Karaoke queens and flowery rickshaws. (Steve)

Arriving on the bus from Mersing, late, we're all suprised to find the man from the hostel we'd phoned to book a couple of rooms in was waiting to take us into town. Cant fault the people of this country, they really look after you. Yen takes us to the Eastern Heritgage hostel and its really cool, we have waterfalls in our room (not really but there were painted ones on the wall), and theres a cold dipping pool in the reception area, as well as the obligatory multitude of cats. It has already been decided that we are going to karaoke tomorrow night, Yen seems to feel we're all up for a bit of singing, little does he know that I'm a tone deaf, talantless noise polluter! Hopefully I wont consume enough beer to let stupididty get the better of me.

As with everywhere we go, the food is sooooo damm good, and cheap. So my idea of eating my way round the world is going well.

The next day (20th) we decide to explore the town, its not short on history in Malaka having been ruled by the Portugese, the Dutch and of course us Brits!! We hire two flowery rickshaws and go off to the maritime museum-very nice- then onto the independance memorial. Again its very nice, lots of reading to do and its bloody hot, still we enjoy our history lesson(s). Its incredible how quickly time flies past and we soon realise our two hours are running out, so its of to Chinatown (yes, another one) for some food (hooray) and a wander round. We try a Chinese desert which is shaved ice, with condensed milk and treacle over it, on a bed of soya beans and green beans!?! Sweet and savoury in one dish, who needs separate courses? Shame it wasnt that good really, so not everything is perfect in a culinary sense after all.

We then went to Villa Sentosa, which is a old Malay house that has been opened to the public, with the family still in it. The old lady there is so generous and gives us a tour of what is an imaculate house full of really old artifacts and pictures, her husband was an MBE,OBE and lots of other things I cant remember. We write in the visitors book and Sian and me have another mock wedding (picture below) Malay style.

Heading back out into the heat you realise the one thing that is not perfect about the setting is the amount of crap in the river, making it really honk bad on a hot afternoon. Cold beers required and Tiger beer does the trick.

Karaoke tonight, Helen from Oxford has magically appeared in the bar of the hostel so we get chatting and she is coming tonight as well. We dont go out till nearly midnight and we get to the bar and its pretty busy. They take their karaoke seriously in these parts it seems, and they all have a go!! The beer has kicked in for Helen and she is singing away, as Matt also tries his hand at Let it Be with Sian. When the bar has emptied at 2am we realise that because the owner is good friends with Yen, this had the hallamarks of a good session, which it duly became, we left to get food at 4.30!! Nice to then go and eat chickens feet and other delicacies, doner kebabs this isnt and with endless tea!! I think its better the way they do it in this part of the world.

Sleep is of course easy at 5am, shame that with the toilet by our room I dont to sleep in that much, as from 8am other guests are getting up and using the facilities!

Unsuprisingly the 21st isnt an eventful day, mostly in the internet cafe doing this sort of thing. We're a little sad that Matt has had to go back to Europe, but we may well meet up again in Oz sometime, we hope so anyway.