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Published: October 24th 2008
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Phew.....almost recovered from our jungle trek, although the journey between Taman Negara and Malacca wasn't exactly easy - It was made up of 4 buses, 5hrs waiting time for one of the buses, and a total of 15hrs from guesthouse door to GH door!
A good few days of lie-ins were in order - which is actually a rareity for us, we're normally up and out at around 8am, but for a few days running we were still sleeping solidly till about 11am!
Malacca is a World Heritage town and it really is charming. The old narrow streets of China town really are beautiful, similar to Georgetown, but the city also has a Dutch quarter, with big square building from when they settled here centuries ago. There's a massive mix of cultures here as the area has been dominated by so many countries through the years, Sumatra, China, Portugal, Denmark and then Britain took turns and so there are many different groups of people as all these settlers intermarried! Alongside all this history sits a glitzy modern side, with grand shopping 'malls' and cosmopolitan art galleries and restaurants.
Dan - Thanks Anorak.!...... Enough of the history lesson's now
for the fun stuff............Managed to find a toy museum which contained all the toys you had, your parents probably had, or at least the one's that were on your Christmas list. Although I was disappointed that in the Star Wars section there was no 'Millennium Falcon' and the Transformers section had no 'Octomus Prime'! still it was ok.
When we left Taman Negara my boots were muddy & soaking wet and we had a massive load of soggy clothes that weren't smelling particularly nice! After a days drying in the sun in Melaka my boots were almost dry enough to just brush the mud off. BUT bless the owner of our guesthouse (who we think has OCD in the cleaning dept as he never sat still, lining up shoes, wiping tables and cleaning) he relished the thought of cleaning all our clothes and when he saw my boots he seemed to have some kind of an excited fit.!! he grabbed them, raised his hand and said "High five, don't worry I clean them for you" great I thought, until Nic went into the kitchen and saw him dunking them repeatedly in a bucket of water!!!!
P*ss taking aside
he was an excellent owner, always helpful, trying to do you favors, and always tries to get everyone staying there downstairs to watch DVD's and play games in the evening (so if anyone is heading that way it's called 'Sunnys Inn' on JL Melaka Raya, in the newer part!).
Nic - Just a nice place to relax and mooch around really. We spent a good few hours just sitting and watching the world go by, and found ourselves pondering on the oddity of tour-groups, especially the ones led by a man at the front with a flag (as if his hawaian shirt wasn't bright enough in the first place!) We watched as they were led from historic sight to historic sight, and to make sure that the guide doesn't lose any of his group, they all get to wear the same baseball caps with the tour company nicely embroidered into the front!
We even saw one tour-group being cheuffered around 'en-mass' in the brightly coloured 'trishaws' (a bicycle with carriage attached to the side) which were hillarious enough on their own.....each one is decorated with plastic flowers, tinsel, and any other tacky thing you could imagine, and is
blaring out cheesy trance music, cranked up to the max, backed up with more ampage than a Vauxhall "Nova-dosed" kit car heading for the summer Max-Power festival!!! - Imagine this being peddled by an elderly Indian man complete with moustache and a couple of middle-aged Vietnamese passengers in their best frocks - What a sight!!!!!!
While perusing the nightmarket we were drawn towards a lot of noise and a live show - A man who has a world record for punching holes in coconuts with his fingers (not sure why you'd bother trying but hey!) anyway, Dan gets pulled up to assist in the show and select the coconuts!.....He assures me he softened the shell on his trial!!!
Dan - Actually because I'm so considerate I decided not to hit it too hard JUST in case I broke it - wouldn't want to show him up with my one-inch punch technique!! Although thinking about it maybe the Drunken Snake technique would of been sufficient!
Nic - We found a fantastic place for dinner one evening - "Capitol satay", we even had to cue for about 1/2hr, but it was well worth it. Your table has a fresh
pot of bubbling satay sauce in the middle (ontop of a gas burner) and you chose your feast from the large display fridge - skewers of prawns, tofu, chicken, vegetables, wontons, squid....the list goes on. You then cook your bits in the sauce....mmmmm, yummy, messy but very very tasty!!!
Anyway feeling a bit revived now so onwards to Kuala Lumpur to catch a flight to Borneo.........So more soon.
Us
xxx
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Karl
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No Millenium Falcon! No Octomus Prime! what kind of toy museum is that!! Hope u complained Dan. lol So whats the crack with that fingers guy? u know your martial arts Dan, is he really doing it? no tampering etc? loving the blogs. K