Colorful Traveling in Penang

Shen, my friend who is a yoga teacher excited that I was going to Penang. I’m more excited when I know that she had a friend in Penang who is a pole dancing teacher! And her, Michele was going to be our guide there.

Michele drove us to George Town which is the world heritage area and dropped us at Gurney Drive market for starting this eating trip. Food in Penang came from many cultures and was different from other parts of Malaysia. Michele was a wonderful host, selected the best dish from the best restaurant for us. Char Keuy Teow is delicious, Hokkien Mee came to Penang with Chinese but the soup was different, it’s made from shrimp instead of chicken. The highlight is Asam Laksa, a noodle with spicy soup. I ended this dish by drying up the soup. We finished our meal with Teh Tarik, a perfect warm tea.

Asam Laksa

Dessert of Penang was also memorable. Ais Kacang consisted of red bean, corn, jelly, prune and covered up with ice and red syrup. It is so fresh and delighted. I thought we ended with dessert but Michele said no. She guided us to White Coffee as the last stop.

Penang was rich in cultures. George was the capital of Penang, and also one of the world heritages. It had to give credit to local people who tried to conserve this city against some rich men who tried to buy those old buildings and change to new ones.

Armenian Street - Penang

We walked until we reached Armenian street. This street was at the end of the old town. We walked and turned our heads upward to watch old Penarakan building style. I was impressed by all the colors on those building walls. They were painted many times because of their ages. The colors and abrasions are unique and beautiful. Nobody could create something like this. They were only created from sunlight, rain, wind and time. For those building’s that always were new, they were belong to Chinese. They always looked after their buildings. The most outstanding one was Cheong Fatt Tze’s Blue Mansion. He was a Chinese man who came to Penang with nothing and worked so hard until he was a millionaire. Not only Penang people respected him, but also British and Dutch too. The architecture of the mansion was fascinating, it took seven years to build by Chinese craftsmans.

From architecture we came back to food, but this time it was fruit. The must in Penang was durian! We were out of George Town, drove along the beach side in the northern of Penang. The sceneries were the sea sometimes and the forest for sometimes. Our destination was Tropical Fruit Farm. There were many fruits there, not only durian. And there were fruits all the year round, avocado, orange, grape, jackfruit, etc. All of them were organic.

Coming to Penang this time made me understand “Live to eat, not eat to live”. This quote was very fit to Penang, and I and my friend did exactly what this quote was about.