Started the day by returning to The Saturday Ice Cafe, where we had a delicious breakfast yesterday, after negotiating with the lovely smiley old woman who at first refused our order for two bowls – “You try first! You might not like!” (we did) – and this morning greeted our repeat order with “Why you no try something different?”
We insisted though, and she cheerfully served us our plates of noodles and broth with tofu, fried tofu, egg, spring onions and tomato, chilli and lime – a tad under a pound a bowl.
Then back to the hotel to pick up our bicycles (£2 a pop for the day) and head off to the mosque we’d decided to visit, only to discover on arrival that they’d just closed for the morning (it didn’t in any case look all that TBH, from what we could see). So we settled on Plan B – a ride back along the river, bumping en route into a trio of cheery Canadians, who were in the middle of a bike tour from Phuket down to Panang, as well as a little group of enormous lizards – upwards of 2 metres long, which were lounging around on the banks and swimming in the river.
It suddenly occurs to me we can’t leave town without mentioning Melaka’s iconic tour bicycles – absurdly decorated with Little Kitty, Pokemon and the like, blazing with garish LED lighting, and often blaring out Queen or Malaysian pop at ear-splitting volumes…
Now we’ve come back to the hotel to sit out some of the heat of our last day in Melaka before heading back to Kuala Lumpur, en route to the Cameron Highlands. Must confess we’re rather looking forward to a bit of greenery after all the urban we’ve been in since we’ve arrived. Not that the cities haven’t been great, but we’re about ready for a bit of peace and quiet, and perhaps a monkey or two.