Eating, Eating and more Eating in Penang!!

After a fairly smooth and event-free 14 hour bus journey we arrived, tired in Georgetown on the Malaysian Island of Penang. Our hostel was a converted/still in use museum right in the middle of China Town so we headed out for some Dim Sum and a fantastic sweet and sour pork curry at a fairly well known restaurant just down the road. The next day after a lie in we had a look round China Town then little India (really cool area, felt like you were actually in a city in India and some of the food looked amazing!) We then passed a Mosque and decided to have a look round out of interest. We were met by a helpful man who offered to show us round and explain a bit about Islam - something which neither of us knew much about so decided would be quite cool. Jess was then asked to put on a headscarf and long black robe and promptly ignored for the rest of our tour as the guide only spoke to me. After a fairly interesting tour of the Mosque we were ushered into a nearby room for what can only be described as an attempt to convert us to Islam! We were met by another man who asked us if we had any questions then proceeded to tell us (well, tell me, I don't think he noticed Jess sitting right next to me) that, although there is some truth in The Bible, the Qur'an is the only holy book we should bother with (I'm paraphrasing of course but you get the gist!) I then had a quick test on Christianity, which I failed (I couldn't think of what Jesus' first miracle was) thus proving that I'm not educated enough to make an informed decision on my religion and beliefs. We were put on the spot at the time somewhat but we both thought afterwards that there were actually several questions and points to be made that we didn't think of at the time - in hindsight some of the things he was telling us were, in my view, illogical and contradictory to the concept of "Faith." Anyway, this is turning into a rant so I'll stop boring you and move on...!

We then met up with Joanne, a friend of Jess's who lived in Penang, and she took us for some traditional Malaysian desserts at a hawker stall (street seller type thing) - I really liked them but Jess wasn't keen - there were kidney beans in this sweet ice/coconut milk type sloppy dish (you with me?) but it worked!! Joanne and her friend then took us to a Chinese temple - the biggest in Penang - then we went for a drink and snacks in a bar on the beach as it got dark. Luckily they shared our love for food and they took us for some seafood - so fresh it was all still alive in huge tanks when you ordered! It was amazing too, we had King Prawns (massive ones too, bigger than on Ko Tao), crab, clams, red snapper.... We walked it all off afterwards at a night market selling the usual knock off t-shirts, dvds etc. After our previous experiences of bartering it was useful to have a local with us who saved us a few quid with her negotiation skills!! We got back to the hostel at about 1.30am and, needless to say, slept very well!!

Showered and refreshed the next day we were picked up from our 5pound-a-night hostel in Joanne's air-conditioned Merc (only the best!!) and taken to Little India for a curry (probably the only time we've had Indian food for breakfast!) Tried a little bit of everything and it was all really good - it's genuinely disappointing when you are full sometimes!! We then booked our bus ticket to Singapore after deciding to miss out Kuala Lumpur to spend more time in Penang. This was followed by a trip to the newly opened shopping centre and more amazing hawker food as chosen by the experts!!

We only just caught our bus that night as well, there was a load of traffic but we got there! Penang was a fascinating place - you could seemingly walk from India to China in 5 minutes with an underlying British influence almost everywhere! We had a fantastic 2 days with Joanne and her friend and left promising to go back at some point in the future!

I hope you managed to get this far in this entry anyway, I seem to have rambled far more than normal! The following ones will be more concise, I promise!

Hope you are all well, take care,

Ciao for now

Paul and Jess

xxx

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