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HE SAID... Our food and travel adventure through Malaysia was a fantastic experience. We journeyed as far south as Melaka, as far north as Kota Bharu, as far east as Kuala Terengganu and as far west as George Town, sampling the cuisine and culture of so many places in between. We trekked through forests, swam in rivers, relaxed on beaches, snorkelled with turtles, mused in mosques, cooled down in temples, sipped tea in the highlands, played
congkak (a wooden board game played with marbles) into the night and ate as many local dishes as we could possibly find. The people were incredibly friendly, the sun was incredibly hot and the food was incredibly delicious. We loved our time in Malaysia, and there are a few places that will draw us back at some stage in the future (George Town and Kuala Lumpur in particular).
While it’s hard to paraphrase a month of adventure into a small reflective epilogue, there are a few standout memories that I’ve collated below.
The Food: – Eating
roti canai (flat flaky Indian bread served with curry sauce) whenever and wherever we could
– Sipping
teh tarik (pulled sweet milky tea) whenever and wherever we
could
– Eating
char kway teow (flat wide rice noodles, prawns, Chinese sausage, egg, crispy sprouts and chilli) whenever and wherever we could
– Slurping
assam laksa (round white rice noodles in a tamarind and chilli fish soup) in George Town
– Feasting on bbq pork noddles in Chinatown (KL)
– Sipping
teh tarik halia (pulled sweet milky tea with ginger) in Little India (KL)
– Flooding
biryani (rice cooked with spices) with curry sauce in Little India (KL).
The People: – Aziz and Asiah at Suka Suka Lake Retreat (two of the calmest and most tolerant hosts we’ve met)
– The young newlyweds in Kampung Kelantan (who unconditionally welcomed us into their wedding)
– The old man in George Town (who met us in a dark empty street and pointed to where we should come back the next day for the best
assam laksa)
– The taxi driver in Kuala Terengganu (who drove us to the Crystal Mosque and waited for us as we chatted with the volunteer guides)
– The restaurant owner in Kuala Terengganu (who walked with us to the local market and showed us where to buy
kerepok (a small sausage of deep–fried fish paste
and sago) and how to eat it.
The Experiences: – Sitting in our hotel room watching lightning strike over Kuala Lumpur
– Sipping
teh tarik while watching dragon boat races in the pouring rain in Melaka
– Sipping
teh tarik in the early morning at Restoran Melaka Raya
– Walking the Mossy Forest in thick fog (high in the Cameron Highlands)
– Playing
congkak in the serene environs of Suka Suka Lake Retreat
– Luxuriating in Campbell House in Penang
– Swimming in a thunderstorm in Taman Negara National Park
– Diving with a giant turtle at Turtle Point (Perhentian Besar Island)
– Sitting on a beach watching the sun set over the South China Sea (Perhentian Besar Island)
– Having the courage to walk into Restoran Anuja in Kuala Lumpur and order a
roti canai and
teh tarik (when four weeks earlier I’d walked past the same eatery and been too nervous to walk in).
SHE SAID... Within a week of travelling in Malaysia, I was a fully fledged
teh tarik drinking,
roti canai and
nasi lemak (coconut rice, dried anchovies, spicy sambal, boiled egg and peanuts) eating local wannabe.
Our Malaysian trip was
a fabulous blend of exotic experiences. While I have lots of great memories... like our trishaw tour in Melaka; standing in warm Cameron Highland rain surrounded by hills filled with tea bushes; doing a treasure hunt for street art in George Town; trekking in the steaming hot jungles of Taman Negara; exploring the produce laden Central Market in Kota Bharu; learning Malay customs at the homestay in Kampung Kelantan; and lazing on the Perhentian Island beaches... one of my biggest highlights was the luscious Malaysian food. Penang and Kuala Lumpur in particular were stand out places to indulge in deliciousness. For me, enjoying local foods and getting to know regional delicacies by asking locals what they like to eat was a fundamental part of my Malaysian experience.
