Penang – food central, Malaysia

Wanton mee

We spent 3 days in Penang, an island in the North West of Malaysia, known mainly for its food. We stayed in a little hostel called Roommates, which was nice, because it was so small you got to know everyone there, but it was also bloody hot because they were tight with the aircon. They took us on a food crawl on the first night, where we tried local dishes, some of which are pictured below. For dessert we had rice balls with peanuts in the middle, in a ginger soup (which actually wasn't that bad).

The next day, we had to get our visas for Thailand sorted, because you only get 15 days if you enter Thailand by road or sea, so we gave our passports to an office down the road, pad them a small fee, and they took them off for us and brought them back with 60 day Thai visas. We also did some laundry at a local laundrette, which was run by a little man in his house down a back alley. I was amazed to get all of our clothes back the next day, neatly pressed, none missing. After this, we went for a walk to find food, but it was so hot, we ended up having to find the mall and cool down in there. We had a burger from McDonald's and then I did something that the guidebook recommends you do whilst travelling the world: have your hair cut by a local hairdresser. I was a little alarmed at first when she showed me a picture of an Asian mullet and asked 'you want layers??' and then tried to sell me various 'special treatments', but I rebutted her requests and ended up with a very nice, freshly cut hairdoo that felt so much cooler than the 5 month mop I have been carrying around. After the mall, we went to an old Perhentian mansion to look around that has been built in perfect Feng-shui style.

Old Perhentian house

 It wasn’t very interesting. We then went back to the hostel, where they took us out for food again (street food), which was really cheap (less than £1 each) and it was really nice to get to know everyone. They also took us out for a typical pudding called chendol and ABC which are pictured below. Basically ABC is sweetcorn, crushed ice, red beans, grass jelly (black noodles) and some shiny green things that no one could identify. I didn't eat all of it obviously. Instead I tried my first Milo – a popular chocolate malt milk drink over here in Asia. We went back to the hostel and got chatting to a boy from Singapore, who studies music and has bought instruments in every country he has visited. He got them all out and played them for us.

ABC dessert

The next day, we had hoped to go to the national park and even got up relatively early (it was too hot to sleep in the hostel anyway, with the air con going off at 6am). We had the breakfast provided by the hostel – boiled egg and toast, and then we went out to catch the bus and a massive downpour started. With no coat, there was no way we could stay outside in the monsoon, so we went back to the hostel and went online for a bit. When it eventually stopped about an hour later, we caught a bus to the other side of Penang island to visit the National Park and go to the monkey beach. The bus ride there took about an hour and the other side of Penang was much more touristy (with a Hard Rock cafe etc). We set off on the trail, not realising how long or difficult it would be. I was dressed in my walking sandals and shirt and was sweating before we even set off. It turned out to be a jungle trek and I really didn’t enjoy it. It was too hot, there were too many mossies, and without my walking shoes on, I found it difficult to navigate the obstacles of branches, slippery mud and winding terrain. We saw lots of animals, including a massive monitor lizard – the biggest I have ever seen in the wild (about 1.5m in length). I moaned the whole way along because of all the mozzies and because we didn't bring enough water (neither of us had expected such a long jungle trail). When we were almost at the end, we bumped into the first and only other person we saw on the trail – a Dutch man who told us there was only another 1k to go until the monkey beach, where there were boats to take you back to the mainland. I was so happy.

Monitor lizard behind the leaves

It felt like more than 1k, but when we eventually got to the monkey beach, we saw lots of monkeys (one of which lunged at Jemma for making eye contact and sent her running into the sea screaming – highlight of the trek) and we also were relieved to see a little hut selling cold drinks and boat rides back. We each had a cold coke and then chartered out own private boat back for the bargain fee of £4 each! It was a really nice boat ride, with the wind in our hair, cooling us down and sipping ice cold cokes.

Sailing away from monkey beach

The boat took us all the way back to the entrance of the National park, where we could catch a bus back to Georgetown (where our hostel was). We got on the bus, I took out my money belt to pay and then we realised we had spent our last few ringits on the cokes and boat ride! We only had half the fare we needed! We had thought our tickets were return tickets, but the driver wouldn’t accept this and told us to get off the bus! We wondered how the hell we were going to get back to the hostel. Luckily, there was another, nicer driver outside who told us that we could use our change to buy a cheaper ticket to the town down the road and there was a cash machine there. And so that’s what we did, and we ended up in the touristy town, eating a McDonald's to break into the 50s that the cash machine gave us (my first Mcdonald's with chips in over a week, I can't believe I lasted so long without chips. Mcdonald's are so tempting here, what with them only costing £1.50 for a large meal).We eventually got back to the hostel and relaxed there for a while, before going out for one last bit of street food.