We've had such a great two weeks here in Kuala Lumpur we're a little sorry to leave but the Portugese colonial delights of Melaka and the Jonker street night market beckon. Kuala Lumpur Bas Central is perhaps the best organised bus station I've ever witnessed.  You enter at first floor level which is all given over to ticketing and opportunities to buy stuff you may need on the trip such as munchies and drinks and stuff you may need when you get there, everything from underpants to three peice suites.  You can't enter departure without a ticket rather like an airport.

 

We take our phone to a ticket booth (we have an eticket) they print it for us and point us to departures at ground floor.  A bit like departures at gatwick, they check your ticket and your luggage and you're into a wonderfully calm environment where you make your way to your departure gate and await your bus.

 

We have a great journey apart from the fact our driver spends most of it tail gating in torrential rain while taking multiple phonecalls.  On arrival in melaka we've arranged for our next air bnb host to pick us up....actually he offered.  We've christened him Gunsa, as his name is Navarone.

 

Melaka is undergoing quite a transformation, reclaimed land at the waterfront is being developed at an amazing rate. Our bnb is in the tallest block in the city, it has an open air bar on the 43rd floor! we're on the relatively lowly 19th floor over looking the huge 13th floor pool, the beautiful old portugese settlement and out to sea into the meleka straits from a nice spacious glass fronted balcony, now all we need is a nice bottle of  white.

 

We're both knackered so grab a car into the old town area which is another unesco heritage site. Fantastically ornate with a mix of architecture which reflects the colonial trading past of the town.  Dutch, British, Portugese, Chinese all piled  one atop the other, it's an eclectic, really exciting mix.  Dead opposite some chinese shop houses across the river from a dutch sea fort, a pub straight off the thames hangs over the river.  We sit in a window alcove and watch the river life slide by over a couple of beers and a ham sandwich which tastes like only a ham sandwich can taste when you've been in a muslim country for 3 months.

We've come to a stop. Kuala Lumpur was endlessly hot. Steaming, humid, torpid heat, day and night.  34 degrees everyday, 26 degrees everynight, remorsless, the temperature not even broken by the regular nightly downpours. The traffic constant, the noise the bustle, the smells, it's an intoxicating but exhausting place.  Gunsa has picked us up.

 

"Melaka is more....relaxed" he says.

 

"Good" we say.

 

We're chilling, bobbing about in the huge, wonderful infinity pool looking out over  the strait.  A chinese woman is walking her elderly relative (mum) around the pool, she goes to move our stuff....this could end in bloodshed.

 

"Excuse me" says Kim with admirable restraint and of course English reserve.

 

"Oh!!  You're English, I'm so glad to meet you, I lived in Birmingham for eight years"

 

"what's that got to do with England" we say

 

Or rather we don't as she insists on gathering us into a communal hug at the pool side and covering us in kisses

 

"hmmm, excitable sort" we think.....If only we'd known!!! 

 

We chat for a little bit, she has lived in Melaka but now has a place in KL and just comes down here for a long weekend everynow and then, all seems nice enough, in fact it turns out she has a coupole of cold cans in her bag one of which she shares with us.....Lovely Lady, we think as we say ta-ta and go get ourselves ready to go get some supplies.

 

There's a Tesco here.  Truth is they're in most large communities. We've not been to one since we were in Penang, the big draw is they have a non Hallal section where you can buy bacon! We have our own kitchenette, we have the remnants of a bottle of brown sauce I've treasured since Penang, what could possible go wrong?  Just holding a pack of bacon is close to a reeligious experience! feeling the meat through the plastic covering! It's cool from the chiller, has that satisfying weight and flex.  Here you need to buy pork or non kosher meat at a seperate counter so any muslim cashiers don't need to handle it.  I have to say it's good to not have to worry about some young cashier girls handling my pork!  We sense that the job behind the non Hallal counter is maybe a favoured position in that both of the girls are slumped, fast asleep on the counter and we need to wake them to make our payment.

 

We've had a lovely bit of carrot cake, a coconut cake and some iced coffee and we're at the door waiting for a cab, Kim's phone rings, It's Jo our Chinese lady friend.  We'd made our mind up to go to a portugese fish market tonight for dinner, but it's Jo's last day, she soooo enjoyed meeting "us guys" and she'd like to cook us a traditional home cooked chinese meal.  Typical Brits, we have plenty of time here, how can we refuse? Ok we'll do it, she wants to meet us by the pool, we can have a glass of wine, then up to her appartment for dinner, sounds nice enough, what could go wrong...........If I'd listened carefully, about now, I'd hear those first, ominous notes from the Jaws soundtrack..................DUUUR-DUH!! 

