We rilly lak Milleja
Our spontaneous visit to Malaysia was made easy by the fact that it's connected to 
Singapore by a bridge and all we had to do was jump on a bus. Who knew? So it was 
that we entered Malaysia and, having done absolutely no research beforehand, headed to the nearest town that looked mildly interesting. That happened to be Melaka (sometimes 
spelt Malacca), a small but perfectly formed ex-colonial outpost that has just shot to number one in my list of "Surprising Towns I Have Fallen In Love With" (just edging out Tallin in Estonia, Szeged in Hungary and Gdansk in Poland).
Melaka is exactly the sort of town I'd hoped we'd be coming across in Asia but which, up until now, had eluded us. It is a maze of little streets, colonial shopfronts, shuttered windows and laid 
back coffee houses. Everything is slightly run down and crumbling with peeling paint - it's what glossy magazines would call "tatty-chic" - and is a living picture-postcard of another era. The whole place should have a French jazz soundtrack.
There are modern interruptions to this idyll of course. One of these being the herds of yellow pedalo-rickshaw contraptions that roam the streets. I imagine that once upon a time these would have been a nice leisurely way to peruse the town but now they look like 
they have been 'pimped' by a teenage work-experience from MTV. They are loud in every sense - garishly decorated, festooned with flowers and blaring out music from enormous speaker systems. At night they up the ante even further with a, literally, dazzling display of flashing lights. They're like mobile migraines.
Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening, old town Melaka becomes one
huge night market with outdoor stalls selling clothes, souvenirs and food. The colours, sounds and smells are fabulous. There is a permanent outdoor stage set up on Jonker Walk, the main street through the old town, and this stage hosts a lot of musical acts of varying quality. We saw a brilliant choir who could have been miming, a brilliantly camp chap in a long-tailed
jacket who should have been miming and, on the Sunday night, a random assortment of elderly gentlemen doing karaoke! Some of them
looked like they shouldn't be out unaccompanied but were happily stood up there belting out tunes we'd never heard before to a noticeably disinterested crowd. Surreal but brilliant. Oh, and the stage seemed to be sponsored by the local equivalent of Pot Noodle which just added to the magic of the occasion.
One thing we've noticed is that the signs and notices in Malaysia can, at first, seem a little confusing - until you realise that, for the most part, Malaysian words actually just seem to be 
English words spelt with a South African accent. So, for example, taxi is spelt 'teksi', bus is 'bas', jam is 'jem', police is 'polis', and so on. Once you get the hang of it everything seems to 'mik sinse' a bit more.
After Melaka we headed to Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur. The star of KL (as everyone calls it) has to be the Petronas Towers. These two gleaming skyscrapers were, until fairly recently, the tallest buildings in the world - but now hold the slightly less impressive title of Tallest Twin 
Towers in the World. Connecting the two behemoths, half way up, is a walkway called the Sky Bridge and we desperately wanted to go up there. Unfortunately there are limited tickets for a visit and they were sold out with a two day wait (we were only in town for two days) so our ascent was thwarted.
Instead we went to the KL Tower just down the road, a 421m high mast with an observation
deck at the top. This was cheaper, had tickets available, no queues AND had a host of other distractions on offer. Which is how we ended up having a go on a Formula 1 driving simulator! As you can imagine, I was ever so slightly more excited about this than Claire. So excited in fact that it got us into trouble. Having taken the lead from a 'virtual' Sebastian Vettel on lap 3, I span off the 'virtual' track and, to remedy the situation, turned the 'actual' steering wheel with such vigour that we were asked to leave. Can you imagine Jenson Button being asked to "not turn the steering wheel so much
, please" mid race? So we went up the tower. The views 
were great, naturally, and it meant we got to look at the Petronas Towers as opposed to looking out from them. We concluded this was a much better way around. Plus we were up there in time to see the magic moment when the sun goes down and the city lights up. Magical.
Our guest house was in Kuala Lumpur's China Town area and
on our way home one evening we stumbled upon some mad local festivities. The occasion was the opening of a new dried meat store (yes, really) and to celebrate this they held a 'dragon dance'. Drums, cymbals and pipes were played as a gang of twelve lads manoeuvred the dragon as it swirled, danced and dived through
the 
crowd. Then there were two dancing 'lions' (wearing plimsolls), followed by a procession of even more strange and wonderful costumes. The finale to the action was the lighting of a long string of firecrackers. These were deafeningly loud and showered us with bits of surprisingly painful cardboard shrapnel. Our bare legs were getting machine-gunned
with debris as, in scenes reminiscent of Beirut in the mid eighties, the crowd 
scattered, running for cover while bewildered children staggered around screaming. It was pandemonium. At least they could say the evening went with a bang.
