Up at 8am. We all started walking to the local bus station at 9am, which was supposed to be a half-hour walk, but we encountered buses near the hotel that would take us there, so we lucked out. Got to the big bus terminal at 9:30am and rode to Melaka 9:45am-11:45am. The bus driver was supposed to take us past the Melaka bus terminal directly to our hotel, but he didn't know where it was, which led to an entertaining high-pitched animated conversation between the driver and the hotel on Dek's phone. We were literally laughing out loud.
We arrived at the Fenix Inn.
Instructions on my toilet. Again, trying to prevent Chinamen from flouting society's conventions.
We picked up a stray along the way. Crystal (sp?) Bautista from the Philippines fell asleep on the KL-Melaka bus and failed to get off at the terminal, and went all the way to the hotel with us. We made her an honorary member of the group for a couple hours. She went to lunch with us at the mall (I had spicy fried rice and fresh orange juice; the rice wasn't spicy until I added chilis from one of the Austrians). Becky at lunch to Fiona: "Aren't you speaking Irish right now?" Fiona, puzzled: "No, I'm speaking English."
Crystal remained with us for our walking tour of Melaka.
Porta de Santiago and remains of St. Paul's up on the hill.
Fiona, Becky and Crystal spinning violently on a merry-go-round.
I'm on a ride and I want to get off, but they won't slow down the roundabout
I sold the Renoir and TV set, don't wanna be around when this gets out
Crystal asked me for these photos, so if anyone is in contact with her, please unite us. I gave her my info but haven't gotten the Facebook add yet, and there are too many people with her name on there.
Boring fort. My lifelong dream has been to purchase and live in a fort, but not this sucky one.
Stadthuys, believed to be the oldest Dutch building in the East.
Christ Church.
River. I think it has a name, but my maps aren't working.
Stadthuys again.
Becky straddling a cannon at the fort. HOT.
Some kind of lizard-like lizard below the fort.
I like when a lizard (or any animal) has his sights set on something. You know something cool is about to happen.
Nothing cool happened though.
Replica of the Flora de la Mar, which according to Lonely Planet sank off the coast while transporting Malayan booty back to Europe. They must have found an alternate means of transport, because I didn't see any quality Malayan booty in 7 nights. We went into the museum that's housed in the ship, which is air-conditioned, so I highly recommend it. Also we went to the Maritime Museum across the way.
At 4pm we returned to the hotel and did our goodbye hugs with Crystal, who was in our group for only a couple hours, but it was still emotional.
I was on the Internet 5:55pm-6:46pm. Lakers lost to the Suns and are tied 2-2. Crystal Bowersox got praise from the judges but DialIdol.com has Lee DeWyze winning, and it's never wrong. Interesting. The Meadowlands got the Super Bowl, which is cool. I added most people from the group on Facebook.
This was the fastest of my 10 group tours, which might mean it was the most enjoyable. A couple other people said it was going fast.
Dinner was at the Geographér Café, where I had curry ramen. It wasn't great. Too much going on besides the ramen, like the sausage. And it wasn't spicy, but I still had a lot of diarrhea afterward.
Group at dinner. Left to right: Amar (aka Omar), Andy, William, Fiona, Joe, Lee, Becky, Elise, Matt, John, Simon, Laura, Trisha, and Dek aka Dexter.
We drank afterward at Eleven Bistro, where we had multiple buckets of Tiger.
Like I said...multiple buckets. I had maybe 7 beers there and a screwdriver at dinner. We got home around midnight. I was in bed at 12:30am.