Malaysian Peninsular - The Last Bit

Our plan after leaving the folks in Tioman was to do a couple of day’s trekking in Endau Rompin National Park, which was a couple of hours way from Mersing, where our boat from Tioman landed. The first issue we had was trying to find decent accommodation - this proved very difficult! Finally we settled on somewhere fairly grotty rather than the really grotty alternatives, and then booked our trekking for the following day. The grotty hotel fully redeemed itself later that night when I ventured into a smoky communal room on the first floor and found about ten locals watching Bolton v. Spurs! Even they agreed that watching Bolton is just like watching Brazil.

We were picked up early the following day and got to the national park by mid-morning. After a light breakfast at the camp we headed on our first trek, with our guide Ajah, to a waterfall. The trek was pretty good - very, very hot, but not too tough. The leeches, however, were out in full force! Both Lauren and I ended up with very bloody socks and ankles!

We reached the waterfall after a couple of hours and had perhaps one of the most refreshing swims ever, though we did have to keep out an eye for the leeches again which was slightly unnerving! Whilst Lauren escaped the swim unharmed, I emerged to find one of the buggers burrowing into my shin! I can't complain too much, however, as I gather doctors used to prescribe a course of leeches for various illnesses when my Dad was young.

That afternoon, we went for an hour or two of kayaking. Lauren was nervous at the start, especially of the 'huge' monitor lizards, and I think most of the national park if not Southern Malaysia would have heard her scream ‘there’s a bloody crocodile!’.

The kayaking was cut short by a torrential downpour, and the rest of the day was spent milling around the campsite drinking tea, eating various goodies Ajah cooked for us and trying to steer clear of the ants which were over an inch long! Apparently they didn't bite, but neither Lauren or I wanted to chance it, given they had pincers like a lobster!

After a short kayak and trek early the next morning, we headed back into Mersing, and caught a bus to Melaka, about five and a half hours away. We found a guesthouse pretty much in the heart of Chinatown - the best bit of Melaka - and this proved a great base from which to explore the town for the following couple of days. It also turned out that where we were staying was 'tart-central', and it has to be said that the local pineapple tarts were fantastic.

We went around a couple of museums including the maritime museum, based inside a replica of a Portuguese sailing ship which sank off Melaka many years ago.

The museum was pretty interesting, and went into great detail about the history of Melaka as an important port, first taken by the Chinese in 1405, then the Portuguese in 1511, the Dutch in 1641, then finally the British in 1795.

On our final day in Melaka, we visited an old church up on a hill which was pretty good, though the walk up to it in the heat of day was pretty tough.

A visit to a Chinese Tea house for a spot of light refreshment was next on the agenda. Little did we know that in this shop, when you ordered Chinese Tea, you got the full blown ceremony!

Very entertaining and informative - we now know pretty much all there is to know about Chinese Tea and how to serve it properly! Basically, I think you just pour tea over everything in sight and try to get a bit in the cups - or at least that's what the old bloke showing us what to do did!

That evening, we got a bus back to Kuala Lumpur and prepared ourselves for the Borneo adventure, with our flights to Sarawak leaving early the next morning...