to go. I need some more liquid.

And so this this ceremony like cleaning your blade with lime was like something something limau. And over time it became Merlimau, the name of this yeah this ritual. And that’s where the name of the town came from.

Hello. Hello.

There’s my fresh sugar cane juice. Yeah, these bees must be so happy.

Is it small? You said four. Yeah, four. I do this.

That’s great. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah. So, there you have it. Sugarcane juice. Yeah, these roadside places are just so popular. If you’re going by in a car, how can you resist, right? Just parked the car. They actually have fried bananas here, too. I’m tempted, but we just had just had lunch. Oh, now I get to ride along the coast enjoying the scenery and all the local activity and drinking my ice cold sugar cane juice. Yeah, I just realized I should make a note that this is as far south as I’ve gone for a very long time in Malaysia. All my wandering around Melaka, the farthest I’ve gone is Pulau Besar.

Hello. Good afternoon. So, yeah, everything now is brand new.

Oh, that would have been a good place for lunch. I believe this is yeah, Pantai Suria. And if I aim my bike this way. Yeah, you can see the sign. So, I don’t know if there’s much of a swimming beach here. I doubt it. It’s really looks just like a mud flat, but it looks like a popular place. They have restaurants, lookout points, things like that.

And I think there’s like a glamping outfit here. I pulled over to the side of the road again because there’s a very interesting site here and it matches a whole bunch of places. Well, not a whole bunch, but a few places that I’ve passed. I’ll spin my GoPro around and show you once the noisy motorcycle goes by. I’ll show you what I’m looking at right there. That mosque, it has such an interesting architecture. I was talking a little bit about this when I visited the Masjid Kampung Kling in Melaka and noting that the mosques in Melaka in this area have a different architecture than the ones you might normally associate with Islam. Like there’s no dome, right, that doesn’t have the classic dome. It has this three roof structure and I seen online people talking about that and they relate it to a style coming out of Java like maybe dating back to the Majapahit kingdom you know don’t quote me on that but I have a vague memory but anyway it’s a unique style associated with Melaka and the minaret as well as a very unusual style. When you read about the one in Melaka, the Masjid Kampung Kling, they talk about the variety of architecture and all the different influences and they look at the minaret and point out that it has like a the look of a Chinese pagoda. But a local historian reached out to me and said, “No, it really doesn’t have anything to do with like an architectural style from China. It’s actually again associated with I believe Java and perhaps Majapahit. I could be digging my hole even deeper by saying Majapahit when that’s not true at all. I know very little about that kingdom except it keeps coming up in my reading. But anyway, regardless of the origins, the mosques here have this unique look to them. And I’ve passed a few of them on the road today that had the same triple roof style, which again is supposed to be very convenient for the weather here, for air flow, and for a heavy tropical downpour, things like that. And this style of minaret, very unusual, but very beautiful. I’ve arrived at this very important place that I wanted to check out and show you. Oh man,

I’m having a real hard time though with the heat. I’m having a hard time speaking, but I’ll do my best.

So, what this is, it’s a grave site. The mausoleum which makam I believe means mausoleum of Tun Teja and they have a little bit of the history here in Malay but I can’t read it and I can’t do Google translate because it’s too bright I can’t look at it on my phone so I don’t really know what it’s saying but the basic story an amazing story part of Malaysia’s part of Melaka’s history is that Tun Teja was the consort of Sultan Mahmud Shah. So she was the consort of the Sultan of Melaka. And when he was driven out of Melaka by the Portuguese, she was part of his family, part of his noble entourage, the royal entourage that was defeated by the Portuguese, forced out into the countryside, and they were marching towards Muar, trying to stay one step ahead of the Portuguese. So, she was part of that group. I’ve got to go sit down in the shade to talk anymore. My heartbeat feel like I’m suffering from a little bit of heat stroke here or something like that. My heart and my breathing, it’s not catching up.

Hey, look at who we have here. Uh-oh, man. And he’s a he’s a mean old Tom cat. You can tell he’s a fighter.

Friendly kitty though. But you can feel he’s got a lot battle wounds.

