Melaka

Another early morning bus ride took me to the smaller city of Melaka.I arrived a couple of hours before I was allowed to check in so I decided to go and have a wander to see what tourist sites I could find.

Well it turns out pretty much all of them are next to each other so within two hours I’d seen them all bar one!

I started off in the Red Square, this is where the Dutch administration was based in the Dutch colonial times.

Then I used both google maps AND maps.me to find the next place on my list (A’famosa) but instead ended up in a deserted area and the road they wanted me to take had a gate across with spikes on the top and a very big no entry sign…not what you want to see in 30° heat!

Even worse was that I then realised I needed to walk up a hill (that I later found out was St Paul’s Hill) to get back to the right area. The climb was made more fun by the addition of bin bags that I pretty much had to climb over when I got to the top. However, what goes up must come down so I took a leisurely stroll back down to see A’Famosa, the former Portuguese fortress

The next place on my list was Jonker Street but on my way there I happened upon one of the most random tourist attractions so far…an old train and plane combo, just sat in a park…

After that random pit stop, I made it to my intended destination of Jonker Street, the famous street in Chinatown

Then it was back to my hostel to check in. There was another British guy waiting so we had a chat and decided to share a grab together to go and see the mosque at sunset. After walking through the mosque we found a good place to sit on the rocks and watch the sun go down. Now the sunset wasnt so much a sunset as it was watching the clouds go dark but I got snap happy none the less…here are a selection!!

Dinner time!! We went to a hawker centre and had Nyonya Laksa and some satay chicken. Nyonya means woman, specifically from the descent of the original chinese settlers in the British straights settlements known as Baba Nyonya (Baba means man)