Melaka (or Malacca) is a charming little place. There's loads of British, Dutch and Portguese colonial stuff, and I'm staying in a guest house in Chinatown, which is full of old shophouses and temples.Up the hill is the ruin of St.Paul's Church, where St.Francis Xavier used to preach and where he was buried for nine months before being exhumed and taken to Goa.

The average humidity here is 82%, which basically means that as soon as you go outside your shirt is sticking to you and you end up as a puddle on the pavement.

The bustling port of Melaka

The Singaporean chaps have advised that 10am on Saturday morning is a very good time to cross the causeway to Singapore, so I'll go to Johor tomorrow and stay a couple of nights there. Still looking like I'll have to airfreight to Oz direct.

Great sadness to hear of the death of Fabrizio Meoni on the Dakar. But my chum Charlie Rauseo is still hanging in there and running 70th overall (he's the guy whose bike I had in my workshop before last year's Dakar).