Melaka Holiday – Day 1: Night Market and Street Show

Well having experience the day-time in Melaka – the first ‘night’ experience was going to be very enjoyable. Melaka is quite unique in the sense that it has a daily night market – where they close Jonker Street and a number of side streets and establish stalls and markets throughout. The buzz was electric, and it was certainly fun wondering around and being part of it – ergh and ‘trying out’ the various food stalls around too – well one has too, no? 🙂

The highlight of the night – well I did do a bit of research and read up (I think it was on the lonelyplanet.com website) that there was a nightly street show at the junction of Jonker Walk and Lorong Hang Jebat at 8pm each evening.  The Kung Fu expert is called Master Ho Eng Hui – and in he is a Guinness World Record Holder for piercing 4 coconuts with his index finger in 30 seconds – ouch! 

If you’re not familiar with the strength of a coconut’s husk, think back to Tom Hanks in the film Castaway. Remember how he spends hours hurling a coconut on the rocks trying to break the damn thing open? Now a soft little human finger just shouldn’t be able to pierce through a coconut’s husk, let alone the interior nut – but this guy really does it and has been entertaining folks by doing so for over 35 years – and he would then show us how its done during the night show.  With the slogan ‘Malaysia Boleh!’ (literally ‘Malaysia can do!’) Dr Ho Eng Hui is in fact a doctor, and this display is also also a sales pitch for his medical products – and there seems to be a lot of buyers for his remedy medical oils. 

(the videos will be posted here, once I’ve reviewed, edited and uploaded them to youtube 🙂 )

I then strolled back to my apartment – and was I was shattered from all of that exercise (walking), and I stopped off at a food stall nearby to my hostel for a quick bite – before I went to the Dorm and relaxed for the night!