Photo - A day out on the scooter to the Mummified Monk

This is Kunaram Temple - Mummified Monk  To the right of the Temple is a specially constructed building where a mummified monk is on display in a glass cage. He died more than 20 years ago while he was sitting meditating. He is still in this position today and his body shows few signs of any major decay. He was wearing dark sunglasses which looked like someone had put them there for a laugh but is was probably because his eyeballs had decayed. Colin thought he looked a little bit more slumped over than when he had seen him before, several years ago. I didn't want to take any photos of the monk himself in case it was seen as disrespectful but there is a photo of him in the link above.

Photo - A day out on the scooter to see Grandfather Rock

 

We hired a scooter for a few days and off we went explore The island. It only takes about 3 hours to get round the island on a scooter. We took a drive to see  The Grandmother and Grandfather rocks  . We didn't find The Grandmother rock as it is a crevice rather than an outcrop like The Grandfather Rock in the photo. That, we found quite easily! They are naturally formed rocks and are said to represent - no prizes for guessing. You will find a photo of The Grandmother rock in the link above.

A meal on the beach

This restaurant was just next door to our resort. This was a night Tuesday and we were all leaving Samui on the Thursday. So this was our last blast together as Wednesday would be any early night due to us all travelling the next day. Emma and Criag had moved to a hotel in Chong Mon - not our resort but another 5-star - so we had met up on our balcony in the afternoon for a few wee pre-dinner goodbye drink. We had a beer but it wouldn't have been culturally appropriate if we didn't have Sangsom. Sangsom in a Thai whiskey/rum which, when 2 of you order it in a bar, you order a sangsom set - a half bottle of whiskey, half litre of soda, half litre of coke and a big bucket of ice. Or you can just have the whole lot poured into a metal bucket and drink it through 2 straws. Our original plan was that, after a beer or 2, Emma and Craig would go back to their hotel, get freshened up and we would meet up for dinner. A bottle of sangsom later (well, there was 4 of us and not 2) and the plans went a bit petong. Hence we are all still in our beachwear in the photo. At least Emma and I had a shower at my place before putting our dirty beachwear back on again! We had a great meal and, with the sangsom talking, made plans to meet up the next day and go to one of the tourist attractions, football golf - kicking a football around an 18 hole golf course where the holes are bigger to accommodate the football, and all in the blazing sun after a night of sangsom and beer! Needless to say we didn't make it.

The restaurant was well into presentation when serving rice

Emma has obviously binned the pre-holiday diet. Most of this food was hers!

 

A firework display from a hotel further down the beach completed the evening.

