The photographic highlight of Malacca (aka Malaka) is the “Floating Mosque,” which first opened in 2006. It sits out over the Straits of Malacca on stilts. It is an interesting structure during the day (see below), but it really comes to life at night. The image above was one we captured at sundown, as the sky gathered it strongest colors and the mosque lights began to come on.

To enter the mosque, it is required that men wear long pants and the woman have a scarf over their hair. Neither of us was properly dressed for this, but fortunately, they loan free sarongs for men and scarves for women at the entrance. That allowed us on the manmade island and the grounds of the mosque.

After some sun calculations, we knew pretty much where we wanted to photograph the sunset from. The beach along that stretch was pretty rocky and not very inviting though (bottom – right edge of image). We could see a jetty about 100 yards away that looked ideal, but there was no obvious way to get there. Scouting around, we found a gate open and with some rock clambering, found the spot we wanted to take our sunset photo (where the bottom image and opening image of this post were shot from).

On the way out, we tracked down the security guard, and he told us the gate closes at 7PM. hmmm… Sunset is at 7:30, and we want to keep shooting later. After a short conversation, we offered to “pay for his time” if he would keep the gate open longer. He agreed, and told us to return by 6:30PM, or the gate would be locked. We returned, “paid him for his time” and he agreed to keep the gate unlocked until 8PM so we could leave later. Bingo!

As we set up our tripods, we were amused to see a group of photographers trying to set up at the less desirable location well below where we set up. One of them called to the others “Look where they are! Let’s go there!” and soon we had far more company than we had expected on the jetty, as they also climbed over the rocks to reach our shooting location. Everything worked out well though, as the group was from Singapore, and extremely friendly. In fact, the leader of that group gave us his phone number and said to call him when we got to Singapore. When we reach that blog post in a few days, you will see the amazing places he took us on his tour of that city.

This 10 second time-lapse shows the sunset as the lights of the mosque come on. I would have liked for it to extend another hour into “Blue Hour,” but we had an agreement with the guard, and didn’t want to find ourselves locked in overnight, so we left at 8PM.

Malacca City is the capital of the state of Malacca, Malaysia. Malacca developed into one of the most important trading ports in SE Asia during the 16th century. Malacca was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008, and is an exceptional example of multi-cultural heritage. At its center is Jonker Street, the main street in Chinatown.

The Jonker Street Night Market is one of the most popular tourist markets in Melacca. It is open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 6 PM – midnight, and has some of the best street food we have experienced. We treated ourselves to freshly made potato chips (center), fresh oyster omelettes Upper-left), and fresh cooked scallops (lower-right).

At times Jonker Street has a feeling of being in Disneyland. You will find brightly lit pimped up pedicabs carrying tourists around the old city (top two rows), and boats filled with tourists riding the river (bottom-center and bottom-right). Walking along the riverfront, you pass by dozens of bars, many with live music. Even away from the “Hawker Food” (their name for street food vendors), this time of night is alive with people of all ages and country origins enjoying themselves.

The photos above don’t really give you a good sense of what the atmosphere is like with the hundreds of pimped up pedicabs, each blasting music at full volume. We stood on a couple street corners, and captured a few examples in video form, to help bring this to life in 50 seconds.

One thing I found humorous was the number of pedicab passengers spending their ride time engrossed in their smart phones, rather than the ride around them. There were others though, that were fully enjoying the ride, rocking and swaying to the music and each other.