After a quick stop off in KL for a night, where we enjoyed a particular delicious Indian, we hopped onto yet another bus and whizzed down south to a delightful seaside town called Melaka (also spelled Malacca). Developed as a commercial port town in the early 15^th century, it was captured by the Portuguese and then the Dutch before being ceded to the British in 1824, then briefly to the Japanese during WW2 until finally becoming part of the Malayan Union in 1946. It was also listed as a UNESCO world heritage site in 2007. With such a varied history, it’s no wonder that the city is so appealing to tourists. In 2017 it recorded almost 17 million of them.

We were staying a few miles outside of the city centre in an AirBnB named the Atlantis Residence, part of a new development on reclaimed land to the North of the old town. Our apartment was a large two bedroom 27^th floor stylish IKEA showroom sponsored by the colour silver, overlooking the ocean to the West (thankfully facing away from the large pool in the centre of the complex and the noise being emitted by the numerous children in it). The balcony looks out to the reclaimed land and ocean where presumably the plan is to construct more of the kind of holiday let apartments that we’re in, but for the time being it offers an unobstructed view of the ships in the bay, as well as some fantastic thunderstorms every evening. After almost 9 months of living in very close quarters, we were grateful to have a bit of room to stretch our legs and experience the luxury of personal space.

Our first taste of the old town was a trip to the weekend night market which we’d heard was quite a good one. There’s a distinctly European feel to it, which isn’t surprising I suppose given its history. It feels a bit like Amsterdam meets Hoi An, and the market was a good mix of tourist toot, durian based snacks and unnecessary plastic. At the far end, we stumbled upon two old men singing karaoke and dancing on the steps outside a Chinese temple, all this in a country where the vast majority of the population doesn’t drink. It was really good fun to watch. There’s something fascinating about someone getting up in front of a bunch of strangers to sing their heart out, especially when their idea of singing seems to be a competition as to who can sound the most like a cat being strangled. I have to confess when we first arrived in Malaysia, I was a little underwhelmed, but the kindness and friendliness of the people, as well as the tolerance and respect for different religions and lifestyles has absolutely won us over. The vast majority of people are curious about us, asking where we’ve come from and what we’re up to in Malaysia. We also heard an advert on the radio encouraging politeness and reminding people to say please and thank you to each other, which is absolutely the way to any Brit’s heart (that and the tea, scones, and jam from the Cameron Highlands).

One of the things we seem to be doing rather a lot of recently is nothing. That is to say vegging out on the sofa catching up on all the TV we’ve missed since January and consuming the offerings of the local convenience store. Having said that, we haven’t been complete sloths, Melaka is home to a wealth of museums and so we decided to take advantage of its rather compact city centre, taking a stroll along the riverfront before reaching the Baba and Nyonya Heritage Museum. The museum is a brilliantly preserved house from the 1800s which continues to be owned by the descendants of the house’s original owner, Chan Chang Siew. The word “Baba” refers to a Straits-born man of Chinese parentage and the word “Nyonya” refers to a Straits-born woman of Chinese parentage. The word “Nyonya” is still used today but mostly in reference to certain cuisines and dishes that you can find throughout Malaysia. Sadly, the Museum does not allow photography, so I’ve pinched a few off their website instead. It was a good hour that we spent wandering through the old house, admiring the mother of pearl lacquered furniture and reading about the traditions of the time. The wooden stairs leading up to the second floor are not only intricately carved, but also have a lockable gate at the top and a wooden cover that can be folded over in order to prevent mischievous children from going downstairs when they should be in bed, and also to stop those returning to the house later than they should have been from being able to sneak back in. Neither Dave nor I could empathise of course, having never done either of these things.

