Hotel Grand Continental Melaka

... at spotted me in the local Chinese paper the Sin Chew Daily! I am in the bottom middle picture in the centre holding the umbrella diagonally to block out the sun. The guy with sun glasses looking towards me is Pete another guy in our group. Natalie, Chris, Nic and Amanda are blocked out by other people. (D)

... GROUP DANCING! The Chinese people rehearse in their community centers and then on Friday nights, take their dances to the streets and perform en masse in open-air stages all around Chinatown. We saw a lovely rendition of Mariah Carey’s duet with Boyz II Men (“One Sweet Day,” I believe, circa 1995) led by a teenage choreographer who was a dancing queen (literally). If we can figure out how to post video, we will, because it’s seriously amazing ...

... road without any bends in Australia - 90 miles in total. We got very excited when finally the road bent round to the left, having almost forgotten what the steering wheel was for. After safely completing the Nullabor, and being a bit disappointed that the town at the end of it - Norseman - had no attractions at all except some statues of camels on a roadabout made out of corrugated iron - we headed on up to the mining town of Kalgoorlie - which is also very isolated in the middle ...

So it seems wherever i go the past couple of days this monk jumps out of nowhere and demands a donation its crazy i was taking a photo and all a sudden hes trying to force into my hand a piece of paper which if i accepted i would have to offer a payment (donation) I also find it really odd the fact that if you demand agressivly a donation or if you demand money IE: rob someone isnt that close to the same thing? anyways this guy was ...

... the first place I had visited in Malaysia I would have enjoyed ...

... describe the collective and culture. The food is a mixture of Chinese and Malay, but yet different from either. Heavy use of pungent roots, more sour and spicier than typical Malay food, I was in heaven! I order the Nyonyan laksa and am not disappointed. And a filling bowl of soup and bottle of water comes to about 80p - a refreshing change from the inflated prices in Singapore. The storm abates, I finish my bowl and ...

... curry with shrimp), sweet red bean soup, claypot chicken rice, teh ais, yam and sweet corn ice cream, and a honey sea cocnut shave ice. The total cost for this feast? RM25 or ~$8... so $4 a person. Awesome. We then got a trishaw (trickshaw? basically a bicycle with a sidecar) to pedal our stuffed carcasses back across the river to our B&B. We made good conversation along the way. Our driver has been pedaling his trishaw for 25 years in Melaka. His ...

... built and then the British bombed. Here I was greeted with a magnificent sounds of acoustic guitars. I chatted a little and listened a lot to the two players who were from the area but of Portuguese decent. The sounds were amazing and the acoustics of the ruined church building made the music a joy to listen too. Here I was also approached by a police lady from Borneo on holiday with her family and she insisted on ...

... you get the **** bitten out of you by mosquito's even if Sarah's feet should be enough to drive them away, Bill's not smelling only due to his outrageous shoe purchasing in the past!! Wednesday 12th: Up on hill no far away, the joy of a Chinese graveyard, no seriously it was beautiful in that strange kind of way with horseshoe graves and tiny models from glass of local landmarks. Although our trip was cut short by waring factions of ants or termites.

... dipped and curved between the elegant and colourful Melakan houses which never seemed to stop, yet were never crowded reminded me of an English country road, although I'm sure that some of this imagery was due to driving on the left! The village we were bound for had a name, Masjid Tanah, which was anything but English and was further reinforcement of the rich cultural mix that is ...