Malacca, Malaysia

Singapore's a real crazy place for different cultures, languages etc. Where I was staying was in Chinatown, which was being painted red for the Chinese New Year. I caught a bus to the bus terminal (actually just a building) called Golden Mile and passed the Raffles Hotel, some modern skyscrapers, then turned a corner and could have been in Baghdad! (Except for... oh, never mind.) Everything was in Arabic and there were crowds of Arabs walking around. Then I got to the bus station and went inside to find a drink, and everything was in Thai! Sadly, I cannot speak Thai, but managed to point at a drink that looked like orange but turned out to be something quite different. I preferred not to ask.

The bus I took up here to Malacca/Melaka was very nice, and cost S$35 for the four hour trip, about GBP11. The Chinese man in the hostel told me I was ripped off, but it still seemed pretty cheap! I felt a but miffed at having to pay Chinese New Year inflated prices when the bus only had about 5 people on.

We stopped at a service station for buses (like a truck stop, but for buses - a bus stop?) where I found that the Malaysian defintion of "toilet" does not stretch to the actual, you know, toilet. I could say more, but suffice to say that noodles for breakfast on the plane were not a good idea.

So, we got to Melaka at about 1500 on Saturday. Conveniently we were dropped not at the bus station which is a couple of km out of town, but right in the centre, not that I knew it. A man came running at me when I was looking puzzled shouting "you! You! Where you stay?" or something to that effect. I was cagey, thinking that he wanted to sell me a taxi or, worse, rickshaw ride around the city (like, it seems, everyone else here) but in fact he was helpful. The slight mistake of me looking at the hostel reservation for Kuala Lumpur rather than Melaka (I booked them at the same time, OK? Didn't stop them laughing though...) resolved, I set off and found the hostel in less than 10 minutes.

This place could best be described as "basic", but also very quiet in terms of people. The chap on reception asked me where I was from.

"Reading, in England."

"Reading? Oh, that's famous for something isn't it. You had that gay bishop last year didn't you?"

It turns out that this guy is an Anglican, which goes some way to relieving me, but even so, talk about famous for the wrong reasons! The chap introduced me to the church where he goes, which is the big colonial church the Dutch built 250 years ago. I went to the English speaking service at 8.30 this morning, which was very good, apart from all the kneeling.

Melaka's a nice enough place, although the neighbourhood around my hostel centres around the 24hr curry house opposite my window that plays Sky Sports. This, coupled with the world's most useless but loudest air-conditioner in my room (I have a 10 bed dorm to myself; apparently there are 2 other people there but no sign of them yet!) means I didn't get much sleep at night. Thankfully, I slept plenty during the day and evening. The heat is really sapping and I seem to be buying a bottle of drink ("dollar fifty") every time I walk past a shop.

There's a big touristy place in the centre, with an old fort, an old ship and the usual gimmicky rubbish, but when I walked out to the bus station yesterday (remember I said it was a mile out of town? It took ages, plus my sandals and feet are quarelling over space) I walked through all the Chinese and Indian neighbourhoods. It's a unique place in terms of the ethnic makeup, lots of Chinese and Indians, both recent and well-established.

Tomorrow I shall do some touristy things like visiting the aforementioned fort and ship, and probably fall asleep for 4 hours in my room again...