The following day, in a shocking turn of events, we embarked on a free walking tour provided by the Malaysia Tourism Board. The sky was clear, and the sea haze had retreated, leaving us considerably sweatier than we would normally have been at 9am. Luckily the meeting point was air-conditioned, and we joined a group of around 20 people for what turned out to be the longest 3 hours of our lives. Melaka Old Town is a very walkable place, being very flat and having lots of trees for shelter; unfortunately, it also has one of the dullest free walking tours imaginable. 3 hours is a long time to be standing around in the sun, especially when the advertised time was roughly 2 hours, leaving us finished around 11am which as everyone knows is the perfect time for coffee and a cake. Our tour guide was an older chap of Indian descent and whilst not being completely devoid of personality, he did talk over me a few times which seems to happen a lot here. Taxi drivers also ignore me and talk to Dave instead, so I’ve taken up the habit of answering when they talk to him. We’ve only got a month left and I’m fed up of picking my battles. Anyway, back to the walking tour. The guide also had a rather annoying tendency to either stop half-way through a rather interesting anecdote, or drone on unnecessarily about tombstones, or how he cured his mother and sister of Dengue Fever using a local isotonic drink, or how science and medicine aren’t interested in natural remedies, despite, you know, aspirin coming from a tree, or quinine, or menthol, it’s almost as if they don’t like to base scientific certainties on one piece of anecdotal evidence! Still, we did learn a few bits and pieces, and it was free after all. Our tour group was reduced to about 10 people by the end, poor bloke. Naturally, once he’d finished telling us about every single possible restaurant in all of Melaka, we told him we’d had a jolly nice time thank you very much and tipped him 10 Ringgit (about £2). Luckily for us we finished up by the river, meaning it as only a short walk to the nearest bar for some lunch and a cold beer, before heading back to the AirBnB to take advantage of the rather large swimming pool.

After a lazy morning featuring scrambled eggs and catching up on The Circle, we headed into town for a spot of lunch at Geographer’s Café where I discovered that the local sour plum &lime juice is one of the nicest drinks on the planet. Bellies full, we walked up the wonderful Jonker Street up to the Stadthyus building. Believed to be the oldest surviving Dutch structure in all of the Eastern world, its bright salmon pink façade certainly draws your attention. Built between 1641 and 1660 on the ruins of a Portuguese fort, the building housed several successive governments, right up until 1982 when it was turned into a museum. Now I know we’ve touched on this before, and I think we’re definitely spoilt in so far as museums go because we grew up with places like the National History Museum or the Science Museum, but museums in South East Asia are just a bit, meh. That’s not to say the history isn’t fascinating or that the relics they house aren’t to be cherished and preserved, it’s just that they need to hire some curators, or at least put in some signs or something. The Stadthyus jumped from weaponry to pottery to local food and wedding customs, without so much as a thread from which to weave the narrative of the place. Melaka has such a rich history and it’s bizarre that someone has just thrown some old plates, paintings, and terrifying mannequins into the building and thought “yep, that’s a jolly good museum thanks, pub anyone?”. There was an information point as you entered, but it seemed to consist of some leaflets for the very museum we were already inside of, and the most bored looking member of staff you could possibly imagine. We did meet a nice cat as we walked through though, so at least there was that. Our ticket also included the Governor’s Museum, which was just a cult of personality to the various sultans and governors in Malaysia, half closed and falling to pieces with nary a staff member in sight (spooky) as well as the Democratic Government Museum, which sounds a lot more Orwellian than it actually turned out to be. There was quite a lot of information about the independence of Malaysia but again in a rather hodge podge fashion, I think we might have to give up on museums in South East Asia and rely on Father Christmas to bring us some jolly good history books instead.

Melaka also offers a river cruise throughout the day and we’d decided to hop aboard at 7pm so that we could enjoy the light on the ride up and then the lights from the old town in the dark on the way back. The sun sets really quickly here so you don’t really get a twilight, but what sunset there was to be had, we enjoyed from a bar just across the river that we’d settled into a few hours earlier, after our jam packed rip roaring adventure around the various museums. This meant that by the time we boarded the boat at 7pm, we were a little sloshed. Alcohol is expensive here, well at least by South East Asian standards. A 620ml bottle of beer in Thailand for example will set you back between £1-£2 depending on the bar. A 620ml bottle of beer in Malaysia will typically cost between £4 – £5, so no more expensive than back in the UK, but definitely a bit more than we’ve been paying over the past 5 months. As such, the river cruise was fab. Unlike the museums, the whole trip has been really thought through, with lights and attractions being put up along the way, with the voiceover providing you with explanations about the things you’re seeing. Everyone sitting at the bars along the riverside waves at you as you go past too, and who can resist waving back? It lasted around 40 minutes and we enjoyed every second, despite the booming middle-eastern chap sitting at the front having a conversation on his phone the whole time. Don’t really know why he’d paid to come on the cruise if he was just going to be on his phone. Ah well, we had a nice time, and we enjoyed several more beers at a Thai restaurant on the riverside, saw yet another pussy cat, and stumbled back to the apartment feeling really rather jolly indeed.

And that dear reader more or less sums up our time in Melaka. It was definitely one of our favourite places in Malaysia, retaining that old town charm but also giving you plenty of things to see and do. Our last night there a huge great storm rolled in and kept us entertained for hours. We were very sad to be saying goodbye to our huge great apartment, not just because of the amount of space we’d had, but also because Melaka had been a really enchanting place to spend our last full week in Malaysia. Back to KL next for a few days and then onwards to Thailand where the countdown to home begins.