So she was part of the royal entourage as they were marching towards Muar. And here in 1511 she died. So she died and then she was buried right here in 1511. That was over 500 years ago. 515 years ago. So can you imagine? And there’s more to her story than that. And I’m going to walk through the archway back to her grave site and then maybe I can sit down over there and tell a little bit more of her story. But yeah, just amazing that this site is here. 500-year-old tomb of the consort of Sultan Mahmud Shah. Beautiful archway, beautiful flowered pathway to get here and a little piece of modernity right beside it. This business here. I asked them if I could sit in the shade here. I’ve been here for about 40 minutes just resting my head trying to get my heartbeat to go down, but my heartbeat won’t actually go down. Still thumping and thumping and thumping. But yeah, it’s actually a pizza parlor, but they’re not open yet. But her grave, you know, you could not ask for a more beautiful site. Look at this flowered walkway. These are all rice fields right beside her and grave site. And I think on the other side and beyond her, it’s also rice fields. To be honest, I was not expecting anything like this. I knew that her grave was here and I chose this particular road because I knew it would go past her grave site, but I had no idea it was so beautiful. Nestled amongst the rice fields, this flowered walkway. This is extraordinary. I really was not expecting this at all.

If there was a little campground here, a little piece of land, maybe I would just put up my tent and I would stay here overnight. Yeah, what a beautiful spot. Have a pizza when they open up there. So, yeah, I’m just getting to the end of the walkway. Look at this. Maybe some of her story. Hey, how are you? I’m good. Good. So maybe some of her story is here in English so you don’t have to rely on my memory to tell you the story based on what I read. But yeah, here it is. And I remember reading about this place online from like a local expert and he did point out this was her grave site. But this tombstone is probably not original. It would not have lasted I don’t think over five centuries. So this might be, who knows how old it actually is, but I don’t think that is the original tombstone. But yeah, this is the original site of her final resting place. Look at the location. Isn’t that extraordinary? Yeah, I’d really like to stay somewhere nearby here.

Muar is still it’s about 25 kilometers from here. It’s not a long ways to cycle, but I’m so overwhelmed by the heat right now. I don’t know if I really want to attempt it. I might try and stay somewhere here tonight. And yeah, I’m amazed there’s actually a laterite well here. I didn’t know that there was also a well. And I guess that well is really important for taking care of all of the flowers here. Yeah, they’ve got the buckets there. And I guess these guys, it’s part of their job is to water all the flowers, keep them alive. I don’t know anything about this well, how old it might be.

