Backpacking Asia

Penang! The homeland!

June 23, 2008 at 10:18 am (Uncategorized)

Here we are (or here we’ve been) in Penang.  It’s an island just off the west coast of Malaysia and this is where Allison and her siblings were born, as we said in the last post.  We’re staying in the house of a teacher at Dalat School while he and his family are in the States (the Munsons).   It’s REALLY NICE to stay in a house instead of hopping from hostel to hostel or staying in a junky place.  The house had been broken into the weekend before we got there because the place was left with no lights on and the Munson’s dogs were away at the kennel.  Not to worry, though…Dalat people installed security lights all around the house, so it looks

like 7 am in the middle of the night (think Christmas Vacation where Clark lights up the house   )  At least we’re nice and safe.  We wish Chile and Won Ton were here to protect us…. BUT we figure Won Ton would spend his days in the local library reading Vonnegut and sipping tea and Chile would have been a low-ranking dog gang member and wandered the street for a day and a half before he got too scared and hid under a Durian truck for the rest of the trip.  All in all, not much help.

ANYWAY

So Penang!  Very nice!  Allison has been reminiscing and showing me places she’s been/things she ate as a child.  Every morning we go to the stalls and get a little baggie of tea or coffee (all with sweetened condensed milk, of course) and then to the  market stalls  to eat  a  breakfast of roti (fried dough), banana pancakes (fried dough with bananas and peanuts) or sticky rice (STEAMED sticky rice in blocks with all sorts of things in it).  Or a combination of all three!  Woo hoo! (We’re doing an awful lot of walking, by the way).

Something very fun I like is ais cacang (ice kachang).  It’s a bit like a snow cone, but with strawberry syrup, evaporated milk, ice cream, little black jellies and pink jellies.  You have the option of corn, beans, and something that is long and salty and chewy (???), but Allison taught me that you say “No beans, no corn!” when you order   They look at you like you’re crazy not to get it, but I’ll endure the scorn.  Here’s a picture of this little delicacy:

So far we’ve been to the Penang Butterfly Farm, the Tropical Fruit Farm (which is AWESOME, especially since you get a huge fruit buffet at the end of the tour included in your ticket!), the Spice Gardens, the Snake Temple, the Gurney Drive/Fettis Park stalls (where I ate something very good on a stick with lots of tentacles sticking out), and went over to Batu Ferringhi (the pretty part of the beaches).  In Batu, Allison and I both had suits tailored for us…HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!  BOTH of our suits (mine made of  wool/cashmere and hers of Japanese Silk) cost WAY less than half of what it would cost to get just my suit made of the same stuff in America.  Allison also found some of the Chinese yellow china that she collects that we can’t find anywhere in the States.  We had to buy a $15 suitcase to take it with us.  We may be eating peanut butter for some time after we get back