Re-joining the mainland via the incredibly exciting ferry, we hopped onto a rather snazzy coach towards our next destination. Ipoh (pronounced eeeeeeeeeepoh) is a 2 hour drive from Butterworth and we were once again pleasantly surprised by just how quick a 2 hour journey feels to us now. Ipoh is Malaysia’s 3^rd largest city and is separated into the Old and New Towns by a rather convenient river. It grew rapidly from around 1880 when large tin deposits were discovered nearby and has an interesting history peppered with fires, British architecture, and Japanese occupation. It’s also apparently known to some as the “Hipster Capital of Malaysia” but I am pleased to announce we definitely did not see this side of it.

For our first full day, I played tour guide. We had found a self-guided walking tour online and decided to at least attempt to burn off some of the spare calories we’d collected in Penang. Starting up by the Railway Station – nicknamed the Taj Mahal of Ipoh – we strolled through the streets of the old town, taking in the brilliant white walls of the old buildings. In fact, it rather reminded us of the architecture in Arequipa in Peru, both designed we imagine, with the intent of keeping the heat firmly outdoors.  One landmark of particular interest is the Birch Memorial Clock Tower, completed in 1909. Built to commemorate one James Wheeler Woodford Birch, who was speared to death in his boat house in 1875. To cut a long story short, he stuck his nose where he shouldn’t have and meddled in things he shouldn’t have been meddling with. His assassination led to the outbreak of the Perak War and ultimately a greater British political influence across the Malay peninsula. The tower itself has 4 panels depicting the evolution of civilisation, featuring, amongst others, Plato, Moses, Confucius, Florence Nightingale, and more generic stone age characters. Interestingly, until recently, the monument depicted Mohammed, but this has since been painted over following local religious objections. When I say local, I mean local, in that there is a mosque directly opposite. They haven’t done a very good job of painting over him however, as now it just looks like there’s a spooky Mohammed ghost floating around next to Constantine the Great.

We passed old banks and a house where Japanese spy Masaji Fukabori allegedly lived prior to World War II, but perhaps the most impressive building on our tour was none other than Malaysia’s First Multi-Storey Car Park. Yes folks, two impressive floors filled with rubbish and bird poop, truly a source of Malaysian national pride. Opposite this most impressive piece of south east Asian heritage is the premises of the former Perak River Hydro-Electric Power Company. Formed in London in 1926, they were Malaya’s largest power supplier for many years. They constructed both a dam and a hydro-electric power station on the Perak River in 1930, making them early pioneers of renewable energy. The company was absorbed by the Central Electricity Board in 1955 but the dam remains part of Malaysia’s energy infrastructure to this day. By this time, it was about 11:30 and we were in dire need of a place to cool down and refuel, so we headed into a nearby café to recharge our batteries. We were booked onto a tour of a local museum at 2pm so we still had some time to kill.

Nearby to our café was a rather impressive building owned by HSBC bank. The firm first arrived in Ipoh in 1910 before moving to its current location in the 1930s. Honestly the whole thing wouldn’t be out of place in Bank in London and we later discovered that it was used as a base by the Japanese occupying forces during WW2. Continuing on through Little India, we did our best to avoid the sun while taking in the colours and smells of this part of the city, before heading down Concubine Lane. As you might have guessed from the name, the lane has a rather sordid history. According to locals, the politicians, businessmen, and gangsters of Ipoh, would hide their concubines in the many houses lining the small alley. Luckily for us, the only temptations now lying in wait are the many restaurants, ice cream stalls and market stands, selling everything from jewellery to hello kitty dolls to plastic dinosaur bubble wands – much more exciting.