 

We're ready for dinner waiting at the pool, Jo approaches with her Mum Carol, leaning heavily on her arm.  We know her name is Carol because Jo introduces her by singing the Neil Sedaka tune "Oh Carol", I don't just mean the chorus, the whole bloody song, belted out in an off key screech, while she lurches around in a nightmare "jive".

 

Durrr-Duh! Duh duh duh duh duh

 

Carol has the build and demeanor of an empty bin liner, I'd guess her weight to be maybe 1 or 2 stone, you get the impression she could walk on talcum and not leave tracks.  Despite being oriental however there is something about her face which reminds us both of Kims mum.  Thinking back on it now it may have been the eyes, in that she had two.

 

Sat at the pool Jo takes a bottle of red wine from a cooly bag, then another, she uncaps both, takes a huge swig from one and passes the other to Kim and I. 

 

"It's the way we do it here, who needs glasses? I have already had one bottle"

 

"Ha ha, yes," we say.....nervously

 

"I have some treats for you" she squawks.

 

"It's not a gun is it?" I say hopefully.

 

It's some kind of dried fish about twice the size of whitebait, as soon as she breaks the wrapper the stench fills the air, still being terrbly British I take one and pop it in my gob.....

 

When I was eight or nine, my sister Joyce bought me a birthday cake.  It was beautiful, shaped like an old fashioned steam engine, coated in shiny chocolate, it looked so wonderful I really didn't want to eat it, I gazed at it all afternoon. 

 

I can still picture it on the lounge table, under the window catching the light on its' icing.  Shortly my mates would turn up to scoff it, along with plates of fish paste and pork luncheon meat sandwiches, washed down with fizzy pop and orange juice, then we'd have games of pass the parcel and musical chairs.  Finally we'd all run out the door and up Winterslow Drive, shouting, laughing, breath steaming in the icy cold-clear january air; caught by the beams of early evening sun light, slanting down over the rooves of Aunty Marylins, Aunty Pats' and old Mr Popeyes houses opposite.  Each of us are gripping a balloon and my mates all clutch a slice of cake for their little brothers and, or sisters wrapped in a red paper serviette.

 

 Mum has said I can have a peice of cake before they all arrive, I've thought long and hard  about this and calculate that if I eat the front, engineers side wheel, opposite to the side I'm looking at, the train from this side will still be complete, I will prove once and for al that I can, in fact, have my cake and eat it!  The wheel is formed of a slice of Swiss roll dipped in a chocolate icing, it's delicious, the chocolate icing crumbles, the sponge layers light, the jammy, creamy filling sweet, sticky......

 

I nearly lose that slice of cake when I chew into the rancid fish, I have to clench my teeth so as not to coat the hapless Jo and Carol in the crumbs of it, I loved that bloody cake and I will not give it up now.

 

Still dinner can only be an improvement, right??

 

We enter Jos' appartment, straight in the door the room is used as a bedroom for Carol containing a large double bed and the kitchen, a connecting door goes to Jos' bedroom and balcony, and one to the bathroom, I daren't ask where the teenage son and his friend sleep.  Every surface seems to have a cup with the detriutus from some kind of herbal drink, black liquid with lumps of stuff floating in it, there's a small two person sofa and Kim and I hunch on it and continue to take ever bigger swigs from our bottle of red as the grim reality starts to seep in, this woman is an umpa lumpa short of a chocolate factory!

 

Jo starts to cook dinner, there's a large cauldron of water which she brings to the boil into which she tips a head sized colander load of pasta shells (traditional chinese?)  The pasta is already cooked, we can tell because some overflows and sticks to the floor, resisting Jos' repeated attempts to kick them into the bathroom, the 2nd bottle of wine is clearly hitting home as with every missed kick she staggers further away from the pasta, eventually she bends to pick it up, staggers forward a few steps only stopping herself by grasping the door jamb of the bathroom.

 

"Would you like a beer darling" she screeches

 

"Oh dear god, yes please, how many do you have?"

 

Perhaps now I should mention that Jo is wearing a bikini and a very short, silky beach shirt.

