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After catching an early bus that we had booked on-line paid for by Paypal and had delivered by SMS to our Singtel phone (very technologically competent, I know), we caught a bus and then the metro to the coach stop. After a mad dash due to missing the first bus from Farrah's by the skin of our teeth, we got on the KPB Bus headed for Malaysia!
The bus had huge reclining seats and we happily whiled away the journey listening to Friday Night Comedy from the BBC aka the News Quiz. I do like Sandy Toksvig, I must say.
I had booked us into Tony's Guesthouse in Malacca (or Melaka depending on which country you come from), through HostelBookers which came with the added benefit of some fairly good walking directions from the memorial clock tower. It seems that most cities/colonial towns all have clock towers dedicated to Queen Victoria. Best quote thus far from the Cochrane:
Me: Standing a 60 feet, one foot for every year
Andrew: Where are the feet?
Malaysia wither does not appear to grasp the concept of pavements or has decided it does not need them. Having incredibly bad spacial
awareness, this has meant extra due care and diligence are needed for me to walk along the road than the normal hawk-eye look out of my walking partner. There also seem to be a lot of open drainage/sewer systems in places where you would expect a pavement to be, so when travelling with the backpacks we have had to take things rather slow.
After checking in to the very hippy hostel featuring such photographic gems as the “Give piss a chance” mural painted on one of the toilet doors, we headed out for a wonder around the World Heritage Town.
Jonker Street market was my kind of place. Stalls with all sorts of food, spices, dried fish, and weird tac that people like me like to put on our windowsills. Requiring a toilet stop we were directed to a building that resembled a Chinese Temple, beautifully painted and decorated with ornate tigers and dragons. Upon entering, we came across not only toilets, but a grey haired man singing some of the worst 80s karaoke I have ever heard. Andrew decided that if this wasn't the Temple then it should be and thereafter we referred to the building as
the “Karaoke Temple.” Whether it was a temple or not we will never know.
After some fresh coconut and trying the local delicacy of “Chicken Rice Balls” (which to me just tasted like rice and chicken stock but were still pretty good) we wandered along to Cheng Hoon Temple. This clearly was a temple with incense and flower blessings on tables in front of the various shines. The painted wooden carvings of green dragons were incredible detailed and really beautifully sculpted.
After another quick wander through Jonker Street Night Market to buy some pineapple tarts (a delicious pastry which tasted like mini-treacle tarts made with pineapple in the treacle) we headed back to kip.
The next morning we were rudely awakened by the sound of drilling from what turned out to be a building site next door. Hoping for a lie-in after the day before's early rise, we were slightly disapointed by the excessive drilling that continued over the following 3 hours and forced ourselves out of our wonderfully air conditioned room. Finding no-one around at the Hostel to fix us up some breakfast, we wandered back to Jonker Street looking for an early lunch. Finding most
of the market closed for the day we headed back to a bar we had visited the day before – the atmospheric Geographer. I enjoyed a delicious star fruit juice and satay whilst Andrew guarded his poorly stomach.
We next took a boat trip along the Melaka River which entailed a nice smooth boat ride of 45 minute long and with some of the most useless commentary including “on your left is the new theme attraction pirate ship to encourage tourism.” The boat trip was a welcome break from the direct heat, however, and we both enjoyed taking in the sights and sounds of this old World Heritage Town. There seem to be many new developments and malls appearing on the horizon which will inevitably boost the tourism but the town still retains a lot of its old charms and village houses.
In the evening we found a quiet restaurant/bar on the river front to while away the evening.
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