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Our bus from KL to Melaka was strangely an all male, all Indian bus .. so when we boarded Michelle took the usual 'white woman stares' in her stride.
Malaysia has great transport links and the travelling along the English looking highway only took 2 hours. Another local bus dropped us at the pornographic sounding 'Red Dutch Square'. Melaka is a world heritage/UNESCO site and is very much like Hoi An in Vietnam (for those who have not been - its old, colonial and well kept).
Our guesthouse was called 'River view' which was ... well on the river with a great view!. We were the only guests in the house and we took full advantage of claiming the relaxing chairs on the balcony before heading off for a curry. We were recommended a curry house called Selvam for lunch and paid just 80p for unlimited curry rice and water - which were served in true Indian style - on a banana leaf with no cutlery!!
Melaka is very pretty and on our first day we just strolled from street to street taking it all in. The next we did the 'Lonely planets (our guidebook) walking tour' which
comprised of a million temples/Churches, a shoe shop where they still make traditional dutch shoes, a huge Portuguese ship which you could look around, the history museum, the war museum, the government museum and every other museum you can ever think of! We eventually stumbled on a shopping centre the other side of town and had a breather.
Sorry to say but we had a McDonalds (you do get bored of rice!) before finding a cinema were we watched a movie called 'Uninvited'. We also caught the eye of an eager massage machine salesman and 'tried out' all the machines on show, looking really interested and occasionally asking the price as we may 'buy one and ship it home'.. yeah right!!!! still we got some free massages!!
The guys at the guesthouse were great. On the first night Marni and Raymond cooked us a Veggie curry and we spent the evening chatting about all kinds of stuff (if you are reading this thanks guys!!!). 3 out of the 4 nights we stayed we had exclusive service as we were the only guests staying and of course first shout on the balcony ;-) so our stay was very special.
Each weekend Melaka gets packed jam full of locals and tourist who come to the market on Jonker street (the main street). Stalls line up all the way down the road selling everything from sour grape juice to daggers and there was even a guy who promoted an ointment to help with swelling of the body! He attracted a huge crowd who stood in a semi circle while he smashed a coconut karate style, his wrist swelled only to put on this magic ointment and then his arm got better... magic!!! Walking past the street sellers we came across a professional Karaoke competition!! No really it was!!! they had 2 Simon Cowell style judges sat at the front of a large crowd marking singers and trophies on the back of the stage for the winners!!
Our visit to Jonker street was not complete without the pussycat workout!! Walking past a hall blaring out 'don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me' made us wander over .. only to witness the funniest thing ever!!! A mix of grannies, uncles, Sisters and homeless people dancing along to the hypnotic beats of the Pussycat dolls! We assumed it was a
keep fit class for anyone to join (we tried to upload our video to this blog but it didn't work!!!!)
We also tried a local dish called Cendol which is a dessert made from shaved ice, soya beans, coconut milk, palm sugar syrup and green beans! sounds weird.. but was extremely addictive!
On the way back to our guesthouse the streets became very crowded, hundreds of people were on the sidewalk waiting for something? we asked a local if they were waiting for the bus??? as you do!! and apparently a parade was due any minute. We decided to stay, mingle with the crowd and witnessed an almighty stampede of people dressed in traditional costumes carry a variety of shrines. A float carrying monks blessing people by throwing water over them, saw us hiding and stopped in front of us. Of course being Westerners decided to give us many blessings and soaking us in the process.. only on this occasion we kept the camera from death by drowning!
The last event to report in Melaka was a Monitor lizard sighting. The guys at the guesthouse told us they flock the river banks at lunch for a bit
of sunbathing but we kept missing them until the final day when we got a glance of one.
We had a great time in Melaka and enjoyed our stay. It's a really hot climate as it's right on the coast so we head off to Singapore hoping for cooler days!!
If you read our blog.. keep the comments coming as its always nice to hear from you!!!
Lee and Michelle
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tracey ball
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JEALOUS!!!!!!!
Your journey has been amazing so far can't wait for the next episode of this great adventure. I look forward to your weekly updates her back in boring old Liverpool and it's raining boohoo hope you are well.