 

The fridge is opposite where I'm sitting, with mounting horror I start to realise the beer is on the bottom shelf, Jo plants her legs wide and bends from the waist....I praise all the saints that it's not a thongy type bikini,  the bottoms are more like shorts, but they're pretty tight for a 50+ year old, I involuntarily gasp "Noooooooo" and swear I hear an echo.

 

I down the beer in one but pretend I have plenty left.

 

"Now the pork" she says bending over again..

 

"She can't mean????"

 

Oh Joy, the pork is in the bottom of the fridge! It's like a car crash, you don't want to look but...

 

Jo takes what looks like the rib cage of a large pig and dumps it into the cauldron, and I start to think if those murder stories you hear start like this, I can imagine the headline, "Retired  Brits found dismembered in Melaka appartment". I tighten my grip on the kneck of the wine bottle, if the bitch even touches a  cleaver I'm taking her down.

 

"Do you like spinach?" she says.

 

"Depends where you keep it"

 

Yep, it's in the crisper, {altogether now} bottom of the fridge!

 

By now we're drinking the wine in gulps, and Jo is ladling the "food" into bowls, there are only two of them plus a small one for Carol. I imagine the headline, "Brit retired couple poisoned and dismembered in Melaka appartment".

 

To "keep us going" Jo has bought us a bowl of sweaty red sausage, it looks like that stuff they advertise on telly as a "bit of an animal" but they never tell us which bit.  Biting into this I get a good idea....

 

Carol looks in her bowl, and back a Jo with a look which seems to say, "You expect me to eat this shit?" We look in our bowls and give a typically British, "Ummm this looks ...........nice"

 

I've never been a fan of white food that isn't Ice cream.  I have a bowl of pale disintegrating pasta, nestling wobbly bits of boiled pork (of course it could be the remains of a former guest, "Cannibal retired Brits found dismembered....etc etc etc) all floating in what looks like the water my mum used to boil wash my dads smalls in.

 

I try the pasta which has no consistency at all, and nibble on a peice of pork, it is pretty much pork and water but I catch myself and don't ask for salt, f*ck knows where she keeps it.  

 

Something round is floating in my bowl...... I decide to tuck it under a bit of spinach, I'm in the process when Jo goes for another beer, the ghastlyness of it results in my automatically conveying the round thing into my mouth and in a reflexive attempt to grit my teeth I bite into it.  It's squidgy, either a kidney or a testicle, I pray it's a kidney but once again my choccy choo choo wheel is knocking on the back of my teeth.....Jo is still rummaging in the bottom of the fridge

"SHIT..... SHIt..... SHit....Shit...shit".

 

Talking of Choccy Choo choos, Carol wants the toilet.  Jo helps her to the bathroom, comes back out, doesn't close the door. 

 

I'm eating the remains of my testicle/kidney in boiled water to the accompanyment of a bowel movement that sounds like my sister Jan squeezing the last of the washing liquid from a fairey bottle.

 

Simultaneously Carol is Hawking and coughing up what sounds like the entire contents of her head, I prey this isn't pudding!  Fortunately the flush goes and she comes out of the loo with a "I should leave it ten minutes if I was you" look, but still leaves the door open, I swallow another globbett of pale wobbly meat...

 

By squashing the pasta down with the back of my fork and tucking pork lumps under it I give the impression of having eaten my fill, as does Kim. "Yum thank you sooo much that was lovely" we say,  Kim goes to wonder over to the balcony..

 

"OOOH F*ck" she exclaims as she walks through the door way, Jo is changing into her Jim Jams!

 

"Perhaps it's a hint" I think happily, but no.  She brings in a lap top and starts to burble over it as the power of speach starts to desert her...It's clear she can't remember  or spell her password. Staggering to her feet, she throws the PC onto the bed and herself after it, back to us she assumes a position I can only decribe as  preparitory to some in through the out door knooky.  Kim and I look at each other completey perplexed as Jo tries version after version of her password wihout success all the time engaging us in conversation with..

 

" Shlarr sumin preeeecar sturm, duvet crimmin crum?"

 

"Yes," we say and, looking at our watches.... "We need to get back now as the football is due to kick off in...........six hours"

 

"Strim cruun, free more bot wine, drin....... less drin"

 

"Oh we couldn't possibly we have to be back for the game"

 

We make our apologies, say our thanks, and ease around the door, it closes behind us and we take a deep breath of freedom. Jo has insisted we take the last of our wine back with us, for the length of the corridior and until we get in the lift I grip the kneck, tight, imagining footsteps behind us....

