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Published: September 8th 2006
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Paul - Just to start off the blog today, there's a cool gift winging it's way home to that special someone in my life. I hope they are looking forward to it.....
Saturday 2nd September Laura - Caught our bus to Melaka at midday and arrived around two hours later. First impressions of Melaka are great. It's such a pretty little town. The bus took us around the centre of the town, past the central square, where there are really nice Dutch buildings. They are a deep red colour and really stand out. Very European.
We checked into "Shirah's" hostel, which is quite cosy and quirky. It has a cute little balcony and reading area, but best of all there are kitchen facilities with free tea and coffee! So, always looking for ways to save money, me and Paul got ourselves over to the supermarket to buy some cereals and bread (and Philidelphia Cheese!!!) for packing up.
After grabbing a quick bite to eat me and Paul went for a stroll into Chinatown, while Holmsy went to find an internet cafe. Chinatown was very lively, with street performers and market stores set up all along a narrow
street, called 'Junk Street'. We could hardly move for the crowds of tourists wandering around, so we decided to escape down a random side street and came across a live band playing outside a bar. They were quite entertaining so we decided to take and seat and have a couple of drinks. The next band to come on were cracking out the tunes and there was a big sing-a-long to Oasis' "Don't look back in anger" and Four Non Blondes' "What's going on" (indeed). It was quite bizarre, as even some random old local guy seemed to know all the words!
After amusing ourselves there for a while we strolled back to our hostel. Paul got bird poo on his arm when we stopped to look up at a tree which seemed to have hundreds of noisy birds in it. It was a very romantic moment!
Sunday 3rd September Paul - Melaka is beautiful. That's the general feeling about today's blog so if you can't be bothered to read or you're supposed to be working then that's Melaka for you.
If you're still reading then we FINALLY had cereal for breakfast this morning. Cornflakes and
milk....... the only thing that could top it was a bit of toast with peanut butter.... mmmmm! Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to buy any peanut butter in the supermarket as it would be impractical to carry it round with us. Allowances should be made for things like peanut butter. Breakfast in Australia will consist of peanut butter and toast feasts! Is it wrong to be excited about this?
We'd decided to do a slow walk around the historic port of Melaka today. In the 15th century it was the biggest trading port in the whole of Southeast Asia with the Portuguese particularly interested in it. After a whole host of battles the Dutch finally took over in 1641. They then decided to build some remarkably nice buildings before the port slowly declined.
We'd seen it last night but I have to say that the town square is lovely. Christ Church is a particularly stunning building but I'm not too sure about the huge green python that was being paraded about just outside it. The guy tried to stick it in our face as Laura screwed her face up at it.
Strolling down the many side streets was
a nice way to spend the day as the streets are narrow and have a quaint charm about them. Took quite a lot of photos of the houses as they really are that nice!
Laura and I went to the bus station to buy our tickets on to Singapore. Some lovely old woman was so insistent in showing us which bus to catch that we didn't have the heart to tell her that we already knew, thanks very much.
Another stroll round the market led to Laura and I realising we were missing one thing in our life... a 5 in 1 magnetic travel games set! Of course! After some small haggling we were the proud owners of a chess, backgammon, snakes & ladders, ludo and checkers game!
We then saw a street performer stick his index finger through a solid coconut. He's in the World Records book apparently.
Monday 4th September Paul - After the discovery of bread in the shopping mall who could resist another day of sandwiches!? Not me! With some lovely cheese in them too! Crackin' cheese Gromit!
Strolled around the sights we didn't see yesterday, Bukit St Paul,
a few churches and a fortress, to name a few. It really is lovely here and if it wasn't for our flight being so soon I think Laura and I would probably stay another day as we really enjoy seeing some culture.
Some people will be pleased to know that I also bought a new t-shirt today from a quirky art shop which was selling some nice things. I'll be sending the pic of my purchase on to Katie some time soon just in case it's not "cool" enough (she's in fashion now, you know?)
Had a light dinner before, excitingly, doing some washing!!!!
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Mum
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Broughton B& B
Hi to you both, hope you r well and have found somewhere nice to stay. Trust you have received your requests from the e mail. We have been very busy over the last few days entertaining Italians - more colourful than the Welsh - and we have been invited back to Sardinia - so cant be bad. Mike I am sure will explain how this came about some time. Lots of love Mum xxx