Look, Mom! I'm parasailing!

Penang is a lot of fun!

When we last spoke, I was heading out to Penang from Kota Bharu. It's now Saturday night, and I'm safe and sound here in George Town, the capital city of Penang. I arrived Thursday morning after a 1 hour plane ride from Kota Bharu that only cost me $14 US. It was on a propeller plane, my first time in one. I headed into the city and found a place to stay around Chinatown; I knew there were a lot of hostels in the area.

I went exploring, and of course, that involves eating. George Town is a really nice city, it's consistently voted among the most livable cities in Asia, and I can see why. It's pretty clean, well developed, but not huge like Kuala Lumpur. Instead, the city maintains a lot of charm. It's an old British colonial city, and was recently named a World Heritage City by UNESCO (Melaka received the same honor) last month. Penang is the only state in Malaysia with a Chinese plurality. The state is mostly on an island (also called Penang), but also includes a small strip of land on the mainland which faces the island. George Town is on the northeast of the island.

Penang is famous for something else, the food capital of Malaysia! People here love to makan, which means "eat". There's street food everywhere. I had a great lunch of Indian food at this really busy place, some Ayam Goreng which is awesome spicy fried chicken (Indians fry a good chicken) with nasi, which just means "rice". The rice was topped with different curry sauces. Once again, one eat with the right hand. This meal was spectacular.

I walked around some more and got a good feel for the area. I worked up an appetite (of course) and found another one of the coolest things I have ever seen. It was a stand on the side of the street nearby, and it was pretty busy. It was serving Lok Lok.



The best term for it would be "Malaysian-Chinese fondue." There's a variety of foods on a stick available (Don't you love food on a stick? I do.). The end of each stick is color coded, which corresponds to a certain price (i.e. blue is 30 sen, red is 40 sen). The prices are great, of course, starting at less than 10 cents US a skewer. To start, they give you a small styrofoam plate. You then choose a skewer of food that looks good, and cook/heat up your selection in the provided boiling water. You can then dunk it in either peanut sauce, sweet-spicy chili sauce, or sweet soy (or you can spoon the sauce over on your plate, or however you like). Then you eat it. Make sure to keep all your skewers. Once you've eaten you give it to one of the two people working the stall (a Mother and Son, I think). They count up the amount according to your colored skewers and you pay. They're there prepping and replenishing food as it goes out.

The selection is great. There's a few things you don't dunk in the water, such as great little fried spring rolls and little fried dumplings. There's plenty of seafood, octopus, tiny squids, cockles (tiny clams), crab meat, surimi (fake crabs legs like you get at in crab rolls at cheap sushi joints, I like it), bits of fish. There's different kinds of tofu. One can get a couple of kinds of sausage, such as little round chicken sausages (one of my favs), spicy Chinese pork sausage, and even bits of hot dog. There's tons of balls of stuff (made from finely ground meat, essentially they're meatballs). There's all kinds of fishballs of various textures and flavors, a few meatballs (not like Mama's Italian variety). Perhaps my favorite selection was the chunk of pork fat, which had been barbecued Chinese style, with a bit of cucumber. As you're probably aware by now, I'm a huge fan of pork, especially the fat. And for all the organ meat fans out there, the Lok Lok stand has food for you too. Skewers of liver chunks are on display, as are skewers of intestines. Don't forget the pig ears, chunks of pig ear (yes, thin, flat pig ear, just like you see on the animal, cut into pieces) are skewered (it's already been cooked, just heat it up. The layer of cartilage throughout the inside of the ear provides a crunchiness unlike any other.

Tasty Little Chicken Sausages


After eating my way through the Lok Lok stand, it was late afternoon, I ventured around more, looking down all the side streets. I saw a few temples, really beautiful, very colorful. The city is really the attraction itself, walking around is one of the best activities, and I need it to burn off all these calories. Don't forget to stay hydrated. Have I mentioned how hot it is here?!?!

I relaxed a bit during the day and a bit in the evening in my room too, between my adventures. I was a bit tired, good to have little naps.

Later that evening, I went back for a bit more Lok Lok, just a few skewers. It was great again. I went headed into a bar nearby for a beer, and met Duss from Liverpool. We talked a lot about traveling, about where we're from (he had visited the States), the Olympics (which were on the TV). (On the topic of the Olympics, I've been asked about they're popularity here. They do watch them a lot here. There was a lot of hope that the badminton player from Malaysia might bring home the Gold. It would be Malaysia's first gold medal ever. Unfortunately, Malaysia lost to China in the end, and received silver). I've really discovered it's so easy to meet people when traveling, especially if you're alone. Other travelers are just as eager to meet people as you are. Penang is a really social place too. Quite a few Westerners are here, understandably, and there's a large expat community. Despite this, it still stays unique, which is great.

