Penang Day 1

Moving right along...

Our first morning in Penang started a little late due to all of the excitement of the previous day.  We moseyed out of our 12 bed dorm around 9:30am and got some breakfast.  The standard toast and coffee.  But it was decent.  No peanut butter this time... had to settle for strawberry jelly.  But at least it was pretty good strawberry jelly. :)  After breakfast, we walked around Georgetown, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  This basically means that the buildings and older stuff has been preserved or restored to what it looked like before.  So, some of the buildings look (and are) pretty old.  So, that was interesting.  We got to walk around an old military fort called Fort Cornwallis.  Still not sure where the name came from, since the guy who built it was named Francis Light.  But Fort Cornwallis it is nonetheless.  They had a bunch of rooms with placards explaining the history of the fort and all.  Pretty interesting.  They still had some cannons mounted on the wall, which used to be surrounded by a moat! :)  The walls were built double-thick with sand between the two walls (I assume to absorb the impact of incoming cannonballs, but they never explicitly said that).  And the built a pretty tall lighthouse to guide boats through the harbor.  Here are some pictures.

Power lines are totally in the way...

Wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of an "exchange" with this row of cannons

Where the moat used to be...

Bridget in a wonderful red dress posing next to a poster of a man with a wig

After walking around Fort Cornwallis, we continued on around the city.  And it was hot.  Like really hot.  We did our run-from-shade-to-shade thing again.  The sun was overbearing and the humidity felt like it soaked everything.  But the soaking was probably just from my sweat... Anyway, we stopped in on a little coffee shop and got some white coffee.  It wasn't very white and was really sweet (despite asking for it with no sugar).  Tasted more like a mocha from McDonalds than a plain coffee.  I'm still investigating that one...  Anyway, I guess some dude in Ipoh (another city in Malaysia) invented the white coffee awhile ago and it's been popular ever since.  Or so goes the story at the restaurant.  True or not, it was good coffee.  And Bridget got an Oreo shake thing (hardly coffee...). :)  But the cool temperature of the restaurant felt good.

Old Town white coffee sign

A typical street block in Penang

After coffee, we walked to a big mall to check things out.  The prices were really cheap, but we didn't buy anything.  We don't have a whole lot of room for new stuff and we've heard the prices in Thailand are even cheaper, so we're being patient until then.  But there was quite a selection.  We grabbed lunch at a little food stall in the mall.  We got some chicken and rice to share.  It was good.  Now, by this point, you may be wondering if we'll ever get sick of rice dishes.  After contemplating this for a few seconds, I don't think so.  When it's this good, I can keep eating and eating it. :)  It wasn't all that exciting to look at, so no picture... :)

After the mall, we were walking back to the hostel and saw a man on the side of the road selling durian fruit.  This fruit has quite the reputation of smelling awful, but people like the taste of it.  I saw it called the fruit that "is shaped like a hedgehog and smells like compost."  The smell is actually so bad that it is banned on public transit and in many restaurants...  But that just means we gotta try it.  So, we had the guy crack it open and plop the edible part in a plastic container for us.  We carried it back to our hostel and sat outside and gave it a try.  Honestly, I didn't think it smelled that bad.  It had a sweet kind of oniony smell.  Definitely unique, but I've smelled much worse.  Anyway, we both tried some and I didn't think it was bad.  Bridget wasn't a big fan, so I had a couple of spoonfull.  The edible part is buried inside five cavities within the spiky shell.  The fruit is surrounding large seeds.  So you kind of have to scrape it off the seeds with a spoon or knife.  And it has the consistency of soft butter, I would say.  Anyway, we ate our fill and tossed the rest in a garbage can outside of our hostel. :)  But definitely worth the experience!

The street man pulling the edible part (banana-shaped parts) out of the spiky shell

Bridget quite successfully faking a bad-smelling face before trying it

All better! :)  We tried a can of "100 plus" which is like a Gatorade.  It was pretty good.

After our durian adventure, we sat for a bit of rest and then went to the national museum.  It was only 2 blocks away, so it was easy to get to.  And it was cheap to get in, so we were set. :)  The only problem was that we only had 50 minutes to get through the whole thing.  But we made it just as they were closing the doors.  In case I forgot to mention previously, Penang is an island.  It is off the northwest corner of Malaysia and isn't very far from the mainland (there is a bridge that connects it), but it does have its own airport.  Since its on the coast, it was pretty central to all of the shipping and trade routes in the area.  Merchants would sail here when the winds brought them east, do their trading, hang out in Penang, and then sail back when the monsoon winds took them west.  Penang has a natural deep harbor, so all sizes of boats could dock here.  Which is good for trade and all, but kind of wreaked havoc on the civilization to some extent.  The British occupied Penang for quite awhile and there were numerous skirmishes and attempts to take it over by other people (including the natives when the British didn't honor treaty agreements - but that's getting a bit too historical...).  Anyway, since it was a trade hub, it did encourage alot of differnet people to come here to work.  There were the native Malay, Chinese, Indians, and several others.  And they all brought their own culture and religion, so Penang has quite a cross section of different people.

Anyway, before I start in on another history lesson, we made it out of the museum at 5pm when it closed. We went back to the hostel again to figure out our next adventure.  We decided to head over to a different part of the island for dinner and to visit the night market.  We caught a bus and rode the roller coaster road over.  And it felt like a roller coaster at times.  The road wound around the island's edge not too far from the shore, so it was full of zig-zags and ups-and-downs.  Pretty cheap fun too, I guess... :)  Anyway, we didn't exactly know where the market was, so we got off in the middle of the town (it was really just along one main road).  We went and got some dinner first.  I got squid and Bridget got chicken.  The usual. :)  But the sauce was really good.  I think it had a hint of barbecue, but Bridget didn't think so.  Regardless, it was good.  And as I was about to take a bit of a harmless-looking green pepper, I realized it was the same thing that fried my mouth back in KL - the green rocket.  These bad boys make the "hot" red peppers taste like ketchup!  So, I quickly scanned my plate for more and moved them aside.  I warned Bridget too (she had already done so - I guess I'm the slow one).  But here's 2 quick pictures from dinner.

Dinner is served!

The green rockets!

And I got another white coffee with no sugar and it tasted the same, so the mystery continues... duh duh duh... :)  Anyway, after dinner we stopped by a convenience store (of sorts) and stocked up on some supplies for our hiking trip the next day.  Some water, Nutella, crackers, and M&Ms.  Yum. :)  But more on the hiking trip on that day's blog. :)

After stocking up on supplies, we hit the night market.  Lots of cool stuff.  There were stalls lining the side of the main road for almost the whole city!  But pretty standard fare. :)  Still fun to walk through.  After perusing for a bit, we caught the bus back to our area.  Our bus got stuck behind a really slow van and our driver kept trying to pass him, but would get cut off.  So, finally there was a large shoulder and the van kind of moved over onto it a little and our bus driver hit the gas and we flew by.  Pretty exciting buses around here! :)

Us on the bus

 Once we got back, Bridget was hungry, so we got a quick snack from a street vendor.  He made this little crepe things with stuff in them.  We waited for a good 20 minutes until he had a chance to take our order.  He had so many orders that he couldn't keep up!  He was pourin' and flippin' and packagin' and sellin' like crazy!  But one rule of thumb around here is that the busy stalls are the best, so we figured it would be worth the wait.  And it sure was.  I didn't really eat too much because he put coconut in the batter, but Bridget really liked them (much more than the durian).

Super crepe-man hard at work

After checking what time the national park opened the next morning, it was lights out to get some sleep before our next adventure!