The streets of Malaysia are filled with street food carts, food
pasars (markets) and food courts. It offers a cheap, convenient and flavourful meal – anytime of the day. I know that ownership of many dishes and cultural traditions are fought over by Singaporeans and Malaysians; I can’t comment on that, but I will say this – I hope to all goodness that Malaysia never sanitises itself to a point of sterility
like the Singaporeans have done. I wholeheartedly loved the grit and genuineness of our Malaysian cultural encounters.
The Australian food courts with their insipid and greasy food have made us develop an instinctive need to avoid any sort of food court as a result. However, this was an issue we had to get over really quickly in Malaysia, as the food courts and food halls are quite superb. Each shop/stall usually only cooks one dish and they cook it amazingly well. The unexpected delights of hawker food were driven home again and again in the many hawker stalls that we visited. Malaysia really changed my perception of how mind–blowingly fantastic good hawker food can be. Dishes I was already familiar with were presented with new and cleaner flavours, and I got to know new dishes that I will now hunt for in Australia. The Food Walk we did in KL with Charles remains a big highlight of the trip. After that walk, I can honestly say that I don’t think there’s a better way of experiencing Malaysia than through the plates of the various areas around each town.
This trip to Malaysia has had a wonderful side effect
of educating us more on the various Indian Hindu/Muslim, northern/southern regional foods, and the intricate differences between Chinese cuisines (Hokkien, Hakka, Teochew, Cantonese and Hainanese) that would normally just fall under the general terms of ‘Indian’ or ‘Chinese’.
The traditional Malaya cuisine is outstanding, and even though there are many fabulous Chinese and Indian dishes, the Malay cuisine easily stands its ground too.
One thing that kept catching my attention was the word ‘authentic’. I’m amused when people use the word ‘authentic’ to sell transplanted ideas of tradition or food. How can an Indian dish cooked with ingredients grown in Malaysia and cooked by a third generation Indian Malaysian ever be ‘authentic’? I don’t need things to be ‘authentic’; I just want them to be the best version of themselves that they can be in that specific time and context. But then I’m not a purist, so I welcome the mixing of cultures and food. I use the deliciousness of
nasi kandar and
laksa dishes as my exhibit A and B respectively – of how integrating ideas and taking the best of both worlds is a wonderful thing. I also welcome the mixing of races, religions and any
other activity that will bring the world and humanity closer together. I would like to think that the less ‘us’ and ‘them’ boundaries we impose on ourselves, the fewer wars we will have. So in a nutshell, that’s my simplified version of how we can attain world peace! 😊
Given that all the travel advertisements and PR materials stress that Malaysia is a melting pot of multiple religions and races, I had wondered about the characterisation of the Malaysian identity. After a month there, I’m still not sure what that classic Malaysian cultural identity is. From my perspective, all the races and religions seem to coexist peacefully enough, which is great; but it’s very different to being a happy melting pot of cultures. It may have been a melting pot a long time ago, but with interracial marriages now frowned upon, and religion taking on a more public and political nuance than a personal one – I really can’t see how the term ‘melting pot’ applies.
It may not be a melting pot of cultures in the true sense, but it certainly was a kaleidoscope of diversity and contrasts. On a walk through most cities and towns we
could admire mosques in the morning and temples in the afternoon. We could enjoy a delicious meal at a hawker stall as much as we would at a white table clothed restaurant. We experienced dusty paths in remote villages and noisy exhaust filled six lane highways; colonial streets lined with beautiful heritage shop houses and towering skyscrapers planted in concrete construction–zoned mazes; sodden dark ancient rainforests and squeaky white sunny beaches. Although it wasn’t that long, our month of travel gave us an inside glimpse into a fascinating country. It’s also a country that never ceased to amaze and delight, and it has whet our appetite for more!