I just read through all of those plaques there with the photo with the paintings. And that is the first half of her story. And a pro tip when you come across something like this in Malaysia quite often, I mean my instinct as a westerner is to go from left to right. But here because of you know I assume because of Arabic script being written right to left quite often you find museum exhibits like this start on the right. So you actually have to begin over there and read this way. This is the end of the story and that’s the beginning of the story over there. At least I think that’s how it works. So this is the first part of her story. And a lot of these details are in the classic Malay literature. I think it’s written in the Hikayat Hang Tuah and in the Sejarah Melayu if I’ve got the name right. And I think that’s where most of this information comes from. And of course the Hikayat Hang Tuah is a little bit of like a you could almost think of it as the adventures and exploits of the hero Hang Tuah. Like it’s not pure history. There’s a little bit of literature like it’s got a literary quality to it, a legendary like tales of heroic deeds that kind of thing. But it’s a great story. So Tun Teja was actually the daughter of the Sultan of Pahang I think. So was the daughter of Sri Amar DiRaja, prime minister of Inderapura in old Pahang and she was famed for her exceptional beauty and she was so beautiful that she was famous around this whole region. And it says here that she had many many princes and other men, you know, vying for her hand because they had all heard not only how beautiful she was, but also that is she was endowed with all the qualities of the perfect Malay woman of that time, unequaled in beauty and educated in the tenets of Islam. So she was so famous that the Sultan of Melaka heard about her and he gave her a proposal of marriage. However, it says down there at the bottom the Bendahara of Pahang and his family declined the proposal. The English translation on the second sign is a real jumble. It’s a bit of a mess. But luckily I read about this part of the story somewhere else. And the basic idea is that our hero Hang Tuah, you can actually see him in the background here. That is the handsome dashing Hang Tuah. At this time he was on the outs with the Sultan. I read that somebody in the royal court was spreading malicious slander about Hang Tuah, things that weren’t true. And then the sultan was unhappy with Hang Tuah. And now Hang Tuah in order to get back in his graces. He came up with this plan to travel to Pahang because he’d heard of the great beauty of Tun Teja and that the sultan had offered you know had asked for her hand in marriage basically. So Hang Tuah went there and his plan was to get to know Tun Teja and get her to come back to Melaka with him and then he would present her to Sultan Mahmud Shah. And then part of his strategy was to get to know her maid and then he would give the maid all kinds of gifts. I can’t I’m not sure if the gifts were for the maid or the gifts were to give to the maid so that the maid would give them to the beautiful Tun Teja. But anyway, he was trying to ingratiate himself with her and convince her to come back to Melaka, but it wasn’t working. And then Hang Tuah again as part of the legendary story he made a got or he made or got a love potion and according to this version of the story he convinced the maid to put it on her chair so that when she sat down in the chair she was infected with this love potion and then Tun Teja fell in love with Hang Tuah and ran away with him to go back to Melaka. And this painting shows Hang Tuah and Tun Teja sneaking away from Pahang. Like you can see it’s in the dead of the night, dead of night or early morning. Looks like the sun is just rising. It’s dawn and Tun Teja and all of her maids were boarding a boat and they were going to run away together in Hang Tuah’s boat to go back to Melaka. And then they anchored on the island of Pulau Tinggi, waiting for the wind so they could continue the rest of their journey back to Melaka. I love these paintings. They’re amazing. Really gives you a sense of what it look probably looked like back then, what the boats might have looked like. Shallow boats for going up these rivers, tidal rivers. The clothing that they were wearing, I’m assuming is, you know, period accurate, but of course I don’t know that for sure. But it certainly looks very glamorous, very historic and romantic. Another great painting where you’ve got Tun Teja and Hang Tuah on his boat and you can see one of his men firing one of the classic guns from that era. And what happened here is that the bendahara essentially Tun Teja’s father found out that she had disappeared in the night with Hang Tuah. So he sent a fleet to chase him being led by the admiral the laksamana and a war broke out between Hang Tuah and this fleet from Pahang. So there was a battle and then of course again this being the adventures and exploits of Hang Tuah he won the battle he defeated the fleet from Pahang and then they continued on their way to Melaka and then when Hang Tuah arrived back in Melaka with his ships he went to the Sultan told the sultan what he had done and that he had brought with him Tun Teja from Pahang the most beautiful woman in the land. And there’s different versions of this story. This one says that Tun Teja was not very happy with when she found out that she had been tricked with a love potion and that she wasn’t going to marry Hang Tuah at all, that she was supposed to marry the Sultan. She was annoyed by that. Another version of the story says that Hang Tuah gave her another potion that he made that broke the spell of the love potion. So, she was no longer in love with Hang Tuah. And then the Sultan proposed to her and the two of them got married. And this last painting is her arrival in Melaka where I think it says Tun Teja was paraded to the palace and when the people of Melaka watched her they admired her beauty. Tun Teja felt cheated by Hang Tuah over what has happened to her. But through Hang Tuah’s wisdom and cunningness, the princess of Bendahara Inderapura soon married the Sultan of Melaka. And the Sultan had always loved her. That is the story that you read down there. And then she was given a royal escort into Melaka on one of the royal elephants with her ladies in waiting. When I first saw this painting, I thought it was from 1511 when they were fleeing from Melaka and that this was the royal family fleeing from Melaka and then that some of the royal family would be on elephants with men guarding her. And you can see that the men are walking through rivers, things like that. But apparently this is her arrival in Melaka, not when they fled. You know, I love that story. It has elements of a classic literature from Greece. Feels almost it could be Shakespearean. It could be a Hollywood movie. You know, Helen of Troy, you know, the beautiful woman that launched a thousand ships, that kind of idea, Romeo and Juliet. I mean, it has elements of all of these stories. And yeah, that’s really cool. But as I said, unless this sign talks about the fact that she fell ill and died and was buried here, that whole story isn’t here at all. It only tells how she ended up in Melaka and with the Sultan Mahmud Shah, but her life ended here basically because of the Portuguese drove them out into the countryside. And it doesn’t say what her illness was. She could have fallen ill because of the rigors of the journey. That makes a lot of sense to me. But nothing I’ve read indicates that they know why she died. Only that she died here in 1511 after the Portuguese drove them out of Melaka. Yeah, amazing place, amazing story. Really glad that I stopped here.

Another place I wanted to check out is right down this road according to that sign. Jetty Kuala Merlimau. So, there’s another one of these fishing harbors here, a jetty. And from Google Maps, you know, satellite view, looks pretty cool. And it ties in with the historic story that I’ve been thinking about because again, the reason there is a jetty and a harbor is because there’s some kind of a river and it’s yet another barrier that Sultan Mahmud Shah and his group would have to cross.

