Pilgrimage to Penang: Temples & Treats

Evening street scene in Georgetown

After sampling the amazing culinary delights of KL, we simply couldn't wait to get to Penang.  Georgetown, the major city on Penang Island in NW Malaysia, is commonly known as one of the street food capitals of the world.  Our proverbial cup runneth over with excitement as we neared the area via bus from the Cameron Highlands.  This was a destination we had been thinking about since the early stages of trip planning began over a year and a half ago.  Our bus pulled in at the southern end of Georgetown and we split a cab (haggling required, of course, for a reasonable fare – after all, we were in SE Asia) with a friendly German couple we had just met that were going into the center as well.  As we zipped along the busy roads in the cab, street carts with steaming vats of deliciousness were everywhere with people hovering nearby anxiously awaiting the goods within.  It was at this point that we began salivating.

Street carts near our hotel; these would become two of our favorites!

Matt excited about the colorful drinks -- watermelon & dragonfruit

As luck would have it, our hotel was very near a street packed with evening food stalls.  We dropped our bags and headed out into the busy night.  It was nearly 10PM, but as we would quickly learn, one can easily eat 24 hours a day in Penang.  The appearances of streets changed with the hour; carts would pop up, then disappear only to be replaced with another several hours later.  A street at 9AM would look completely different at noon, 3PM, 6PM, 9PM, etc.  Never in my life have I seen little areas morph so swiftly.  It made walking about the area totally fun at any hour.

The truly sublime wonton mee

Matt was still recovering from a bit of gastronomical bad luck in the Cameron Highlands, but I was famished.  A day of self-imposed dehydration will do that to you (eh, buses – you just never know if or when they might stop for a bathroom break).  The first hurdle to overcome was not necessarily what to order (everything looked scrumptious), but more along the lines of how to order.  There were tables with little stools spilling from storefronts onto the sidewalks everywhere, a dozen food stalls along the curbs, and even more people wandering about.  The only thing that seemed to be missing was a line to stand in to order.
 

Our drinks guy doing his thing

So, we weaved through the stalls and tables and tried to observe what everyone else was doing.  A table eventually opened up and we ambushed it before anyone else could (having quickly realized that this was an every-man-for-himself seating system).  Once seated a hurried-looking man flew up to us and asked what we wanted to drink.  This would turn out to be the easy part.  After placing a drink order, we waited and waited but nothing seemed to be happening with the food part.  I eventually went up to a stand and simply asked for "one."  One of what, I wasn't exactly sure.  The food came, and we later identified it as wonton mee.  It was once of the best tasting dishes of my life.  Noodles, pork, sauce, peppers, oh my.  We would be back for more, that's for sure.  And we would repeat the ordering method of "smile, point, and give wad of money over to a stranger" many, many times in the months to come.  Correct, I'm not sure.  Efficient, definitely. =)

One of the first lovely temples we visited

Incense burning as an offering within the interior

Some great street art in Georgetown

After a good night's sleep, we headed out to explore the town, and what fun it was!  Georgetown is a lovely place to wander and has great architecture, a plethora of temples and clan houses, and many, many, good places to fuel up.  It was hot and humid, but pleasant enough under the abundant storefront awnings.  Malaysia is an amazing place where cultures come together to make something especially wonderful.  There are three main influences in the region – the Malay, Indian and Chinese.  Hence why I'm pretty sure you have awesome food.  It also bears the mark of British colonialism, with an old fort (Fort Cornwallis) and some great churches.  

St. George's church

Inside Fort Cornwallis

While walking around on our first full day there, we visited some of the clan houses (built by the original handful of Chinese families that came to the area), the most impressive being the Khoo Kongsi.  The reds and golds both inside and outside the temples are spectacular, and we both felt a little bit as though we had been magically transported to China.  Dragons stood guard at the entrances and breathtakingly beautiful artwork graced the walls of the interiors.

Khoo Kongsi main temple

Beautiful artwork inside Khoo Kongsi

Friendly looking dragon outside Khoo Kongsi

In addition to the clan houses, there are also clan jetties in Georgetown.  Each slightly different, but still with the common themes of watery houses, small temples and incense mixed with salty ocean aromas that filled the air.  We wandered through their tiny plank-laden lanes and managed to become misplaced only a couple of times.

Matt alongside one of the clan jetties

Offerings of tea at one of the clan jetty temples

Jetty walkway

One of the largest clan jetty temples

Lanterns, lanterns & more lanterns!

The best char kway teow

After spending a few days meandering through the passageways of Georgetown and navigating our way to the best food stalls known to man (a particular trip for the best char kway teow took us on a 5 km evening stroll) we headed out on the local bus to get us some beach time.  This particular beach was chosen solely on the basis of its name, Batu Ferrenghi.  You fellow Star Trek fans will understand.  We just had to go.  We stayed in a lovely little beachside hotel, spent our evenings eating at the giant food halls and watching the sun sink behind the lush hills.  During the day, we visited the national park.  Hiking through the jungle in sandals (there was a fabulous beach at the end of it) like only fools would do made for a memorable saunter as we side-stepped ridiculously giant ants and beetles and were constantly assaulted with spider webs to the face.  The beach was definitely worth it, but a short swim was all we took as apparently, it was jellyfish season.

Goofing around at sunset in Batu Ferrenghi

Triumphing along the fraught-with-danger jungle trail =)

The lovely beach reward at the end of the trail

Tiny shells!

Tom Yum soup and a big 'ole fish -- delish!

Singapore noodles from one of the food halls in Batu Ferrenghi

Matt in front of our friendly guesthouse in Batu Ferrenghi

An example of amazing batik artwork in the museum

With a few refreshing days of beach under our belts (a little bit tighter now due to all the food we had been eating) we hopped back on the bus into Georgetown.  We spent the next couple of days exploring and unwinding, a process that brought us some new world-traveling friends, a visit to a new Batik museum, and a few evenings catching up on the latest blockbusters in the hotel's movie-viewing spot (the newest Star Trek flick and The Hangover III – we couldn't help ourselves).

Inside one of Georgetown's busy lunchtime food halls

Black pepper crab -- amazing!

After haircuts at the mall -- ready for Thailand!

It was at this point that Thailand began calling ever so loudly, so we decided to high-tail it back to KL and get a cheap flight into Phuket (pronounced "poo-ket," you're all scolding yourselves now, aren't you..).  We stopped for a night at our old haunt in KL, The Explorer's Guesthouse, and spent a glorious evening doing our laundry in a machine again, drinking Chang beer (had to get ready for Thailand), eating pork pau and getting sucked into the TV series Arrested Development (more to come on that once the blog catches up to New Zealand).

New adventures awaited us in Thailand, a place that we were both really excited to experience.  We could only hope that the green curry and mango sticky rice would be able to hold a candle to Malaysia's beyond divine wonton mee, curry mee, laksas and ABC's.

Click below for some more amazing food (and temple) pics!  =)