Melaka was my favourite stop in Malaysia, such a pretty town. It is a bit schizophrenic in style - it has at various points in history been under the control of the Portuguese, Dutch and British and it blends these influences with those of the Malay, Chinese and Indian population. The town centre is a collection of red buildings (the red paint being a Dutch contribution) with a pretty fountain dedicated to Queen Victoria, a miniature windmill and some Portuguese-esque tiles on the ground. It was here that I saw the tourist police patrolling on horseback and I visited the serene, if not striking, Church of St. Francis Xavier (who is famed for spreading Catholicism in Asia).

At every turn I was offered a ride in a trishaw - a three-wheeled rickshaw-like vehicle powered by a driver on a push bike. The trishaw drivers in Melaka compete to have the most elaborate vehicle in order to grab the attention of tourists - most are heaped with flowers, tinsel, umbrellas, lights, etc. in comedy fashion.

Atop a hill in the middle of the town are the crumbling remains of St. Paul's Church - the views from there were fantastic, virtually all the buildings in town are low apart from one tall Holiday Inn hotel that sticks out in the landscape - I don't understand how such an eyesore was permitted. At the bottom of this hill is Porto de Santiago - once part of a three metre-thick fortress wall built under Portuguese rule and destroyed by the Dutch, only this small section can still be seen today.

Over the bridge in Chinatown, I had lunch of roast duck with rice balls in an exquisitely decorated Chinese courtyard-style building. This was followed by a yummy coffee and egg tart (a Portuguese legacy) at a nearby bakery.

Later I walked around Chinatown admiring the fascinating mixture of buildings - rows of European-style buildings, many of which have beautifully restored Chinese interiors (some serve as tea shops, galleries, hotels, etc.), occasionally interspersed with very traditional Chinese style buildings (temples, clan houses, shops). There are lots of Chinese temples, including the interestingly modern Xianglin temple with its minimalist interior, across the street from the stunningly ornate old Cheng Hoon Teng temple. Further along the same road is the Kampung Kling mosque with its Chinese-style tiered roof instead of a dome and the small, simple Sri Poyyatha Vinayagar Moorthi Hindu temple, which is more than 200 years old.

Also in this area is the Wah Aik 'bound feet shoe shop' that made shoes for women with grotesquely deformed feet from the practice of binding them to give the appearence of having tiny feet - considered the height of beauty by Chinese women at one time. The owner's son told me that it is the only remaining shop of its kind in the world, though today it serves more as a gallery/souvenir shop than as a shoemaker.

As I was heading back to our guesthouse I noticed another pretty Chinese building and went in to have a nosy - it turned out to be the Cheng Ho cultural museum, dedicated to the Chinese explorer Ming Admiral Cheng Ho, who they claim was the first person to circumnavigate the globe. The museum had closed for the day but there was a tea shop section that was still open, a lady working there asked me to stay and said she would give me a complimentary dessert, which turned out to be a warm, sweet bean soup type thing. She chatted to me for a while, telling me about the bell in the courtyard - apparently a replica of one in Nanjing, China; the tower encasing it represents Heaven and Hell. She told me about visiting her son who is working in Shanghai and is going to marry a Chinese girl he met there.

She asked if I would like some tea and I felt obliged to buy some after all that, then she spent some time explaining the particulars of making Chinese tea. Just as I was about to leave the manager of the place asked me to stay to watch a puppet show that they had prepared - it turned out to be quite funny, telling the story of Cheng Ho's life from his castration to become a eunuch at a young age to his expeditions around Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

After the puppet show I made another attempt to leave and was cornered by some reporters from Kuala Lumpur who said they were making a documentary about tourism in Malaysia and wanted to ask me what I thought of it and whether the government were doing enough to protect their heritage sites (?!) so I may be appearing on some random Malaysian TV channel at some point in the future!

In the evening we had some delicious Nyonya food - typical of the Baba Nyonya people of this region (descended from intermarriages of Chinese and Malays). For dessert we had chendol - crushed ice with condensed milk, burnt sugar and some green gelatine strips (for decoration!) - it looked bizarre but tasted good. In the distance we could see an amusement park and managed to track it down after dinner - probably not the best idea straight after eating a big meal but it was a lot of fun!