what next?

I imagine Richard Sharpe (the Napoleonic soldier played by Sean Bean on ITV) would like Melaka. There's an old Portugese fort here he could ransack, a local bar called Jessie's where he could drink Tiger Beer the night before battle, and plenty of beautiful local women wandering around for him to effortlessly ravish. I'm just embarking on my second day here, and I certainly like the place. I've discovered Melaka has an interesting history, and a vibrant, if compact, cultural scene. My last entry, which suggested Melaka is lacking in atmosphere, was a bit rash because once you get into the historical city centre and Chinatown it's a lovely place and definitely worth a day or two of wandering about.

I was in uber-tourist mode yesterday and knocked off most of the sites on foot. To give you a quick run down: I went to the Melaka Sultanate Palace, Stadthuys (the former residence of the governor), St Paul's Church, Christ Church, St Francis Xavier's Church, Port Da Santiago, Cheng Hoon Temple, and all over Little India and Chinatown. I enjoyed visiting the Melaka Sultanate Palace (which is a replica) the most. An enormous and beautiful wooden stilt house, it was built without using a single nail. All of these buildings sit around the town square, and are all pretty much next door to one another, so it wasn't hard to nip in and out of them all.

Nonetheless by late afternoon I was feeling tired, and so went into a nearby shopping mall with the idea of going to the cinema to get off my feet. On my way in a toddler walked in front of me looking rather serious and concentrating hard. She was holding her mum's mobile to her ear. It wasn't switched on, and I think she may have had it upside down, but this didn't seem to matter. She was making an important business call, and thinking hard on it. This sent me in to the screening of 'Night at the Museum' with a smile on my face. I enjoyed the film - it's very far fetched but who cares, and it got me and the Malay audience laughing several times.

I've received several emails asking what I'm doing next, and more specifically when I'm coming home. As you may have picked up: my trip, which is now tipping seven months and eight countries, is almost - finally - over. I fly back from Bangkok to the UK on 17 January. This leaves me enough time to finish off here in Melaka, go on to Taman Negara, and catch a train up into Thailand. I'll spend my last four or five days in Bangkok (back where I started) reflecting on everything that's happened to me and preparing myself to come home. Once home, I'll be heading back to my Mum and Dad's house (in Lowestoft) for a break and a rest, and to give my Mum a hug.

So what next? I'm not quite sure is the honest answer. If I get home and feel enough has been enough I will take a few weeks break and then start looking for a job and a return to normal life. However, if once home I have itchy feet again I will start planning a second shorter trip somewhere (I still have sufficient funds remaining to do this). A part of me would like to do this and thinks this may be an ideal time, but another part of me feels very tired and wonders if perhaps I haven't had enough of travelling now for a while. My tiredness is now outwardly visible too - my wallet has almost fallen in half, my digital camera is malfunctioning, my back-up credit card has been cancelled by Barclays, my brown diary (used for recording my day to day tasks) only has a couple of pages left unwritten, and I'm down to my last razor (I've used only eight disposable razors since 28 June believe it or not). Anyway, ultimately, coming home, and discovering how I feel about being back home, will make the decision for me as to whether I do a bit more travelling or move on and back to 'life.' That's the most I can say right now.

But the trip's not over just yet. It's time I got out of this internet cafe and saw a bit more of Melaka...