My third trip to Melaka. The first was a day trip from Kuala Lumpur, while I was stopping over on the way to southern India. The second was our Chinese New Year outing from Singapore.

The theme of this third trip, last weekend, was fusion.

I adore stories of adventurers and aspirants, mixing, mating, melding, and meddling their way to new states of being.

For this reason, early Southeast Asia, with its swirl of people, cultures, religions, goods, and fashions, never fails to capture my imagination. Here were people who were -- oh, so clearly -- looking for that pearl of great price, the lodestar that is of all things most sought after by humans, once their basic needs have been satisfied: OPPORTUNITY.



Melaka is steeped in this quest. So many opportunity hunters have fetched up here, seeking their chances through trade, conquest, marriage, art, and the exchange of ideas.

And what they have left behind is a glorious melange.

The Eurasian descendants of the Portuguese cluster by the sea over at the Medan Portugis. Here, at the Restoran de Lisbon, we ate crispy brinjal and delicious fish baked in a spicy sauce/marinade with red onions, cucumber, and lime. We toured the endearing little collection of Portuguese memorabilia nearby; and sampled the curator's home-made rice wine, which really does taste like port... He told us they still speak an ancient variant of Portuguese, and the Portuguese understand them, but not vice versa.



You can still eat some fine Portuguese fusion food in town, too. Eleven is still going strong, and their chicken dablo is particularly excellent (the spicy sauce undercut with just that requisite degree of sourness).



Of course, when in Melaka, you have to revisit the Baba Nyonya story, that archetypal fusion of the Hokkien and the Malay. Taking a tour of the Baba Nyonya House Museum or the Straits Chinese Jewellery Museum, and feasting your eyes on the extraordinary opulence of this beauty-filled lifestyle, is a great way to work up an appetite for some Nyonya food.

Our supplier this time was Nancy's Kitchen, where the convoluted layout of the restaurant is as interesting as the food is delicious. The first dining area being already full (by 12 midday), we went through into the lightwell area (which has been covered over and serves as the kitchen), picked our way round piles of boxed up pineapple tarts and the like, up the steep stairs, along the landing, and into dining area no. 3, whose window ("do not open") looked out over the busy cooks' area. Crispy little pie tee; candlenut chicken; four-angle beans with belacan; banana flower in coconut; and squid and prawns with petai beans: all exquisite.





Less known, but actually predating the Baba Nyonyas, is another peranakan community, the Chitty or Chetty. They, too, are a fusion, this time of Malay and Indian. Kampung Chetty boasts a collection of pretty wooden houses, an exuberant temple, and another of these touchingly simple little community museums.





There is something very poignant about these attempts to document communities, and gather together the obsolete items -- grindstones, coal-fired irons, ancient typewriters -- that don't necessarily typify a particular ethnic heritage, but do somehow evoke the PAST, which is perhaps feared to be slipping away. These little places are boulders in the river of modernity and uniformity. They have their place in our world, for sure.

Cheng Ho, I suppose, is fusion personified. Chinese and Muslim. Eunuch and sailor. Diplomat and power-wielder. His extraordinary journeys are chronicled in the sprawling Cheng Ho Museum.

This is connected, though we didn't realize it till the next day, to the Cheng Ho Tea House, where they'll serve you puer and rose tea in tiny cups, while you enjoy the temple-like surroundings.



One of their treasures is the little figure of Ma Tzu, the goddess of the sea. We've seen her in lots of places: Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan. And on 1 November a large quantity of Melaka's Chinese turned out to mark Ma Tzu's birthday with a massive procession, which took an hour and a quarter to go by our vantage point. As well as some large and impressive floats, it also brought into play a truly massive cast of participants, who variously opted to carry sedan-chair-like deity carriers; push small floatlets; bear dragons atop poles; wear lion-suits; beat drums or cymbals or other percussion instruments; wear other kinds of costumes; drive Minis or other vintage cars; ride becaks or motorbikes; or just plain walk -- all the way round the long, long route. I loved the fusion of ancient and modern, piety and quirkiness. I loved the sound of the instruments and Ma Tzu's song. I loved the incense clouds.





Finally, in this list of fusions, I have to mention Southeast Asian twists on affogato (espresso poured over gula melaka-drizzled ice-cream) and truffles (very successful chocolate versions of onde-onde and dodol).



I'm not a purist... Glug, glug, glug goes the rice port: Here's to fusion.