Penang, Malaysia – November 5th – 9th, 2016

Once on the island of Penang, we made our way to the city of George Town. The city used to be an English colony in the 1800’s, but is now famous for its food! A cultural melting pot comprised of Chinese, Indian, and Indonesian influence, George Town was the perfect place to get our eat on! Over our four day stint, we walked the streets and sampled much of the local cuisine (without getting sick: WIN!). We tried tandoori chicken, an assortment of ramen, skewers that you cook in hot broth from a street vendor, dim sum, banana leaf rice, stir fry noodle dishes, Chinese biscuits, cake, oil drum toast, white coffee, etc. We also treated ourselves to chendol, a shaved ice dessert with green noodles and creamed coffee (which was delicious, says me, the person who doesn’t like coffee) and corn flavored popsicles (strange, but surprisingly decent). We also got to sample legit Chinese green and black tea while getting a one-on-one lesson on Chinese tea production from a passionate owner at a local shop. It was incredible! Andy tried Kopi Luwak, “the best and most expensive coffee in the world.” The beans are harvested from the shit of the Asian Palm Civet, a cat which eats coffee berries and passes the beans through its digestive tract. Andy absolutely loved it and agreed it was the best cup of coffee he had ever had. I did not try the cat poop coffee. You would think that this gorge fest would set us back financially, but no, we could afford to eat as much as we wanted (and more) since most local fair was less than $2 for a meal!

Eating our way across George Town.

Some of the sites around Penang.

Between meals (and snacks), we strolled the streets of George Town looking for murals and wire art. The city itself is clean with many historic white colonial buildings, but the search for street art made it even more fun to walk through. The building murals ranged from dinosaurs on leashes to anti-smoking campaigns and everything in-between, while the wire art gave tidbits of local history. In addition to viewing other people’s art, I also created my own abstract art at a coffee and cake shop which supplied table cloth paper and pastels.

Art work around George Town, including my masterpiece in the bottom left. 

The hostel that we stayed at (We Luv Travel Guesthouse) was absolutely amazing. Not only was it clean and comfortable, with super-fast wifi, but it was more like a home stay than a hotel. Throughout our stay, the staff insisted that we try all of the food they had ordered or cooked, made us their secret recipe french toast (which was incredible), taught us some George Town and Malaysian history, helped with travel arrangements, and more. The owner also brought us into his modern Chinese medicine clinic and had us try out all his gismos while teaching us along the way. There was the foot shocking gismo, a band which makes you electrically charged (which supposedly makes you negatively charged by filling your cell's valance electrons sites), and an infrared heating bed with a leg shaker. He even helped treat Andy’s persistent head cold by centering his chi.  

On our last day on Penang, we rented a scooter and toured the island. The 24-hour rental cost all of $8, so why not? I’ll tell you why not – being the backseat scooter driver in traffic on the opposite side of the road is terrifying! In good news, we did not crash and actually started to get used to it by the end of the day. We drove to a Chinese temple and yet another National Park about 45 minutes outside of George Town, where we hiked ~3 hours round-trip to Monkey Beach. True to its name, a team of criminal monkeys pulled off a distraction scam while the other hung upside-down from the side of a rope swing to steal my apple straight out of my hand! It was startling to say the least, but we have to give them props, it was a perfectly executed con.

Penang by scooter. One of the apple (and swing) thieves is shown in the bottom middle.

From George Town we left via minibus towards Thailand. Andy and I both agree that so far, Malaysia is one of our favorite countries and we were more than a little sad to be leaving. The people are more kind than we could have ever hoped for and it was refreshing for things to be easy for a while. The only major downside to Malaysia was the smoking. Even with a clear push to inform people of the hazards of second-hand smoke, smoking is a major part of the Malay culture. In Taman Negara National Park, many restaurants claimed to be non-smoking, while the locals chain smoked right under the no smoking sign. In George Town, the city has implemented a no smoking policy with gigantic fees associated with smoking in any public place. Unfortunately, laws are only effective if they are enforced and we never once saw a person utilizing one of the ~2 ft. diameter smoking circles scattered throughout the city. At least they are half trying…