(written by Dave)

We were up early this morning at the guesthouse – even used the alarm.  We’ve been getting lazy (or resting as some would say) the last few days and we had a longish ride ahead of us so we wanted to start early.  After a quick brekkie, the last of our nice bread, we lugged all our gear downstairs and onto the street to put the bikes back together.  With the market and hawker stalls it was quite busy but no one bothered us, Sarah (the guest house 4 year old) even gave us a hand loading the bikes (she took bell ringing duties while waiting for her ride to school on the back her mum’s scooter).

After some careful planning and map reading overnight, I decided we would ride 200 meters the wrong way on the street where the guest house was located.  There are lots of one way streets in Melaka and this was the best way to get us out of town.  I rode the full distance, using a large-ish Indian woman in a bright orange shirt (who was walking the same direction) as my traffic blocker.  Nancy walked slowly behind an Indian man riding his bike the wrong way as well.  This all sounds pretty tame but it was just outside the busy market and you don’t want to get between a customer and his open air dead chickens.

Having solved that riddle, the rest of the ride out of town was rather straight forward.  We got lost once missing a turn but it was a minor issue as the next road up cut back the same way.  There were lots of map reading challenges today and that was the only issue – phew – I’ll get to keep my CEO title for another day.  I should add that at one point Nancy did not like the fact we are supposed to be on 143 but all the signs said 138.  Reading the map, I knew we were ok, Nancy and her navigational compass had us somewhere in the middle of the Malay peninsula (I think).

We passed another state border today – on to Negeri Semblan.  We’ll pass out of this state the next day we ride so it’s a small state.  This is our third state in Malaysia.  The border sign was on a river so photo ops were a little more limited (no “ginormous” – thanks Kirti – trishaws).

It was quite hot today and we were more than happy to stop at a roadside Indian shop for lunch around noon.  They were doing a pretty good turn over, with most people getting takeaway – weird process as there was no takeaway window.  Folks would just pull up, roll down their window and yell.  Then they would sit in their car with the A/C running until one of the restaurant staff took them their food and they paid.  Seemed to work, even for three guys on scooters.  I guess that you want to move as little as possible when it’s over 35/100 degrees.

It took a while to find the hotel, lots of map checks but no wrong turns.  We are staying at Avillon Admiral Cove resort – for two nights no less.  It is a bit spendy but they give you a deal if you stay two nights and we have time up our sleeves.  The room is quite nice and we are right on the beach.  There is a marina that is part of the sailing circuit for this part of the world.  There are quite a few boats for sale – too bad about the stock market the last few days (and the fact that Nancy gets seasick!).  We had dinner at the yacht club watching the sun set over the Straits of Melaka.  It will not be hard to stay here one more day.

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