Malacca gets a makeover By Linda Collins
Publisher:The Straits Times - Publication Date: 21-05-2008

Malacca is a perfect short getaway place that, as a result, often gets overlooked in favour of shopping-city destinations or resort idylls.
Some Singaporeans may find that it has been years since they swung by. Boy, are they in for a surprise.
This old Malaysian town used to be a sleepy backwater, a place for wandering around the quaint shophouses of Jonkers Street, buying antiques and, afterwards, dining on fresh seafood or on a popular local dish, chicken rice balls.
Visitors can still do all that. But now, Malacca--a port of call for the past 600 years for traders from China and India, not to mention empire builders from Europe--has rediscovered its melting pot past and realised that there is a tonne of tourism possibilities to be grasped from it.
This includes smartening up the once-tawdry surrounds of the Malacca River and turning it into a heritage area, with buildings renovated to specific standards.
The area's distinctive narrow and many-floored Dutch colonial terrace houses are being renovated to these standards at an almost frantic rate.
The once-muddy river itself now flows much cleaner, thanks to a new barrage that stops sea water moving upstream at high tide.
Amid all that, Malacca's once low-rise skyline is changing shape too. Just last month, a 110m-high observation tower opened at the revitalised river tourism hub.
With a peak shaped like a kris (a wave-bladed dagger), it cost 23 million ringgit (US$7.1 million) to build, according to Malaysian newspaper reports. Visitors view Malacca via a rotating cabin that can accommodate up to 80 people.
Also spiking into the skyline are several shopping malls and spanking new multi-storey hotels. There's even a Carrefour hypermarket that's just opened, adding French cheeses and pastries to the cultural mix.
To get a sense of the new Malacca, I decided to take a boat trip along the river.
Boats leave regularly from the old quayside area opposite the Clock Tower in the town centre. Unlike the old days, they can now be operated daily, thanks to the new barrage helping the river's flow.
The vessel chugs along a narrow waterway lined with historical houses so close, you can almost touch their freshly plastered exteriors.
There's a fancy boardwalk running along the riverbank--where a monorail is also planned, apparently--but on a sunny day, it is much more pleasant to loll in the boat, enjoying a cool breeze rising off the water, and let the boatman's rather rah-rah commentary of go-ahead Malacca wash over your head.
We putter towards the river mouth, once the scene of junks, dhows and Her Majesty's Navy ships bearing traders and invaders.
Now the banks are awash with workmen installing new pavement, fancy steps and balustrades as we float past.
It's not quite a Singapore Flyer, but there is a brand-new wooden water wheel, which harks back to the past while providing a useful desludging role.
We cruise upstream, where kampung-style huts rub shoulders with heritage reconstruction sites.
Even further upstream, the commentator has the boat slow down to point out one of the more resplendent sights--the New Majestic Hotel, a restored version of a once down-at-heel colonial building, the Majestic Hotel.
The new version, which opened in January this year, harks back to the era of 1920s black-tie balls and stengahs on the balcony. There is no hint of its seamier past as a backpacker joint.
How do I know about its less majestic past? Well, I first visited Malacca 15 years ago--and stayed at the original Majestic Hotel.
Truly Majestic
Back then, I had just moved to Singapore from Australia, and made my foray 'up country' the old-fashioned way: by train to the nearest station of Tampin, where an old man waved at me cheerily from a slightly younger car. His was the only taxi, and he drove me 30km to Malacca.
I'd consulted a Lonely Planet guide for where to stay, and it mentioned an el cheapo place called the Majestic Hotel.
It proved to be Malacca's version of Singapore's Mitre Hotel, stubbornly hanging in there as the end loomed.
The grand old dame must have been a majestic sight in colonial times, but when I clapped eyes on her, she was a hump-backed dowager playing her last hand of gin rummy.
Long grass grew near the entrance. Inside, a handful of loyal but dissolute regulars hunched over a darkened bar. Loyal but weary staff oversaw them, the roaches and the last rites.
But, at a few ringgit for a room, it was a backpacker's paradise.
For that sum, I got a spacious, light-filled room--the motes in the sunlight dancing against walls of peeling paint and scuttling geckos--with entry via a pair of swing half-doors painted a cheery red.
Each room had these charming red doors opening onto a large hall with a flooring of decorative tiles.
The doors meant that privacy was somewhat lacking, and at the time, made me wonder if the Majestic's colourful past had included playing host to ladies of the night.
Fifteen years later, however, the New Majestic Hotel in its uber-chic boutique mode is too exclusive and expensive for me. The ladies of the night, the bar-fly regulars and the backpackers have long gone--and presumably, the geckos and roaches.
I go to the cheaper, but nevertheless fine five-star Hotel Equatorial, where trishaw riders with vehicles decorated with bright yellow flowers wait to show tourists the new sights.
The garlanded trishaws are a colourful sight, but not as colourful as Malacca's past, now but a memory amid that ceaseless ebb and flow of changing fortune.

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Never been to the Philippines. That place would be a nice start...