Ok so wea re finally nearly out of asia!!! Only Malacca and singapore left to report on.
So we arrived in the centre of malacca not far away from the local china town. We had read in the lonely planet before we left kuala lumpur that there was a good budget hostel called Eastern Heritage and it took our fancy as it claimed to have a dipping pool!!! We got there at around 4 in the afternoon and went to check it out. We were really gutted when the man behind the counter informed us that they were fully booked and would probably be for the next few days. So it was back to the usual routine of wondering round in the blistering heat with our bags on our backs. We did in fact get really lucky when we came across a hostel called Tonys place. Luckily for us a room was reserved for the next morning but the owner allowed us to stay for the night as long as we made sure we were out first thing. The hostel was really nice. Every room was brightly decorated and painted with each one following a thai theme. We stayed in the Koh Samui room which was pretty cool. So it was up early in the morn to check out and wonder the streets once more. We decided to check out Eastern Heritage just once more in case lady luck was shining down on us and much to our joy she was! we got settled in and admired the building. It was built in 1918 and was one of the oldest buildings in malacca. To descibe the building would make it sound tacky but the outside was decorated with ornate flowers and the inside dipping pool was really deep and had been in the building for years. Right in the m,iddle of the building was a huge winding wooden stair case. The place was so old and clearly nothing had changed since it was first built which was really cool. Taking care of the place was a really scatty, slighty strange say it like it is woman but more about her later!
That first night we decided to check out the weekend market in china town. The main street was so long, it literally took hours to walk from one end to the other, firstly due to the length of the road but also due to the fact that it was chocker block full of people! The stalls were really interesting to look at with so much jewellery. Out of all the thing to buy we ended up buying something really random....coffee! Although neither of us really like coffee we walked past a woman giving out testers and as you do we had to try. No joke this coffe is the best tasting thing ever! We bought a wholesale bag of the stuff and even went back the next day for another! After the market we went for a quiet drink in a nearby pub and sat outside on the table next to us was a man with a huge iguana which just sat on his shoulder whilst he drank! It was so entertaining as his table was on the side of the street so as people were squeezing down the market roads they were coming up close and personal with this thing without noticing until they were side by side with it then all you could see was arm waving, and jumping and all you could hear was people screaming! It was so funny to sit and watch!
The second day we decided to have a walk around the small city and check out the sights. As the place was quite small and quiet the wasnt actually too much to do but they were a few nice buildings which were all bright red inn colour, apparently due to the citys dutch history. We had a really nice luch on the side of the river before heading back to the hostel. Heading back to the hostel was however no as simple a task as we imagined it would be! We got completely lost after decideing to try and get home a different way to which we had gone previous times! We ended up in the middle of nowhere! The only people we found that tried to help us was a group of chinese travellers who had just arrived in mallaca and were looking for there hostel. We joined there group for a while in attempt to find there hostel and ask the owner for directions but as soon as we found it the woman claimed to have never heard of our place!!! That is how far we had managed to walk away!!! In the end we finally found a petrol station after wondering round for over two hours! we eventually made it back to the hostel after the usual ten minute walk to china town had in fact taken four hours!!!!
The next day was a fairly quiet day, after all the walking we had done the previous night we didnt feel to much like wondering round the city. For the first few hours of the day we simply hung out in the room playing card games and chess after eating (such exciting people!!!) This was when the incident happened. This incident has been nicknamed the poo incident for the follwing reasons: Whilst in the room we heard the 'say it like it is' woman come stomping down the coridoor and start shouting at the couple next door to us about some water that had leaked though the ceiling and to the downstairs. The man explained that his wife had gone to use the toilet and there had been poo wiped all over the floor, up the wlls and all over the toilet!!! disgusting! she shouted that we were the couple next to the toilet and we had returned back to the hostel at around the time the last toilet check had been done and were just about the only people in the hostel between the times of the checks and the incident occuring!!! We were in the room with our ears up against the door sniggering. However once she had left we realised that we loked guilty due to us having hidden in our room! When we went down to the reception we were greeted by this crazy woman who began to quiz us about where we had been, what time we had got back, whether we had poorly tummys and whether we had taken part in some kind of poo throwing competition! it was so funny yet wierd, we were stood there in the reception defending ourselves trying to reasure her that we knew perfectly well how to use a toilet!!!
After getting over the horror of the poo incident we decided to have dinner in a cafe across the road form our hostel. We had no idea what the cafe served but every day there was the largest que outside of people waiting for seats so we figured it musyt be good and joined the que. Once we finally got some seats we noticed how famous this little back street place was. The walls were completely covered in pictures of all different celebraties that have dined in the place. The food consisted of fire pots in the middle of the table filled with peanut sauce and a long chiller at the other side of the cafe filled with all sorts of maets and veg. It was really stange though as we really didnt enjoy the food very much! It was ok but we are still baffled as to why the place was so popular and why such celebraties would choose to come to one of the smallest towns ever just to try the food in this small dingy cafe!!! After overdosing on penut satays we decided take a ride on one of the famous trinshaws. Like the ones in Penang however these ones were decorated with tons and tons of flashing lights! There wasnt an inch on these bikes that wernt cover in trashy lights. We negociated a price and hopped on. As soon as we set of the driver turned on his music which alerted us to the fact that on the back of the bike there was a huge sub woofer and for the whole ride we travelled round in this thing which flashed like mad and blasted out scooter! Fun though (paige would have loved it haha).
Thats all there really is to say about malacca, it was a small town really with not heaps to do but was pretty and the weekend market was great.