This morning we awoke to the news that there was a water festival happening in the Portuguese settlement area of Melaka. Arianne told us that she was about to head off there with a few others and asked if we wanted to go along - yes please! We'd read about the water festival that happens every year in April in Thailand, but we'll miss out in that, so we were excited that we'll get to experience something similar here. Outside the hostel, we met up with the Chinese violin player, a German guy called Robert, a guy from New York called Matthew and a Taiwanese lad (not sure of his name, but he was very young) who were all coming along.

We walked to Dutch Square in the centre of town where we caught a couple of taxis for a few quid. We were dropped off at the entrance to the street where the festival was happening, and we could see from the people throwing water at the entrance that we were going to get soaked…and we did! Within a few seconds of heading in, we were drenched by people throwing buckets of water and firing water guns across the street. There was a huge water truck that drove up and down the street spraying water and people throwing water bombs. It was brilliant - everyone was out enjoying themselves, young and old, and they seemed pleased to see us there. A few older Portuguese people approached us with shot glasses of wine, to keep us warm ('You get wet, you get wine!' according to one lady!) and we slowly made our way down the street getting wetter and wetter along the way. A few people in our group were picked up by some young Portuguses lads and dunked in giant ice buckets - luckily we managed to avoid that one! We eventually made it to the end of the street and stood at the little port there for a while to try and dry off. We tried to get back to where we started via another route, but couldn't find our way, so back down the water gauntlet we went - this time we were much quicker and got away with only a light soaking!

We had a wander around and stopped off at a restaurant where we had donuts and coffees. Time to go back to town…we were worried that we might not be able to get a cab as we were soaking wet, but we managed to find one that turned out to have an entertaining driver included in the price. He spent he journey back to town reciting acronyms he'd made up for countries around the world. Each one went something like 'Italy, capital is Rome, Am I right? I-T-A-L-Y Am I right? Italy stands for I trust and love you!' Others included France (Friendship remains and never can end), Malaysia (May angels look after you since I'm away), Holland (Hope our love lasts and never dies), and on a different theme - Family (Father and Mother I love you)! He kept telling us how these were his own creation and not from the Internet - hmm!

In the afternoon, we went into town to look for a chemist (I had stomach problems!) and we took a trip to Menara Taming Sari, an 80m high revolving tower in the centre of town. It was quite pricey to go up there but worth it for the views of the city, all the way to the port.

Back at the hostel we met two newbies - Laura from London and Kate from Brisbane. In the evening we all headed out as a big group to the night market again, with Yanky leading the way to his favourite sushi stall to start us off. Sushi isn't normally our thing, so we picked a couple that we recognised from the huge menu - egg mayo and tuna mayo! They were really good (especially with wasabi!) and a good appetiser to start off our night.

We then passed a stall selling huge spring rolls so we grabbed a couple of them and went to watch the karaoke. Again, there were lots of singers taking the whole thing very seriously, and a hilarious backing dancer who wore a shiny silver suit and only seemed to dance using his arms! We even saw a duet, who might have been VIPs as they got to sing two songs! While we were watching, we spotted a man in the front row with a thin plait in his hair sticking straight up like an antenna! He saw us looking at him and started to beckon to us! Matthew went over and came back with a handful of Malaysian pennies - one for each of us! Maybe they were to bring us good luck!

Our other food stops included what looked like crisps, freshly made and served on a stick with your choice of topping. I went for black pepper (very nice!) and Laura went for spicy (very hot!). Our final stop was for a freshly made apple and star fruit juice - another great night at the market!

We headed back to the guesthouse to cool down with a few Tiger beers from Mr Lee!