one night in malaka

I arrived at Melaka Sentral late afternoon, took a quick toilet break in the station before getting the number 17 bus to Red Dutch Square in the old part of the city where I was staying. When the bus arrived at a square surrounded by very red buildings, I figured it was time to jump off. Luckily my gps position that was overlaid onto the map on my phone decided that for once, I was right.

My first night was to be at the Tidur Tidur hotel just a short walk away and I followed the rather vague and confusing directions from hostelworld website passing the locations of named buildings that no longer existed before happening across it by complete chance. It was as though they had been scribed by some sort of idiot.

Inside the building said idiot showed me my room the facilities which consisted of a hole in the ground for the toilets and some less than pristine shower cubicles. The whole place had the feel of a disused freight boat about it. Buckets had been placed at strategic points on the concrete floor to capture the drips from the ceiling if it rained and the rooms although clean were wrapped in thin corrugated metal sheets with a single fan above the door to ventilate the room. The dank shower cubicals were similarly clothed with additional rank touch of cheap pink 70s style plastic doors and locking hooks that were barely secure enough to stop an angry/perverted Mosquito access to my wretched white and brown body if it so desired. They have seem to have developed a taste for my blood for some reason. Usually they get me just above the back of the ankle, but on the rare occasion where thy have been denied by a covering of some sort, then it it seems they like a nice choice cut of inside elbow / forearm as an alternative. The drinking water is reputedly safe to drink in Malaysia. I massively doubt that the water here is to be included in this consumption assumption so the brushing of teeth was once again completed using bottled water. The bed in which I sweated the night was a bunk bed that rattled and groaned with every movement I made, her whinging amplified in the darkness by the echoey confines of my ships container pod. At just over 6ft 1, I barely fit.

In the morning I asked the idiot on reception if it was ok to leave my bag there for a couple of hours whilst I got some breakfast.

"You're leaving" he asked?

"Yes" I said and went to get some sustenance for the day.

When I returned a couple of hours later the metal door grate on the front of the building had been drawn across and there was no sign of life inside, so I grabbed a lemon tea in a nearby cafe before I headed around the corner to check into the Rooftop guest house that I was unable to secure the night before, after which I returned again to my previous lodgings where the metal gates were still drawn across.

I peered in, nothing was moving. It was quiet and dark inside so I tried to force the gates open. They were unlocked but stiff and clattered loudly as I inched them apart before trying to enter the building looking normal and unsuspicious. A white western tourist breaking into a shut building in the narrow traditional streets of Malaka, who could possibly get the wrong idea?

Once in I made my way quickly through to the cupboard at the back of the building where my bag had been left and retrieved it with all the skill of a pissed up ninja.

"James, is that you" came the idiots tired voice from the shadows before he appeared rubbing his eyes on his face.

"Where have you been? I waited for you, I was supposed to be going out"

"Your doors were shut" I replied. "I've been past 3 times thinking you weren't here".

"I took the lock off and put it on the side here, i thought you might notice"

The lock had been placed on a shelf out of view, i wondered if this guy was managing to breath on his own or whether he has an application on his iphone to do it for him. The plant from the right appeared to look down on him with utter disdain, wondering why he was the one in the pot.

""Well, thankyou" i said as I hoisted my bag onto my shoulder, "but from the outside it just looks closed and empty, but thanks again"

He smiled at me, slightly crooked and chipped teeth playing the backing to the tuneful vacant look on his face"

"Bye idiot" i thought to myself.

At least, i think i only thought it..........