Melaka

Its taken me sometime to write on the blog. Internet access was pretty limited for the remainder of our time away. However at long last i'm completing this log of events for the children to look back at in years to come. We found a comfortable hostel here in Melaka, the owners and managers made us really feel welcome and even bough the children a chess board to play with. We visited the cinema and watched "Bedtime Stories" which Jay even admitted was a pretty good story although somewhat "predictable".The maritime museum was a good excursion with a replica Portugese vessel with history boards and exhibition inside giving information about Melakas past importance geographically with trading goods with the rest of the world. At one point there was something like 80 languages/ dialects spoken in the area. The City itself seemed to have a magic formula that other places we'd visited didn't possess. It had preseved old buildings and there was a pleasant feeling about the place. We spent hours and a number of changes and walking to get to a themed water park on day. It was thankfully a sucessful day albeit rather dear and again an opportunity to cool off from the heat. We were invited to go with "Stephen" the manager of the hostel to a nearby island. The island was a important place as it had members of one of the 13 royal families' lineage buried here. The mosque was a shrine and visitors flocked there particulary on holidays and weekends to camp on the beach and pray in the mosque. We had been booked in for lunch but didn't realise he had included us in the celabrations attached to the mosque. We enjoyed a Mutton Curry in the open air eaten with our fingers , much to Erins delight.