Malacca

I drew up a list of rules for travel during our last trip and one of my rules is:
It takes three days to know a place- and sometimes you don't have three days.
So, this trip we decided that one of the things we would try to do was spend at least three days in a new place ( unless it was not a place we wanted to stay that long).
After three nights in Kuala Lumpur, we made a reservation for a hotel in Malacca online and took a cab to the bus station, nearly20 minutes away. Once our cab drove off, I realized I had left my small carry on bag in the cab! Yikes! I went inside and asked at information if they could make a call, and they sent me to customer service,who did call the hotel, who tracked down the cab driver and 15 minutes later she arrived with my bag! Now this is a country to like. The bus stations are like airports, with very deluxe buses. And easy to navigate.
We had a 2 hour ride and got a taxi to our hotel, but once there they couldn't find our reservation. I showed her the confirmation on my phone, and she said, no, that is the guest house around the corner. Luckily it was a short walk, but did not look promising. Jim found the owner and he led us to a small rectangle of a room barely big enough for a bed. Uh, this was not what I was expecting.
These challenges at the beginning of our trip truly felt like tests and I wasn't sure I was up to them. But this is travel- the good and the bad.
We enjoyed our first day and found Malacca to be quite charming. It is a unesco world heritage site, so that is to be expected. It is small and approachable, with a river through the heart of it.
The Malacca river cruise gave us a good feel for the city, and I spotted some alternative hotels to check out as I was pretty determined to move out of our windowless room.
Jim also did some recon work and we chose Heeron House right on the river. It was a good choice,and after two nights there I hated to leave. We felt like members of their family and they called us by name when we came and went. It was a lovely old guesthouse and the view of the river was restful. We would not have discovered it, or met the fun Canadian couple who were also staying there had we not had the unfortunate booking mix up.