Our last night in Melaka was spent eating some amazing satay at
Capitol Satay. After a 40 minute queue we were ushered to our big
metal table with a gas burner in the middle and a pot of satay sauce
was put on to boil. While waiting for the sauce to heat up we helped
ourselves to various meats, veggies and snacks on sticks. Once the
sauce was bubbling we spent an hour cooking the sticks in the satay
pot and making a huge mess of the table. The owner was keen to point
out that if we ate more sticks than anyone else had done we would eat
free. The men’s record is 182 sticks and the women’s is 83. The top
woman was from St Helens!! We didn’t get anywhere close even between
us 🙂

The next morning it was an early start with the morning call to prayer
echoing across the town. The guy doing the call to prayer really
belted it out and it really gave the place a great ambience.

We jumped on our bus and after 5 hours, our last land border (unless
we nip into Mexico from the US) and a few more passport stamps we were
at our guesthouse in Singapore.

Now, this guesthouse completely blows our usual budget out of the
water but the Guardian rates it as one of the best in the world! It’s
called One Florence Close and it is pretty darn good. It has showers
just like the one we have in our flat in Manchester and two very
wonderful Persian cats called Romeo and Pepper who are so superior
it’s hilarious!

The beds are ridiculously comfortable which makes a huge change to the
past few months so we’ve had some great sleep, which after all the
walking we have done is very welcome.

The pic was taken at the waterfront over the new F1 circuit.

We caught our bus from KL to Melaka which amazingly left and arrived
on time. We then got a local bus from the terminal into Melaka town.
Then it went downhill a bit… We walked down some very hot streets
with our packs to find that Sam, the owner of our guesthouse, was out
and so we couldn’t drop off our bags. Thankfully a very friendly shop
keeper offered to look after our bags while we went for a drink to
wait for Sam.

After half an hour we returned to Jalan-Jalan guesthouse and finally
met Sam and checked in. We asked Sam where we could find an ATM and a
travel agent as we wanted to book tickets to Singapore. He said the
only way to get them was back at the bus terminal we had just come
from and we would have to go soon as they sell out on weekends!

We headed straight to the bus stop but the bus had just left and we
couldn’t face sitting in the heat waiting. So we decided we would try
to walk. Big mistake.

The Rough Guide we have (published late 2008) has a Melaka map from at
least 5 years ago. As we did not know this we followed the map to the
bus terminal to find it no longer there. It is now 3km out of town!
We thought as we had come that far we should at least try the walk but
after 1km it became clear these were not roads for walking.

Annoyingly all this faff could have been avoided had the Melaka bus
terminal information point not had a 3 hour lunch break. Oh yeah,
Melaka also has no maps anywhere for some reason. For a UNESCO tourism
site it’s amazingly difficult to figure out at first.

Thankfully that is where the bad things finish. That night, after a
comfort pizza, there was a night market with some of the oddest sights
we have had in Asia. There was a huge Kareoke stage (photo) and all
the temples were being used for more kareoke and latin-type line
dancing! We wandered the streets for a while and then collapsed back
at the guesthouse.

This morning we got up early and managed to get a bus to the terminal
and grab some of the last tickets to Singapore. Then a bus back to
the town to try and appreciate it this time!

Melaka old town is a cross between Hoi An and Georgetown but a little
more touristy. There are some really interesting sights and buildings
plus we saw a naked guy having a wash by the river. The locals were
very amused.

We stumbled upon the best hidden secret in Melaka all because Jen
needed a wee. It is a Korean cafe which has tables and benches over a
fish pond which you put your feet into while enjoying a refreshing
fruit juice and the fish nibble on the dead skin on your feet!!! It
was cool, felt a bit wierd and tickled Ben a lot but excellent fun and
we both now have silky soft skin. This is defo the most bizzare place
we’ve been. What will we find next?!

Tonight is the weekend night Market again and we are off to sample the
cook it yourself satay. Yumm!

It’s our final night in KL and we’re knackered from all the walking
and exploring we’ve done over the past 4 days, not to mention the
underwear buying in the M&S we found in the mall under the Petronas
Towers!

We’re certainly ‘malled out’ after being here – they’re all either as
big or bigger than the Trafford Centre and quite often there will be
two or three next door to each other. We were even let into the
exclusive curtained room of an expensive watch shop to look at a
£100,000 Franc Villa watch!

We’ve both got colds and so found a Chinese tea specialist in China
Town where we drank pretty yucky but apparently cold-curing tea.
Hopefully that’ll do the trick.

This is the pic we took tonight to send to Gem for her birthday
(yesterday) which we have recycled I’m afraid, but we do love those
towers!

Born yesterday, let us introduce you to our twin baby nephews: Samuel
George Butler (with Judith) and Rhett Holman Butler (with David). They
are gorgeous and making us feel incredibly far away! We can’t wait to
meet them in 4 months time. Meg is just fine, looking incredibly well
and Tim hugely proud in the other photos we’ve got.

Apart from waiting for the exciting news from home we have been
exploring Kuala Lumpur and really like it. We walked the majority of
the city yesterday and today, including going up to the Skybridge
between the Petronas Towers and exploring a few of the, literally
hundreds of malls.

Currently sitting in our hostel room waiting for a famous KL storm to
pass over us. Yeh!