Melaka

Today we drove down to a port town of Malaysia called Melaka. We got a little lost on our way there which turned out to be a good thing because we got to see a more rural part of Malaysia. In Melaka, we visited their maritime museum. They had a full sized replica of an old Portuguese boat from the 1500s. There were exhibits inside the boat explaining the history of Melaka. At one point Samantha and Chris went to look at one exhibit while I was dragging behind. Two young asian girls came up to me and asked for me to take a picture of them...or so I thought. Turns out that they wanted a picture of me! They took turns doing different poses with me. It was really weird. I kind of felt like a freak! Samantha and Chris found this really funny though. After the boat, Samantha had her first run in with a true Malaysian toilet..aka a hole in the ground. She came out of the bathroom with a disgusted look and said she could hold it until we found a more civilized restroom. After the museum, we walked the streets of Malaka's chinatown which is called Jonker's Walk. The store fronts were very colorful and vendors were everywhere trying to sell their items. We stopped for lunch in chinatown and then proceeded to a very old historical Catholic Church, St. Paul's. The church was built in 1521 by the Portuguese. There were a million winding stairs to climb in order to get to St. Paul's but once you made it to the top, the view of the coast was amazing. It was a really hot day (around 98 degrees F) and we made sure to load up on some unusual drinks such as dragon fruit juice, watermelon juice, and coconut milk right out of the coconut. Tomorrow Samantha and I leave for Cambodia bright and early at 5:00 AM. There should be computers at our hotel, so hopefully we can keep ya'll updated!