The next day, Yesterday, Friday, it was raining a lot. It rained most of the day. I made it out to get lunch in a clear spot of the day. Had some good duck and rice, simple and tasty. It was from this stall that sells roasted meat. It sets up outside a Minuman, which is a place with tables that serves drinks. It's a pretty common set up here, the building (open air with tables and chairs) serves drinks. Food stall(s) set up inside/outside the edge of the place. The food stalls draw in customers to whom drinks are sold, and the food stalls benefit in that their customers have tables to eat at.

Roasted Meat


I took it pretty easy, walked around a little more, but it started raining again. I hung out in the hostel for a bit, not too exciting. I later went to the mall to find a magazine in English (they're rather hard to come by), I had to go to a big bookstore type place, like Borders. I took my umbrella, but still got wet. In addition to my very expensive magazine (though Malaysia on the whole is cheap, an American magazine is very costly), I picked up some Malaysian junk food at the mall. I thought I would get a taste for it, it was alright. I can't decide which I like better, Honey Crab flavor crackers, or Cuttlefish flavor crackers.





I chilled more, ate some of my junk food, and read. Finally, by the evening, it had stopped raining. I had a little snack at a street stall, little cakes of fried tofu with tiny whole shrimp (heads, tails, shells and all) worked into them. The shells are really soft, and are easily eaten as part of the cake, like a soft-shell crab. You have little heads with eyes looking up at you, it's great!

After that snack I made it over to the Lok Lok stand, again (what can I say, it's delicious). After having a couple skewers, I was approached by another Westerner asking about the set up. After my explanation, she decided to join, and we talked a bit. Turns out she was from Iowa, the second American I've met so far in just over 3 weeks (the other was an expat who had settled in the Philippines, who I had met in Melaka). After eating quite a few more skewers of Lok Lok, we had a beer. After that I called it a day.

Today was another adventure. I wandered out of the hostel in search of a late breakfast/lunch (I guess you could call it brunch; I had slept in late). I was going to head over to the KOMTAR tower, a tall building here with an observation deck after my breakfast/lunch. Instead, I ran into the same person who I had met the night before and we got to talking. She convinced me to come to Batu Ferringhi, where she was headed. So, after a quick meal, we headed over to the bus. En route, we happened upon a cool market.

Market


We got on the bus, which wasn't one of the government buses, like we had originally intended. Apparently private companies run buses on the same route as the government and use similar route numbers. It's not anything dangerous really, and in the end you wind up in the same place, and it costs the same. They even use the same terminal. The buses themselves are a little bit to be desired though.

Luxury


The doors aren't closed while the bus is in motion


Batu Ferrenghi is a town/beach on the north coast of the island of Penang. I'm not really a beach person, but I'm glad I went. The ride there was rather scenic. In all honesty, the beach is pretty developed. It's beautiful though. The water is really warm. We didn't go swimming, but got the feet wet walking along the length of the beach. I can now say I've been in the Indian Ocean, pretty cool.






Oh yeah, I went parasailing. So it's a bit touristy, but I really wanted to try it out. It was pretty inexpensive too (I won't say how much). Let me say, it was a really fun experience, and I'm really glad I did it. Basically, they put a life jacket and harness on me, and gave me all the instructions on how it worked and what I needed to do when and so on. I stood on the beach, facing the water and they hooked up the parachute behind me, and a rope, which was attached to the boat, in front of me. The parachute took up wind, and the boat started going, when the rope pulled tight, I started running, and I was off the ground in no time (one doesn't get wet). I soared up into the air and the boat made a big loop, going the length of the beach and back. It was great views of the water, mountains, the beach and more, spectacular. It was really peaceful up there, my fear of heights didn't bother me at all, very relaxed. I landed smoothly on the beach. My fellow traveler got some great pictures

Getting Ready


Taking Off


Take Off Succesful


Coming In For Landing


Succseful Landing



We then headed back to George Town. After exploring some, we started to head back to the area where our hostels (and food) are located. It was evening, and we got terribly lost on the way. Finally, we made it, and had some satay and more Lok Lok.

More Lok Lok


After, we had a mango lassi (lassi is an Indian yogurt drink, really tasty, there's plain lassi, salted lasi, sweet lassi, and other varieties such as fruit, like I had).

That's about it. I know that was a really, really long post. In a few days I should be making my way to Thailand. I'll try to update you before then. I'm not totally sure what I want to do on my way to Bangkok. I want to stop somewhere along the way, but I don't think I'll be spending anytime in Hat Yai like I originally thought, supposed to be really boring. Maybe hit a nice seaside town on the way. I'm tired now, about to hit the hay.

Signing out,
Mike