Having carefully completed the previous two entries in a word processing program, I got cocky and put this one straight into the blog and thought I had uploaded it. Opening up this morning, I discovered that I only had a part of the uncorrected and incomplete earlier version. oooops.

Another side note. As I don't have a laptop with me this trip, and I haven't worked out how to load pix onto the iPad, I am using generic photos for the blog entries. I'll put up the others when I get home.

Ok. Back to re-doing the blog.

Soma has planned my entire visit to Malaysia, so all I have to do is follow the bouncing ball. Next bounce, the historic town of Melaka/Malacca.

Monday December 10 (our anniversary) began in KL with a family breakfast in a vegetarian restaurant with cow's milk coffee and egg naan. Then I had to make my way to the Bandar Tasik Selagan Integrated Transport Terminal to get my bus to Melaka. Following Soma's excellent directions, I hopped the LRT to KL Central, then a KLIA transit train to the bus terminal. Unlike so many bus terminals around the world, this one is bright, clean and modern, with more in common with an airport than the grungy places elsewhere.

Buses for Melaka leave every 15 minutes, and I was quickly on my way for the two hour trip to Melaka Central for the equivalent of 3 Aussie dollars. The trip, on Malaysia's excellent toll roads for the most part, was smooth and uneventful. I arrived to be met soon after by Mary, a Uni classmate of Viji's and her daughter Esther. She and her husband had Iocated an excellent guest house, right on the river bank in the heritage area of Melaka,walking distance to everything. Called Riversong, it was a newly refurbished property .. My room had its own bathroom - a "wet" one, where the shower goes all over everything, but everything worked fine, and while the room was small and had no window, the fan and air con we're just the ticket, and the wifi let me talk to Anne for our big day.

Mary dropped me off and we arranged to meet about 7 for dinner when we would be joined by Laurence and both daughters - Esther and Isobel.

I didn't waste any of my valuable time. Just dumped my bag, put on my hat and set off to explore. At that stage, I thought I was going to have to get a bus at 1030 the next day to get to the airport for Penang, so every moment was valuable.

I headed for the main drag and took in the well preserved Dutch buildings - all painted in a brick colour - that are a remnant of the colonial era of the Dutch East Indies Company, and a major part of the reason for Melaka's World Heritage Listing. The Stadhuys is just one of the many buildings that are now museums - youth, political parties (UMNO), Islam, maritime, you name it. The streets in the heritage zone are filled with cycle rickshoaws decorated with the most extravagant artificial flower arrangements. On the down side, some drivers feel the need to blast loud music all over the neighbourhood.

I followed the road ways along to the harbour and back, then reverted to the riverside path from which you can see the cruise boats passing in their scores. The Melaka river is only about 20 metres across, yet it is Rclearly deep enough for these floating billboards, mainly promoting a brand of chips called Mr Potato, eaten, if we are to believe the signs, by the entire Manchester United football team.

Next focus was the Jonker Street, a commercialised strip of shop houses, selling everything the tourist might desire, and by then it was a long time past lunch and it looked like it was about to rain. This, a Nyonya laksa, ordered without prawns, came with only three prawns - but that hardly counts. In the time it took me to eat, the brief shower had passed over, and I continued on my way to explore the Cheng Hoon Teng temple. A little shopping and it was about time to head back to Riversong to tidy up for dinner.

Right on time, Mary and her older daughter Isobel pulled up out front - no mean feat in Melaka's well trafficked, busy streets. I was swept away to a Chinese restaurant to join Laurence and Esther for a lovely meal and chat.

It was interesting to get a sense of the depth of feeling in non-Malays about the government's positive discrimination policies. As Soma had often said, the real option for Indians and Chinese is to leave the country, or to make it possible for their children to do so. This hardly seems to bode well for the country in the long term, and makes something of a mockery of the government's 1 Malaysia campaign.

When I left my hosts, the plan was that, despite my protestations, Mary would take me to the bus terminal for the only bus that would get me to LCCT on time. The trip was rather longer than Soma had thought, and buses less frequent.

I was up at 8 and on my way to breakfast when Mary rang to say that they had realised that their company driver was going to KL that day anyway, and therefore I could have the morning in town as well. I used the opportunity to climb the hill to St Paul's church, now a ruin, and to have a look at the surviving remnant of the A'Famosa fort, a vestige of the Portuguese settlement days.

Mary picked me up at 11.30 and took me to their company shop front, from where Hassim was to take me to LCCT. Mary had warned me that she didn't know if he spoke much English, but he was quite able to make himself understood , so the two hours passed quickly. This time, Hassim took some back roads to cut across country, and the overwhelming impression was of the greenness of the countryside.

I arrived in plenty of time to check in, grab some lunch and get my Air Asia flight in this temple to cheap travel. Although the flight was delayed, and the ticket was only about 30 dollars including baggage and check in, there was nothing nasty about Air Asia. The crew were proficient, professional and courteous, and the plane, while lacking in leg room (never a problem for me) was well equipped and maintained.

We took off nearly an hour late into the monsoon rain, on the way to Penang, and another of Soma's friends, Ramen.