Another new country! We left Singapore bright and early on the 9th November on a very lovely bus. Lots of leg room, huge seats...a guy even walked around and gave us free water and reclined the chairs for everyone - slightly odd actually. They even put a film on, Surrogates - I've never heard of it before but it entertained me for a little while!

After getting off the bus twice to show our passports at the Singapore and Malaysia immigration departments (and receiving some more stamps - woop woop!) we arrived in Melaka. It was a slightly shaky start...the bus dropped us on a random road in the middle of nowhere and we were instantly hassled by taxi drivers. After a few minutes we decided we had absolutely no idea where we were or how long it would take to drag our bags to the guest house and gave in. The taxi driver who had approached us was clearly in charge and seemed to know where we wanted to be, but the guy he got to drive us was a nightmare! I was getting slightly nervous as we drove around aimlessly, him continually insisting that our guest house didn't exist 'no guest house on Jalan Temmengong!'. He was wrong, of course. We eventually arrived at the right place, but only after our attempts at directing him and his getting out of the cab twice to ask directions!
What a relief when we went upstairs to a lovely lovely little place. Old Town Guest House is run by a Frenchman and his Malaysian wife, with their gorgeous little girl in tow. It really felt like home and was a fantastic base for a few days. The family live there too, so there's a lovely atmosphere. Toast and tea were free, plus an array of Malaysian snacks every morning. There was a lovely sofa area with a big TV and a selection of films, and we met some lovely couples to share stories and tips with. All in all I can't praise Old Town enough!

Melaka is a lovely little town. My first impressions were completely wrong. There was a lot of rain on our first afternoon, so we didn't venture out until later and spent the time watching Burn After Reading (very very odd film). Finally outdoors we went first to see the Church of St. Francis Xavier, and the beautiful red of the Dutch Christ Church. Here we were greeted by many many trishaws, all decorated to the extreme with brightly coloured flowers and other mascots. We soon learnt that locals were going to try to make us do things and being two blonde haired girls in western clothes wasn't going to do us any favours! We also had a wander around all of Chinatown, taking in Jonker Street, lots of shops and a few temples. Later that evening we went back to a spot we'd noticed which looked good for dinner, the Geographer's Cafe. Lovely food and lovely atmosphere. Maybe this Asian food thing isn't so scary after all! We spent the evening taking in the sights of Melaka from the river. The town is so lovely by night. They've really tried to make the most of the river area and all along the banks you see brightly coloured lights forming the shapes of the letters of the alphabet, numbers, even Christmas decorations. We also got to see some traditional Melakan houses (on stilts) from the boat. A very well spent RM10 (2 pounds!).

The next day we set off in the direction of the remaining sights. We wandered past another red building, Stadthuys, which houses a museum. Impressive from the outside but we didn't go in. The short walk around the corner to Bukit St. Paul was something of a gauntlet: school children were everywhere! And of course half of them wanted to giggle at us and say 'hello, how are you'. St Paul's is now the ruins of a church, with the massive slabs of gravestones propped up against the inside walls. There was a man with a guitar, singing and churning out boyzone classics - very entertaining! Being at the top of the hill also afforded brilliant views of the city.

We then took in the Porta de Santiago and the Proclamation of Independence Memorial - we later went inside and it was possibly the worst decision of the trip - board after board of information greeted us with nothing else to look at. There's only so much you can take in of this stuff! Especially in the sweltering heat and when you have very little prior knowledge of the subject matter. We made our exit after attempting to read one too many boards and headed over to the maritime museum instead. Much more interesting and is housed in a replica of Portuguese ship. They insisted on shoes being taken off when in the inner areas of the ship - something we'll have to get used to, as nowhere seems to allow shoes inside! The rain started just as we were leaving, so we headed back to the guest house and chilled out there for a while. You have to learn the pattern of these things I think, rain seems to come in the late afternoons! A little later we popped out briefly to see a monument to the Chinese victims of the Japanese occupation during WW2, another temple, and Hang Li Poh's Well, which from the guide books seemed quite interesting, but in reality was a stone circle with a wire mesh over the top and not much else! After munching on the strangely addictive pineapple tarts we'd bought we set off for a late dinner. Our attempts to find the restaurant recommended by the owner of the guest house were very unsuccessful, and after venturing into a back street with very little prospect of ever eating anything we decided our new favourite, the Geographer's Cafe was the best bet! Another lovely meal, followed with watching Slumdog Millionaire with our new friends at the guest house. Love that film!

We had a nightmare booking flights for our future destinations and were most disappointed when we realised we could have spent another night in Melaka. As it was, we had a lazy morning attempting to buy clothes (we didn't) and eventually decided to make our way to the bus station. Quite confusing, but eventually we managed to book ourselves on the next bus to KL, and even managed to find the right bay with no help whatsoever from the woman at the ticket counter! This bus was not as nice as our first one, and took 40 minutes longer than the advertised time, but that's for another story.