Sunday, (Malaysia), 9 Oct., 2016 - Malacca, Malaysia\
 Wake up was 5 am to be ready for 6 am breakfast and 7 am departure for Malaysia. The island/city State of Singapore is only ‘1 marathon by ½ marathon’, (42 miles by 21 miles), so it didn’t take long to reach the boarder.  We had get off the buss to go through ‘exit immigration’ which happily went very fast but our guide told us it has on occasion  taken several hours.  We then reboarded to drive across a long bridge to Malaysia, get off the bus and go through immigration then board a different buss with a different guide, Mr. King.  The trip to Melacca, (or Melaka, both are correct), took about 3hours.
   We were early due to the fast trip through immigration so on the way we stopped at a rubber plantation and saw how the trees are tapped for latex.  Across the road was an oil palm plantation and our guide explained the collection to the fruit from which palm oil is extracted. Malaysia produces about 51% of the world’s palm oil.

Our guide, Mr. King,shows us rubber tree seeds. Cup for collecting sap is on the tree beside him.

Ripe seeds on an 'Oil Palm'.  These are pressed to extract the oil.  This is one of the newly developed trees that are not as tall and therefore easier to harvest the seeds.

    Next stop was our hotel, Casa del Rio on the Malacca River Sr.  Due to late check outs our rooms were not ready so we had lunch then went on a walking tour. First stop was the Baba & Nyonya Heritage Museum.  This is a combination of 3 homes owned by the same Chinese family who moved out during the Japanese occupation and later turned the homes into a museum, We then visited the oldest Chinese temple in Malaysian, the Cheng Hoon Temple, which houses the 3 major doctrines, Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism.

Years ago Chinese women with the smallest feet were considered the most beautiful so children's feet were bound and forced not to grow.  This is an actual shoe made for one of these women.

   One of the things I found very interesting was the decorations of the many trishaws.  You can see in the photos how elaborate they are.  Cost to rent one is about 40 ringitts per hour, ($10 US).

  We then took the bus to a still occupied Malay home for tea.  Actually, tea, coffee, and typical sweet snacks. 
   It was then back on the bus to travel to the rivers docks for a cruise on the Melaka River to our hotel where we disembarked and finally checked in at about 7:00 pm.
      Have a good day........................  Eva and Dick