With some time still to kill before our tour, we ducked into another local café just in the nick of time before the heavens opened, treating us to one of the most spectacular downpours we’d seen in at least a week. We weren’t too concerned though, we had about 45 minutes until the tour and it was just a short walk away. We also had our trust Cambodian umbrellas in tow, out of which we’d definitely got our $5 worth at this point. As we’ve no doubt mentioned before, the heavier the rain, the shorter the storm tends to be here, so we sat and sipped our respective beverages, laughing to ourselves as we watched the roads turn into swimming pools. Time ticked on, and with ten minutes to go before our tour started, we were no longer laughing as we waded (literally) through the streets, our umbrellas no more useful than paper towels, soaked to the bone once we reached the doors of the museum. We must have looked a right state as the woman invited us in early to dry off and warm up. I think we’d have been dryer if we’d have spent the day at a water park. Soggy and dripping, we were led around Han Chin Pet Soo by a delightful tour guide who spoke excellent English; it was just a shame we couldn’t really hear what she was saying with the monsoon hammering on the windows and roof. Han Chin Pet Soo is a restored Tin Miner’s Club building and it set over three floors. It was founded by Leong Fee in 1857 as a place for the local Hakka miners to relax. Inside you could find an opium den, gambling, and more than a few special lady friends to keep you company. It’s the sort of place where you’d half expect to find several members of the Conservative Party being entertained by Donald Trump. Needless to say, with all the monkey business going on inside this place, no wives were allowed. The ground floor goes into more details about tin mining, and there’s also a large dining table set out how it would have been during the time that the club was operational. Sadly, with the decline of the tin industry, the building fell into disrepair until it was leased to a local charity in 2013. It’s a well put together museum, and considering it runs on donations alone, gives a great insight into Ipoh’s history and the former glory that the building once enjoyed.

Now a little less soggy, and feeling a bit less sorry for ourselves, we headed back to our hotel to fully dry off. Dear reader I don’t usually choose to mention dinner in our blogs as no one really cares about all that boring stuff, but that evening was definitely an interesting one. We decided to eat at the café inside the hotel as we’d done rather a lot of walking and were quite tired. It didn’t have the best reviews, but we’ve found that anything above a 3.5/5 tends to be adequate. As we wandered in, we were greeted by the staff and headed into the dining room past a lone woman sitting on a sofa. We were the only ones in the restaurant itself but that’s not unusual given the time of year and the staff were pleasant and all seemed well. Suddenly, the aforementioned woman comes stomping into the dining room, huffing and puffing about seating herself and not being given a menu and that she was very tired. She also chose the table directly next to us in an empty restaurant of 20+ tables. Hmm. After snapping at the lovely woman running the place “I want a coke, I want X, I want Y, I want Z”, she sat and huffed and puffed as we tried our best to make light conversation, sharing the sort of glance that when you’ve been together almost 7 years, says more than any words possibly could. After what felt like an eternity but was probably only about 5 minutes, she got up from the table, collected her bag and left. We immediately burst into fits of giggles, thinking ourselves lucky to have a small reprieve before she returned for her meal. Alas dear reader our neighbour never returned, and when the waitress returned with her meal and her drink, she looked at us expecting some sort of explanation. We could but shrug. The waitress left her poor untouched meal on the table and as we left, it was still there. When we paid, we shared a laugh at her expense with the waitress, and that is the mystery of the Ipoh woman. Some say she is still huffing and puffing her way around Ipoh’s various restaurants, leaving nothing but abandoned curries and full glasses of coke in her wake…

The following day we had plans to visit a local temple built into the side of a limestone cliff and also a local abandoned castle, but fate saw fit to deal me a bout of traveller’s stomach so instead we spent all day doing not very much of anything. And with that our time in Ipoh came to an end! A little disappointed that we hadn’t seen as much as we’d have liked to but excited to be heading up into the mountains to the Cameron Highlands.

Much like Dalat in Vietnam, Cameron Highlands sits nestled in the mountains, with not only cleaner air but also the chance to feel the illusive “cold” temperature for the first time in months. The coach wasn’t quite as snazzy as the one we’d taken from Butterworth, and the driving was a little erratic as we tore around hairpin bends, luckily though there was no overtaking round blind corners and compared to some of the driving we’ve experienced during the past 5 months, was incredibly safe. At least we were in a coach this time rather than a tiny minivan, so this at least provided some protection from perilous plunges or oncoming traffic. Needless to say, we arrived in one piece and checked into Father’s Guesthouse, a short walk from the bus station in the tiny town of Tanah Rata. Founded by, yep you guessed it, the British, the Cameron Highlands offer some cracking treks as well as plentiful strawberry farms and a huge tea plantation. Tanah Rata itself sits at around 1800m and reminds me very much of some of the smaller towns and villages in the Alps, though it never snows here. There is a golf course however, which boasts the cheapest fees in all of Malaysia. You can absolutely tell that the British have been here, with the golf and the strawberry jam and the scones and the drizzle, you could close your eyes and be forgiven for thinking you were somewhere back in old blighty.

