Day 5 - Malacca

Today I was woken up by dad tapping on the door for George to go swimming, the tapping managed to wake me up but not George so I had to wake him up myself. I would have slapped his face to get him to stir his stumps but I couldn't reach so went with the poking and shaking method. However, after all this effort on my part George didn't want to go swimming.

We all slept for a bit after that, and then went for the breakfast. In the Holiday Inns here they serve the most varied breakfast I have ever seen. On one side the silver serving orbs have noodles and curry in, the next side have all the components of an English breakfast any one could want and then the island in the middle offers fruit, cakes and pastries. DELICIOUS!!!

After that we trooped out onto the hot, but much cooler then yesterday, streets of Malacca. We walked for a little while until we reached a heritage museum where we learnt a lot about the wedding and birthday ceremonies of a Malay household. Our guide who was Chinese but called Shirley, which I found quite amusing, sped through all the infomation with lightning quick speed until we reached the gift shop where I bought my friends' a little birthday present. 

The second place we were headed towards was the oldest Chinese temple in Malaysia. Unfortunately this temple was very hard to find. We probably ended up walking around the whole of Malacca before being able  to find the temple. On the way to the temple we passed many interesting shops including a local artist's gallery. Inside and at the back of the shop we witnessed the making of some prints, it was very interesting to watch and after having a nice talk about Chinese years and element signs me and George each bought a little print of the Chinese year we were born in. ( I'm a little rabbit and George is a horsey.) I also got a pretty print fan for only 50p!

Once we had got into the Chinese temple we were hit by the smell of incense being burnt. When we got into the main part of the temple, which was a temple for the mercy god, we observed a man doing a strange type of prayer. He was knelt on the floor with a cylindrical tin full of thin sticks he shook the tin of sticks until a couple of them had fallen onto the floor he then took two red crescent shaped objects, held them together for a moment and then dropped them onto the floor. He repeated this many times and I am still not sure what it was for, maybe fortune telling?

After admiring all of the beautiful decoration in the temple we wandered over to the river boat cruise and were just in time to catch the 3:00 tour. Whilst making our way down the river we saw a row of houses and buildings with painted walls. The walls had all manner of different murals on but they were all equally interesting to look at. We also saw a monitor lizard swimming in the river and going into the wall! 

After that we just had a bit of a relax at the hotel until 8:00 where we took the hotel mini bus service into Chinatown to get some dinner. However, what we didn't know was that none of the restaurants were actually open. So after another walk down Jonker street and many others we decided to ask a cabby where there was food and we finally got to a very busy and very un-touristy Chinese restaurant where we ordered ginger fish, Singapore fried noodles, prawn noodles ( which had more meat then prawn in to mum's dismay) and of course SATAY!

Now we are back at the hotel and about to go to sleep so we can get up early for our trip to the next stop which is Kuala Lumpur.

Tara for now, Lily :)