We were pleasantly surprised by the bus we had booked from Singapore to Melaka - air con and huge reclined seats... who said travelling was hard work?! Four hours later we were on a local bus into town where we met a very friendly local man who worryingly kept stroking Marks arm and repeatedly asking us why we didn't have children, were we going to have any and when...!!

Our hostel 'Tony's Guesthouse' was tastefully decorated with artwork by Tony himself.... our favourite piece was a painting of a man bending over and breaking wind! That sums up the place I think!

Melaka itself has a really quaint old world charm with dutch, portguese, chinese and british influences dating back as far as the 1400's. The night market in China Town was an experience with stalls selling the most tacky stuff ever and rickshaws covered in lights, flowers and tinsel, blaring out Rick Astley and 'Daddy Cool' zipping along. The food from the street stalls was tasty, although Mark was slightly disappointed after buying a tasty chocolate treat to find it was grapes covered in chocolate rather than something altogether more fattening.

We spent our one day in Melaka wandering the town and soaking up the atmosphere...however it was unbelievably hot and we had to retreat to air conditioned museums for respite (the result of which we know everything there is to know about Malaysian Independence and maritime history!)