Whoa. Big big big boys over there. We have to take another look. I’m not going to make it anywhere if I keep stopping so many times. But how can I not?

I could smell the farm from a distance. Oh boy. Boy, I guess I better be careful. Just hearing my voice. Five or six of these big boys just kind of stood up and are now looking at me. I don’t want to disturb them. I don’t want to cause a stampede of any kind for the poor farmer that owns these guys, but man, look at the size of them. Hey there, guys. They seem okay with me getting a little bit close.

Yeah, a lot of them jammed into a pretty tight space though. Maybe they come here at the end of the day. Man, he’s big. Just the size of that head, the hump. You don’t realize how big an animal is until you actually get this close to them.

Beautiful coloring on this one. Look at that. Very nice brown and black.

I probably mentioned this before, but from my time in Canada, I learned that cows are incredibly curious animals. Like if you go anywhere near a field of cows, sit down, do anything, park your car, work on your car, next time you look up, you’ll have 20 cows standing around you in a circle watching what you’re doing. And I imagine this this type of cattle, you know, who knows, maybe has the same the same DNA, you know, look how they’re so curious about me, you know, looking at me.

And I’ve arrived at the jetty. Yeah.

A lot of boats here. Not a lot of activity, not a lot of people. It certainly does have that lived-in quality that I always mention with these places. Looks almost like a setting for a zombie apocalypse. Like a zombie apocalypse has occurred here. All the people are either zombies or ran away. And there’s just nothing but the debris of life behind.

So much stuff everywhere.

There’s something different over here. It looks like they have I don’t know maybe high quality mud and clay here. Maybe they’re harvesting it like digging it up with these that those machines. You can see the bucket scrapes. So they could be gathering up the clay and selling it or doing something with it. Or they’re just dredging with those that machinery over there and keeping the river flowing. I’m not sure. Yeah. Look at that. Definitely a zombie apocalypse. This a whole river inlet. I heard some rock and roll music playing. So, there are some people here, but I think I saw two men on my way in. One guy on a hammock, but other than that, I was hoping there would be one of these like regular restaurants here where I could get a iced coffee or something.

But this particular jetty is more lifeless than the norm. Not a whole lot going on here. And I don’t see any kind of restaurant. Yeah, there’s definitely jetty cats everywhere. Whole bunch of them. Look at these adolescents. Three of them right here. Yeah, there. Oh, yeah. Right there.

Hey, there kitty cats. There they are. They seem pretty accustomed to humans. And I guess the big attraction here is fish. Everybody unloading their boats. A few fish get tossed to the cats. Look at that. There’s three more right here. And another one down there underneath the gang plank. So yeah, cats everywhere.

All these fish nets, abandoned refrigerators and trunks and water jugs, gas cans, furniture.

Yeah.

Looks like here they would have a lot of music playing. Maybe they got battery power.

One thing I’ve learned visiting all these fishing harbors and jetties is you got to be real careful where you’re walking. It’s kind of funny that fish nets are designed to catch fish, right? You throw it in the ocean, the fish don’t see it, they swim into the net, you catch them. But that same thin nylon netting, I can’t see it either. Especially when I’m talking to a GoPro and the all these bundled up nets, they tend to fall apart and some of that netting spills out in front of you and you don’t see it. It’s like a hidden trap. So, you’re walking along and then your foot, your sandal gets caught in the fishnet and you end up tumbling head over heels. I’ve never actually fallen, but I’ve come very close many times because you get something like this fish net here and then it spills out and if it goes further, you know, your foot goes right into it and next thing you know, you’re caught in the fishnet.

All right, kitty kitty cats.

A lot of abandoned hip waiters and life jackets and laundry put out to dry who knows how many days or months ago.

All right, the Merlimau Jetty not quite as open to tourists as the other ones I’ve seen. This looks like much more of a working harbor. The other one, like the one I saw earlier, the first one in the morning, it had so many like seafood restaurants and places where yeah, clearly people come there on the weekend, get some seafood, hang out when it the sun goes down and it becomes nice and cool. All right, on to the next site.

