After soaking up the city and mall culture in Kuala Lampur
we decided to head 5 hours north to the state of Penang. Much like the rest of our Malaysia journey,
we hadn’t done much research on Penang but heard that the capital city of Georgetown
had good energy and in 2008 was listed as a Unesco World Heritage site. On top
of that, the food there is supposed to be amazing and authentic (if you like
traditional Chinese, Malay or Indian fare) so we were convinced!
After some confusion at the bus
station and then a long walk outside the station, we finally found our coach
and set off on the 5 hour journey to Penang….which was actually more like 7
hours. When we finally reached the island the bus stopped and let us out
literally on the side of the road/highway. Completely unaware of where we were
on this relatively large island state we figured we would try and flag down a
cab. After about 20 mins we did just that and negotiated ourselves a
half-decent rate to Georgetown, which our cabbie informed us, was about 30mins
away.
When the cabbie first pulled
into Georgetown we weren’t really sure what to think. It seemed like just
another rather unimpressive city, with, great ANOTHER large mall. It was only
after we got dropped off within the smaller quieter streets of the Heritage
section did we really get to see the Georgetown charm, streets lined with
pre-war houses and shops and 19th century churches, mosques, etc.
On our first night in Penang we
decided to see if the food lived up to its reputation and we headed out to find
some real authentic Dim-Sum. We found
what we were looking for at Tai Tong Restaurant. Plastic chairs and tables,
fluorescent lights and endless carts of mystery dumplings (and more) being
pushed around on stainless steel carts. Jonny was in heaven, and while I do
love Dim-sum I was a bit uneasy because we were in pretty much the biggest game
of mystery dinner ever. This ended with me twice biting into balls of shrimp
when I swear the lady said “pork” (PS – in case you don’t know, I HATE seafood
of any kind). Even with these minor setbacks the food was fantastic and we
loved our first real Asian Dim-Sum experience.
 |
| Jonny enjoying some Dim-Sum |
 |
| Endless carts of mystery food |
Next up – back to the mall! This
is after-all what they do in Malaysia. This time instead of shopping we decided
to hit up the arcade and a movie. We stepped into probably the biggest arcade I
have ever seen. It also had the most diverse crowd you could imagine from
giggly teenagers playing Dance Revolution on Kinectic (for just 50 cents you could
play for 15mins….which we did, obviously) to chain smoking middle-aged men that
back home you would be more likely to find at the horse races or Indian
Casinos. After getting our fill of games we caught a movie and then headed
home.
 |
| Intense round of Dance Central underway |
 |
| Jonny getting in on the games |
We spent the rest of our time in
Penang essentially wandering; making our way through the charming streets and
watching the daily street life before taking off to our next randomly selected
adventure – Pehrentian Islands…. Which until our second day in Penang we had
never heard of. Stay tuned!
 |
| local man driving his becak |
 |
| Man at work on the street |
OOO_Talia and Jonny
No comments:
Post a Comment