Home » Malacca, Malaysia

Only 2 Ringgit, Madam !

24 October 2009 15 Comments

Come to Malacca, and the first thing you’ll notice is them. Trishaws.
Lots of them.

So, it was Malacca. Time around 10 PM and we were taking an after dinner stroll. The tranquil river Malacca was looking at its best like a beautiful bride with colorful lights decorating it. Very far in the background we could see giant ‘Eye of Malacca‘ taking a rest for a while.

In this small UNESCO heritage town, the traffic was reduced to minimal at this hour.
The bridge, the main junction and the streets were very brightly lit. So much so that the street lights and other focus lights seemed to emanate a strange serene feeling. The beautiful red buildings had coloured the atmosphere red.

And then I saw him.

Going back home after a hard day’s work, heads down and pulling his Trishaw. Seeing us on the streets, he called out to know whether we would like to go for a ride.

“No, thank you“. We two were better off strolling, slowly absorbing the aroma of the place.

“Only RM 60. Muzik muzik.” He spoke in broken English and stretched his hand to play music for us.

No, thank you but can I take a picture of yours?

“Only 2 Ringgit, madam“. There he was in the dead of a night, not losing an opportunity to make money. I quite liked the way he made an instant demand. :)

Malaysian currency is Ringgit Malaysian (RM) or MYR pronounced as Rinngie (रिंग्गी). The locals also call it Malaysian dollar. :)

And this is Trishaw. Colourful, interesting and entertaining. Heavily decorated with plastic flowers, teddy bears, dolls and suchlikes.

At the back there is a large battery, something similar to car battery which helps playing the music system at a very loud volume and illuminating the Trishaw at night. There is also a small wooden cabinet to keep Trishaw puller’s personal belongings like hat, water bottle etc.

Generally the songs are latest popular English numbers and sometimes Bollywood Hindi songs as well.

The rates are RM 40-60 per hour per Trishaw and the music is free !
They prefer to move in a group playing melodious music and hearing that from a distance you can tell they are on a ride. :P

P.S.- This article belongs to Le Monde-A Poetic Travail. If you are viewing this on a website instead of your RSS feed reader, then that website is guilty of stealing my content. Kindly do me a favour. Please visit my site and help me taking action by letting me know against this theft.
Thank you.

Note- If you have not done so, you can follow me on Twitter and on Facebook.
Why ? Because they get updated with small nitty-gritties more often than this blog. :)

Posts related to this entry which might interest you :-

 


15 Comments »

  • Ram N said:

    Nicely chronicled … which building is in the 4th pic? Pleasant shades ….

    # 24 October 2009 at 9:51 AM
  • Nisha (author) said:

    Ram,
    That’s Christ Church. I’ll show you some more pictures of it. :)

    Still figuring out how to use Web Picasa. :P

    # 24 October 2009 at 11:29 AM
  • Trotter said:

    Hi Nisha! Just a short visit to drop by and see your beautiful pictures. But Malacca without the «Famosa» is not Malacca… ;) )

    Blogtrotter is now at Santa’s Homeland, an anticipated gift before Christmas ;) Enjoy and have a great week!

    # 26 October 2009 at 5:13 AM
  • Nisha (author) said:

    Trotter,
    Malacca has lot more ! Till now I have spoken about only the Trishaws. :P

    # 26 October 2009 at 10:09 AM
  • Zhu said:

    They are super colorful!

    I don’t think I ever rode one, it always makes me feel bad to see the driver huff and puff under our weight.

    # 27 October 2009 at 3:30 AM
  • Mark H said:

    I like the deep red buildings of Malacca.

    # 27 October 2009 at 6:03 AM
  • Pins N Ashes said:

    So colourful and lively….

    # 27 October 2009 at 11:35 AM
  • Nisha (author) said:

    Zhu,
    The reason you gave is very humane. :-)

    These rickshaw are very common in India also but still there are certain places here, where instead of front wheel we have the puller himself running !!
    That’s aghast, I must say. And I wonder why doesn’t anyone object to such inhumanity.

    # 27 October 2009 at 11:45 AM
  • Arun said:

    Oh.. they looks very pretty and colourful.

    # 27 October 2009 at 12:14 PM
  • Nisha (author) said:

    Mark,
    Yes, they are all over the place and at night emanate a very serene feeling. :)

    Pins N Ashes & Arun,
    Welcome on this blog.
    Yeah they are full of life.

    # 27 October 2009 at 12:18 PM
  • Peter said:

    So far, I only used one, in Vietnam. Somehow, I felt more ashamed than anything else… sitting there behind the sweating guy. But then, this is also a way of making some income…

    # 28 October 2009 at 3:41 AM
  • Anil said:

    Trickshaws because they’re tricked out?

    # 28 October 2009 at 4:16 AM
  • Vamsee said:

    They are so colorful and pretty. I thought rickshaws were an Indian thing. How was food in Malaca?

    # 29 October 2009 at 12:36 PM
  • Charu said:

    nice post! I loved Malacca – and the trishaws – so colourful! and the drivers, each of them with an attitude of his own…

    # 30 September 2010 at 9:43 AM
  • Nisha (author) said:

    Charu,
    I agree. But they all have an understanding for how much to demand and how to help each other as well. :)

    # 2 October 2010 at 7:24 PM

Leave your response!

Add your comment below, or trackback from your own site. You can also subscribe to these comments via RSS.

Be nice. Keep it clean. Stay on topic. No spam.

CommentLuv Enabled

You can use these tags:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

This is a Gravatar-enabled weblog. To get your own globally-recognized-avatar, please register at Gravatar.