Meeting Emma and Craig

Emma txt the following afternoon to tell us that she was on her way over. She had stayed in Chong Mon a few years ago so knew her way around, although she didn't know where the Kirati Beach Resort was. She said that they would walk the length of the beach, and to watch out for them as she was wearing a purple sarong and Craig was wearing yellow shorts. Great way to find someone as just about everyone on the beach was wearing sarongs and shorts!
I spotted Emma walking down the beach from quite some distance. It wasn't the sarong and shorts that made me recognise her but that Emma McCarthy purposeful walk. We headed up to our balcony for a catch-up. We had a great afternoon with a lot of catching-up and a lot of laughing. Oh, and a few beers.
When you are travelling you meet many different local people with different cultures and traditions and loads of people from all over the world who are also travelling. It's really interesting chatting with all these different people and swapping stories and experiences.  We have made some really good friends that way who we keep in touch with and hopefully will meet again during our travels. But, for us, there is one thing missing - the Glasweigan humour. You don't find that anywhere else but Glasgow. That afternoon on the balcony with Emma and Criag well made up for the 8 months of Glasweigan humour that we haven't had and it set the pace for the rest of the week we spent together. We did our own thing during the day but at night we would meet up and the non-stop talking and laughing would begin.
In the evening they would come to Chong Mon or we would go to Chewang or else we would go to one of the other beaches. To be fair we only went to Chewang once because it was mentally busy. It was a mix of all night discos, Thai girlie bars, lady boy bars, irish pubs, MacDonalds, Pizza Hut, Boots the Chemist etc.- I'm sure you get the picture. All the bars and eateries were pricey with TV'S and stereos blasting out. It was worse than Spain full of hen and stag dos. Hard to believe that only 20 minutes up the road, Chong Mon was quiet and peaceful.
One evening we went to The Fisherman's Village at Bo Phut Beach. It is a really lovely place but quite up-market. There are lovely shops, many fine dining restaurants (especially considering how small a place it is) and lovely small places to stay - there was only one big hotel there. Colin and I had visited it during the day and it seemed really chilled and tranquil but at night it was quite vibrant, but in a really nice way. We had a meal in a really nice expensive restaurant on the waterfront, although it turned out that the food wasn't that great - better sticking to hawker stalls! No matter, we had a great evening anyway. When Colin and I were deciding where to stay when we got to Samui we had really liked what we saw of The Fisherman's Village but knew it would be too pricey to stay there for one week.
It was really easy and cheap to get around Samui and move from beach to beach. They have songthaews - red coloured converted pickups with bench seats, that serve as the local bus service on the island. They have fixed routes around the island day and night. You can flag one down anywhere and then just ring the bell when you want to get off. Much better than getting a taxi, haggling for ages then walking away as you are getting ripped off.
Emma brought me, from the UK, my new IPOD (as Apple were replacing my model free-of-charge as they had recalled the model I bought 8 years ago), a new kindle book-reader (I managed to bust my screen in Agonda) and my new bank cards as mine had expired. It was like Xmas, I didn't know whether to read a book, listen to music of go and get money out of the bank!

Photo - Guess what the objects on the bed were

 

 

 

Surely you must have guessed it by now. The towels are 'sculpted' into elephants. Every day when the staff cleaned the room the towels were 'sculpted' into something different. Although not out of place in a 4 or 5-star resort it did seem funny in our wee resort. And, an elephant of all things, surely you would have thought of something a bit more simple to 'sculpte', like a flower! 

The Kirati Beach Resort

The bedroom in the cabin.

Looking down towards the doors to the bathroom. I will explain the strange objects on the bed in the next post.

The bathroom.

 

The shower looks really Thai and pretty. Bit impractical as the stone base of the shower is laid with these little coloured pebbles. The first time I stepped into the shower I let out a yelp as it was like walking across rocks, without shoes on. The pebbles were promptly chucked to the side of the shower so we didn't have to stand on them again.
(We watched Idiot Abroad last night and I think I'm starting to sound a bit like Karl Pilkington. Here we were on a beautiful beach resort on a tropical sunny island, staying in lovely accommodation and I'm moaning about a couple of pebbles!) 

Photo - Getting to Koh Samui

The path to the right of the photo leads to our cabin. The whole place was really green with lots of plants and trees and this created privacy for the cabins.

 

Our cabin taken from the side. From the front the cabin looked very long and was quite big inside. A balcony ran the full length of the cabin and was quite private. The beach is only a couple of steps past our cabin.

We arrived in Koh Samui in the afternoon and got a taxi to The Kirati Beach Resort in Chong Mon in the north of the island, which we had pre-booked via the Agoda website. The Island has several beach resorts - Chewang, Big Budda Beach, The Fisherman's Village in Bo Phut, Mae Nam and Lamai among others. I have never been to Samui and, although Colin has been there several times, it was many years ago. Colin used to stay at Lamai Beach which, at that time, was  still quite busy but not over- developed. We knew that Tourism has mushroomed over the past several years, especially with the building of it's own airport, so when we were deciding which beach we were going to stay at we had to do a bit of research.

Emma and Craig were staying in a 5-star hotel resort near Chewang Beach. It was really nice but a bit pricey for us budget travellers - what we were paying to stay at Kirati Beach Resort was more than we would have liked to pay but is was still a heck of a lot cheaper than 5-star. We didn't want to stay in Chewang itself, where we would find budget accommodation, as Chewang is the busiest and noisiest place on the island.We wanted to stay at a fairly quiet chilled place but at the same time, be close to where Emma and Criag were staying. 

