Hotel Tropicaville Melaka

... two short streets. Melaka played important role in Malaysia's history as its powerful sultanate. Chinese predominance can be seen everywhere.<br> Many people barely spend a day here. It was almost three days in my case. I really liked the relaxed atmosphere and relatively few visitors. At the beginning I regretted I hadn't stocked up with books in Singapore, but after finding probably the only second hand book store in downtown, I changed my mind ...

... torn down and replaced by a toilet block. Also we went to see the ancient Aborigine cliff carvings in North Bondi, which neither of us had bothered to go and see in all those months we were in Bondi last time! We checked out the grimy Irish Pub I worked next to, and where Damo used to meet me almost everyday for a $5 steak and beer, we went back for another steak that was now $6.95, and found out that the price had only gone up from $5 2 weeks before!! We also met up with my friend ...

... wie von mir angegeben, nur 2, sondern 4 Tage in dem Stadtstaat geblieben bin.. Puh, Glück gehabt! Denn die Singapurer haben viele Strafen auf alles mögliche, für einmal Kaugummi auf de Straße spucken kann man 2000&euro; bezahlen müssen!!! Direkt nach der Grenze wird es auf einmal viel grüner. Überall sieht man Palmenplantagen, denn das Palmenöl ist ein wichtiger Handelsrohstoff für Malaysia (Kosmetik, Treibstoff,..). Das Land war früher mal fast ...

... was out having fun. We enjoyed our Melaka visit very much and had a great laugh at night, when the whole city was illuminated with red lights (no girls at work though)! :-) Early Monday morning we returned to KL straight into the Thai embassy to pick up Eva's visa. We stayed overnight in KL and headed to Taman Negara the next morning, for a few days in the world's oldest tropical forest. PT: Várias coisas nos surpreenderam em Malaca. Em primeiro lugar, o ...

... curry. After a busy morning and with the heat defeating me, I headed back to the hotel, stopping in the enormous, unfinished mall to enjoy the aircon (it's very hot in Melaka today!) and do a little reckie of the cinema. I went back to Chinatown for dinner and ate at a lovely little restaurant called Cafe1511 which serves cheap versions of all the Baba Nyonya favourites. The food was great and the little old man serving was so cute that I have decided to come back ...

... famous for its food - more importantly the history of it's food, some of which dates back to the days when the Chinese settlers first came over and got flirty with the Malays. Those that 'got it on' fused more than their love and loins, founding a delectable cuisine that would have people dribbling for centuries. Peranakan (or Baba Nonya) was born. And so, as we strolled through the night market ...

Malacca: a town that loves to shout about it's heritage; and my kind of place, filled with ruined churches, forts, replica Dutch sailing ships and enough museums for each day of the week! We breezed into town via the main bus station, which is located on the outskirts, but we caught a "town bus" to take us into the centre of Malacca. This was not as successful as it could have been as the bus we hopped onto wasn't the right bus at all, and it wasn't going to the town centre but was heading ...

... for the past eight months or so, but it was cool. Actually got to wake up leisurely the next day, checked out, had some breakfast with the Harvard chick, and tried a local dessert called cendol. Picked up some more duck and rice balls for the road before catching a town bus out to the bus station. When I arrived, a bus was just about to leave for Johor Bahru, so I hopped on and was on my way.

... to keep afloat. On arrival at the bus station I was expecting to be attacked by touts yelling about the various benefits of their guesthouses and hoards of taxi drivers yelling competing fares at me while I tried to put on a 20kg backpack in 32 degree heat. This is what the media and the guidebooks would have you believe. You could say the actual process is much less painful than going down your local Comet/Currys to buy a fridge. You're simply handed a flyer by a guy ...

... recocnized, that we forgot the food, because on the island is no possibility to get cheap food. The only way to eat, is in an luxusresort. hmmm. After a 30 minutes walk over the island to the west coast, we found some nice beaches. On the way, we waked up a huge iguna or a waran (i don't know exactly). The beach was great but the water was not clear at all. it wasn't dirty, but it was not realy to enjoy, when you don't know the things you stand ...