 

......."Retired Brit couple stabbed with breadknife in melaka corridor".....

 

01:35, I'm awake. 

 

Quietly as possible I ease out of bed and round to the lounge.  Moonlight and the lights from the portugese settlement opposite bathe the whole room in silvery light bright enough that I don't need the lamp.  My head is a little fuzzy with red wine so I open the sliding door and out onto the balcony.

 

I can see the white wave tips in the moonlight as the tide in the strait starts to come in, it's a beautifully balmy, starlit night.  Below us in some mangrove, frogs are making their extraordinary noises, there's the odd night bird call, a bat skitters by, I can feel the first cool breeze that I think I've felt for months as it sighs in off of the sea.

 

Opening the tall fridge I stand in it's light and glug as much of the icy cold water as I can before the cold-burn starts to hurt.

 

Settling on the small sofa I switch on and start paging through the TV channels.  About 01:50 I find what I want, I have pictures but no sound, that's ok it's all in Malaysian anyway.  Kim comes padding out of the bedroom and yawning, settles down next to me.

 

"No sound?"

 

"Nu-Uh"

 

She starts messing around on her phone and we get Five Live or some such commentary to go with the pictures.  I say "with" but actually the radio coverage lurches from being a minute ahead to a minute behind the pictures......

 

When that magnificent free kick went in, we believed.

 

Gutted, we watched as the equaliser came, and the game seemed to start to slip away.

 

Still we believed.

 

Into extra time.

 

When we went 1 down we still believed.

 

Was that a new energy? still a chance?

 

Right till the final whistle

 

We stuck with our team till the very last....

 

We just wanted you to know we were with you.

The river here runs well in land from the straits estuary, and a coule of quid get's you a nice boat trip along it's length for a few miles.  You get the chance to see a lot of the architecture of the place as you motor away from the dock area which is all Portugese, dutch and British colonial then into an area of Kampung (village) properties that are pretty much as they've been for a hundred years and built in a style that's been used here for generations, before you get to the modern multi storey development that aims to see a major seaport and gateway to melaka and southern malaysia.

 

The river walk looks really interesting so a day or so later we take a cab to a section which caught our eye.  Here is the Villa Sentosa.  A living museum.  Lived in by the same family since it was built 96 years ago!  The property is a beautiful timber built place, with a central open courtyard, designed to drain away rain water and to circulate air through the house, with open sided rooms all around.  We're shown around by the current owner who tells us the history of the place illustrated with artefacts from his families life here. 

 

He's delighted to learn we're British as he has fond memories of Kieth Floyd cooking in his kichen for one of his programs.  He tells us how he'd had, as a devout Muslim, to turn his back while Mr Floyd took glugs from his wine glass.  He gifts us 3 bongs each on the "wishing gong".  Lovely, lovely bloke and a wonderful musem/home.

 

We're at the museum the day after the world cup final, a French couple and their kids join the tour.  Turns out French people had been using the wishing gong to try to effect the outcome of the World Cup Finals. Silly really all they needed to do was have a cheat pretend to be fouled abetted by a ref and piss poor use of VAR.  I know the cheating little git has a world cup winners medal, but it cheers me to know that in his heart he must know he doesn't deserve it, and the whole world who watched on TV knows he doesn't deserve it, he's a cheat.  What a shame the authorities seem intent on giving him a Legion D'Honore medal as opposed to banning him for a year and sending him touring schools to explain why cheating isn't ever, a good thing.

 

Just away from the town centre St Paul's Church has lorded it over the city since around 1520.  An amazing place which has some memorials translated to English. Dutch and Portuguese families ended there days here, a place that must have seemed as distant as mars does to us. Improbably young, these adventurers, couples, families travelled across the world seeking theur fortunes and in most cases seem to have found fever. You can only imagine what this place must have been like.

 

Just behind the church the last remaining gate from the 16th century city.  Saved by the Raffles family, who appreciated it's value, from demolition by the British.  What the f*ck were we thinking?? The gate is an amazing artefact, a first construction along with st Paul's by Europe and newly arrived in a new world.  That it is decorated with crossed rifles and pistol carvings which would have confronted all visitors make clear it's purpose but still a wonderful thing.

