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Published: August 13th 2010
Man u burger
Seen on route to georgetownWelcome to part 4 of the blog.
Our second day in Georgetown started badly when we decided to catch a bus to Batu Ferrenghi on the north of the island and check out the beach. Me, Reuben, Steve (the Sydney serpent) and Juva were hoping to find a nice bar on the beach where we could waste a few hours. Upon arrival we realised this wouldn't be the case, as it turns out Batu Ferrenghi is a number of huge resorts and building sites, with a dirty stretch of beach, brown water and is full of tourists. We stopped for a beer and some food, which was at least edible And left quickly, feeling fairly disappointed.
The evening was much more enjoyable, and we got a real taste of georgetown. After a few beers at the reggae bar, we set out in search of some more local cuisine for steve. We found ourselves on Jl Macalister (Due to the various nations that have conquered and occupied Penang, there are some strange road names) a bustling main road, lit up with neon tubing, enticing you into a huge variety of restaurants.
As I am trying to eat more seafood whilst
on this trip, i agreed to go to a chinese seafood place with Reuben and Steve. They had tanks full with all kinds of live fish, prawns and crabs at the entrance, but really it was the dancing neon lobster on the sign that sold it too us. Here Reuben treated us to fresh water prawns, fried in soy sauce, BBQ'd red snapper, noodles and of course big bottles of tiger beer.
The food was delicious but we were still hungry, so decided to pay the bill and find somewhere else. This time it was my turn to choose and i went for a busy Chinese restaurant purely because of the smells wafting out of the door. When the menus came they were all in Chinese, without knowing what i was ordering i pointed at 4 dishes which looked good, asked for 3 bowls of rice and more tiger. The food turned out to be slow cooked pork belly in a dark sauce, Chinese meatballs, tasty beansprouts and steamed veg with a sweet dressing. Once again the food was excellent and by the time we left we were more than a little tipsy.
On our way back towards
the area we were staying in we heard some music and decided to follow our ears and find out what was going on. We ended up in Copra leisure world. The owner greeted us, showed us to a table and informed us that he never gets tourists visiting but would try and make some western food if we wanted. We told him to bring us something local along with a bucket of tiger.
The music turned out to be a group of malay singers, 3 male and 3 female, one would sing a song whilst the others danced, when it was finished they would leave the stage, only to reappear 20 seconds later with a different person singing and the others performing generic dance moves behind them. We enjoyed this immensely, no doubt thanks to the large quantity of beer consumed.
There we were, sitting in a local bar, the only westerners there, eating spring rolls and octopus, watching a Malaysian pop group when i glanced at one of the TV's. You can imagine my surprise when i saw they were showing a montage of Alan Shearers best goals for Newcastle FC, swiftly followed by a replay of the 1992
Reggae bar georgetown
With Wati the waitress FA cup game between Liverpool and Sunderland, they really love their football in Asia!
We left in a very good mood, planning on finishing with a few drinks at the reggae bar and an early night in order to catch the morning bus to the perhentian islands. Things however did not go to plan. We bumped into Juva at the reggae bar, where we chatted to Wati the Malaysian waitress and Than "the tiger", a 54 year old Burmese waiter with 7 kids, who doesn't look a day over 30, despite his heavy drinking. We quickly worked our way through 3 more buckets of tiger and by this point its safe to say we were all quite drunk by this point. Before we could leave we were approached by an Austrian guy called seph who wanted to know "where the party at man"! We took him and a girl he was traveling with, called Rafi, out to the Soho bar for drinks, dancing and few games of pool/table football. We didn't leave until the place closed and they kicked us out. After this we went to an Indian restaurant and ate tandoori whilst watching England v Hungary, which because
of the time difference was live at 3.30 am. We left at half time and eventually got back to the hotel some time around 5 am, well after the midnight curfew. Luckily the Chinese owner heard the noise we were making and came to let us in, with a smile on her face, which was surprising considering the time.
Rather predictably we didn't make the early bus and decided to stay in Georgetown another night. There was also the small matter of me drunkenly promising Wati at the reggae bar that we would visit her salon for haircuts the next day. Reuben went back to bed after breakfast, leaving me and Steve to carry out this promise.
We caught the taxi to the salon, expecting a quick haircut and a shave. When we arrived Wait insisted we have head, neck and back massage, on top of the haircut, we spent nearly 2 hours there being pampered and it turned out to be a very good hangover cure.
Il have to continue this later as we are about to catch the night bus to the perhentian islands, but il write again soon.
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hailey johnson
non-member comment
sounds like you are having a great time xx take care roy xx