The First stop was Malaysia. We stopped in Kuala Lumpur briefly on our 2009 Asia travels and to be honest I didn’t think too much of it. This time would be different - we stayed in the Bukit Bintang area and on the first night I met up with my folks and we headed out to a local street filled with restaurants close to where we were staying, the street has an amazing feeling to it, everyone trying to get you into their restaurant. Straight away I was immersed in the vibe of Asia
Obviously we had to try the random BBQ’d meat and we went off to find a restaurant and eat ourselves silly (this will continue the whole holiday long). These restaurant owners really do work hard, we got spoken to the one lady and she and her husband own the restaurant they open at about 5/6pm. Her children sleep in the car when it gets late as she doesn’t want them home alone. The restaurant will only close at about 3/4am where they will go to the market to get some food and then head home where the kids get ready for school and then they head off and hopefully she gets some sleep. As with the whole of Asia a lot of the work is quite labour intensive you see people preparing food for restaurants and having buckets of veg and peeling things – most likely for hours. That takes patience!
The rest of the time in Malaysia was spent on the hop on hop off bus going around an seeing the sites (or sitting outside the sites as some of them were closed for prayers and we had to wait for the next bus to come along). I went up the Petronus Towers too, which was pretty much the same as the last time, except you now have to pay.
The second stop was Melaka we just hopped on a bus and were there in a few hours.
The quirkiest things in Melaka are the trickshaws. These are basically pimped out rickshaws and I am sure their owners spend hours working on them. You see them in the day and they are all decorated and most are pumping out music (way too many were playing Gangnam style if you ask me). Then you see them at night and they are all lit up and whizzing past you in the streets.
One food we tried on the last day was chicken rice balls, much to moms disappointment they were not actual chicken rice balls but rather chicken and rice balls. But they were delish and the chicken was so tender and juicy – we had it twice in one day! Another interesting food experience we had was a satay fondue. This is basically everything a normal fondue is except you cook your food in satay sauce, The queue was out the door and seems to be both a tourist and a local favourite. For me slightly too spicy, but John who doesn’t like Peanut butter did a pretty good job on the satay sauce.
The third and final stop in our Malaysia tour was Penang. Penang is known for its food, I am sure you have figured out now why we went there. When looking at some food blogs I found a food tour and we decided to do that as it was in a car and probably the easiest way to get around and cover a large amount of ground in a day. We checked into our accommodation late (thanks to Air Asia ruining my bag, and then our taxi driver getting lost), but as we arrived the staff were so friendly and helpful it made it easier to settle into the stunning room. The next morning it was up early when our tour guide Alex picked us up and off we were to local food markets, all around the city with Alex letting us know facts about the town. We stopped off at 2 very interesting houses – the Pinang Peranakan Museum and Khoo Kongsi. So much work has gone into these it is amazing, at Pinang Peranakan we got a guide as we went in (which is optional) but ours was really good and I thought it was so beneficial to have a guide as told us all about some of the artefacts and some history and culture, it was really interesting, especially to see how much opium was consumed as there were several ‘opium chairs’ around the house. We finished off at Kek Lok Si which is a pretty incredible temple at the top of the hill giving you great views over the city
Khoo Kongsi
Pick a ribbon and write your wish on it
Each of us with the animal from the year of our birth
The most surprising thing in Penang would have to be the some awesome street art that is scattered in an easily walkable location. My favourite being Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic (even though we were initially told the artist was local). A lot of then have worn away which is a pity but some of the ones that remain are quite interactive and fun, so we obviously had a lot of fun with those.
There is also cool wire art all around the city and most of it was done by Tang Mun Kian. The Steel artwork generally has a fact about Penang which is interesting to learn and also they are just pretty fun to spot. More on each wire artwork can be found here.
Obviously the food has to get a mention here; the whole time we ate at ‘local’ places. The first night we went to a local street market about a 5 min walk from where we were staying, We found a place to sit and then JC and I went about figuring out how to order, it seems there was no specific vendor attached to the seating and you could order from the ones close by and they would bring it to you and you pay on arrival. You know you eating at a local place when the cart owner needs to get a diner to translate our order for them. On our last night we went to an even better street market and possible had the best wonton soup I think I will ever have. If I wasn’t so full after I would have gotten another bowl. The system was the same as the night before just on a bigger scale.
If there is one thing I can recommend especially when travelling to Asia – that is to eat local. Street vendors often seem quite scary and unhygienic to travellers, but this is seriously where you get your best food.
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