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Published: November 1st 2006
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Painting the Town Pink
Glynn couldn't help but wonder if the parish council had bought a job lot of this dusky pink paint. Donning our walking boots again, today we ventured out for a bit of a mammoth trek about town. We started off by picking up an excellent streetmap for 2 Ringgit from the Tourist Information Office and then took a closer look at the gaudy pinkness of the town square.
In the centre of the little square is an obelisk mounted in a water fountain and it's by this fountain that you can find a couple of locals hanging around an old handsome cab. Not the most obvious place to keep a couple of massive boa constrictors and a fully grown iguana you might think but that's exactly what the pair of rather shady looking blokes were touting - a chance to have a photo with one of these great beasts. Pay 5 RM and you get to hold one of the hefty snakes but me, I couldn't resist shelling out 3 RM for the chance to hold an iguana. As dodgy as the blokes might have looked (and we noticed that one of them also had 6 fingers on on hand), the animals were in great condition and a couple of policewomen were milling around the area without batting an
Reptile Cab
Where else would you keep snakes and lizards? eyelid to the procedings. Anyway, the chap without the 6 fingers popped the iguana into my arms and I spent 5 very wonderful moments cuddling and posing with him - it was brilliant. Glynn didn't seem to keen to follow suit and when I suggested he might prefer to hold a snake, he simply shook his head and ran off as quickly as he could!
We took a brief look around Christ Church but there was nothing of interest inside so we headed up the hill to the ruins of St Paul's Church after stopping to buy some deliciously juicy slices of melon from a street vendor. It was a bit of a struggle to get to the top of the hill, not because it was steep but because of all the bloody Chinese tour groups who insisted on barging into us as we climbed the steps. The view from the top was lovely and we could see all the way out to sea with the Portuguese galleon standing proud in the distance. The church ruins were pretty and inside there were a number of old tombstones that had been stood up against the wall. On one of these,
Can I Keep Him?
Jude wonders whether anyone would mind if she just kept the iguana. we were surprised to see a skull and crossbones and we couldn't help wondering if, in amongst all the noble Dutch, English and Portuguese tombs, one or two of them may have been pirates.
That idea seemed to hold more weight after we descended the hill towards the Dutch graveyard, where we found another tombstone featuring a skull and crossbones. Curiouser and curiouser. We then meandered along a few back alleys and side roads where we saw some lovely examples of old style buildings with a particularly Portuguese flavour. You could really get a sense of how Melaka must have looked 150 years ago. The back lanes led us round to the river and over the bridge where we took a look around Chinatown, although this only consisted of a couple of streets. Every now and again we would see a Chinese temple or something in a souvenir shop that conjoured up memories of our time in China. It seems like so long ago now...
When rain set in, we took refuge in a cafe beside the river and as soon as the skies cleared, we headed down to the banks to see if we could spot the
St Paul's Church
10 points to the first person to spot Glynn... big monitor lizard again. Alas the tide was out and he was nowhere to be seen but we did get treated to the sight of loads of little mudskippers skidding and flapping about on the mud. They are the funniest creatures to watch but with dark clouds still hanging over us, we headed back to the hostel rather than risk getting caught out again.
For dinner we went to a vegetarian Chinese restaurant that we had passed on our travels yesterday but that had been closed. As we passed, it turned out we were too early so we wandered over to another shopping mall we had seen but not explored yet. When we took a look around, it was hard to believe that anyone ever goes there to shop. Not only were most of the shops closed (possibly due to the holidays but it didn't feel like that was the only reason) but the escalators didn't work and the few people we did see, eyed us with such curiosity that we wondered if tourists ever venture over that way!
Back at the veggie restaurant we shared 3 wonderfully tasty dishes of saffron rice, fake chicken fillet with black
Skull and Crossbones
Pirates? What pirates? pepper sauce and tofu and veggies in a 'Vietnam' sauce. Not only did the food taste fantastic but it was really cheap at only 18 RM (about £2.60). The restaurant owner came over to chat to us and then his wife invited us to try a local dessert which she bought from a passing street vendor. It's hard to describe the flavour but the dessert consisted of coconut milk, some green doughy bits, red beans and ice flakes. It tasted awful and even though we didn't want to offend anyone, we just couldn't manage more than a couple of spoonfuls. Thankfully the owner, Steven, and his wife just laughed at the look on our faces as we tried to eat! We chatted some more and discovered that Steven is a well known vegetarian chef and has even published his own cookbook. Before we knew it, he had whipped out a marker pen and signed a copy of his book which he then presented to us as a gift because we had enjoyed his food so much! How cool is that?
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mom and dad
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food
it must be great tasting all the diffrent foods i think jude was vary brave handling the iguanna look forward to next lot off pictures love mom dad and lee miss you loads x x x x x x