Today, Sunday, we reached Melaka. It was easy enough to find our hostel, once we had found a taxi. Taxi's are really cheeky here, charging over the odds for a journey, so being the cunning girls we are we walk away only for the men to call after us ok ok!! We are staying in 'Travellers Lodge' A really nice place, it has hot showers+a rooftop terrace+a lounge area+a kitchen. All for 2.50 quid each! We then set out to discover the city, and find some lunch. The shopping centre is not that far from where we are staying, so we decided to eat there. We visited the 'Bukit St Paul' area. It is a large fort that contains the dark timber Palace of 'Istana Ke Sultanan', which had a sharp multi-layed sloping roof and very expensive outer wood cladding. There were several museums around and we went into the 'Museum of Ethnography'. it was really interesting as it housed some of the original foundations of the city as well as detailed paintings that described the forming of Melaka - including the historical focus on Portuguese,Dutch and English ownership. Next we went to 'St Pauls Church', a roofless and desolate building, that was built by the Portuguese. Following a path down we found the 'Stadthuys' Building, a collection of Dutch built houses which was used as the Town Hall by both the Dutch and then English settlers. Tonight we are going to 'Little India' to find a restaurant recommended in our guidebook. Last night did not go as planned, when we got to 'Little India' all the shops and restuarants were shut. We then went to 'Chinatown' as we had been told that a night market was on- this was true -but still all of the restaurants were closed. We finally ended up at a seafood cafe about 2minutes down the road from our hostel!!! The food was good though. Today (Monday) we went on a boat trip up the 'Sungei Melaka' river which took us to the north of the city. The river was really quite dirty but the guide explained that there was a regeneration project up and running in the area and that the river-by 2008- would be cleaned and the whole area modernized. I have to say that all in all the idea seems a good one but near the mouth of the river the village of 'Kampung Morten' is a collection of old style stilted houses from Melakan Malaysian history and it would be a shame to destroy this gem of a place. One such house, "Villa Sentosa", was open to the public so we went in and met the lovely old lady that had lived in the house for 50 years. She showed us round the typical Melakan style house - long living room and kitchen, small bedrooms and narrow verandahs that had very special styled steps leading up to them. The houses were colourful on the inside and outside to. From "Kampung Morten" we took the #19 bus to 'Taman Mini Malaysia". It had full-sized reconstructions of typical houses from the 13 Melay States and other Asian countries. We had lunch at the cafe, meeting and chatting to the owners (who had studied in America) as we ate. Tonight we are going to check out the local nightlife in and around "Taman Melaka Reya" where we are staying. Tomorrow we are heading to the 'Pulau Tioman' island via the fishing village of 'Mersing'.