We were awoken by the bus driver shouting "Melaka!". A frantic gathering of our belongings and we were up and out of our seats and dumped at the hot, dark, central station of Melaka. It's 6am and it's a ghost town.

We had to wait 30mins for the busses to start operating before making our way into the the centre of Melaka.

The town was dead. Nothing was open and all guesthouses were displaying "full house" signs in their windows. It was still early and when we stumbled upon an open cafe we sat for breakfast. Chinese tea, Chinese pork filled break, dim sum, and a sweet peanut filled dough ball. Granted it wasn't a full English fry up but it did the job!

We walked and walked all around china town. It's 8.30 and there's few people to be seen. Any Guesthouse that was open was full and any hotel with space was super expensive. We decided to seat with a coffee until the streets showed signs of life.

With 9am came the sound of shutter doors opening and the day beginning. The second guesthouse we visited had a room free and it was at a good price, it was also river fronted! We checked in and dumped our bags. After showering and checking the place out we hit the streets to see what Melaka has to offer. The sun was out and so were the people! The ghost town turned into a fun town. The guesthouses and hotels emptied with guests as they flocked to the streets. Cafés were queued up in the streets and cars did the conga around the small quaint streets of Melaka. Very similar to Georgetown in architectural style, small narrow shops and houses uniformly line the blocks of streets and alleyways. Chinese temples fill the air with incense, and rickshaws (three wheeled, pedalled bike/chariot) carting people around create the soundtrack with their poor choice of music blasting from their hi-fi's.

With no desire to queue for fried rice with the masses we headed for a home comfort, Hard Rock Cafe Melaka! The prices were enough to put off the wealthy but we didn't care!

Straight in, no queue, burger, chips, and coke! Pear jam blasted as we filled our bellies and emptied our wallets with American pub grub!

We spent the afternoon wandering around, more window shopping, and just taking it all in.

We took advantage of the free tea and coffee at our guesthouse and sat on the terrace overlooking the river. We drank tea, ate the free crackers, and read magazines to our hearts content.

Still full from the Hard Rock we went fro a stroll along the fairy lit river front and around Chinatown. The honker street market was on and everyone and their dog was there. It was a sardine can of people squashed into one street looking at the tat that was on offer. We ended up not eating dinner and heading back home for yet more tea and crackers!

Siobh stayed up into the early hours FaceTimeing and I called it a night.