We liked what we had read about Chong Mon Beach and it was only 15mins away by scooter or taxi to where Emma and Craig were staying. Chong Mon is a really quiet place where most places are closed by 11pm. There are several 5-star resorts and a handful of budget travellers accommodation. Although it is mainly 5-star resorts, you can still find really good, cheap eateris on the main street. The beach is a small cove, but big enough to be able to lie on a sun lounger and not have anyone anywhere near you.

Our accommodation turned out to be really good. It was very spacious and had a fridge and TV. We even splashed out and got AC, but you really needed it there as the humidity was horrendous. Great for us having a fridge as we could stock it up with ham, cheeses, yoghurts etc. Then, instead of having to go somewhere to eat breakfast, we could relax with it on the balcony. We had originally booked to stay 2 nights, with the view of moving on to somewhere else if we didn't like it, but we ended up staying there for the full week we were in Samui as we really liked the place.

On the day we arrived we txt Emma to let here know we were finally in Samui. Poor Craig had the Thai Trots and was going to be room - bound for the rest of the day and night. We arranged that Emma and Craig would come to Chong Mon the following afternoon.

The waiting game

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur and got the train to the Star Town Inn again. Initially there was a wee bit of hassle checking in as we didn't have any passports and we hadn't seen that receptionist before. Luckily another receptionist appeared who knew us from previous stays and then we got checked in. On Monday afternoon, as we hadn't heard anything from the Embassy we decided to phone them only to be told that our passports hadn't arrived - not really what we wanted to hear as we had a flight booked out of Kuala Lumpur in 2 days time. Colin had managed to find out who the local courier company was and he gave them a call. They assured us that the passports would arrive at the Embassy later that day. We weren't convinced though.
The next day we telephoned the Embassy several times but we were unable to get through so we decided just to take a train over there and hope for the best. When you go through the first security gate of the Embassy you show your passport to the guard with a grim face and a big rifle over his shoulder. At the second security gate your belongings are taken from you and you are given given a tag with a number on it so you can collect them on departure (a bit like putting your coat in the cloakroom at the Savoy Disco or Clatty Pats, minus all the guns). My tag for my belongings was number 13. I'm not superstitious but I was starting to get a bad feeling about our passports. In we went and told the receptionist that we were here to see if our passports arrived. Off she went only to come back and inform us that they were not in the mail room where recently received mail was kept but that she would check upstairs. I was definately starting to believe in the bad luck of number 13. Back she came with an envelope and, lo and behold, our passports were inside.
Now we were able to relax and txt Emma to tell her that we would definately see her in Koh Samui the next day.

Hooray

We finally had word about our passports on Thursday 12/4, by which time we had been in Melaka for 3 weeks - quite a bit longer than anticipated! We had originally planned on being on Koh Samui Island in Thailand on 13th and as were supposed to meet our friends from the UK there, Emma and Craig. They were off travelling for 6 months and had decided to start off in Thailand so we could all meet up before we returned to India and they went off to Austrailia. Luckily Emma and Craig were staying in Koh Samui for 2 weeks so we were hopeful that we would get to meet up at some point.
When we received the phone call from the UK to tell us that our passports would be dispatched by courier to Malaysia that day, we were delighted. Unfortunately we didn't get a 2 year business visa but we did get a one year business visa which is re-newable - so no having to leave India in 6 months time, for 2 months!
Now we were able to make onward plans. Our passports were being delivered to the British Embassy in Kuala Lumpur and we knew that they definately would not be there before Monday, as you normally allow 3 working days. Our only worry was that because the courier company the UK had used to send our passports was a very small company and we didn't know the name of the courier company in Malaysia who would be handling our passports once they arrived here, we weren't sure if the passports would take a lot longer to arrive. We decided to take a gamble and book flights to Koh Samui for Wedesday 25th. So, we would leave Melaka on Sunday, get the bus to Kuala Lumpur and book into the Star Town Inn again. That meant we were near the Embassy and could sit Monday and Tuesday biting our nails, hoping the Embassy would contact us so we could dash over there, get our passports and not miss our flight to Koh Samui.
The last night in Melaka we had a beer with Christophe and Lee Sun. The next morning we packed up and ordered a taxi to the bus station. I would be lying if I said we weren't really glad to be leaving Melaka after over 3 weeks there, but it was sad saying goodbye to Christophe, Lee Sun and wee Remy (Sara was at school so unfortunately we never said goodbye to her). No more weekend TV English football games for Colin. They had looked after us so well and if we are ever in Malaysia again we will certainly head to The Old Town Guesthouse.

