Malacca: The Malacca Straits Mosque, sometimes called the “floating mosque” because it extends over the water, offers fine views of one of the busiest maritime choke points in the world.
Tourists in the storied Malaysian port town that lends the strait its name enjoy the mosque’s back deck at sunset, watching the monolithic container ships that trundle through placid waters, and the changing colours of the sky.
If you were to stand here for a year with binoculars, you would see a quarter of global seaborne trade pass by. More crude oil comes through here each year than even the Strait of Hormuz.
For centuries, the 1100-kilometre passage bound by Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia – only a couple of kilometres wide at its narrowest – has been the great maritime link between East and West.
In this late-afternoon panorama, we count eight container ships near and far, each heading towards Singapore, old Malacca town’s modern-day successor as South-East Asia’s major trade emporium.
Some of the cargo may be heading to a store or pump near you – more than 40 per cent of Australia’s imports and about two-thirds of its exports pass through the strait.
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