Well, there’s another place I wanted to visit. I spotted on this road, the Portuguese well. And I guess in normal circumstances, you wonder, well, what’s the big deal about a Portuguese well? But the thing is, the Portuguese were pretty hunkered down in Melaka, building their fortress, hiding behind their fortress, using their fortress to defend them. I mean, that was their stronghold. It’s not like they had colonized Malaysia. I saw that in a YouTube video from a, you know, just a typical travel vlogger tourist. And in their video, they were talking about how the Dutch colonized Malaysia. And of course, there were a whole bunch of comments, people like Malaysians left saying, “Well, no, Malaysia didn’t even exist back then.” You know, when the Dutch defeated the Portuguese in 1641, there was no Malaysia. So, it’s not like they could colonize Malaysia. It didn’t really exist until I mean, the Federation of Malaya gained independence in 1957. And then when it joined with Singapore and Sabah like North Borneo and Sarawak then in 1963 it finally became Malaysia. So there’s a big difference between the Dutch era and 1963. So if you think about the Portuguese being hunkered down at Melaka, why did they dig a well way out here? Well, my understanding is it’s kind of a like a fort like what’s the word I’m looking for? It’s a scouting position, you know, like they had the main fortress around the Melaka Hill, but then they also had defenses out beyond the fortress walls. And then they would base little groups of military, you know, way out here defending the approach to Melaka. Like in case a force, a fighting force was sent from Johor Baru or from Muar, places like that, they would be attacking Melaka from this direction. So the Portuguese would have scouts and soldiers out here. Based here and then they dug a well. It’s very nicely cared for. Look at this. Again, I was not expecting this kind of attention being given to the tourist attractions here. Yeah, they put a lot of money into this for a Portuguese well.

Once again, I had to sit down for a while just to let my breathing slow down. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m having a lot of trouble today. Yeah, I’m feeling very faint. I guess it’s just the heat and I haven’t been cycling for a long time. So, and all of this getting on and off the bike, exploring, back on again, off again, on, it’s really, really tiring. I burned through all of my batteries. I’m constantly changing batteries, constantly changing microphones because the battery runs out. I have to get out my battery pack because my smartphone is running out of power. It’s just like nonstop. Stop, start, stop, start, parking the bike, unloading stuff, finding batteries, changing batteries, packing up again, getting back on the road. It’s Yeah, it’s been exhausting today setting aside just riding the bike in the heat. So, I think I’m going to have to stay in Merlimau. There’s no way I’m getting to Muar today. I mean, I could do it, but why be miserable? Anyway, here is the here is the Portuguese well. Perigi Portugis Merlimau. And they do have a sign over here, but I think it’s in Malay and then Jawi, I’m guessing. So there’s no information about it in English, but I don’t think a whole lot is known about it other than the Portuguese dug the well and it’s the walls are made out of laterite and oh boy, a lot of green scum down there. A lot of green stuff growing. And then I guess the Portuguese had some sort of a military base out here like a scouts in a way keeping an eye on any approaching fighting forces and then they can I don’t know race back to Melaka and warn them that a fighting force is coming. But anyway, I just I just like the idea that the Portuguese were all the way out here like 26 30 kilometers outside of the fortress of Melaka. They had soldiers based out here guarding the approaches to Melaka. And I think this well comes with the standard story whether true or not that it never runs dry ever since it was built. I mean, if the Portuguese built it, we’re talking about something sometime between 1511 to 1641. So, in the 1500s is when this well was dug. And the legend goes that since the late 1500s, never ran dry, never ran out of water.

Well, I’m standing out in the middle of a rice field at the end of the day, and that means I didn’t plan my day very well. Well, I planned it well, but I just didn’t follow through on my plans. I was going to go a lot faster and ride kind of directly to Muar. I wasn’t going to shoot a lot of video. I was going to try to make it short and snappy, but of course, as soon as I started riding, all of those plans went out the window. So, I didn’t get very far. I kept stopping in so many different places. And now it’s too late to make it to Muar. I tried to find a place to stay here in this area, Merlimau, but it’s way too expensive. I mean, yeah, it is unusual. I find in Malaysia, like if you’re traveling around Sumatra, like Indonesia, big cities have hotels and small cities also have hotels. I mean, they’re just everywhere. But in Malaysia, you only find them, I think, in big cities. Here in Merlimau, that market is all taken up by homestays where a family or a group of friends or a business group rents an entire house and you pack it with as many people as you can. So there’s plenty here in small cities like this. It’s tons and tons and tons of homestays and then you can’t even find out the price of them anyway because they’re all just private businesses and you have to get the phone number and you have to call somebody. It’s all very it’s like they’re not listed on Agoda for example. So anyway, I couldn’t find anywhere reasonable to stay unless I wanted to, you know, book an entire house to myself for three or 400 ringgit. So, it looks like I’ll be sleeping outside, which is why I’m in the middle of rice fields. Just sort of scanning for a place to put up a tent, spend the night. And I booked two nights already in Muar.