Doctors and Dentists

I had been taking ayurvedic medication for my knee since seeing the ayurvedic doctor in Cochin in India and it was improving. After 4 weeks in Malaysia I ran out of my supply and the medicine was not available in Malaysia. My knee gradually started getting painful and swollen again so Lee Sun suggested that I consult the Chinese Medicine Doctor along the road as he was very good. I don't know if I am getting older or doctors are getting a lot younger looking, but he looked like a teenager. He recommended a course of acupuncture. My face must have said it all as I am terrified of needles - i.e. someone coming at ME with a needle, not the other way round. He duly ignored my look of horror, just smiled at me and preceded to tell me via his sister who spoke English that I was to take medicine for 4 days, come back and if no  noticeable improvement I would need acupuncture. He then made up a concoction that I was to take 3 times a day and tasted foul. There was a slight improvement after 4 days but he still recommended acupuncture. So, braving my fears, I agreed.
It was nothing like a thought it would be. He put 4 needles around the knee, one on my ankle and one on the top of my foot. I didn't even feel the needles going in so I was feeling quite happy with myself, although I still couldn't bring myself to look down and see them sticking out of my skin. Just when I was feeling quite relaxed, in he came to manipulate the needles - I never knew I had signed up for that! Some of them I didn't feel being manipulated but when he manipulated the needle that was closest to the site of pain, and that was a few inches away, I nearly jumped out of the chair. What was really bizarre was that when he manipulated one of the needles at the side of my knee I felt a sharp cramping pain down the full length of my calf. I let out a squeal thinking something was wrong but the doctor just smiled at me and nodded his head - obviously he was expecting it but you'd think he would have thought to tell me - well I suppose the fact that he didn't speak any English was a good excuse as any, for not warning me. Also when he manipulated the needle in my ankle, I felt the sensation on the top of my foot just below my toes. It was really bizarre.
I had a few sessions, some similar to above and some where he attached a TEN'S machine to the needles. Once when I went there my knee was a bit swollen as I had been doing a lot of walking the previous day. He didn't give me acupuncture that day but instead he applied a paste to my knee, covered it in a bandage and told me to keep it on for 8 hours. The paste he put on my knee would not look out of place inside a child's nappy! After 8 hours the swelling had definately gone down. My knee definately improved so he stopped the acupuncture and gave me oral tablets - at least they didn't taste foul. Before we left Melaka I bought enough of the tablets to last me until we went back to India.
Not to be outdone with me getting lots of medical attention, once again in Asia, Colin developed a problem with his teeth - he must have seen more Indian Dentists in his lifetime than he has UK Dentists. We were sitting watching a movie with Christophe and Lee Sun. Lee Sun was passing around peanuts and, as Colin bit into one, a filling in one of his front teeth fell out taking a large piece of tooth with it. Luckily he didn't have any pain but the next day he went to the dentist to be told that it wasn't possible to put in another filling and that he would need a crown. The dentist was really good and told Colin that he could make the crown but it would be very expensive and, because we would be back in India in a few weeks (hopefully, if we ever get our passports back) to wait until then and it would be a third of the price. He said that the broken tooth would be fine until then. The only problem was that he looked like a gangster when he was grinning! He did threaten to get a gold crown just to make the picture complete. Fortunately he wasn't serious, but I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if that is what he had done.

