Clare's aunt had spoken so highly about her time in Melaka back in the 1980s, especially about the vibrant colours of the architecture, and so we were very much looking forward to this stop. Melaka has a George Town (Penang)-esque quality to it for sure, with stunning street art, and plenty of agreeable side streets to stroll down. What it didn't seem to have much of in stark contrast to George Town, was space! This charming little city felt very crowded and congested with tour groups, which we assume was not how it looked in the 80s. But as always, there is a reason why people flock to the places they do, and we can certainly understand the appeal.

Melaka is in fact so nice to explore that we wished we had allotted a little more time to it - our three nights did not feel like enough. We were also intrigued by the fact that you could take a not-too-long ferry through the Malacca Strait over to the Indonesian island of Sumatra which would have been a fun excursion! We spent our brief time in Melaka unfortunately having to share Clare's camera as our Malaysian camera lending days were now over, and we will say that this task was an exercise in extreme patience for both of us. Clare had brought along her little point-and-shoot camera from last year as an emergency back up camera that would have been great for this situation, but realised when she tried to turn it on that she had in fact been carrying around a camera for 6 months that was not even working, and ready to be formally thrown out. Ah, well. Our highlight of pretty Melaka was probably a night time river cruise where the little bridges come alive with colourful lights and you get to sit back and relax out of the heat and sun! We might be ready to be done with both of those things for a little while. Good thing it is almost time to get back to England, where those items always have the potential to be in short supply!