An Adventurers Tale: The scousers

This morning after another great nights sleep we awoke refreshed and ready to go. It’s a great find where we are staying. The 906 riverside hotel is a budget style hotel positioned on the riverside of the Malacca river and in close walking distance of all the major sights of Malacca old town. It’s not posh by any stretch of the imagination but has everything we need.

There are several things we look for in our accommodation. Location, it must be in walking distance of the places you need to see and close to a public transport hub. Cleanliness, no one wants a dirty or cockroach infested hovel or stained sheets. A private bathroom, under no circumstances do you want to share a bathroom with 300 Chinese people all suffering a simultaneous bout of the runny bottom syndrome. Quiet after dark, check google maps or peruse the area for fun pubs and karaoke bars. karaoke bars are the worst as you are guaranteed several hours of painful renditions of John Denver in a Mandarin accent. There’s only so much “cunty woads” anyone can take especially at one o-clock in the morning. Most importantly helpful staff are a must as the staff in the lodging are key to the success or failure of your plans. They are almost always local guys so know the area well. They have contacts for onward travel if conventional options fail and if you are friendly and polite to them they will go out of there way to help if you come unstuck.

We made our way, after completing our morning ablutions, back to the Sultinates Palace via the Dosa shop for breakfast. To our delight the palace was open for viewing and well worth the trek back to see it. After the Palace we again trundled around the markets as Crispy was determined not be outdone and find herself a dress as her birthday present. After many a long and forlorn search she managed to find three dresses that she liked and fit perfectly. All three for the princely sum of 20 pounds. She was as happy as the proverbial pig in muck and carried the little pink plastic bag containing her hard won finds with pride.

It was hot so we decided to call into a small riverside bar for a quick drink. Mallacca is unusual for Malaysia as it is quite well supplied with bars. Not surprising as it is a major tourist hub for western tourists. As we sat in the bar watching the people and river cruise boats pass along in front of us we were wondering if the cruisers operated as a water taxi service or just a tourist attraction. Crispy turned around to a western guy who was sat behind us and asked “excuse me, do you know how the boats work?”. The guy, an American, answered as quick as a flash “ Yes, they are designed to float and have propeller things at the back”. He said it as I thought it and Dear old Crispy was not in the least amused. It made me giggle for the rest of the day.

The American who sensed he had crossed the line soon departed. It started to rain and he was soon replaced by Brian and Angela. Two seventy year old scousers who still travel independently. They entertained us with tails of their travels to far flung shores over the course of the last four decades. Crispy always says I am a good story teller but I fade into insignificance in the face of Brian’s finesse at recounting tales of their adventures. He made us laugh with his stories and we ended up staying in the bar far longer than we had originally planned. Brian was a retired lawyer and Angela a university lecturer in mathematics. They told us that they had started to travel forty years ago after being involved in a serious road accident that very nearly killed Brian. He said the realisation that life can be stuffed out in the blink of an eye led them to explore our amazing planet and enjoy every experience it presented before it was too late. It’s a sentiment I can relate too and I take my hat off to them. We really enjoyed their company and it was a true pleasure to meet them. I cannot imagine a worse scenario than having lived and died on this truly beautiful and fascinating planet without seeing its treasures. Crispy and I are so very lucky to have been the places we have been and had the adventures we have had. I look forward to many, many more.

Whilst chatting to Brian and Angela she mentioned that they had seen huge monitor lizards in the river. I was just saying that we had not seen any when as if by magic one appeared right in front of us in the water. It was only 5 foot long but presented a fantastic sight as it swam downstream. From looking on the t’interweb it seems that there is an infestation of them in the Malacca river and they can grow upto 7 foot in length. We had probably walked past a few of them in the past few days but never took notice.

That evening we again visited the night markets to watch the new year celebrations and eat from the food stalls. Crispy has developed a taste for Dragon beard candy so we searched out a stall and sat on the roadside to eat our fill. We had an early start the next morning to catch the bus to Port Dickson so left the market early. The celebrations were nowhere near as interesting as the ones we witnessed in Penang so we decided to call it a night. On the way back to our lodgings we passed a Mexican themed bar that was bouncing. A great singer and guitarist duo were drawing a crowd so we stopped for a couple of drinks before retiring to bed.

The bus for tomorrow is already booked so I anticipated no delays or trauma in respect of our onward travel north through Malaysia. Time would tell.