Yeah, it’s a bit unfortunate that by the time I get there and spend two nights there, then we’re suddenly moving into the weekend again.

So, all the prices go way, way, way up really fast. So I can book Friday night and today’s No, today’s Wednesday. Yeah. So I booked Thursday night and Friday night at a reasonable price. I found a hotel. It’s not low-budget price really, but yeah, it’s the cheapest the cheapest in the city that I could find. So I’ll be going there tomorrow for two nights and then moving on. I have a kind of an idea where I’m going to spend the night. The jetty here seemed to have it’s nice to be underneath a rooftop and that jetty seems to be completely abandoned. There’s hardly anybody there. So, I’m going to try if I can just go to the jetty, find a little bare piece of cement underneath the roof, and just sleep there tonight. That’s the plan anyway. We’ll see how it works out. Unless I see something else that’s better along the way.

Here I am back at the jetty. I think it’ll work out as long as nobody minds that I’m just lying down somewhere here. Yeah. And I discovered there’s actually a little room there. That pink pink building right there. I saw somebody coming out of it. So I thought, “Oh, maybe that’s a bathroom.” It’s not a bathroom, but it is actually like a shower room. There’s like a tap in there with water, so you can yeah, get cleaned up in there, which is nice. Lot of wilderness here. There’s tons and tons and tons of macaques and cats. Yeah, macaques and cats. And one problem with sleeping outside is it gets dark early and then what do you do? It’s like the rhythm of your day gets mixed up because if you’re staying in a hotel room, well, yeah, you’re you can settle in, plug in your kettle, have a cup of coffee, turn on your laptop, start editing videos, that sort of thing. But if I’m sleeping here, put up my tent down near the end there, I think. Then, as soon as the sun goes down, well, the day is over. You know, all you can do is go to sleep.

Yeah, I really am curious life of a jetty like this. I mean, it just seems so empty right now. There’s like nobody here. But there’s quite a few scooters and motorcycles. Like there’s three of them right here, four of them. So, where are the people that own those? Are they out on their boats? And then during the night, there’s going to be dozens of boats coming like moving in, going out. But anyway, what I’m going to do for now, while it’s still light, is settle in here. Who knows, maybe there’s even electricity over there. I can charge up some batteries. I doubt it, but let’s try that out. Yeah, not the cleanest sofa in the world. It’s been here a very long time, but I can sit down here and fiddle with my gear.

So, here I am. Home sweet home. I could even put my tent up right here if I wanted to, but I don’t know if this area is busy at night. And there is electricity. Look at that. I turned on the fan, so that’s nice. I can charge up all my GoPro batteries. Yeah, I definitely if I if I film like I did today, filmed so much, way too much, then yeah, I definitely don’t have enough batteries. The full set that I have doesn’t get me through a full day. And I mean, this is my last battery right now that I’m using. It’s almost dead. So if I wake up in the morning and I’m not able to charge batteries, then yeah, I’ll have a no working camera in the morning. Anyway, I’ve been recording today on Strava. So I hope there’s internet here, mobile internet, and then I can finish up the Strava because I’ve this is the end of end of today’s journey. There was a restaurant right out on the main road, the pizza place. When I was there today, they said they weren’t open yet. They were going to open later. I guess that’s what I understood them to say, but it turned out they were making pizza crusts at their oven, but then I think they were just going to stack them up and bring them to another restaurant cuz I I was planning to have dinner over there. Hey there, kitty. Yeah, I’m going to have so many cats around me tonight. I was going to have dinner over there and then I figured I could sit there, have something to eat, have a pizza, and then when it gets dark, just come over here and go to sleep. But again, I planned it poorly because when I got there, the whole place was shut down. All the doors were closed, all the doors were locked, and there’s no restaurants or anything around here. I have a 7-Eleven sandwich, and that will that will get me through the night. But yeah, maybe I’ll record a good night moment when I have my tent set up. But other than that, this is getting towards the end of the day. Yeah, I’m just going to hang out here on my new sofa.