Malacca River cruise

Its been some time since I was back home in Malacca. Today Repin and I went for a photo shoot, or rather Repin went for a photo shoot and I followed him. He got some really good shots of the Malacca River cruise. The last timewe went on the cruise it was at night - there are some advantages to going on the day cruise - you can see the beautiful wall murals they have done on the backs of the buildings facing the river - history of Malacca at a glance! The artists came from a local college and it was done for the Malacca state government without charge  I heard. The murals are good - in fact some are better than good and they depict all the scenes of the different stages in the history of Malacca - from its discovery by Parameswara, the prince of Majapahit to the Portuguese and later the Dutch conquest and finally to independence from colonial rule.

There are some things that we could not see at night - for example the little grove of mangrove swamp or wetlands allowed to grow naturally just next to the town centre and also the little water mill that was used in the 50s. Its really very interesting and I'm glad we took the time to do this tour, even though we are Malaccans. Often, native dwellers of a historic place miss out what visitors see because we always say - "Oh its in my state, district... I can always see it later." But later we don't have the time and when others have seen the beauty or history of your own place, you yorself have not made time to do it. Just like the Mulu Caves in Sarawak which is one of the World Heritage sites. When I went to visit it some time ago, Gurnam, Peck Choo myself and Kuldeep were the only Malaysians there. The rest of the visitors came from all over the world - Americans, Germans, Dutch, Australians and British plus a couple of Singaporians.