Day 100 – Food and Tour of Georgetown, Penang

Knowing that I would only get one day to explore Penang meant that I would have to try as much food here as I could, which was my main objective, with exploration of the city taking a backseat.

I ended up arriving in the city of Georgetown at 6am, way too early to check into the hostel I booked, but I ended up taking a taxi there anyways in hopes of seeing if I could just nap in the lobby. The doors were locked and no one was around, but luckily, after a couple of minutes of waiting outside, one of the staff came by to open the door and let me sleep in the staff room.

There were informative guides on the popular Penang cuisine at the hostel that I used to find some of the local delicacies. Check out the pictures below to see what I ate.

The city of Georgetown, like Malacca, is a UNESCO world heritage site. Malaysia is a fairly new country, so these two UNESCO sites were very different compared to other places I'd visited in South East Asia. The other sites had been thousands of years old, but here, the buildings are relatively newer, maybe only at the most, a couple hundred years old. Again, most of the “old city” was walkable, and I ventured around using a handy tourist map that I saw every other tourist hold as they also walked around the city. Since today was the day before Aidilfitri, many of the sites were closed and we had to resort to walking by, snapping a quick picture, and then heading to the next stop without really knowing what exactly was the significance of each stop.

Fried Oysters

Cendal

Fort Cornwallis

Guan Yin Temple

Day 98 – Food Paradise in Malacca

I took a 2 hour bus ride from KL to Malacca. It wasn't as crowded on
the bus as I would have guessed during the holidays, maybe because
Melacca is a popular place to visit and there are so many departures
to the city on any given day. Or maybe because it seemed like the city
was predominantly visited (and inhabited?) by Chinese Malaysians who
probably don't celebrate Ramadan.

I walked around the city in the afternoon, without really knowing what
to look for except the night street market that everyone suggested I
visit on Jonker Street. I passed by some churches, temples, and other
landmarks. Some of the buildings were influenced by Europe
(specifically the Dutch and Portuguese). The city itself is a UNESCO
Heritage site, something I've been accustomed to seeing all over SE
Asia in some of the most special places.

Then came food paradise for my hungry stomach and eyes once the sun
went down. The entire Jonker Street was filled with food and
merchandise vendors selling lots of various items, many of them
Chinese/Taiwanese, something I was very familiar with, and happy to be
familiar with. Check the pictures out:

Portuguese Egg Tarts

Taiwanese Sausages

Hainanese Chicken and Rice Balls

Dim Sum

Taiwanese Radish Cake

Curry Fish(?) Balls

Street Dancing on Jonker Street

Chinese Calligraphy

Day 96 – Another Lazy Day in KL

These lazy days are great, when I don't feel the pressure to get all
my sightseeing done. Some people say there isn't anything to do in KL
except eat and shop, and I gladly will take the opportunity to just
chill out for a while, take a break from “traveling.”

I spent the majority of the day in Bukit Bintang, and planned the rest
of my KL trip. I had fears that I would not be able to get out of the
city during the Eid ul-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, since everyone would
be traveling out of KL to their hometowns to celebrate with their
families, but luckily, I managed to book a couple buses and a sleeper
train headed to Bangkok. I would take a bus to Malacca for one night
of sightseeing, and then head on another bus from Malacca to Penang
Island for another night of culinary paradise. Then I would take a
sleeper bus from Penang to Bangkok, just in time to meet with a friend
I met in the Philippines!

Tomorrow, I will be a real tourist and take one of those “hop on hop
off” open buses to all the major tourist locations throughout the
city.

Bukit Bintang

Penang Loh-Mee

Day 94 – Bukit Bintang and Ramadan Celebrations

The CS Scene in KL is pretty large, probably due in part to the level
of development in the city as well as the number of travelers who
decide to pass by this city enroute to another destination. I ended up
meeting another CS-er, Andrew, for the day. Being non-Muslim, he was
able to drink (some rather expensive) beer with me!

