Malacca is a curious juxtaposition of Chinese, Dutch, and Malay. Malacca has a quaint old town with Chinese, Portuguese, and Dutch shop houses, and there is a Hindu temple, a mosque, and the oldest Chinese temple in SE Asia (maybe) all on the same street. Today I learned about the difficulties of preserving some of these old places. I visited a conservation project that is trying to renovate a Dutch shophouse using original materials, which includes lime. Evidently lime is porous and allows excess moisture to escape, while cement and paint seal it in and ruin the walls from the inside. The house next door has used cement so salt deposits leach out onto the conservation house's walls.
Down the street is the home of an obviously wealthy (über rich) Chinese family of the 1930's. Huge and gilt, the place is a museum of museum-quality furniture, house wares, embroidery, and house décor carvings. Down to the underside of the stairs and the railings in the stairs, everything is detailed and touched with gold. Gaudy, but beautiful.
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