So, Melaka. It's a sleepy little tourist trap of a town that doubles as a great place to live cheaply and collect yourself after Singapore. It's actually a UNESCO world heritage site as well with a TON of history; it was used to control the shipping lanes during the spice trade days for over half a century. It's been controlled by the Portugese, the Dutch, the British and the locals at various times (and sometimes more than once for those groups), and there are remains of forts and colonial architecture in a very concentrated area near the river. That's the good news. The bad news is that it's a hugely popular tourist destination for the Chinese, which means they flood in on legions of buses multiple times a day to take photos of everything and ignore anything of significance. This may seem harsh, but it's not. The other bad news is that the amount of money put behind the local museums, displays, etc is not exactly befitting the area's history. There are about 20 or so museums crammed into the area, including such notably pointless ones as the stamp museum and the customs museum. Everything is placards and displays, so it's a ton of reading without a lot of interaction, making it hard to really absorb much. And then there are these guys:

That guy on the right is just loving life for some reason: these are supposed to be traders of some sort, can't remember which descent. Also, he kind of looks like Micheal Jackson to me, I dunno. Contrast him with this guy in the middle:

Who looks like he is extremely depressed and ready to end it all. I feel for him.

Anyway Melaka's redeeming has been the people. I went to a hostel one evening to book a night for the next day and found out they organize dinners every night for people to get to know each other. They didn't have a room but asked if I wanted to join them for dinner at a local Sikh temple, so I ran back to the hostel to change into longer pants, met them there, had a great meal for the equivalent of a 66 cent donation, then drank with them until 1am. Missed the dinner the next night but still caught up to them later and went out drinking again. Same thing tonight likely, though I think some of them have moved on and I'm not sure I can handle another night of boozing. Haven't been going all that hard, but it's pretty easy to knock down 6-8 when they only cost 2 bucks a pop for a can of Carlsberg. Also the funny thing is we start out the night at the house of an old man nicknamed Uncle Lee, whose house is the bar. You sit in his barely furnished little living room type area. Apparently he used to have the cheapest beer on the street until another place opened up down the road and now it's more of a pity stop, but it's a fun place to drink.

One last quick thing for Steve and my family: if you thought weed-wacking for the parks dept was bad in Canada, check this guy out:

Yes, that's a full balaclava. Plus boots, pants, gloves, long sleeves. In 30+ degree heat, with brutal humidity. I wanted to give him a hug, but I didn't.

Not uploading any pictures this time, they're not worth the little remaining space I have left on Flickr. Here's a couple of just the general area though: