The ruins of St Pauls' Church.
We were only in Melaka for a couple of days, the bus journey from Singapore was extremely comfortable, with fully reclining seats and air-con. As we crossed the bridge to Malaysia, the scenery changed quite significantly - from the busy hub of Singapore, our view was now miles and miles of palm tree jungle. Having pre-booked two hostels before travelling, upon arriving into Melaka we booked into a random third hostel as they actually had vacant air-con rooms. The hostels in Malaysia follow quite a strong Muslim regime - no shoes are allowed to be worn inside.
The first evening we were treated to what will hopefully be the typical example of Malaysian friendliness. The Discovery Cafe (one of the few drinking establishments worth going to according to Lonely Planet) was that night's haunt, where the beers were cheap and the live music familiar; the landlady there couldn't have been more pleasant.
This is one of the many boat models inside the Maritime Museum - reminds of the boat in Zelda: Wind Waker :-)
She suggested everything worth doing in Melaka, recommended places to visit throughout Malaysia, and gave us a leaflet for accomodation in the Cameron Highlands (one of our future ports of call). Chatting us with us all evening, she finally asked us all to leave a message in her guestbook (which was extremely thick for just 2008) and insisted we stay with her for any remaining nights we were in Melaka. The end of the evening saw the lead guitarust come and chat with us as we had requested "Sultans of Swing" from him earlier on. He insisted we come back tomorrow night for karaoke (the rain that night had stopped play somewhat), claiming that he knew "not all of the songs in the world, but most of them".
The following day we ventured up the large hill near our hostel to the ruins of St Paul's Church, which was filled with tombstones dating back to the 1600s.
Chris, myself, and Rhodri at the Discovery Cafe.
In the afternoon we caught up with the Maritime Museum, a big replica of the "Flor De La Mer" which is a Portugese vessel that sank on its way back from Malaysia to Portugal. The inside explained most of the history of Melaka as a trading port, and how it was taken over by the Portugese, the Dutch, and finally the British. (Most of the info I've forgotten, as usual). Unfortunately we couldn't take a river cruise as the river was too low, despite the 'monsoon' from the day before, so we wandered over to China Town. Something that should be said about Melaka, nice as it is, is that it appears deserted - there seem to be more backpackers than locals and even those are few and far between. China Town was no different, so we found a bar!
Today we have headed up the coast via another comfortable bus journey to Kuala Lumpur, or KL as it's known - expect an update on that one soon. Oh, and more pictures :-D
