First anniversary

We've officially been in Malaysia for 1 year and 4 days - although I spent a whopping 14 weeks travelling this year, so I suppose I've really only logged about 9 months here.

Realizing how much time we've spent outside of Malaysia - and taking advantage of a three-day weekend, we went to Penang. It was a harrowing 5 hour drive with high-speed tailgating at about 110km an hour the whole way - at one point we ended up immediately behind a six car pile up - no doubt due to the aforementioned high-speed tailgating.

Arriving safely and in one piece we opted for a night in Batu Ferringhi - an unimpressive so-called resort town just outside of George Town which backs onto the busy and polluted waters of the Straits of Malacca. It was nice to be by the sea (worth it just to see a woman in full burqua on a jet ski) - and our real goal wasn't a nice beach holiday but to score some first-rate Chinese seafood.

We cruised around town and as expected found a run-down, slightly dirty, packed little restaurant just meters from the sea serving all manner of crab, prawns and fish. We opted for one of our favourites - sweet & sour chilli crab and we were not disappointed. Stuffed and messy with sauce smeared all over our chops (and in my case, my clothes) we called it a night and primed ourselves for an exploration of George Town the following day.

Compared with it's sister-city Melaka, George Town is both bigger and dirtier (I saw 4 rats in 24 hours). On the plus side, it's considerably less touristy and certainly lives up to it's reputation as a culinary destination.

Rain kept us from wandering and exploring as much as we would have liked - so we hunkered down at some food stalls, stocked ourselves with beer and began several hours of taste-testing some of Penang's most famous fare - from loh bak (deep-fried minced pork wrapped in tofu skin) to Penang laksa and the local (spicier) version of the ubiquitous kway teow (essentially Malaysian pad thai).

After our feast we headed back to the streets and stumbled upon a delightful little bar that is (for those of you who are lucky enough to have been there) almost exactly like Duffy's - same size, layout, decor, and general atmosphere (just Chinese and no Chicago Cubs paraphernalia). We met an Aussie engineer in the oil business, a Dutchman who found himself in Malaysia after his holiday to Thailand was cancelled due to the floods, and a wandering 38 year old American with a penchant for Asian women half his age, an obsession with self-defence and the right to bear arms. We had a grand time.

We did of course squeeze in a couple of cultural attractions as well. We made a brief stop at the Snake Temple - which although not exactly as I envisioned (you know, Raiders of the Lost Ark) but there are a few pit vipers slithering (actually snoozing) at the altars.

We also made an attempt at a tour of the Blue Mansion - a restored home that once belonged to a wealthy Chinese merchant in George Town. While the mansion is certainly impressive, I would not recommend the tour.

For no discernible reason (other than there is probably a gift shop at the end) you aren't allowed to take photos (strictly enforced) and the entire tour is said to take an hour, but after 25 minutes we hadn't gotten out of the foyer and it was too crowded and too hot to hear anything the tour guide had to say anyway. So we bailed and played with the camera out front for a bit instead. The Blue Mansion also operates as a guest house, so clearly the best thing to do would be to plan ahead and just stay there.

Borneo: Part 3

We awoke to more rain but unable to do anything about it, packed our bags for our next destination, Damai Beach. We took a wrong turn on the way driving past a woman with a several large tubes of bamboo roasting a fire.

Ian’s curiosity got the better of him so we pulled over to check it out. The tubes were filled with rice that had been soaked in some sort of green liquid and then roasted over the fire. We purchased one which the woman removed from the fire and then she peeled away the bamboo with pliers leaving the rice intact and held together by a very thin almost paper like layer of bamboo and then sliced the tube of rice into segments, just like sushi. The rice was tasty and I cannot begin to describe it or think of anything with which to compare it. Ian greatly enjoyed the novelty of the whole experience.

We made our way to our resort which is lovely, but the rain makes even the most impressive resort seem downright depressing. So we dropped our bags and went to explore the area. We drove through a couple of local villages ‘kampungs’ and found our way to the little gem that is Buntal. Locally quite famous, Buntal is a tiny village full of nothing but homes, fruit and veg stands and seafood restaurants.

We picked a restaurant at random for our lunch and were richly rewarded. The crab was clearly a local speciality so we asked the woman at the restaurant which was best, she didn’t speak much English but knew what we meant so she pointed to crab with egg. We also ordered some salt & pepper prawns and sat back and waited for our food to arrive. Shortly thereafter we received a huge pile of prawns fried and served on a heap of sea salt and the famed local Sarawak pepper.

Our crab came next, a mountain of cracked crab stir-fried in some sort of sauce which definitely contained egg and 5-spice, but after that I’m lost. It was delicious and messy. Fat and happy we returned to the hotel to digest and have a quick siesta. When we awoke it wasn’t exactly sunny, but there was at least a large patch of blue sky over the beach so we took a stroll and spotted some sea otters and decided that we should most definitely return to Buntal in search of our dinner.