Our journey through Malaysia revealed continually altering environments and changing scenery. We covered a lot of ground in four weeks, and for the majority of the trip the roads were fantastic and getting to places was easy and enjoyable. The only blight on the landscape was the constant sprawl of palm oil plantations along almost every highway. There has been a lot of coverage in Australia on the devastating habitat loss suffered by orangutans and other wildlife in Borneo, caused by ever expanding palm oil plantations. However I was totally unprepared
to see most of Peninsular Malaysia covered in palm oil plantations too.
Regardless of how brilliant travel plans are, a good trip is always part science, part art and part sheer luck. I think we were quite fortunate with all three components on this trip. Especially the luck part. Firstly, we were lucky that we hadn’t decided to book our flight one week prior to the one we booked – which would have been the aircraft that was Flight MH370! Secondly, we feel lucky to have met a few people on this trip who were really fabulous to travel and hang out with.
Speaking of Flight MH370, I just realised that neither of us has mentioned the ‘pray for MH370’ signs we saw all over Malaysia – on small hawker stalls, across large malls, in front yards, on a child’s schoolbag and across the backs of buses...everyone seemed to be whole–heartedly willing the safe return of all the passengers. It was a visibly dismal day when the government made a speech that confirmed the crashing of the plane into the Indian Ocean.
We are always very excited to leave on a trip, but we are equally very
excited to come back home. Our hearts are happy to be back at home with our beautiful puppies and kitty. But our stomachs, well that’s another story. I think we left our stomachs somewhere in Penang and they won’t be happy until we go back. My stomach was quite unimpressed at the lowly offering of a banana and toast this morning. Apparently there was shock horror that there wasn’t a person standing by to cook me a piping hot
roti canai, or a steaming bowl of rice noodles, or to assemble a
nasi lemak in a banana leaf. How terrible that my breakfast didn’t come fresh off a wok or griddle. Nevertheless, I think our healthier selves are silently thanking us for a break from the very rich and heavy hawker food we’ve been living on. We’ve already cooked a few of the dishes we loved in Malaysia, but for the most part, our diet has been much healthier in both fat/sugar content and portion size.
I hope each and every one of you appreciates the sacrifices we made to research this blog... the numerous calories we had to consume and the number of hours we spent sitting at
roadside stalls, chasing down the best morsels of street food – all so we could report back to you. 😄
Our post–travel discussions about our Malaysian trip have confirmed the feelings and thoughts we had during the trip. When we returned from Cambodia last year, our feelings were mixed...and as much as we loved most aspects of that trip, we didn’t (and still don’t) have a burning desire to revisit. In stark contrast, we both agree that we would return to Malaysia in a heartbeat! And yet again, we now face that age old travel dilemma...do we go to new places or revisit old favourites? No doubt this will be a much discussed topic of conversation on long cold winter nights.
There is already a bit of talk about doing another Food trip. Fingers and toes firmly crossed! Until then we’ll have to keep ourselves happy with the half a backpack’s worth of goodies we have brought back from Malaysia – three different kinds of tea from the Cameron Highlands; nutmeg balm, a nonya cookbook and mementos of street art from Penang; a
congkak board from Kuala Kangsar, and a lovely thick cotton scarf from KL to get
me through this winter.
Jumpa lagi people, and may your travels exceed your wildest dreams! 😊
Flying ships on this trip... Jetstar Airways (Hobart – Melbourne);
Malaysia Airlines (Melbourne – Kuala Lumpur);
Malaysia Airlines (Kuala Lumpur – Melbourne);
Jetstar Airways (Melbourne – Hobart).
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LouiseW
non-member comment
there by the grace of God...
Thanks for the 'last post' as they say...and how happy are we that it indeed not the 'last post'.I had NO IDEA until reading this tonight that you were 1 week off taking MH370. My God. And I am not even religious! As always, thanks for the vicarious pleasure! (And yes! We appreciate the effort on all counts!) XXOO