We headed in the morning in search of some Dim Sum, since I have been
craving it for the longest time (I miss the Dim Sum at Empress in
Monterey Park, CA) but we were unsuccessful. We had a different
Chinese breakfast before heading to Bukit Bintang, known as the little
“Times Square” of KL. There were a ton of malls in the area, along
with a bunch of massage parlors, probably because there were many
hostels in the area catered for tourists.

I took the opportunity to drink beer for lunch and during happy hour,
and Andrew explained that the beer was expensive in Malaysia because
of the heavy tax imposed on it, since the country is predominantly
Muslim.

By the end of the night, I met up with my host again and had dinner
with his friends. He offered me one of his traditional Malaysian
outfits to wear for the Ramadan buffet we were going to eat at the
Doubletree Hotel, and I happily obliged, since I wanted to take part
as authentically in the celebration (despite the eating and drinking
earlier...). The meal was extravagant and excessive, which I couldn't
complain about, since I would be able to try a wide variety of
Malaysian cuisine, along with Indian and Chinese, all in one sitting.
The food was delicious, as was the various little desserts and drinks
offered.

Day 93 - Petaling Street, Chinatown

I spent the majority of the day wandering around Petaling Street where Chinatown is located and tried to find some of the tourist sights in the vicinity.

I had some delicious Hainan Chicken at one of the busy restaurants in Chinatown before heading to Central Market, an old building full of vendor kiosks and small boutiques selling many different Malaysian souvenirs. The building is over a hundred years old, having opened first in 1888.

The rains decidedly came at around 1PM, when the sunny clear skies quickly transformed to a bleak and murky environment. I was stuck at the LRT train station for about 45 minutes, waiting for the rains to stop before heading back out into the city to check out some more sights – including a train station, a textile museum, the Petronas Tower (again), and others that I would have known the names of had I had a guidebook with me.

For dinner, I met up with my host at a restaurant near the KLCC Mall. Other Muslims were also seated and ready to have their first meal after dusk. Everyone ordered their meals when they arrived, but only received their dinners at around 7:20pm. It was interesting to observe everyone waiting until the moment when it was deemed acceptable to begin eating. My host called his mom to ask if it was time yet, and she confirmed it. Since we were at a mall, we weren't able to hear the mosques outside, or listen or watch some type of media that would notify Muslims when it would be OK to eat. Although I cheated by eating and drinking during the day, it was great to be able to pseudo participate in the Muslim culture at dinnertime.

Day 92 - Back to Kuala Lumpur

The flight back to KL took about 2.5 hours, and there were a surprisingly good amount of Myanmar people aboard the flight. I was curious as to how or why they were traveling outside of the country, since their wardrobe made it appear that they were not going on business, but possibly for leisure. It was obvious that for many of them, this would be the first time they flew on an airplane. I sat next to a two Myanmar people and asked them what they were going to do in Kuala Lumpur. Unfortunately, they didn't speak English, so I tried to see if they were going to work there, tour the city, or maybe even fly to Singapore to work since I hear it's popular for Myanmar people to work there. They still didn't understand so I gave up.

Arrived in KL around midnight, and luckily, my couchsurfing host, U-Chop, was awake to have me over this early in the day, or else I would have had to sleep at the airport. I arrived at his place, and it immediately reminded me of home, with many IKEA furnishings throughout. It felt nice being in a home, instead of a hotel/guest house. We chatted a little when I arrived, and I learned that he, being Muslim, was celebrating Ramadan along with much of the KL population for the entire month, which meant fasting from dawn until dusk. He would later wake up around 6am to eat before the sun rose.

I wondered how the local restaurants would have been affected by such a holiday, but U-Chop said that business wasn't affected too much, as there were a great number of Chinese in the area who would still be customers during the day, and Malay Muslims being customers at night. This was later empirically resolved by my observation at a couple of the malls in the city, the great number of people who were crowded around all the restaurants including the McDonalds (where I just HAD to satisfy my Big Mac craving).

Spent the rest of the day sightseeing a little of Chinatown (Petaling Street), before the rains came. They usually come in the afternoon/evening, and when it rains here, it pours.

It was nice to come back to a highly developed, and clean city. I very much enjoyed the airconditioning everywhere and just sitting around at a mall, reading a book and people watching.

Malaysian Street Art