We had a few days left in Malaysia before our flight to Sumatra so decided to head down to Melaka which is 90 minutes south of KL. Melaka is another, you guessed it: UNESCO World Heritage City (our bingo card must be full now surely?). Like George Town, Melaka is famed for being a historic colonial town with its Chinese and European links seen in the Dutch and Portuguese buildings and Chinese signage across the city. It is very picturesque with a river running through the middle lined with restaurants and bars; we were looking forward to having a beer after the very dry Taman Negara and Cameron Highlands.

Day 111 – Arrival to Melaka

We arrived at our hotel after a six hour drive down from Taman Negara and were happy to be back in a city for a few days. Early evening, we headed down to the river for a wander round before sunset.

It was Friday night, so Melaka was buzzy with lots of national tourists in town for the weekend to enjoy the street market and a ride on the very pimped up rickshaws.

We decided to save the street market for tomorrow and instead plonked ourselves in one of the riverside bars and ordered a couple of beers watching the river tour cruises pootle past. We crossed over to the other side to get a pizza which I was craving after a week of fried rice and then headed back for the night.

Day 112 – Melaka

We sought out our favourite breakfast of roti canai and teh tarik to fuel us for a day of sightseeing. Like George Town, Melaka has lots of street art which makes wandering the streets extra enjoyable as murals pop up on random street corners.

We started off in the ‘Red Square’ which is made up of pinky buildings built during Dutch rule. We stopped off in the history and ethnography museum which was based in one of these where we learnt more about the constant occupations of Melaka and its anti-colonial movement.

We then headed to Saint Paul Church, the oldest European building in South East Asia, where I was interviewed for a student’s English homework, making me suddenly very aware of my own grammatical errors and overuse of ‘like’.

In the evening, we headed to Jonker Street Night Market which was HUGE. Stalls lined both sides of the street mainly with street food but also crafts and souvenirs.

The market was packed with people enjoying their weekend and sampling all the delicious food on offer. We joined in washing down our satay, fish balls (for Ro) and spring rolls with fresh coconuts.

We parked ourselves in one of the bars on a street corner which had a singer / guitarist playing covers and played our favourite game of guessing what they would play next. We are surprisingly good at this!

Day 113 – Melaka

Our last full day in Malaysia! After more roti canai (really hoping we can find a good spot for this in London!) we went back to Jonker Street to go round all the craft shops in this area. They did a very good job of clearing up the huge market from the night before and we enjoyed a morning of window shopping and trying some great coffee and less good egg tarts (not a patch on Lisbon’s).

In the afternoon we prepped for our upcoming Jungle trek, buying some supplies and researching how to remove leeches. Spoiler alert, it came in use.

We decided to visit a large Mosque on the seafront, apparently a good place to watch sunset over the Strait of Malacca, though we were a bit early for sunset in the end. We had to hire the appropriate garb, and we went and had a peek inside before looking out over the sea towards where Sumatra, our next stop, was but couldn’t be seen. It was a great place to reflect on our great few weeks in Malaysia. With its beautiful islands and scuba diving, jungle and forest treks and colourful colonial towns it has been an exciting and varied stop!

Tomorrow we are off to Indonesia where we will spend 11 weeks exploring some of the 17,500 islands that make up the world’s largest archipelago.