Melaka: Jonker's Street Night Market (Photo-blog)

July 5th 2015...I am catching up - I have found a hostel which is conducive to being productive in Phnom Penh :)


Whilst more thorough and descriptive blogs of my time in Melaka (Malacca) will be coming in the next day or two, when planning out those blogs, I found that the night market I visited on my first evening in the city did not easily fit into the narrative, but that there were plenty of photos that I share of that enjoyable evening.


My solution was to have a separate post just for the night market.


I feel I should give a little background here. The night market in Melaka, which runs along the temporarily pedestrianised Jonker Street, is one of the major attractions of the city, and only runs on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. The market stretches for nearly a kilometre, and is a combination of food stalls, clothing stores, and tourist souvenirs. The market even retains some original stalls targeted at locals, selling knifes, vegetables and toiletries, and as a result, the market has a healthy mix of locals, Malaysian visitors, and foreign tourists, though like everywhere in Malaysia, the Chinese tour groups dominated.


I had not planned to tackle the night market on my first night, as I was tired, in need of a shower, and had only arrived at around 9pm. But it was a Sunday, and if I did not go tonight, I would have had to wait until Friday, or more likely, forgo seeing it. I like a good night market, and this one was famous, and so I was determined not to miss it. I dumped my bag by my bed, and headed out to see what there was to see (and eat).

There initially was not much to see.

Found it!

The market was brightly lit up with flourescent lighting, and stalls tumbled from their respective stores lining the street out over the pavement into the road. Hawkers called out the names of their produce in various Malaysian languages, whilst tourists and visitors browsed in mild confusion the kaleidoscope of goods on offer.


Waiting at the end of the street near the bridge was a fleet of neon-bedecked trishaws which supported glowing effigies of Hello Kitty and other Asian cartoon characters. The picture below cannot capture the cacophony of noise as speakers on each stereo blared out their owner's taste in music: Korean K-Pop blared over the warbling of Chinese karaoke pop opera, while Miley Cyrus could be heard proclaiming that she would not stop. It was not a pleasant sound.

Next to the overwhelming rickshaws were several stalls selling coconuts and coconut ice cream. I could not resist the idea of a coconut shake.

One coconut shake (with ice cream) = RM4 (£0.66)

Then I found an unassuming stall selling 'pumpkin cake' which I was intrigued, as it was only RM2 (£0.33). I decided to buy a piece, and was then amazed when I got not one piece but three, fist-sized lumps for the price. 

I should have known that when they asked if I wanted chilli sauce with the cake that it would not be my thing. It was rubbery and jelly-like at the same time, and had a strange lack of taste, which suggested it had been made with unripe pumpkins.

Three pieces of disgusting pumpkin cake = RM2 (£0.33)

My next purchase after a few minutes was at this stall which proclaimed' Fruit Candy Stick'. I was intrigued as I had not seen this before, and so I bought one to try it. The fruit was prepared in a similar way to a toffee apple back in the UK, and was quite effective with strawberry and pineapple. Slightly odd with grapes though.

One Candy Fruit Stick = RM3.50 (£0.60)


My next stop was at a Taiwanese stall selling sausages. Among the flavours they had available, Honey Lime sausages sounded by far the most delicious, so I bought one. 


One Honey Lime Sausage = RM2.50 (£0.40)

It was without doubt one of the most delicious sausages I have ever tasted, as the sweet honey compliment the salty pork meat, and the lime cut through it all with a sour burst. It may not be to everyone's taste, but I loved it.

The stall also sold pieces of strange cake-jelly, which after the experience with the similar pumpkin cake, I declined to try, but it looked fairly appealing.

I briefly paused in my attempt to efforts to eat everything in sight to watch the karaoke performed by locals on a large stage towards the far end of the market. As the songs were mostly in Chinese, I was unsure whether they were doing a good job or not, though the apathy of the audience suggested they at least were not spectacular. Personally, I was more distracted by the advert behind the warbling singers showing footballers advertising Mister Potato crisps (they are basically mock-Pringles). It rather made the whole affair less cultural and more commercial!

There were these strange glow in the dark pendants everywhere.

Some of the stalls in the market used some odd phrases in English, and a couple were downright bizarre. This durian stall below selling 'Normal Clones' was particularly odd. 

