Melaka, Malaysia

We had a very early start after a hot and mostly sleepless night at the backpackers in Little India, Singapore but managed to make our way back to the Golden Mile Complex and caught our 7.30am bus on time. Our bus headed north across the causeway bridge and across the border into Malaysia and about 4 hours later we arrived in Melaka. Having no accommodation lined up in advance we spent the next few hot, frustrating hours walking the streets of Chinatown and finding that many places were completely full or if not closed for the New Year's holidays. By late afternoon however we were relieved to secure a private room at the Cheng Ho Guest House. We have vowed to do our best to make reservations ahead in future (where we can) after two consecutive days of exhausting backpack laden days of accommadtion hunting! We spent the evening wandering around Chinatown which was absolutely pumping with people, many Chinese out of towners presumably who had decended on Melaka for their holidays. We enjoyed a 'bucket' of beer (5 stubbies in a bucket of ice) over some chinese food and a late night snack before heading to bed about midnight for some much needed sleep.

Awoken at 6am by the extremely loud Muslim prayers broadcast from the nearby mosque by loudspeaker! So much for our much needed sleep, plus it turns out the airconditioner is really just a smelly fan that circulates the hot air...but still did sleep and slept again after the early wakeup which was great. We had a quiet planning and recovery day before heading out for dinner. We wanted try somewhere different to the previous night and eventually landed on a fantastic little place on the east bank of the river just near the Town Square. Had a fantastic laksa for only RM5 (A$2) which was unbelievably good. Shame I can't remember the name of the place though...