The following day we’d booked ourselves onto a full day tour to explore the local area. Our tour guide Steve (one suspects this is not his real name) picked us up around 8am and we were bundled into the back of a Land Rover with a Belgian couple named Gerard and Sara. Our first stop was the infamous mossy forest, the 4^th oldest forest in the world. There is a walkway here where you can climb a small tower and see views for miles around. We were lucky on two accounts. The first is that normally you have a pay £6 to the forestry commission to go up, but it was so early that they hadn’t arrived yet – woohoo! The second is that we’re slap bang in the middle of monsoon season, so the cloud cover is very low, meaning at this time of year you’re paying £6 to go and look at some very nice clouds. On our visit however the clouds broke, and we were treated to a fabulous view of the surrounding valleys and peaks, or at least we were once the couple taking wedding photos moved out of the way. The mossy forest is really something to behold, as our Belgian friend noted, it’s like something out of The Lord of the Rings, trees twisting gnarled and bending the light through the branches, huge bunches of moss hang from the vines above you, you can absolutely feel the age of the place.

After we descended, Steve took us on a whistle stop tour of various plants in the local area and their medicinal purposes. He told us how he’d spent time living with the indigenous people in the jungle and showed us plants that repel mosquitos, help clot blood, help with digestion, and also a rather dubious plant that locally is dubbed as Viagra for women. We’ve come across similar claims a few times during our travels, in various different countries, and bizarrely enough it always seems to be men telling us how wonderful these plants are for women. Hmm. It was still interesting however, and he also regaled us with a story regarding Asian Giant Hornets and how a tourist had been flying a drone in the area and lost control of it, at which point it fell onto an Asian Giant Hornet nest (they nest in the ground), causing them to come flooding out and attacking the ~450 people wandering around the tea plantation at that time. Ouch. We were beginning to understand all the signs everywhere forbidding drones. We’d come this far without having to use our travel insurance and we weren’t keen to change that any time soon and luckily our Belgian buddies hadn’t brought a drone. The mossy forest sits atop the BOH (Best of Highlands) tea plantation and we took the opportunity to wander down the mountain to look out over the rolling hills striped with tea trees. Tea is grown on a tree rather than a plant (see we did learn something!) and the trees are harvested every 21 days in a systematic pattern, with only the younger light green shoots being harvested. The darker green leaves are left to drop and provide fertilizer for the trees. The trees here are the same ones that were planted 90 years ago by John Archibald Russell (no prizes for guessing his nationality) and the estate continues to be run by his granddaughter. Much like pepper, the varieties come from the same plant at different stages of fermentation. Green tea requires no fermentation, simply pluck the leaves, dry them and stew. Black tea however requires a longer fermentation process and any flavours (peppermint, strawberry etc) are added in the form of oil into the fermentation process. Steve had worked on the tea farms when he was younger, so he was a fountain of knowledge. We wandered down the path looking out over the tea trees before climbing back into the Jeep to head to the processing factory.

At the factory, we wandered through and saw the various stages of the tea leaves being transformed into our nation’s favourite beverage, before sampling a cup of the black stuff ourselves. It’s really very nice and there is something so incredibly civilised about a nice cup of tea and a scone with local made strawberry jam. The tea itself is sweet, it doesn’t require sugar, in fact it doesn’t even really need milk. We were inclined to purchase some from the factory shop, but it only came in bulky tins which unfortunately, at this stage of our travels, are not going to fit into our suitcases. Never mind, you’ll all just have to come here and try some for yourselves!

Following a brief stop to a butterfly farm and some lunch where I played with some cats (makes a nice change), we headed to a local museum known as the Time Tunnel. Far from the radio feature in which you guess the year the songs are from; the Time Tunnel really doesn’t look like much from the outside. As we entered, we were really happy to be proven wrong. What we found was an excellent display featuring information about Malaysia during WW2 as well as the following Communist insurgence, referred to in the history books as an “emergency” rather than a “war” as Lloyds insurers would not pay out in the event of a “war”. It was also filled with old advertising memorabilia, tin toys, old bikes and pens and all sorts of interesting knick-knacks. Did you know that the largest concentration of Land Rovers outside of a British military base anywhere in the world is Cameron Highlands? Well you do now!

Feeling thoroughly enlightened, our last two stops were to a local strawberry farm where we bought some strawberry chocolate and ate some strawberries (not as nice as English ones but still nice) and then headed onto a Buddhist temple. We’ve seen a lot of temples and so weren’t too fussed about that, but it had a nice fishpond.

And that about sums up our time in Tanah Rata! We did spend a second day here but decided to have a lazy day, sitting around reading and writing blogs, oh and calling Mum on her birthday (Happy Birthday Mummo!). We’re off down to Melaka next which is an old Dutch colonial town. But we’ll tell you all about that another time.