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Published: August 30th 2013
After a little time in Malaysia, it feels more like home than anywhere else we have visited in Asia so far. Mark is currently pining for a good steak and glass of Malbec, but that's not exactly Malaysia's fault! The Malaysian people are really friendly and speak good English, even in the small market stalls and corner shops. There is also a more noticeable blend of different cultures here, so it feels less like we stand out from the crowd, especially with fewer white tourists around (as it also appears that we had left many of the backpacking/party types behind in Thailand). This could be due to the lack of hedonistic pursuits or that alcohol is more expensive in Malaysia, but either way we feel it is better off without them! As you will see, much of our time revolves around the fantastic food, and meal-times are certainly the highlight of our days 😊
Our Malaysian travel started when we arrived in Georgetown (on the island of Penang) although, as it was late at night, we crashed out almost immediately. To successfully get transport to Malaysia, we had to ensure we pronounced the island "Pea-nang", otherwise the Thai coach drivers
thought we were saying "Phangan", and kept trying to re-direct us back to the Thai island!
Following a long lie-in, we ventured out onto the narrow streets of Georgetown to begin our self-guided world religions walk around the city. We had to quickly brush up on our history to understand why it was scattered with so many Chinese clan-houses, mosques, temples and churches. The brief version is that Penang, due to it's prime location mid-way between China and India, was historically used by ships for sheltered anchorage. The British arrived and fortified the island against the French, who they were convinced were going to attack, even though they never actually did. (Our favourite story about Georgetown is that Francis Light, the founder of Penang, fired silver coins from his ship's cannons into the jungle to get the land cleared by labourers in record time!) To cut a long story short, the subsequent waves of immigrants then arriving has led to a diverse heritage of many cultures and religions.
Our tour took us all around Georgetown. The most notable sights being Khoo Kongsi (a Chinese Clan House) and the Pinang Peranakan Museum (which gave an excellent introduction to the
Baba Nyonya history). The walk was made more fun by the street art painted on random buildings, including 'a boy on a chair reaching for a window' and 'a giant ninja girl bracing herself between two windows'. Each piece of art was worthy of a photo, so we had to cut the collection right down for this blog. Hazel was excited to see the artwork displayed where Jimmy Choo started his apprenticeship, but sadly there were no designer shoes in sight! As we navigated the narrow streets around the local hawker stalls, the air was filled with incense and huge piles of ash by the roadside. A local man explained to us that large incense sticks were burned because it was currently the "festival of the hungry ghosts". He then invited us to an open street opera happening later that evening... The Malaysians are so friendly!
As well as seeing Georgetown's diverse culture through the architecture, it was also evident from the food stalls and that is where our real excitement in Penang (and Malaysia) began...
We were armed with our list of 'things to eat in Penang' and dived in straight away into a char kway teow
(noodles, egg, veg, shrimp and chinese sausage) and an assam laksa (fish broth soup spiked with tamerind and mint). We agreed that the noodles were delicious, but the assam (Penang) laksa was not to our taste. This Chinese fish broth version of the more usual coconut based laksa (curry laksa) tasted, unsurprisingly, fishy!
Penang is where we were introduced to the Chinese-Malay fusion cooking referred to as Nyonya. This mix of cuisines has lead to many of the dishes in this region and we tried to taste as many as we could while we were here. Some of the food we enjoyed and others less so, but it is all about the experience eh?!
There are numerous curry mee stalls in Penang and each stall has its own version of the soup. Mark tried a bowl-full down by the chinese clan-house jetties and was served a pale red coconut-based stock with a number of unknown items floating on top. Hazel enjoyed listing the ingredients to him later on, as we learned that they were actually cockles, taupok tofu, cuttlefish and pig’s blood cubes!
Hazel's lunch choice was a bowl of Hokkien mee (egg and rice noodles in
a fragrant stock, with shrimp, dried prawns and pork). This soup was traditionally served with small cubes of fried pork fat, but these were deemed too unhealthy, so now chicken lard is used! - (It is amazing what you can find out on the interweb.)
We also had a late night adventure over to the other side of town to find a famous Satay-lady who has been there for 50 years. Apparently she has the best satay in Penang. She was easy to find, as we just looked for the flames rising out of the hawker stalls...We couldn't resist a plate of the delicious flame-grilled chicken satay but we think the best part was actually the ambience, as we sat out on the street in plastic chairs surrounded by lots of people, stalls and smells...
Our regular breakfast/brunch stop was De Tai Tong Café, where elderly Chinese ladies pushed trolleys, stacked with dim sum, anti-clockwise around the canteen. As soon as we sat down, we had a couple of siew mai (pork dumplings) and har gau (prawn dumplings) thrown our way, and then we requested a loh mai kai (savoury glutinous rice, mushroom, chicken and minced barbeque pork).
Yum! One of the ladies showed us the Congee (rice porridge with meat, sometimes with offal), but after seeing our faces, decided that maybe it wasn't for us! We must have passed a few hours in this café watching the world go by and when you are offered more and more dim sum, it is impolite to say no isn't it?
We also explored the Indian cuisine, with a couple of hit-and-miss meals. Again we are all about the tasting and when a meal costs around £1-£2 then we felt we might as well take a punt. We found a café chain called Jaya, where the waiter recommended a chicken tikka set - This was by no means the conventional dish we were used to. The tandoori chicken came dry, served with a couple of dahl-like curries and a roti on the side. We also tried a chicken murtabak (stuffed roti served with a side spicy curry) which has since become a favourite and we have branched out to different fillings.
Roti canai (flat bread dipped in dahl or potato curry) has also become a regular favourite of ours and make a surprisingly filling meal for only 50p!