Photo - Colin and his take-away

All take-aways come in clear plastic bags, no matter what you order. The brown bag hanging from his left hand is won ton curry mee soup from the shouty noodle lady. As I said, it was a lot more chilled taking food back to the guest house to eat.

Photo - The noodle soup lady

 

 

This stall, among other things, sold chickens feet (it was her speciality and people came from all over Melaka to buy them) and brilliant noodle soups. The lady who owned the stall  (the lady in the second picture with the purple top and red apron tiers) was definately a formidable character. She never opened her stall at 5pm like all the other hawker stalls but instead turned up at 9pm. One of her family - a wee old man as old as the hills - turned up at about 8pm to set up the stall. By the time she got there at 9pm there was already a large queue waiting for take-away as well as many people sitting at the tables waiting for her to open, despite all the other stalls being open for business. From 9pm to 1am she never stopped. She ran between cooking and serving tables. Despite the amount of orders she must have been dealing with at any one time, between her and her other workers, no orders were ever written down. I really don't know how she kept track of them.

Chriostophe had told us that her won ton noodle soup was excellent but did warn us that the lady could be a bit 'shouty and bad tempered'. A bit of shouting never bothered us so off we went one evening to try the won ton noodle soup. Noodle in Malay is 'mee' and you could order it plain or with curry. When we went over to the hawker stalls the place was packed and we were lucky to get seats. All the stalls were busy but the noddle lady's stall was heaving. We grabbed two spare seats at at table, where a Malay family were sitting (no chance of getting a table to yourself when hawker stalls are busy). Noodle lady was running around mental, shouting and bawling and was really quite scarey. Me and Colin just looked at one another saying 'you go and order, no you go'. Colin's hunger got the better of him and off he went to order. He bravely stopped noodle lady in mid-stride and placed an order. When he came back to the table I asked him how it went. He shrugged and said 'I'm not sure, I don't know if I've ordered or not. I asked her for one won ton mee and one won ton curry mee (in his best Glasweigan accent of course) and she just glared at me and walked away. We'll just sit here for a  bit and see what happens'. 

After sitting for quite some time and watching people who came in after us, leaving with a full stomach, we knew we hadn't ordered. So, with a bit of a prod, off Colin went again for a second go. This time he got one of noodle woman's staff  and placed the order with her. At last the food came and it was worth the wait.

We had a second attempt at eating from her stall. As we had now been seen in there on other occasions when eating from the other stalls, noodle lady's worker greeted us with a smile when we placed our order. She noted that we had been there often but we hadn't tried the special - chickens feet. I don't know what possessed me to tell her I would think about it and let her know when the soups arrived (Colin and I have both been given chickens feet before, usually in peoples homes, and have managed to dispose of them discreetly without offending the host). Maybe because these feet were bubbling away in a big stew I thought this was somehow going to be OK. Colin couldn't believe it as I never order anything like that, unlike him. Just then I glanced over at a young Malay couple at the table next to us. The guy put his chopsticks into his bowl and pulled out 3 chicken's feet. As he was raising the chopsticks from the bowl to his mouth, the feet looked all goey and the toes were wobbling around. He then popped the whole 3 feet into his chops, chewed like mad for a minute or two and then spat out what I suppose was bits of bone and gristle - although if he spat out bone and gristle what did he actually eat of the feet. Needles to say when the girl came back with our noodle soup I declined the offer of the special saying maybe next time. 

After that, if we wanted to eat at noodle lady's we just tended to get a take-away and take it over to the guest house, not because I would have to face the chicken's feet, but because the shouty noodle lady gave you a headache. In fact in the pictures above Colin is the guy dressed in black waiting for his take-away while I am taking a picture of him from our room window just across the road.

