A Melakan Christmas

Staying with Caleb was awesome. Not that it inspired awe, like a snow-capped Mount Fuji or a whale shark swimming overhead, just that I've been around Americans too long and I've started using the adjective for want of anything else between great and fantastic.

The drinks menu at a cafe where we asked
for directions

Finding his place was a challenge, as despite being able to walk to the general area and having an exact address, three of the people we asked for directions had no idea, two confirmed that we were on the street, but had no idea where his apartment was, and finally one pointed at the big sign opposite... we'd been less than 100m away the whole time.

We initially intended only to stay over Christmas, but Caleb almost immediately invited us to stay for bowling, paint-balling and his farewell party, as well as offering us a lift back to Kuala Lumpur when he moved there on the 28th.

The Couchsurfing Christmas Eve party was quiet, but fun, with a dozen people from around the world converging on the little 'AK47' bar, drinking beer and getting to know each other. I spent most of the time chatting to Mark (not Mike) the programmer from the UK, who was couchsurfing in someones penthouse suite and 3(?) years into his search for a country and place he'd like to live in!

We left pretty early though, and Caleb took us for roti canai, a very cheap snack and only the first of many handy food tips we got from Caleb. It was about this time I started feeling like shit, though, and I was shattered and into a full-blown cold/flu by the time we got back.

Bowling on Christmas day was cancelled, as people had forgotten how expensive it would be on a Saturday holiday. Gave me a day to rest though, but I didn't get any better. The best part of our stay with Caleb (and his housemates, Fa'ku and the invisible man) was that despite the fact we were bedding in their shared living/kitchen space, and despite the fact we spent so much time lounging around there while I played the poor flu-struck invalid role, we never felt any less than welcome. We really valued that atmosphere of easy-going relaxation, and combined with Caleb's talkative nature and love of food it made our stay a really pleasant one.

Talking of food, that day we had some of the free purple dragon fruit from their company's plantations, excellent stingray from a cheap restaurant, cendol (shaved ice dessert) and coconut ball sweets, all thanks to Caleb.

Caleb modelling a free goody bag full of
snacks and drinks

We didn't join paint-balling either, though I had been really looking forward to it, opting for another day of recovery. The evening of the 26th there was a huge festival at the Portuguese settlement, with the main draw being free food. I have never seen so much free food, available to anyone who wanted it as many times as you cared to jostle for it. The 'white devil' curry, named after us foreigners, was very tasty. Everyone ignored whatever was happening with the guest of honour and events on stage.

The settlement itself was a riotous display of Christmas decorations that outdid any commercial display I can remember. Just about every private home there was wide open and lit to the rafters with 'Happy birthday Jesus', reindeer, Santas and enough illumination to catch a year's worth of squid. That's a strange comparison, I know. I've spent too much of my adult life in Hakodate.

At Caleb's farewell party we met Eugene, Shaun and his fiance whose name I can't recall. Shaun was the funnyman, totally at ease acting the fool and the life of the party. That made it all the more surprising to learn he was the inheritor of the largest accounting firm in Malaysia, and was about to marry the daughter of the second largest (her father, being a long-term rival of his father, didn't approve). We later got turned away from a very exclusive member's only club because half of us were wearing shorts and sandals, which rather fortunately meant we got invited back to Shaun's mansion... and a bloody impressive mansion it was too. I can't remember ever having sat in such an expensive living room drinking such expensive wine before. Shaun was very enthusiastic about Couchsurfing once he'd found out how we'd met Caleb, and as I helped him set up an account I was imagining how future Couchsurfers would react if they ended up staying in one of his many guest rooms!

About a week after that night, on an island far removed from Melaka as I was picking up some laundry I pulled out my wallet and the following conversation occurred:

"Are you police?"
"Er... me? No. I was a teacher."
"Your card, it's police."
"Oh, this. It's from a friend, but he's an accountant." (I notice Shaun's card sticking out of my wallet, and the police seal on the corner)
"Can I see?"
"Sure."
"Oooh, I know his face."
"Really?"
"Yes, he's very smart."