Malacca for a day

Well, almost ex decided to go away for a weekend, leaving me and the kids to our own devices. Good really, my mind space clears alot when he's not here, though he would never understand why. I had the car and know my way to Malacca, so I decided to take the kids there for a spot of fun and shopping.

It's about an hour and a half driving and it's not a difficult drive but you have to be careful because the drivers here can be positively suicidal when it comes to overtaking. So slow and steady it was and we MADE it. Feeling a bit wild (for me anyway :), I also booked us into a 5 star hotel - The Equatorial - so we could stay the night and not have to rush home.

Have fun we did. Malacca is a bustling, historical town with Dutch (that's me) and Portugese influences. Lots of small one-way streets filled with everything and anything, markets, restaurants and shopping malls to empty your bank account on, it's a tourist haven.

So we arrived, checked ourselves in and proceeded to our room on the 13th floor. Now, for the kids, staying in the hotel is IT. That's what they want to do. They had a warm bubbly bath (we don't have a bath at home) and were content to sit and colour in their new colouring books, occasionally checking out the fridge for things they weren't allowed to have (who's going to pay RM7.50 for a coke - not me). And while mummy flaked it on the king size bed, they played games with the pretend pets they currently have - Tom and Jerry, Nibbles, Spike and Tike from the Tom and Jerry cartoon show.

We had pasta for dinner - fettucine carbonara and lasagne. You might be wondering why we didn't indulge in the local food... it's because we live here. We don't get a chance to eat good pasta very often, so when it's there, we indulge. Garlic bread, perfectly cooked, fresh fettucine, lovely lasagne, the rain drizzling down gently as we ate in the outdoor section of the hotel's casual restaurant, laughing at silly jokes and watching the people go by, taking our time. A perfect dinner with my two gorgeous ones.

Try as I might to get them to want to come shopping with me, they didn't want to. The hotel was right next to two big shopping malls - so close yet so far - and I thought, OK, it's their trip too, so back to the room we went for a shower and more playtime and TV (turns out watching TV in bed was THE coolest thing we did, according to my daughter (7).

Next morning we went swimming in the lovely pool - Malaysia is great for that, you can swim anytime of year - and had ourselves a nice cereal and fruit breakfast which we'd bought from the supermarket on the way.

Best thing of all, I put it on my Australian credit card and the whole thing - dinner and accommodation - cost me about $120 dollars. Fantastic value people.

We'll do it again, soon!!