My trip to the town/city of PENANG!

When you tell people from Kuala Lumpur that you are taking a trip to Penang, they all say “awwww Penang? I love penang! I want to move to penang, penang has the best food!” and when you talk to people from Penang, many of them will tell you that they are originally from KL, went out to Penang for a trip, and never left!

Basically, people in KL love Penang, people in Penang LOVE Penang, and I really enjoyed my time there too! Penang is an island off the west coast of Malaysia and is about a 4.5 hr bus ride from Kuala Lumpur. If you ask people what there is to do over there, they will tell you that you that you go to Penang to EAT because Penang people really care about their food. I even downloaded an app on my phone called “Penang street food” which points you to the best places nearby, based on what you want to eat. Apparently Penang has the BEST cha kway teoy (shirp, friend noodles), Indian food, prawn mee (prawn noodles in soup), plus a number of dishes with names that I do not understand the meaning of.

Quickly, here’s a lesson on the naming of Mamak food in Malaysia:

Nasi = Rice

Goreng = Fried

Mi = Noodles

Cha = shrimp

Ayam = chicken

Roti = bread

Now let me test you:

What is Nasi Goreng ?

What is Mi goreng?

For Bonus points: Maggi Goreng?

If you answered: Fried Rice, Fried noodles and those maggi noodles that you get in a package but fried in a real dish, you would be correct! Add some ayam and you got a full meal... kinda... One thing I discovered with Tharyn yesterday (I mean he probably already thought of this but I’m just going to say that we had a brain wave) was that the reason why everything is fried is because of the lack of concept of ‘BAKED’ because of the lack of OVENS! We thought up this while thinking about how easy it is to make quiches but how difficult it is when you don’t have an oven L (Just so you know it took me about 2 weeks to finally understand that every time I ordered Nasi goreng, I was just ordering plain old fried rice... and not some other new and interesting dish).

Anyway, Penang is all about the Mamak food. There is just a seriously huge amount of food everywhere you go and everywhere you turn. But the food is not perpetually there... The road literally transforms from day to night. The main road has nothing but hardware stores and airline/travel stalls and Chinese temples and Mosques.  But as soon as the sun begins to set, BAM. THE FOOD STALLS COME UP, tables are set up everywhere along the street and people are just chowing down. It really was a transformation that I have yet to experience anywhere else. You also have a number of open air hawker centers where tons of people sit and order food from the stalls surrounding them. The food comes fast, friend and super yummy! And the food was YUMMO – I think my favourite was the peppered prawns or the Satay that we ordered.

Zehra and I stayed right by a street called Love Lane, in an area called “George Town”. George Town, and particularly Love Lane, is a UNESCO world heritage site because it is the area where the British first colonized Malaysia (I think....at least this is what Zehra and I determined thanks to Wikipedia) and so the architecture in this area is just lovely – quaint little buildings painted in pastel colours. All around is iron street art, made to depict the British history of the area. Zehra and I did a lot of exploring.

In George Town with new Sunglasses!

We walked around George Town, around Little India, around the mosques and temples that are known for being so diverse and in such close proximity, and the  “clubbing district area” where we ended up going into a hawker center called the Red Dragon where we found tons of people sitting around tables, drinking, and watching a petite Asian woman dance around on an elaborate stage while singing asian music. We THINK it was a performance for Chinese new year but we can’t be sure because then, the Asian woman got up on a table, started singing gangnam style, and then proceeded to chug beers while doing flexibility exercises. It was easily one of the weirdest (yet entertaining) things I have ever seen in my life. Unfortunately I did not bring my camera with me so you’ll just have to believe me.

What was also really fun about this trip is that we got to meet up with Michelle Ngai, since she is currently doing research  about 2.5 hrs away for her PhD in Ipoh. We explored the Chinese temples together and observed as they got ready for Chinese New Year by hanging all their lanterns and things! It was like 2 Million degrees outside so we basically hopped from one shady spot to the next and drank ICED teh tarek in between.

Chinese Temple

Outside our Hostel

Outside the Penang Mosque

On our 2^nd last day in Penang, zehra and I made an executive decision to leave our cute little area and take a bus out to a supposedly GREAT hawker stall. But when we got there, we found that it was closed L LUCKILY we had directors from someone in our hostel to go looking for the best prawn mi place “close by”. So we walked and asked people and walked and asked people but there was no sign of the best prawn mi place ever. Finally I went into a restaurant where a jolly family gave me directions. BUT WE STILL COULDNT FIND THE PLACE after walking for 5-10 more mins. So we thought we would take the bus home but, little did we realize, we had taken the bus down a one-way street so the bus stop in the opposite direction was no where to be seen.

I went back to the jolly family who was unsure of the bus stop location but told us to take a taxi... and if we couldn’t find a taxi, come back to the restaurant because they would take us home. Obviously we could not find a taxi, so we went back and the jolly Asian man and his wife happily drove us back to George town... then... took us to dinner, then paid for our dinner, then introduced us to their daughter (their son, I had met at the restaurant because he owns it). So basically, Zehra and I met the most hospitable family in Malaysia. They were so sad that Zehra and I were leaving the next day as they wanted us to join them at their holiday apartment on the beach. But since we could not, they told us to get ready for 6:30 AM the following morning because they would take us to the Botanical Gardens.

And so at 6:30 AM the next day, they showed up, took us to see the beautiful Penang sunrise, bought us a traditional Malay breakfast, and took us on a walk through the gardens. Beverly (the mom) and her daughter, Angeline were actually the cutest mum and daughter ever. Angeline guided her mother as she drove through the streets of Penang and suggested some hilarious things like “why don’t you just go through this red light” ... or said “der der der der *point*” when the light turned green and Beverly hadn’t moved. They were so cute and so hilarious to observe.

With our new favourite family!

Botanical Gardens with Beverly and Angeline

Penang Sun Rise :)

A malaysian breakfast!

I felt pretty special that Beverly and Lim (her husband) had taken a liking to us. I didn’t know whether they were just really really bored, or they really liked us, or, Beverly just saw the fear in my eyes when we couldn’t find the bus nor could we catch a taxi. All in all, I felt so happy to meet this lovely family and experience the friendliness of the Malaysian people that everyone is always talking about J

Zehra and I got up to some other exciting things like going to the beach to go parasailing (although beaches are not Penang’s strong point), finding and chicken nuggets, after eating SO MUCH MAMAK FOOD, and then being caught by a local who told us off for not eating the local food anddddddddddddd ya. Also the hostel we stayed in was wonderful and highly recommended for anyone traveling to Penang. You can find them on Facebook here!

Overall, we had a lovely trip and we came home with full tummies and some great stories!