Year 2008 Christmas celebration at Portuguese settlement in Melaka

In 2008, Christmas fell on Thursday. So everyone in the company I’m working for were told to take the Friday off to clear our accumulated annual leave. So I had a long weekend, from Thursday till Monday. What I did during these days? I went to Melaka (Malacca) for Christmas.

Driving to Melaka from Kuala Lumpur takes around 1.5 hours. One thing noticeable about Melaka is the abundance of flowering plants and fruit trees. Nearly everywhere you go, mainly in the town or residential area, you will see various type of flowering plants. I can bet with you that Melaka has the most mango trees per square kilometer in residential areas compared with all the other states in Malaysia.

Portuguese settlement welcome entrance

Since it’s Christmas time, one of the must visit places in Melaka would be the Portuguese settlement in Melaka. It is quite a short drive from Melaka city centre and located by the seaside. I went there around 7:30pm when the sun is setting. Paid RM2 for the parking and managed to park along the seaside. It was nice watching sunset at seaside after a long time.

Portuguese settlement seaside where I watched sunset. Lisbon Hotel can be seen here.

The new Lisbon Hotel at Melaka Portuguese settlement seaside

Portuguese settlement food court for seaside dining

As it got darker, the street lights and Christmas decoration lights were turned on. Now is the time to see the famous Christmas home decorations in Portuguese settlement that I’ve been hearing about.

Portuguese settlement parking entrance

Portuguese settlement museum and Christmas 2008 open house board at the back

As I walked away from the seaside, around 100 meters in, I saw Portuguese settlement houses. Some houses were newly built and renovated nicely to modern design but there are still many existing wooden houses, resembling a village from the past.

Modern house with beautiful Christmas decorations

Simple but nice small wooden house Christmas decorations

Nearly all the individual houses are brightly lit with decoration lights put according to the owners budget and creativity. Some are simple and some are very grand as we see in shopping complexes. The stretch of streets were also lit with decoration lights. The trees wrapped in decoration lights glow in the darkness.  It was really beautiful. And the place was crowded with local visitors and tourists.

Portuguese settlement street decorations

Grand Christmas decoration outside of a house in Portuguese settlement

Christmas palace decoration with Santa Claus

Christmas crib and decorations in one of the house

A Christmas house function in one of the house

They had Christmas open house in the Portuguese settlement during daytime which I could not go as the whole Melaka town and surrounding areas were crawling in traffic jam, so I had to divert and cancel my plan.

Overall, the Portuguese settlement is very well decorated to potray a jovial Christmas celebrations mood. If you get a chance to visit Melaka during Christmas, you should not miss this place. Visit it and enjoy the Christmas mood by the seaside.

Update 19 Oct 2010: This article has been featured in HotelTravel.com’s Festival List. If you are looking for a great selection of places to stay with discount prices, visit Hotel in Melaka for more information.