Melaka

It was off to Melaka this weekend to enjoy beautiful blue skies, chinese lanterns and random walks around the streets of this lovely town.We spent ages wandering round Chinatown, admiring the architecture, and browsing through the craft shops and art galleries. As well as managing to stop for a fruit shake or two we visited some chinese temples and saw the oldest Dutch building in Asia.

It was back to Chinatown in the evening and after browsing through the nightmarket a swift cold one was necessary at The Geographer. The place was heaving and the band were fantastic. Of course the only way to travel home in style is in one of these cheesy rickshaws complete with sound system belting out love ballads!

On Sunday, after a leisurely brunch, we stopped at Villa Sentosa, the living museum. The villa is a traditional Kampung house in Kampung Morten and is crammed full of antiques and collectibles. We were shown around the house by the 70-odd-year old son of the founder of Kampung Morten who still lives in the house. It was lovely to be guided by someone who was so proud of his family's history, his culture and his country. He was one of 12 children and uncle to no fewer than 85! Among the things he showed us were the seats that the King and Queen of Malaysia sat on when they visited the house, which we were encouraged to sit on emulating the photo of their Royal Highnesses, a wishing gong that you hit 3 times for good luck and various photos of the changes to Melaka over the years. He was a mine of information, some of it a bit random but all of it entertaining. He was particularly keen to show Malay hospitality and blessed us several times as well as plenty of hand shaking. Definintely worth a visit if you are in town.

All in all a fantastic weekend apart from having to abandon the beast after something bounced of the road making a hole in the radiator causing quite an impressive leak. Needless to say within minutes of popping the hood we were offered the services of two friendly mechanics who just happened to be passing (really is everyone a mechanic in this country?). Unfortunately after 5 hours of failed attempts to fix it we had to leave it in the service station and take a taxi back. However, Burn has managed to rectify the problem and all seems fine and dandy now. Hopefully we will be able to manage some more road trips in the future without the car giving up the ghost completely.