Selamat pagi.

We have now left Singapore, the land of the future, and arrived in a town called Melaka in Malaysia. This place is again quite bizarre as the town has a bit of an identity crisis - a cross between China, Holland and Greenbridge Retail Park Swindon (minus the chavs and grumpy people). Huge multi-storey retail parks are adjacent to winding alleys with Malaysian and Chinese style houses and temples. Next to this there is a small windmill, red brick town square with a church and a quiet canal. The town has been invaded by many many people over the years, which explains the huge mix of influences on the food and architecture.

After exploring the town we ran out of things to do, so we have been to the cinema, bowling and are about to embark on a trip to Tescos. We probably didn't really need to fly so far to do these things however. Bowling cost us 50p each and the cinema was a one pound each.

All the Malaysian people we have met so far are lovely, speak really good English and are ready to smile and help you out. There are some great artists here tempting us to spend our money in the little shops in the Chinese area.

in the local supermarket we were tempted by the pick and mix sweets, until we realised that if you weren't careful you would have a bag of smarties, raisins, jelly babies and of course, lemon flavour cuttlefish heads - yummy!

Tonight we hope to try the local dish of chicken and rice, having already sampled the other local favourite, satay, which is delicious but not very waistline friendly for two people who spend a lot of time sitting down.

On to the capital Kuala Lumpur tomorrow and based on our current experiences of Malaysia we have high hopes.