We arrived in Melaka around mid-afternoon to a rather homely hostel/hotel however with the most basic room you will ever see! We had a window but it was out on to the hall way! Exhausted and boiling, our trip leader told us of a rather swanky hotel with an outdoor pool that you can pay to go in, it was all we needed! So we practically grabbed our things and ran. The hotel worker took one look at our grubby, sweaty selves (we blame the boys for this) and shook his head and directed us down the road to the public outdoor pool so we rather disappointedly went in search for that. We got a bit worried when we got there and the man at the door asked alyx (who was wearing shorts) if she had any trousers! we also saw a dress code sign that instructed all women to wear swimming costumes and all men to wear speedos. The boys jumped in quickly but we (being nearly the only girls there) hesitated for a while. Was a bit unnerving when men just kept showing up with out any kids and just sat at the side of the pool spectating. We were so pleased when the only other woman who showed up sporting a bikini was rather obese - that was way more offensive than us so we whipped off our towels and jumped in quickly!

After the contraversial swimming we met the group in the really lovely town, it was so clean and pretty, it was like walking through one of those fake towns in Universal Studios. Our leader arranged for us a tour of the town but we did it in style on Tri-Shaws which are basically bicycles with a 2 seater cart attached to the side decorated in flowers and lights. Felt quite bad for our driver as it was boiling and he had to keep riding up slopes, we wanted to show our encouragement but we thought that giving him a slap on the arse in these parts of the world may have been frowned upon!

Spent our only evening in Melaka in our hotel garden and had some local takeaway, had a few drinks obviously - it would have been rude not to!!

Oh and rather annoyingly, we found out that some girls from our group went to the posh hotel for a swim after we had tried and got in with no questions asked! Needless to say that they made sure we knew how nice it really was!