 

In Melaka town centre there are a number of museums, 3 of which are linked and are devoted to the discovery of Melaka, it's rise as a commercial centre, it's colonialisation, and the development of the Malay navy.  By far most impressive is a recreated scale replica of a wrecked Portugese ship from the 16th century.  Frankly I'm not sure I'd have got in the thing to take the crossing from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight.  To think they sailed from portugal, round Africa, India and then on to here in this wooden hulled box is just mind boggling.  There are accounts of the arrival of the first Europeans here in the museum and I have read the story of the first voyages in a great book, The Last Crusade. 

 

When the Portugese got here they expected to be met by a great lost tribe of white Christian people, who would welcome them as saviours from the surrounding heathen.  Of course what they found was a well established trading port, Islamic since the 11th century (the Chinese had been coming here since the 6-7th century)with trading lines stretching back through Arabia to the mediterranean and east to China.  Hoping to find savages from whom they could barter gold for beads, rather they found Islamic traders drinking tea who asked "what in gods' name are you doing here?"

 

Somewhat predictably the Europeans set to with an orgy of burnings and massacres in order to enforce the trading monopolies that their poor produce and business practices couldn't deliver, in the name of converting the heathen populace to the "true religion". The real aim being to deny the established trade routes, while feeding the coffers in Portugal, Holland and Britain.  They succeeded in part, but with huge loss of life on all sides, making the main outcome a continuing mistrust between two great religions of the world, founded on commerce rather than belief......sound familiar????

 

 

Unbelievably the end of our trip is in sight, we have less than a month left. About 4 hours from here by bus is the Malay city and New Development centre of Johor Bahru.  The Malay government is pumping billions into this area just across the causeway from mighty Singapore.  Huge development is going on tempting inward private investment.  It means accomodation is cheap as chips, of really stunning quality and mostly brand new and very under occupied such is the current oversupply.

 

On the other hand sparkling Singapore is one of the most densly populated countries in the world, with prices to match and where air bnb, our current favourite source of accomodation is illegal. Chances are we'll split our time between the two, the call of SP is strong, but some of the places in JB do look good, and to help with the development of the area as a centre for commerce, a large area of Johor Bahru is..........................Duty Free!!!

Beep, beep.....beep beep....What the fu....The phone! unstick your eyes......Beep beep..... beep beep....trying to find the bloody thing, reach across the bedside cabinet, nearly lose the water glass......Kim on the other side of the bed, .....

 

"What's that?...The phone?....who issit??"

 

"Dunno, hang on....."

 

The bloody things on the floor now, I'm scrabbling for it, find it,....wrong way round, can't see the bloody thing properly....

 

Stabbing the screen, trying to focus, why won't this bloody thing work...need to unstick tongue from roof of mouth....

 

"hello?.... hello?? ....Beep beep.....beep...beep.....

 

"Ullo John it's Jan"

 

"UUUMM...Jan, it's.............. 4am"

 

"No it's not John ......it's 9 oclock, Pete, pete, our john says it's 4am"

 

"well I told you not to ring him.......must be costing a bloody fortune"

 

"Jan it's 9 where you are but 4 am here"

 

"Is it John,..... oh well never mind, .........now, listen, we're in a pub quiz"

 

She says "Pub Quiz" slowly, as if I may never have heard of the term before....

 

"We're in a pub quiz, and it's a roll over, we could win FIVE POUNDS!!..... Now it's the pop section, and I said to our Pete, I bet our john would know this"

 

"Sorry Jan , I lost consciousness there, what is it?"

 

"It's a Pub Quiz"

 

 

"No, what's the question"

 

"Well, I don't think they've written it down right, do you pete, pete, do you think they've written it down right?"

 

"I don't know jan, just ask the bloody question while we can still afford another round"

 

"Alright our john, now listen carefully,.... The son of a King and Queen, what colour is his reign?....I repeat...what colour is his reign?.... I don't think they can have written this right, what colour is his reign? That doesn't even make sense.......

 

Oh no.

 

"It's Purple Jan,...... Prince, purple rain......the answer is purple"

 

A hand comes through the screen of my phone and grabs the edge, then, another, Like two hands thrust through a loft hatch to pull some one up....

 

"Purple John!!??"

 

My sisters head appears through the phone screen as she pulls herself through .......

 

"What like BROCCOLLI????"

 

A bloody dream, the alarm...... beep beep...beep beep

 

It's ok it's 08:30, we have a bus to catch........

 

we're off to Johor Bahru.