There were many other stalls under  that same roof. Among them was the frog porridge lady, and that was all she sold. I have left Malaysia never knowing what frog porridge is and I will never regret not knowing. There was the popiah man. Popiah are Nyonya cooked spring rolls that can be served deep fried or not. They are much tastier than spring rolls as we know them. There was a guy whose stall was fronted by a big glass cage filled with frogs jumping all around the place. When someone ordered from him, in went the hand and out came a fighting frog. Being ashamedly partial to frog's legs I asked Lee Sun how the frog was cooked and how you went about ordering it. She advised me that there was no such  delicacy as frog's legs but that the whole frog was boiled and the whole frog was eaten. Another stall we gave a body swerve to.  There was also the stir-fry lady. Her food was excellent but unfortunately we only managed to eat there once at the end of our stay as, up until that point, we couldn't figure out how to get across to her what we wanted to order as her food wasn't on display and she never had any pictures displayed showing her completed plates of food.!

Photo - The satay seller

 

These were great as a wee early evening snack, perfect sundown beer food. He did pork, chicken and intestines - we gave the intestines a miss, although Colin would have had a go if I had been willing. I really admired the guy who owned the stall as he spent the whole sweltering evening standing over a barbecue cooking his satay to order. 

Photo - The chicken, duck and pork seller

 

This guys food was great and we ate at his stall many times. Often we would get a wee early evening snacklet, maybe a portion of duck or pork, take it over to the gusesthouse and enjoy it with a cold beer sitting outside (like a wee aperitif).

Photo - The hawker stalls

 

There was a few different hawker stalls around where we stayed. This one was just across the street. In fact, the photo was taken from our bedroom window. The food was delicious, served quickly and was very cheap. Food was different from stall to stall so there was plenty variety. It opened about 5pm and then did a roaring trade til midnight. It was constantly busy with sit-ins, phone orders and take-aways. As soon as one car moved out of a parking place in the street, another one took over. The workers never stopped for a single break. Then the place was thoroughly scrubbed down for the morning workers to start at 6am.

Photo - A wee shop in Melaka

 

This wee shop was on the same street as we stayed and was very similar to other local shops (difficult to believe that, only 10 mins walk down the road, are huge modern shopping centres). It sold stuff, but I'm not sure what most of the stuff was. It was a really old guy who served. It is difficult to see, but on the bottom part of the picture there is a blue tray filled with onions and on top of the onions is a brown coloured object. This was an abacus and the old guy still used this for counting.

Photo - Donald and Lily's restaurant

 

There are some really lovely buildings in Melaka. This one is a restaurant, although what you see this is the front entrance to the family home. The actual restaurant is at the back of the house and looks nothing like this. It is called Donald and Lilys and serves traditional Nyonya food . This type of food was developed by Straits Chinese and people of mixed Chinese/Malay ancestry from Malaysia and Singapore. It is mainly Chinese ingredients but blended with South East Asian spices such as coconut milk, lemongrass, tumeric and chillis. Melaka is famous for it's Nyonyan cooking.

Lee Sun told us that a good time to go was Friday lunchtime for the Friday special. We arrived to find ourselves waiting in a queue to get in. The place was rammed with Chinese and Malays. The queue went down fast as Chinese and Malays don't hang about after they have eaten. It was worth the wait though. 

Photo - A water front cafe

 

Colin liked the big poster behind him, only because it says 'simply the best'. I'm sure people who know Colin will understand why he likes 'simply the best'.

Photo - A wee local bar

 

Not far from where we were staying, along a small alley we found a little local bar. It was very different from tourist bars nearer the centre of town and along the riverfront. There were a few old locals sitting around and that was it - not a tourist in site. The bar sold beer, various Asian whiskies and Chinese herbal medicinal alcohol. The barmaid was great and helped us navigate our way through the Chinese alcohol - well, it was medicinal! 

