In the post about Georgetown, Roland exagerated a little, saying I took 500 pictures in one day. That is not true; I merely took 128.
However, I managed to take 250 shots in Melaka, and here is why!

Let me just get this out of the way - I love Melaka! In fact, Malaysia as a whole has been a total surprise for us. It’s funny that we heard so little about it before we travelled, and we feel it doesn’t get as much attention as surrounding countries, while it certainly deserves it. Roland said that the only wrong thing with Malaysia is that they don’t drive on the right side of the road. And if it’s not right it’s wrong, right?

Thailand was nice, the food was good, there are nice beaches, the people pleasant. But Malaysia just feels more real, and turned out to be our favourite south-east asian destination. The cities are vibrant and an interesting mix of Chinese, Indian, Malay, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist. People are friendly, and not just in the I-want-to-sell-you-something way, and eager to start conversations or simply ask where you’re from. The food is great (though less so in the islands, where the tuna sandwiches soon got the better of me), especially in Melaka, as you will see…

It was clear that we hadn’t given Malaysia the time it deserved, as there remain jungles, highlands and coastlines unexplored, but we decided to squeeze one more place in before Singapore.

Melaka is only 2 hours from KL by bus, so after a day in KL (mostly spent trying to get tickets for, then waiting to go up the largely underwhelming Petronas Towers) we hopped on a bus south, arriving in the dark, around 7pm (no long days close to the equator!) The big bus station (Sentral) is a few kms out of town, but we took the opportunity to purchase our onward tickets to Singapore for 2 days later. Buying bus tickets in Malaysia is quite funny, as there seem to be hundreds of different companies all offering rougly the same thing: VIP buses or super VIP to the same destinations at roughly the same times, for the same price and everyone is calling you over to their window.

Once downtown we made our way to the guesthouse, in the old part of town. We had booked ourselves into the Riverview Guesthouse, a really great place, it turns out, right on the river. After checking in we found one of the only places around open for dinner (they all seem to close around 6pm): Chinese!

The next day was a full one, as we only really had one full day in Melaka and about six restaurants we wanted to try!

First stop, breakfast at a vegetarian Indian restaurant for some roti canai and “teh tarik”, litteraly “pulled tea”, or yummy, sweet, milky, strong tea that is poured into your cup from high above:

From there we wandered over to the Red Square, through more covered arches…

…past little shops…

…until we reached the square (aptly named). The buildings are Dutch colonial, that the British painted red because the red brick was showing through the original white paint, and this way it would be cheaper. Or so the story goes…

The “trishaws” were lined up around the square:

More colonial relics:

We decided to take a little boat tour down the river. Originaly, this was how all the goods were transported from the sea to various spots in town, but now it’s just transporting the tourists. It was quite cheap and offered a nice breeze, so we didn’t mind!

The back of the guesthouse from the boat:

Enjoying the company of this fine lampost:

Some fellow passengers (Melaka is a big tourist destination for people from KL and Singapore):

A man caught napping, using his pack of cigarettes for a pillow…what else?

After the boat ride, we noticed a sign for a “fish spa” and had to check it out! Basically you just stick your feet in an aquarium for fifteen minutes and the little fish nibble off your dead skin, leaving your skin smooth…or that’s the idea anyway!

Guess whose feet?

I found it all rather frightening and kept taking my feet out of the water!

After all the excitement, we were feeling a little peckish, so it was time for Famosa rice balls.

Roland deciding what to have with said rice balls.

We chose well! Roasted pork and chicken:

Very funny Roland!

After a good feed up, we hit the streets for some wandering and excessive photo taking!

There were actually three of these tourist girls with matching hats!

Great old guy on a bike!

And another:

This is the “religious street”, with a mosque…

…a Chinese temple…

…and a Hindu temple very close to one another.

Melaka also has lots of shops with great and less great things to spend your money on.

Plastic shoes anyone?

The third, but not last, meal of the day was at a Baba Nyonya restaurant, which comes from the intermariage of Malaysians with the Chinese, and is he specialty of Melaka.

Baba Laksa (a sort of coconutty curry with prawns, hardboiled egg and fried beancurd - yum!):

Dessert was Cendol (like a snow cone with palm syrup, kidney beans and a strange sweet green rice noodley thing - also quite tasty!)

Every one had been raving about the restaurant Capitol Satay, apparently a Melaka institution, so we decided this should be our fourth and final meal of the day.
On the way to the restaurant we passed this little fella in the gutter:

He’s really about two feet long and kinda creepy. We heard there were lots of them in gthe river, but fortunately that’s the only one we saw.

So back to the Capitol Satay…

You get a big tray and load it with various meats, seafood, veggies, small dumplings, etc…

And stick it in a vat of spicey peanut sauce to cook it!

All washed down with the obligatory iced tea:

In truth it was a little disappointing, as in the end everything tastes the same and it’s not even super good. Kind of good (and I can’t believe I’m saying this about a peanut sauce), but wouldn’t do it again.

As our short stay in Melaka drew to a close, we hopped on the local bus to the main station…

to catch our Super VIP bus to Singapore. But not before one more bowl of Baba Laksa!