Once again we don't dare disappoint with our epic tales of travel in south east Asia - this time not due to a shoddy bus, a dangerous driver, an unknown arrival time - but due to our own lack of patience!! We decided not to wait for the direct bus from Jerantut to Melaka, oh no, we took option B...... this involved a change of bus no less than 4 times - unbelievably still getting us to our destination quicker than waiting for the direct, and only costing us a few ringgits more - maybe a good decision, even if a frantic one!

As on all good bus journies the trusty lonely planet had been summoned upon for a suitable guesthouse - the Eastern Heritage was the one we settled on, close to the main town with supposedly many endearing features. What we actually got was a bunk bed room with blue walls and bright yellow sun and stars painted on them - all together now "the sun has got his hat on, hip hip hip hooray....." - yep that's all that went through your mind whilst in the room. Needless to say we spent the rest of our evening looking for a new guesthouse, and checked out first thing in the morning!

After sorting our stuff out at the new non-themed room in the Travellers Lodge, we headed out to....... the post office! Believe it or not we had been carrying around our tea presents since the Cameron Highlands due to the fact that the day we traipsed all the way down to post them, was a Sunday! From there we went to the rainforest, funnily enough no Post Offices there, and now here in Melaka (4 buses later, remember?!) we were determined to finally rid ourselves of the extra baggage!

Mission accomplished we headed to one of Melaka's main attractions, their Maritime museum - which just so happens to be inside a boat! The boat itself is massive and oddly just placed alongside one of the roads. It has been built to look like a traditional Portuguese galleon. Once aboard you can look around the exterior, but downstairs is where the actual museum is. It covers the Portuguese, Dutch and British eras in Melaka and displays replica ships that passed through it's port during each. Very interesting with some lovely paintings too. Having seen and read enough to write our own book on the history of Melaka, we headed out to wander around the rest of the town.

Luckily on our first night we had stumbled across what appeared to be a pretty cool bar with (very good) live music, so we headed back for a proper look - and a beer of course! It was here that we discovered the huge glasses that hold the 640ml bottles - I could barely lift mine! Still, a few of those, some nachos and a great live act - what more could you ask for.

Our second day we decided to hit the Mahkota Parade shopping centre near to our guesthouse - mainly for the air conditioning I must confess! It was here that Christmas hit us rather hard - a full on snow scene with Santa was being created ready for some kind of show - how can it be Christmas when we're so hot?!?! We spent the day wandering around the well known shops, the small local ones, cafes, bars and restaurants within the complex - bliss. After all this serenity we mustered up the courage to board the local bus and head to the bus station to purchase our next ticket - our very first advance booking I hasten to add! Our bus took us past what had become a rather common sight whilst travelling - Tescos!!!!!! Every other time we'd seen one had been from a long distance bus, this time however it was smack bang next to the station, so after braving the masses in the ticket hall, we headed on over (it just had to be done!). Certainly different from those back home, in just about every aspect. It's like a shopping complex all of it's own, with smaller shops around the outside and a whole food court. Inside is like a warehouse in size, and volume of food and drink, and we quickly found ourselves heading for the things we had been most craving - cheese and wine!!! Once stocked up we headed back to our room and sat on our balcony watching the world go by whilst eating and drinking our stash!

Day 3 may explain the casualness of day 2 - an exploration tour of Melaka - by bicycle!!!!!! It seemed like such a good idea when we heard about it, yet as the temperature soared outside I found myself wondering!!! As with all good stories it began somewhat troubled - mainly due to the fact that our guesthouse hadn't actually rung the guy and booked us on - so we sat waiting for an hour whilst they frantically tried contacting him - and all the while refusing to admit that this was the case, but simply telling us he was "coming". The need to please here is simply amazing. More amusing was the fact that they wouldn't let us leave (due to his imminent arrival) to get breakfast, but also wouldn't serve us any as they weren't open for food!

Our guy - Alias - arrived full of apologies and we headed off - where's everyone else we asked? Nope, just you two today, was the answer - cool! After picking out our bikes for the day he loaded us up with water and mozzy repellent, and set off. Our tour began at the palm plantations. Alias uses the space between the trees as trails, making each journey not only different, but mostly covered from the sun too. His knowledge was amazing and he told us how the trees are grown and cut down in cycles, the many uses for the palm oil and the leaves themselves. From there we cycled to a rubber plantation. These are known as ATM's to the locals, due to the minimal care they require and abundant latex they produce. I'd never actually seen a rubber tree before and I must confess that seeing a strip of bark cut back to reveal liquid latex was quite amazing. More impressive yet was watching Alias pull off a strip of it, stretch it like an elastic band, then carefully roll it into a ball. He continued to do this all day and at the end gave it to us. When thrown on the floor it bounced a good 2-3 metres high - he told us that as children they used to come here to make balls from the trees to play with. He told us all sorts or stories about how, as children, they used the natural things around them to play with, and how different it is nowadays. We also saw just about every fruit that is grown in Malaysia along our travels. Alias took us to a small Malay cafe for lunch where we're still not quite sure what we ate as they couldn't translate it - all very tasty though, and literally pennies in price as it wasn't for tourists. After 6 very hot and sweaty hours we returned to our room for a well earned shower and nap. Unfortunately the bruises weren't so easy to shift!

For our final evening we headed up to Chinatown for the usual hullabaloo that can be found. As suspected it was packed with stalls selling everything from food and drink and tacky souvenirs to beautiful handmade scarves, jewellery, paintings and so on. In need of food we stumbled across a small restaurant tucked down a quieter street. It was here that we found the much loved dish - nyonya laksa. This is a bowl containing noodles (had to be them or rice!), quail eggs, tofu, prawns and chicken and clams, served in a spicy coconut curry. Delicious. We bought our last few souvenirs from Malaysia and headed back to a lovely outdoor bar by the river. The main draw being the bucket of beer on offer and the promise of MTV on their giant screen, but beautiful surroundings nonetheless! Our very attentive "waitress" Didi was at our beck and call all night having taken quite a liking to one of us ;o)

And so our trip to Malaysia comes to an end. Time to move on once more. This time to the bright lights, clean streets and the many many rules, of Singapore........