After Steve fed us coffee and toast (thanks Steve... Theve!), and sent us away with cereal bars, fizzy drinks and water (thanks Steve... Theve!), we took our very nice bus to Melaka. It was more like a flight, and the "VIP" seats came with complimentary drinks and a proper table that folds out of the arm.
Before we did any touristy stuff, we made sure we got to the post office - one of our errands was to post back the room key that we had accidentally taken away from the Cameron Highlands!
Melaka is a lovely place - in another life, I would have decided to stay here longer. It was an important port in the history of Malaysia. There was also some sort cultural event going on regarding the people and students of Melaka. There was a long collage of photographs of local life several metres long in the city... below is just as small part of it.
We walked to see the remains of the old fort (which protected an important well from being poisoned in the past) and St Paul's Church, both importannt monuments in Melaka's history. The skyline views from the church were nice out towards the sea (including the Maritime Museum on a replica ship), but were distubred by the hideous massive erection of the Holiday Inn (not pictured, because I only want to show nice pictures!).
Afterwards, we chose Stadhuys as the museum of choice. They do a "Night Museum" here, which was great, were we got an evening ticket for \round 50 pence each! It was a good representation of the history of the eras of Melaka (Portuguese->Dutch>British->Japanese->British->Indpendence), as well as some insight into Melakan culture. The building itself is also set on a nice fountain square. There was also a little windmill marking the relationship between Melaka and the Netherlands. On the way back to the hotel (the very nice Baba Hotel that I recommend), there were some nice river views.
For supper we had a chicken rendang and a Lakhsa, as well as some other nibbles we coudln't help eating. This was our last night in Malaysia, so we tanked up on Malaysian food!