Whereas I feel 'Big Tart: Cookies and Bread Station' was a rather deliberate use of English. In Malaysia, there are so many competent English speakers, but equally so many Malaysians unable to speak much English at all, that it is sometime hard to know whether the mistake is intentional or accidental. 

By now, it had been about ten minutes since I had eaten anything, so I found myself some miniature octopus on a stick to chew on for just RM 2 (£0.33). It was delicious and spicy, and made me miss the cheap seafood of Thailand. 

My final snack of the night was these amazing fritter-like objects photographed below.

They consisted of ready-cooked chips dipped in batter and re-deep-fried, which turned them into an unhealthy, salty, fatty potato fritter, or a super hash brown! It was incredibly delicious, and reminiscent of Chipsy Mayai (Egg Omelette) which I had loved when I visited Tanzania just under four years ago. 


One chip fritter = RM 3 (£0.50)

After I had demolished several chip fritters, I was really feeling full. I continued back through the market towards my hostel, briefly stopping to pick up some Peach tea from a vendor, before I turned off down a side street back to my hostel for a well-earned sleep.

Total spent on streetfood (excluding tea): RM17 (£2.87). Not bad for several hours full of eating! 

DSP

Bangkok: Markets, Hipsters and Queens.

Right, this is going to be a short one, as it’s 14:43 and I haven’t left the hostel yet.

My last day in Bangkok was a slight bonus. I had planned to leave this morning for Ayutthaya, but some of my cycling-surfer buddies from yesterday said that they were heading to Ayutthaya the following day, and were going to check out the famous Chatuchak weekend market today. After a week of fairly full on travelling, I was really craving a lazy morning of photo-editing, blogging, and unlimited free hostel tea. I really didn’t feel like waking up at 6am to catch a train.

So my plans changed, and I had an extra day in Bangkok. With my morning and early afternoon exhausted, I headed out with my dorm buddy Costa-Rican-not-definitely-not-Indian-Lex to Chatuchak.

You know when someone from Bangkok says it is a big market, it is going to be big. But it was seriously ridiculously huge. So much so that there were helpful maps and guides to help you navigate the site - they don’t even have these at the Grand Palace. It was also so busy, even though we arrived later afternoon when the market was starting to close up for the night.

We had nothing to do except wait for other people to arrive at 6.30, so we just wandered around and I took sneaky artistic shots of the market stalls.

I only realised this fruit was fake when I was editing this photo...

So many lights, so much pretty!

As we had plenty of time to waste, we indulged in a massage. It was more...healthy than relaxing.

The clock tower is only included here as otherwise the collage didn't display correctly...

When we were finally all together at 6.30, the five of us headed to the neighbouring Vintage Night Garden. It was painfully hipster, in a spoilt-rich-kids-trying-too-hard kind of way. It was however really interesting to walk around, and nestled in the middle of the market was the best food court I have sampled so far. The highlight for me was that there was no English signage, so you had no idea what anything was, which for me is exciting and a brilliant way of discovering new foods.

I don't know what it is, but it was delicious.

Night market delights. We need pick'n'mix sushi stalls in the UK!

It was just a brilliant market, with great food, and it was very insightful with regards to the lives of rich Thai youngsters. Bless them, they all thought they were so cool.

The plan was then to head off to Silom for drinks, but Daniel decided to spend his last night in Bangkok with his Couchsurfing host Nong; Adam went shopping; and Celine headed home, so that left just Lex and I. He had been spending the last few nights in Silom Soi 4, the gay bar street, and invited me along to experience it. I had really wanted to see this slightly more seedy side of Bangkok, along with neighbouring Patpong.

It really didn’t disappoint. Patpong was full of elderly, fat, white men either sitting with their bored, young Thai prostitute, or eyeing up passing ‘skirt’ deciding who they would be taking home. It was awful, though it’s gay equivalent was for me far, far worse. I was almost dragged into a ‘sexy boy show’ (I caught a glimpse through the door, and the go-go-boy needed to go-go-put-his-pants-back-on), and felt myself being eyed up by the prostitutes optimistically. It was just gross.

