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Published: August 9th 2007
Today was a really interesting day. We woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed, feeling very glad we had paid the extra few ringgit for air conditioning that night. After some lunch we went to the Tourist Office where a Minivan was waiting to pick us up for our pre-booked tour of Penang island.
As it happened we were the only 3 on the tour. Our driver, Joshuan introduced himself and off we went. The architecture in Penang is really beautiful. Lots of colourful historic buildings with English influences. There are many different religions in Malaysia too, so many different places of worship, from Buddhist temples, to Chinese clan buildings to Christian Churches to Mosques. It's a very colourful mix!
Our first stop was at a Batik factory where we watched some silk pieces being printed with paint and wax. We then headed to a Malay coffee shop where we sampled all sorts of coffee and chocolate. The coconut coffee was really yummy! We then went on a scenic drive around the island, passing clove and nutmeg plantations, beautiful white sandy beaches and hundreds of fruit trees. We stopped at a fishing village and also at a traditional Malay
Village. The houses here were wooden and built on stilts, not because of snakes, insects or flooding as we originally thought, but because in past years once the area had been farmed, the villagers would pick up their houses and move them to another fruitful area. Now these houses are protected so can't be moved or modified.
Up in the hills we stopped at fruit stalls on the road where we sampled all the local produce. Joshuan had been raving about their delicacy 'King Fruit' which he claimed tasted like ice cream. Feeling quite excited we watched as he sliced open the large spiky exterior, revealing white squidgy sausage like fruits inside. Although feeling slightly dubious, we all scooped a good handful of the fruit up and greedily shovelled it into our mouths. Big mistake. As it happened, it tasted nothing like ice cream and more like warm squidgy onion. Fee and I, after trying to make some convincing 'mmmm' noises slowly put our soft onions down and edged away. Bean however was encouraged to finish her fruit and when she had finished, Joshuan turned the shell over to reveal another 4 segments. Oh goody! Fee and I
claimed
that although it was lovely, we were really feeling rather full but that we were sure that Bean would enjoy some more. Bean glared at us and dutifully scooped some more of the white gooey mixture into her mouth until it was all gone... her breath was pretty funky for the rest of the day.
We managed to get rid of the onion taste by eating some queen fruits (much nicer) some dried banana chips and some other tastier spiky fruits which are a bit like lychees.
We finished the trip at the Snake Temple, where we held a few of the pythons. This is a temple with free snakes roaming around but they are 'sleepy' due to the joss sticks that are burning everywhere.
In the evening we ate at a really lovely Indian restaurant, where our meals were served on bamboo leaves! (Something we did not realise until we had been waiting for plates for 5 minutes, and a waiter had to come over and tell us...) We all had different dishes and some mango and strawberry yogurt lassis. At the end of the meal to show appreciation, you fold your bamboo leaf towardyou. If
you did not like your food you fold it away from you. Our meals were lovely and we went to bed very happy and content. Bean then got up 10 minutes later to rush to the bathroom. oh dear...
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cubbo
non-member comment
funky fruit
mmmm all the onion and sausage like goodness of a pie, in a fruit. ingenious....