Singapore by a bridge and all we had to do was jump on a bus. Who knew? So it was 
that we entered Malaysia and, having done absolutely no research beforehand, headed to the nearest town that looked mildly interesting. That happened to be Melaka (sometimes 
spelt Malacca), a small but perfectly formed ex-colonial outpost that has just shot to number one in my list of "Surprising Towns I Have Fallen In Love With" (just edging out Tallin in Estonia, Szeged in Hungary and Gdansk in Poland).
Melaka is exactly the sort of town I'd hoped we'd be coming across in Asia but which, up until now, had eluded us. It is a maze of little streets, colonial shopfronts, shuttered windows and laid 
back coffee houses. Everything is slightly run down and crumbling with peeling paint - it's what glossy magazines would call "tatty-chic" - and is a living picture-postcard of another era. The whole place should have a French jazz soundtrack. 
There are modern interruptions to this idyll of course. One of these being the herds of yellow pedalo-rickshaw contraptions that roam the streets. I imagine that once upon a time these would have been a nice leisurely way to peruse the town but now they look like 
they have been 'pimped' by a teenage work-experience from MTV. They are loud in every sense - garishly decorated, festooned with flowers and blaring out music from enormous speaker systems. At night they up the ante even further with a, literally, dazzling display of flashing lights. They're like mobile migraines.
Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening, old town Melaka becomes one
huge night market with outdoor stalls selling clothes, souvenirs and food. The colours, sounds and smells are fabulous. There is a permanent outdoor stage set up on Jonker Walk, the main street through the old town, and this stage hosts a lot of musical acts of varying quality. We saw a brilliant choir who could have been miming, a brilliantly camp chap in a long-tailed
jacket who should have been miming and, on the Sunday night, a random assortment of elderly gentlemen doing karaoke! Some of them
looked like they shouldn't be out unaccompanied but were happily stood up there belting out tunes we'd never heard before to a noticeably disinterested crowd. Surreal but brilliant. Oh, and the stage seemed to be sponsored by the local equivalent of Pot Noodle which just added to the magic of the occasion.
One thing we've noticed is that the signs and notices in Malaysia can, at first, seem a little confusing - until you realise that, for the most part, Malaysian words actually just seem to be 
English words spelt with a South African accent. So, for example, taxi is spelt 'teksi', bus is 'bas', jam is 'jem', police is 'polis', and so on. Once you get the hang of it everything seems to 'mik sinse' a bit more. 
After Melaka we headed to Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur. The star of KL (as everyone calls it) has to be the Petronas Towers. These two gleaming skyscrapers were, until fairly recently, the tallest buildings in the world - but now hold the slightly less impressive title of Tallest Twin 
Towers in the World. Connecting the two behemoths, half way up, is a walkway called the Sky Bridge and we desperately wanted to go up there. Unfortunately there are limited tickets for a visit and they were sold out with a two day wait (we were only in town for two days) so our ascent was thwarted.
Instead we went to the KL Tower just down the road, a 421m high mast with an observation
deck at the top. This was cheaper, had tickets available, no queues AND had a host of other distractions on offer. Which is how we ended up having a go on a Formula 1 driving simulator! As you can imagine, I was ever so slightly more excited about this than Claire. So excited in fact that it got us into trouble. Having taken the lead from a 'virtual' Sebastian Vettel on lap 3, I span off the 'virtual' track and, to remedy the situation, turned the 'actual' steering wheel with such vigour that we were asked to leave. Can you imagine Jenson Button being asked to "not turn the steering wheel so much
, please" mid race? So we went up the tower. The views 
were great, naturally, and it meant we got to look at the Petronas Towers as opposed to looking out from them. We concluded this was a much better way around. Plus we were up there in time to see the magic moment when the sun goes down and the city lights up. Magical.
Our guest house was in Kuala Lumpur's China Town area and
on our way home one evening we stumbled upon some mad local festivities. The occasion was the opening of a new dried meat store (yes, really) and to celebrate this they held a 'dragon dance'. Drums, cymbals and pipes were played as a gang of twelve lads manoeuvred the dragon as it swirled, danced and dived through
the 
crowd. Then there were two dancing 'lions' (wearing plimsolls), followed by a procession of even more strange and wonderful costumes. The finale to the action was the lighting of a long string of firecrackers. These were deafeningly loud and showered us with bits of surprisingly painful cardboard shrapnel. Our bare legs were getting machine-gunned
with debris as, in scenes reminiscent of Beirut in the mid eighties, the crowd 
scattered, running for cover while bewildered children staggered around screaming. It was pandemonium. At least they could say the evening went with a bang.
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