We eventually took shelter in a quiet bar where Lex and I tried to see if we could get any free drinks from the guys within. Neither got anything free except a kiss on the cheek from a few waiters. We headed on after I had a slight altercation with the waiter (I am not interested in being propositioned in a fucking toilet, and this 4ft nothing skinny-arsed skanky bitch certainly wasn’t going to persuade me otherwise!)

The rest of the evening was a drunken blur of gossip and a vague memory of a drag queen singing Diana ‘Woss’ very well.

Selfies

Brilliant drag queen act - the audience loved her.

DSP

PS: It's now 15:21 - a whole blog written, editied and prepared in just 38 minutes. Who says this blogging this is hard!

Day 2: Big airport, small neighbourhood

Only writing this 5 days later, I can totally remember everything...wait no I can’t...frantically scrolls through camera roll to see what I did in my jetlagged state…

My second plane, from Dubai to Bangkok, was remarkably better than my first. To be honest, the plane could do no wrong as it was an Airbus 380, and my inner six year old was excited to be on a double-decker plane. They also served Japanese for breakfast (unsure why...but I’m not complaining) and ice cream during the night. Miraculously, I slept for much of the flight, and felt fairly functioning for the rest of the day.

We landed in Bangkok at midday, and after navigating the huge Suvarnabhumi International Airport (where distances are measured in hundreds of metres, and sometimes kilometres), I walked through immigration and baggage reclaim in less than 10 minutes.

The travelators in Suvarnabhumi go on to eternity.

In the midst of forcing my travel bag into my big rucksack, I spotted these chaps dozing in the middle of the airport.

Actually looks like quite a nice place to nap.

Once I’d sourced a local SIM card, and an iced coffee, I grabbed the Airport link into the city, and then the BTS Skytrain to my guesthouse. Even if my guesthouse wasn’t located near a skytrain station, I would still have used it, as you can see so much 30ft above the ground, and you appreciate the sights that much more whilst sitting in powerful Aircon.

By the time I’d travelled across the huge spread out city, checked in, and made dinner plans with some dormmates, there was too little time to see any major sights, so I was content to just explore a few of the local backlanes of Bangrak (the suburb where I stayed). Whilst rambling, I stumbled upon a crumbling colonial-era customs house by the river. Cue the insta-photos:

The crumbling customs house wouldn't be complete without a cafe.

The best abandoned houses come with off-street parking.

This wooden mosque was also really beautiful. And all of this was less than 200 metres from my hostel, tucked away down backlanes. Bangrak has a slightly sleepy, dilapidated charm to it that was a perfect contrast to the crazy city around it.

The wooden mosque behind the hostel.

In the evening, a group of five of us from the dorm headed out to Bangkok’s Chinatown to eat. I don’t believe it is an area particularly famed for its street food, and certainly I’ve had better meals sat on a plastic stool underneath a BTS station, but the whole area around Thanon Yaowarat (the main thoroughfare in the enclave) had a carnival vibe with street stalls cluttering the streets and people thronging the back alleys talking around great mouthfuls of prawn and squid.

Street Carnival in Thanon Yaowarat, Bangkok

We all eventually settled got hassled into sitting at a seafood stall just off the main street, much to the disgust of several of us who didn’t want seafood. I chose Squid with Oyster Sauce with Morning Glory (a local cabbage-like vegetable), and after some initial problems with the server confusing chicken and squid (an easy mistake to make), it was all delicious. Chinatown is famous for its seafood, and it was a very good choice, though I found my tentacles a little too salty for my liking….there’s an innuendo there somewhere, you can make the leap yourself.

The delicious squid that turned out to be Philip's 'chicken'.

The group I had found in my dorm were a slightly odd bunch. There was me, the Brit; Erlend (‘Alan’) the Norwegian; Philip the Dutch guy; Merle (‘Helen’) the German; and Sasquatch the Finnish guy (no-one could remember his name, so this became his nickname). A really odd group, but great company. However, no matter how great the company, it couldn’t compete with my building exhaustion as a result of not really sleeping for almost 40 hours, and so we soon headed back to the hostel, and I crashed out, in my clothes, on top of all my cables and clothes I’d strewn across my bunk. I was a long few days...

Tomorrow the Grand Palace, Emerald Buddha, and Wat Pho. :D

DSP