In fact, we only had one 'not so great' Indian experience with the 'Nasi Kandar'. This was a dish of rice covered with a variety of curries and we ordered it with everything which included chewy lamb, fish, a flaky prawn and a whole rubbery squid to top it off! Once the offending items (which the locals would argue are the best bits) were removed the dish was actually rather good, but left our stomachs a little worse for wear the next morning!
For fear of this turning into a food-blog, and being expelled from 'travelblog.org', we think we should move on, but just before we do, the coffee in Penang is worth a mention. We found a café ('Coffee Lane'😉 where you can pick your beans, your brewing method, and so completely customise your drink. We were like a kids in a candy shop! It was a shame the Kopi Luwak (civit coffee) was £10 a cup...after comparing the price to 50 sticks of charcoaled satay, we decided it would have to wait for another time. The Malaysian coffee, referred to as 'Kopi o', is coffee with lots of sugar and condensed milk. (This was the sort
of coffee that, in Vietnam, made Christine pull a funny face as her teeth stood on end!). The hotels loved to give us sachets of "3-in-1" instant coffee, which was bearable if you think of it as a different drink, but the caffeine-kick was non-existent. We also tried the Malaysian white coffee, which is supposed to have the beans roasted in margarine, so it was also served sickly-sweet. These local coffees are much better drunk on ice.
After a few days stuffing our faces, we left Georgetown behind and flew across northern Malaysia to the Perhentian Islands, just off the east coast (as recommended by Kat & James). Our plane was a small twin-prop, which added to the sense of adventure, and it was only half-full. Take-off and landing were a little juddery, but it was only an hour flight, so as soon as we had taken off, it was time to descend again. We had arranged a taxi pick-up from the airport which made things easy, as the driver took us to the port and ensured we boarded the correct speed boat across to the islands.
There are two main Perhentian islands, referred to by the locals
simply as big and small, and we stayed on the big one (Kuala Besut). We were there in peak season, so booking the accommodation was tough and we ended up with the place ranked bottom by Tripadivsor. (Mark likes to brag about his status of being a "Senior Contributor" on TA but sadly this honour is standard for doing more than 20 reviews and not for anything more). Anyway, we were unsure what to expect from this hotel, but as luck would have it, the place had had a revamp. We had a newly painted room with great views across the water from our window and the beach was only a few hundred yards away. Nothing could wipe the grin from Hazel's face as she was greeted with paradise in the form of white sand, clear turquoise waters and snorkelling just seconds off-shore.
There are no roads on the island, and only taxi-boats (speed boats) which took us between the different bays. Each beach had coral only a few metres out and a huge variety of marine life... which lead to the inevitable 500 underwater photos. (And yes Joanna, the camera was already charged this time!) Our favourite beach
had massive sea turtles only 50m from the sand - they spent most of their time grazing along the bottom but would come up for air and pop their little heads out above the water before diving back down. The beach was so nice that we went there every day, taking turns to swim out and snorkel with the turtles. There was also lots of barracuda, parrot fish and clown-fish living in their jazzy anemones. Hazel got a bit over-excited about the clown fish, and managed about 50 photos of Nemo dancing around his home! We have included one of her photos, as it was such a sharp image. Mark also managed to get a couple of glimpses of small black-tipped reef sharks, but they were very elusive and hard to photo before they swam off.
Our island was less busy than we were expecting, and the number of people who must have been hidden away only became obvious when a turtle-watching tour boat dumped about 40 Chinese tourists in the water next to us. Most of them had life-jackets and were clutching noodles very tightly, so we have to commend their commitment to snorkelling, even if they did
get in the way a bit, as we wouldn't be floating out in the sea if we couldn't swim. Fortunately, the tours tended to move on quite quickly, so we didn't have to wait long before we had the turtle viewing all to ourselves once again.
The sun was incredibly hot until pretty late in afternoon, when it would set behind the small island and the temperature would noticeably drop. This was usually around 7ish, so marked the time to venture out for food, including the nightly fish BBQ next door. One evening we sat next to the water and ordered a couple of prawns and a grouper, which were promptly thrown on the coals and served up minutes later. By the end of the meal we could see lightning in the distance flashing across the sky, and we had the biggest storm of our stay. As befits a tropical paradise, late every night the tropical rain would close in and beat the tin roof of our hotel. I guess this is why so much of both of the islands is covered in lush, green jungle!
Sadly, our days in paradise were soon over and it was time
to boat back to the main land. We were feeling brave and so we ignored the Lonely Planet's advice on not taking a local bus back to Kota Bharu and chanced it anyway. It cost only £1.20 each compared to the recommended taxi of £12. We were initially worried that the bus might be too busy or that it might not have air-con, but we pretty much had the bus to ourselves and the driver had the cooler turned so far up that we thought that he might have been trying to freeze hell!
The downside of our adventure came when we arrived in Kota Bharu and discovered that there was really nothing of interest there. We had planned an extra day, on the recommendation of Lonely Planet, but after a quick walk around the markets we were done. To add insult to injury, our hotel gave us a "deluxe double" with no windows and possibly dirty blankets to sleep in. After we had given Christine our sleeping-bags to take home, we now felt that this could have been their moment! doh!
On the plus side, we were saved by the food and ventured to try a nasi
lemak (rice, chicken, anchovies & chilli 'sambal' paste) followed by cendol (green worms of pea-flour, salty rice, topped with shaved ice and coconut). The nasi lemak was delicious, but "blow-your-head-off" spicy; the cendol was about as tasty as it sounds! We're not sure that desserts are Asia's forte.
After a day in Kota Bharu, we were more than happy to leave and so we boarded our plane to Kuala Lumpur to continue our adventures...
Sea turtle comes up for air:
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Kat
non-member comment
Yes! Food, sea turtles, a shout out, this might be my favourite blog yet.