Day 8 Melaka

A huge day of travelling from Tioman Island brought us to Melaka about 10.30pm in the evening. We had no idea what our accommodation would be like as we booked it about 3 hours prior and there wasn't much to chose from seeing that we would be arriving the weekend before Malaysian Labour day. Our little taxi with no seat belts took us to the 1st Inn Hotel right on the edge of vibrant China town. Noise, horns, karaoke from the surrounding bars, colourful tuk tuks blasting Adele and Lady Ga Ga, the smell of food and thousands of people on their way to the Jonker street night market greeted us all at once. We dumped our bags in our surprisingly spacious room for $30Aus a night and took off for the night markets in search of food. We had managed to book a room right in the middle of the action on the edge of the river and within a 2 min walk to the creative hub of Jonker street. After exploring the stalls and sitting down to a bowl of Curry Mee (a local noodle curry, consisting of coconut milk, spices and fish) bed was calling after an exhausting day. Melaka was originally a Malay fishing village however in 1511 the Portuguese conquered the city and soon after the Dutch, then British. The European influence is still hugely evident in this pretty little city with many of the original buildings still standing, and many bakery's and street stalls selling the famous pineapple and egg tarts. Walking along the river side almost feels as though you are in Europe. During our 2 days hear Mike and I took a tuk tuk ride around the city which was hilarious. We learnt about the Melaka tree which opens its foliage to the sun during the day and closes it up again at night (sometimes its referred to as the tree of life - for you mum) We explored St Paul's Church built in the 1700's and other historic buildings, spent hours visiting stalls on Jonker Street, walked the length of the river admiring the street art and water displays, and Mike even learnt a few very cleaver card tricks from an old magician "selling" his secrets.