In November my sister Sunnee, Maverick, and I went to Penang, Malaysia. Sunnee had been to Penang for a few days once, but I didn't even really know Malaysia was a country until we bought the tickets! Really. I thought 'Malaysia' was a term for the 'middle-Asia' region. Oh boy, embarrassing. So many things I don't know! But, I learned from Pinterest that Penang is supposed to have some of the best street food in the world! Unluckily for me and Sunnee, it is mostly all sea food, because Penang is a small island off of mainland Malaysia.
We spent the first two days on the beach. Me and Sunnee both agreed, that after living in Hawaii almost no beaches compare. So we didn't get in the water in Penang, but we did get some sun, and the baby loved playing in/eating the sand. It was very relaxing. We went to the night market a few miles away, and ate at a really authentic street food place. We got some of the famous dishes, but minus the sea food and plus chicken. I'm sure they thought we were nuts. We tried Assam Laksa, Char Kway Teow, Nasi Candor, Roti, and Chee Cheong Fun. Don't know what those are? Neither did I :)
Penang was hot, we were there in November and it was still pretty hot and humid. It is probably even worse than Hong Kong!
Penang was once taken over by Britain (what wasn't?), today the island itself is largely inhabited by Chinese descendants, and Malaysia is a mostly Islamic country. So there is an amazing mixture of cultures there. Signs in three different languages, food from every country imaginable, Buddhist temples next to Catholic cathedrals next to Mosques- so many different cultures mixing beautifully! There were women in hijabs everywhere- it's rare for an LDS girl to go to the beach in her tankini, and feel out of place because they feel immodest, but that was us!
Surprisingly, I liked the city part of Penang better than the beach. There is an area called Georgetown (named after King George), where the cultural and architectural mixing is particularly prominent. The people there have been very good at up keeping what they refer to as 'heritage' buildings, so many of the colonial buildings are in excellent shape. In the past few years Georgetown has also become the center of a pop-art phenomena, when the city hired famous Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic to come paint the sides of buildings there. Now there are cool art pieces all around, some made of wrought iron, some only paint, and some interactive paintings with things like bikes sticking out of the wall. It brings in many tourists. Me, Sunnee, and Maverick hired a 'trishaw' man to take us around to all of the paintings. This unlucky guy was probably 70 years old, smaller than me and Sunnee, and was huffing and puffing as he zoomed us around the city for TWO hours! He tried to get us to get out of the trishaw to take pictures as often as possible, so he could get a breather. At one point Sunnee was taking a picture of me and Mav with a painting, and he was full on directing traffic around us! The two hours cost us about $40 (USD), which was on the pricey side for trishaw drivers, but we figured he had earned it.
Silly me forgot to bring my camera charger, so my camera died while we were there, and then my phone charger also died while there, so the pictures are limited and/or poor. But enjoy!
Street Food
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| A street food vendor area |
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| Me and Maverick trying Chee Cheong Fun |
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Random, beautiful, dilapidated buildings everywhere |
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| We took a tour of the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion, also known as The Blue Mansion Cheong was a super wealthy Chinese man, and this is his beautifully restored home |
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| Mav eating his toes. He loves historical tours |
Street Art
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| Maverick, the rickshaw driver, and I in the trishaw. |
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| One of the wrought iron pieces you can pose with |
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| Maverick was something of a celebrity. People took pictures of him (with and without permission), video taped him, tried to poke and hold him. A man near our hotel offered to take him on a walk down the beach. Sometimes we would stop in front of a temple to take a picture and the people would turn away from the temple and start snapping photos of him. This is the one lady I let hold him. She was very pleased. |
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| Sunnee was really right next to him. No babies were hurt in this production. |
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| Sunnee has a special talent for choosing good picture poses. |
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| My favorite piece |
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| The only way I'll ever ride a bike ;) |
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| Hard to tell, but I was trying to show Mav 'dunking' |
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| Different clans used to have their own 'jetty' (like a pier, but made of rocks so that it can change how the tide hits) where they lived and kept their boats. A few descendants still live there now, mostly just stores and a few tour boats. The water was so filthy you would want to die before touching it, but the buildings were very interesting. |