3 weeks in Melaka

We weren't able to go and explore somewhere else nearby for a couple of days, during our time in Melaka, as none of us had a passport to book travel tickets or book into a hotel. As we had seen all that there was to see in Melaka the last time we had been there, we so just had a lazy chilled-out time. We went for walks around the town or down by the riverside, read books, listened to music, ate great food and had some good laughs. Breakfast was a provided, help yourself meal and Colin and I would often prepare our lunch in the guesthouse as guests had access to the kitchen. A wee sneaky trip to Tesco at the outer edge of town provided us with lunch-time delicasies - cheese, cold meats, pate ect - not very Malaysian, but when you haven't had these foods in a while they are a real delight.
In the evenings we would wander out for something to eat. Around the Old Town Guesthouse there are a large selection of really good cheap restaurants and hawker stalls. After dinner we would wander back to the guesthouse sit outside and have a beer, maybe watch a DVD, talk to other travellers or sit and have a chat with Christophe and Lee Sun. They were really good company and we got on well together. What I really like about this guesthouse is that, if you are a chatty sociable person you'll find people to chat to, but if you are a quiet private person who likes their own company you will find that here also.
Christophe and Lee Sun invited us to Easter Sunday lunch. It was the full works, roast chicken, roast potatoes and really nice Malysian food. We only got to eat this great food after we had eaten our way through a selection of lovely starters. And no meal is complete without one of Christope or Lee Sun's puddings. Needless to say we spent the rest of the afternoon doing nothing but digesting food.
During our stay the family went on holiday to Singapore for 1 week. We remained staying in the guesthouse as did a Croation guy who was staying there for a few months whilst writing a book about his travels in Afganhistan and French guy who was also staying for a while. So the guesthouse was closed with the exception of us four. Colin was on fish feeding duties and I was on plant watering duties - I have never been able to keep a plant for long without killing it! There are 2 big airey sitting rooms in the guesthouse with a few fish tanks in each and many plants - this is what gives you the feeling that you are sitting in a garden, when lounging in the sitting room during the day. The plants were really green and healthy but by the time Christophe and Lee Sun came back, some were a bit brown and withered looking, despite me following the plant watering instructions to the letter. Colin fared better with the fish. Colin thought the fish looked like they had grown and thrived under his care but in actual fact they just looked the same! Didn't tell him that though. He was like a big kid when he was feeding them as he was delighted when the fish would come up to the surface when he approached them with food. The first time this happened I was in the other room and and Colin shouted 'quick, come here, you need to see this'. I thought it was something important, but alas it was just the fish coming to the surface for food.

Photo - Remy's 1st birthday party

All the family - Christophe, Lee Sun, Sara and wee Remy.

 

On the first Sunday that we were staying in Melaka, Christophe and Lee Sun invited us to their son Remy's 1st birthday party. Lee Sun had cooked some wonderful food. A French couple and their child and an Canadian guy, who were also staying at the guesthouse, were at the party as well and it was a really nice way to spend the afternoon. Lee Sun had baked the birthday cake, a big number 1 with all yummy trimming on top and Remy managed to scoff into his cake as did big sister Sara.
The sitting and dining areas you see in the pictures are used by guests as well as the family. During the party a new guest turned up and he must have wondered what was going on. Within 5 minutes his bags were in his room and he had joined the party. He couldn't believe his luck as, after having been travelling for hours on a bus and feeling really tired by all the hassle it can be, he was sitting down to lovely home cooked food.

Photo - Sitting outside the Old Town Guest House

 

There is a small sitting area outside the entrance door. Great wee place to sit at night with a beer in hand.

Photo - The Old Town Guest House

 

It was nice coming back to the Old Town Guest House and a warm welcome back from Christophe and Lee Sun.

