On our way north from croc river we anchored at Pulau Besar (Big Island) for a night. In the early hours it got very lumpy as the tide turned, the swell rolled onto our beam and with lightning flashing all around our sleep was seriously disturbed and some of the crew woke up rather grumpy. We’d had plans for a cave hike, but rather than endure another bouncy night we left with the dawn - glad to see the back of it.

Our next destination was originally the exposed anchorage at Malacca, but we decided to push on 40 miles north to Port Dickson, where there’s a marina and leisure resort where we could tie up for a few nights and not worry about the very regular squalls, thunder and lightning. Four other rally boats were in, so there was a nice social catch up. Yesterday we took a car down to the old colonial city of Malacca - over the years ruled by the Malay, Portuguese, Dutch, British and now back to the Malay. There was lots of the old Dutch architecture to see although much of it crumbling under the weight of modern use and adapted to the demands of mass tourism. Very interesting to see all the same. The best fun was the night market in Jonkers, a maze of streets lined with trinket sellers and food stalls. You wander along through the milling crowds and buy dim sum, ducks’ heads and grilled octopus - a bit here, a bit there.

The local tourist transport is a pedal powered tuk tuk - decorated to the hilt with anime characters and flashing lights, with boom-boom music blasting out.