Upon reaching the tender dock on the Malacca River, I noticed what looked like small crocodiles, but according to Melissa, our tour guide, they are related to monitor lizards. They were around 4-5 feet long and I would assume there would be no swimming in the area!
Melissa led us on a nice 4 hour walking tour of the historic sights of Malacca including the Riverwalk, Mile Zero, the Dutch Christian Church, St. Paul's Church which was abandoned and became a graveyard, Chinatown, a ride in the colorful pedal trishaws, a historical Chinese temple, and a private museum. All of this is a World Heritage site. Afterwards, 5 of us met for lunch at the Nonya Kitchen restaurant for some traditional Malaysian food which very inexpensive at about $20 US for two main courses, rice, two sodas and a Tiger beer.
After lunch we wandered back to the ship and let Carol and John go on ahead while we toured two maritime museums on the waterfront: a Naval Museum and a replica Portuguese galleon in which there's lots of historical information about the area. The cost was only around $2.50US each. Around 3:30pm we caught a nearly empty local tender back to the ship.
One of the shore excursions EXC guides and KK gave a long presentation on all the upcoming shore excursions. It wasn't that well attended as it was presented during the early dinner hour.
After dinner with friends in the Lido (my laundry from yesterday had yet to be returned so I had no pressed long pants to attend the Gala Night), we attended the Captain's Toast and then we had a real treat: The Jersey Tenors ( a Frankie Valli tribute quartet) sang at 8 and 10pm. We attended both, and they were enthusiastically received and well attended. This same group (with different members) sang 4 shows on our inaugural EXC voyage. After enjoying some late tea (I have a gravelly throat) we came back to our stateroom and our laundry was finally there.
We don't arrive at our next port until 11am tomorrow, so we'll have a lecture in the morning. Stay tuned.
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