Finally, my passport

We finally arrived in Kuala Lumpur several hours later than planned. We caught a local train to the centre and headed to the Star Town Inn where we had stayed before. It is amazing here how people working in hotels remember you, even when you stayed there for only a few nights quite some time ago. We went out to Lot 10 and ate til we couldn't possibly eat any more. We had a quiet night and early the following morning we headed off to the Embassy. For once, everything went to plan. We collected my passport, agreed with the Embassy that they were willing to allow us to have both our passorts posted back to the to the Embassy address when our visa application was completed and then we posted both our passports back to the UK. Now we were both without passports in Asia - a wee bit of a scarey thought!
We caught the bus to Melaka to begin the waiting game of having our passports returned to us. We had been told that the actual visa process time was 3-4 working days and to add on a few days for sending them to the UK by courier and recieving them back. The school I went to would have taught me that this would probably mean that our passports would be back in about one week - no chance!
Because we posted the visas on a Friday just before the weekend and the following weekend was Easter during which the Indian Embassy closes for 5 days and then it was back to another weekend we ended up staying in Melaka for just over 3 weeks. As I said previously, although Melaka is a really nice place to visit, it is quite small and can be seen in a few days. I think we would have gone mad staying there for 3 weeks if it hadn't been for the fact that we were staying in the Old Town Guest House which is very comfortable, airey and homely and there are loads of books, magazines and DVD'S that you can borrow. Also it is great place to meet other travelers and swap stories and very reasonably priced. Colin could watch the English football on Saturday and Sunday with Christophe as there is also satelite TV - so that was him happy.
We arrived back at The Old Town Guest House to a very warm welcome from Christophe and Lee Sun. They had prepared us freshly squeezed fruit juice and we sat and had a catch up of where we had been and what we had been doing. As both of then used to travel quite a lot they were interested in hearing our stories.

Leaving Penang

Unfortunately after 3 days we had to leave Penang to collect my passport from the Embassy. We had to take a ferry over to Butterworth in mainland Penang and then take an 8 hour bus or train journey. As we prefer travelling by train we opted for that. For me, I like the fact that trains have a toilet on them (you have to cross your legs tight on buses) even if sometimes you have to close your eyes and hold your nose when you go in them. They have both western and squat toilets but many locals, even in the western toilet, stand up on the rim and squat down. This means that the toilet seats can be really quite dirty but nothing that a wee baby wipe can't fix. It's quite funny as there are signs on the toilet door with a picture of someone standing and squatting on a Western toilet, with a big DO NOT sign attached to it. For Colin, he just likes to travel by train because he is a train anorak.
We had a good travel plan sorted out. We would get the ferry at 7am to Butterworth, then get the 8am train to Kuala Lumpur. This would arrive at 2pm which would give us enough time to put our rucksacks into storage in the station and make our way to the Embassy. Once we got my passport we could go back to the train station, collect our rucksacks and go to the bus station to get a bus to Melaka. The next day we could post our passports back to the UK for our Indian visa application from Melaka. The reason we were sending our passports back to the UK, and not applying directly to the Indian Embassy in Asia, is that we wanted a 2 year business visa rather than a 6 month tourist visa. Because of the new rule that, if you have a 6 month tourist visa, when it expires you have to leave India for 2 months before you are allowed to return there, getting a longer visa would be much better. The travel plan sounded peachy but turned out pear-shaped!
The ferry journey went as planned and we even had another Malaysian helper, who saw us with our rucksacks, came up to us and gave us directions to the train station. We got to the station and, as 8am came and went, we realised the train would not be on time. How quickly we had forgotten that the long distance trains were a single-guage railway and that we had had a 7 hour delay on the jungle train to Kota Bahru!
The train trunddled into the station about 2 hours later. We were told that there had been a problem with the brakes that they had to fix - not the best thing to hear when you are going on an Indian train for an 8 hour journey. I was optimistic that the train would make up time (maybe I thought I was on an aeroplane with a good tail wind) but as Colin said to me 'don't be daft, we are more likely to encounter further delays'. A few hours into the journey proved Colin right and we reasised that we were never going to get to Kuala Lumpur in time for the Embassy opening hours.
A change of plan was required. We decided that we would stay in Kuala Lumpur for the night, collect my passport in the morning, post both our passports back to the UK from Kuala Lumpur then catch the bus to Melaka. On the bright side, it gave us another chance to go to Lot 10 in Kuala Lumpur and eat more scrummy food. We telephoned Christophe and Lee Sun, the owners of the Old Town Guest House in Melaka, to let them know that we would be arriving a day later. I felt a bit guilty as we had reserved a room with them for that night but they were very accommodating and told us not to worry.