and the Dutch... and the Portuguese

Ahhh! That warm fuzzy embrace of the classic colonial town. Since the misty far flung days of Parati in Brazil we have retreated to the narrow streets and crumbling facades that characterise such havens of peace and tranquility. Where better to while away the last few days before our flight to whatever many legged horrors await in Borneo? Where else but the Malaysian prince of colloniality, Melaka?

They take a dim view of bike theives in Melaka

Collonised by the Portuguese, collonised by the Dutch and finally collonised by the British. This place is hardly Malaysian at all. Especially when you factor in the real, covert collonists, the waves of Chinese migrants moving in and settling down with the locals creating their own race of 'Babanonya's'. As if we wouldn't have noticed, the old part of Melaka is still called Chinatown for goodness sake.

This is where we chose to stay, nestled in the familiar architecture of antiquity (all small colonial towns really do feel the same all over the world) this time with a twist, just a hint of the chinese. A temple here, a stone lion guardian there, a few twirly bits or swastikas on the odd roof.

Mostly we chilled out as planned in our funky guesthouse, the 'Sama Sama'. Our landlady, an ex-pat European of unidentified origin, was completely bonkers. Not dribbling or anything, just slightly unhinged, not all there (she put fish in empty upside-down hanging coke bottles in the toilets. I liked her). But our room was nice and spacious in a great old house with a garden courtyard in the middle and plenty of greenery. Outside the haze from the illegal burning of Sumatra's rainforest was even more pronounced than in Singapore, it was probably best to stay indoors for now.

The woodland headphones were never a winner

We dived into the Melaka weekend night market as if we hadn't done enough shopping over the last couple of weeks. Amanda, not having anything better to do with our travel money bought some stamps (for the collection that she suddenly has!) and a curved massage stick (from an ancient Chinese man who mysteriously disapeared as we turned away) while I stopped for a couple of hours at the home made puzzle stalls, trying to solve them all. A stage had been erected in at the end of the street, kareoke singing old people giving it everything they had belted from enormously oversized speakers while an old chinese trend setter, cap on backwards, danced madly, unfazed by his audience. Mostly we just sat back and relaxed, ate amazing Indian food and enjoyed our own weekend for ourselves. The atmosphere was great, even the Hindu temple joined in the fun, bongo's drumming out a rhythm for the deep barritones to follow.

Tourists again, Miles from anywhere

At some point we did manage to get out for a day, with a Californian couple (Steven and Miel) in the room next to us, to the old town square. We found the ruins of the old fort and it's graveyard, sporting Dutch and British military headstones. A big church dominated the hill behind with a smaller, ruinous one closer by which I think we all secretly preferred. Then we decided it was all too much like hard work, so we retreated back to China town and found a vegetarian buddhist restaurant for some fauz meat stuff. Not bad, almost like the real deal...too much so for Amanda who was a bit freaked out.

As you can tell, not much to report from Melaka. Good hammock time. Tomorrow will be a different story, orangutans, jungle fever and deep, deep diving. But for today, maybe an early night and a cup of java... tomorrow's just not worth worrying about.