From Peninsular Malaysia to North Korea

Melaka, around 150km south of Kuala Lumpur, is a city that breathes Chinese-colonial charm. The colonials were first the Portuguese, then Dutch, with a final drop of Ye Olde England. However most of the preserved buildings were built in "colonial" style by the Chinese, who had been in town since the early days of the city. Today the city is a Unesco World Heritage site as an exceptionally well preserved exaple of a colonial city having its own unique architecture.

It's also one of Tim and Alice's favorite haunts so off we merrily went. Our hotel was a prime example of Melaka's unique style of building. Since houses were taxed according to their width to the street, they were all built to be narrow, but reach deep into the block with inner courtyards providing daylight to the interior quarters. Our hotel, though humble to the streetfront, seemed to go on and on withat least three inner courtyards, with fishpools or other decorations.

Apart from its colonial Chinese quarter, Melaka is best known by Malaysians for the Red Square, an Dutch area that was originally painted white, but since the conqueror was much hated, the locals used to spit out betel juice onto the walls of the buildings, until they became so tinted with the red colour that they had to be totally painted over in red. (Betel nut is a favourite snack in many Asian countries. You chew the nut wrapped in a betel leaf and instantly you start to salivate intensely and your spit becomes blood red - not a very aesthetic combination and the first time I saw an old lady chewing betel nut I was shocked and thought she had internal bleeding or something)

At night the city all came out to shop at the weekend night market and enjoy various karaoke events around town. The main event was on a large stage set up at the corner of two streets (closed for car traffic during the night market), but my favourite karaoke was at this Chinese temple or clan house, since the setting was pleasingly bizarre for karaoke.

After Melaka there was a last quick stop-over in Kuala Lumpur (KL) before I flew off to Kota Kinabalu (KK) in the state of Sabah in Borneo the next morning.

Now I've said it once, and I'm happy to say it again; I was treated like a queen by Tim and Alice and was as happy as a pig in a trough during my stay with them! But little did I know that Tim had the piece de resistance cooking! For my last night in KL they took me to a North Korean restaurant!

Now this restaurant, a publicity effort by the North Korean government, is a truly, I say unto thee, truly bizarre place! The space is a huge, low building next to an near-empty car park. Hand picked young maidens in floating white dresses are transported from North Korea to serve people in a great marble hall with a stage at one end. Only these beautiful girls - there are no men or older people visible at least. During dinner people are treated to various entertainment - the fair white-dressed maidens rush off to stage and start singing and dancing. Karaoke with a video background presenting the beauty of North Korea - even one Whitney Houston song (yes, I will always love you) in English - the biggest hit of the evening getting extra applause for effort. The performances were pristinely perfect - one wonders if they spend all day practising or... I mean what do they do during the day when the restaurant is closed? I doubt if they are freely let wander around the joys of KL. The food was divine I must say - I seldom ate as well when I was in South Korea. Taking pictures inside was not allowed - I took this from outside the restaurant and hopefully it is a small enough image that the girls are not too clearly visible since I truly have no idea what could get them into trouble.

A very, very, very strange place indeed and the perfect place to end my stay in KL, since technically at least, it was very nearly North Korea where I met Tim for the first time (the Demilitarized Zone or DMZ between South and North Korea). So now I'm in Borneo, so far from North Korea, and more will follow as things progress.