Melacca - Or is it malaka

We arrived in Melacca/Malaka/Melaka with Tash feeling a bit poorly (well ok, she had food poisoning, the both ends kind, and from bloody Spag Bol!), it seemed that the Cameron Highlands decided to leave a lasting impression. But she fought through.

Riverview Guesthouse gave us (me) a brilliant welcome and Tash escaped to the bed. The guesthouse itself is a converted warehouse. Beautiful dark wooden floors, high ceilings and a great feeling. With Tash still out of action I found a great Indian Tandoori place for dinner that was so good I brought some takeaway (forrrr Tash, yeah, well that's my excuse anyway). But on the way home the heavens opened and I was stuck. Well, until the owners came and found me in their car.

Melaka old town is world heritage listed and with good reason. With Tash up and about, the next days were filled with walks amongst the old buildings. Harmony Street has Chinese, Muslin and Christian temples/mosques/churches on it. The Dutch were the main settling colonial power here and for some reason they painted the town a pinkish orange. Quite a striking colour. There is a thriving artist community and plenty of antiques. Junkers Street has a great little restaurant that did a luscious laksa and a local sweet called Cendol. Its loads of finely shaved ice with Cendol (which is a green jelly thing), red beans, coconut and palm sugar syrup. Its absolutely delicious, if a little difficult for fragile stomachs. We went on a river cruise that showed plenty of water monitors (large lizards) living in the estuary and finally the skeleton of St Peters church where there's a great view of the straits.

Another great meal we had was at a local institution called Capitol Satay. Here the satay sauce is brought out to the table and kept bubbling hot by a gas stove. You choose your sticks of meats/vegetables and cook them in the sauce. Its famous and there was a wait on the street to get in. We had 23 sticks, 108 for the single record holder- kinda pathetic). Our last breakfast we had The Tarik, a Malaysian version of tea that is sweet and poured between cups to get a creamy texture, and vegetable marsala flat bread (buggered if I can remember it's name).

On to Kuala Lumpur.................