travel

Hat Yao: Home of the dugong

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Kristen

Hat Yao is a village on the Andaman Coast in Thailand and apparently the name means Long Beach. We chose Hat Yao as the location of our next visit because it is also the home of about 40 of the remaining dugong in this part of the world.

The place we stayed at was the Haad Yao Nature Resort. They organise eco-friendly tours with English speaking guides to Koh Libong, where you are most likely to catch a glimpse of these shy mammals which are distant relatives of the elephant.

However, our foray into dugong spotting was reminiscent of our first attempt to see the Aurora Borealis. When you are waiting for nature to do its thing you really need more than one attempt, as we only caught a few seconds glimpse right at the start of the trip. Our guide was not English speaking either, but a local longtail owner. We would have enjoyed a bit of a commentary on the dugong and it’s environment (considering the price of the tour was rather on the expensive side) but we reasoned that at least the local who took us did take care when taking us to the grass beds. He didn’t cut it up with his propeller or drive fast and loud to scare away the timid creatures. The environmental care factor was at least as promised.

Nonetheless, the boat trip around Koh Libong was for the most part very enjoyable. Koh Libong is a lovely, wild looking island and has a number of pretty golden sand beaches which I eyed off longingly from the boat. It was therefore, somewhat disappointing when our driver took us to a decidedly un-scenic location for lunch: the extremely dilapidated research centre. Here we ate an equally disappointing, bland, fried rice that had been packed for us. We then dutifully wandered around the small information centre and looked mostly at the faded pictures as there was not much we could actually read in English.

Next we were taken to a location to snorkel amongst the sea grass. Again, not sure why this particular location was chosen! The sea grass had some sort of disgusting algae growing over it. We both motioned in sign language to the driver that we did not want to swim there. So he took us out deeper. I jumped off mainly to appear not too ungrateful for his efforts but this area was equally gross and the water was so murky that visibility did not extend much past three metres in front of me. After allowing what I thought was sufficient time to have passed to make it look like I gave it a shot, I aborted mission and got back on board, feeling safer in the knowledge that no slimy green creature of the deep was going to get me.

I felt let down by this experience as we had sat motionless in an area of very clean, clear water, with healthy sea grass for nearly an hour and a half earlier in the day. At the time I was keen to jump overboard as I could see so many star fish and I was keen to get amongst it. But I didn’t as I knew from what we had been told by the girl who worked at our accommodation that we would be taken elsewhere in the day to swim in the sea grass. I figured that as the spot we stopped at for a protracted period was the site where we were most likely to glimpse the dugong, they probably preferred you did not get in the water and scare them off.

Our other “fail” of the day was our pathetic attempt at canoeing around a tiny island where birds that had migrated from Siberia (again this information came via the girl back at base camp) were resting. All we could seem to manage to do was go round and round in circles. I rather tetchily blurted to Damien, “I have never had this problem canoeing with anyone before” To which I got a curt reply of “Well neither have I”. Touche. Deciding to join forces again after that little outburst we ganged up on the canoe and decided it was a design fault, and if the front seat was positioned further back etc etc things would be different.

It had been a fairly long day and once we had fully circumnavigated Koh Libong we motioned to the driver that we wanted to go back. As we neared the inlet that led to Haad Yao Nature Resort our driver alerted us to some action in the water. We excitedly got up to look. It wasn’t a dugong but a dolphin. Still good to see though, and it was quite small so we assumed it was a baby. When we returned we told the girl at our accommodation of our sighting. She said that the local fisherman say that when dolphins are seen entering the inlet they know that it is going to rain. Sure enough, that night it stormed.

While we were chatting to her we asked her if it was possible to get to a small beach we had spied on our boat trip that appeared to be inaccessible by land. She said if we left immediately with our long tail driver he would drop us off and we could canoe back. We were both stoked at the opportunity of getting to the secret beach that we didn’t care much about the means by which we would have to return.

So the first world problems of bland food eaten at a not suitably picture perfect locale were rapidly forgotten once we were dropped off at the secret beach. It was a magnificent place that was surrounded by karst rock cliffs. We had such a great afternoon hanging out there like castaways, no other people around, just us and the views of islands off in the distance.

The return voyage via canoe was no more successful than our attempt around the bird island, so as soon as we got to Long Beach I got off and Damien paddled back while I walked back into the village. Damien had no greater luck without me, the canoe still went round in circles.

We spent two nights on Hat Yao in total and I think it will be a place we’ll return to. It is a real off the beaten track kind of a place where we didn’t see any other tourists. It would be great to have a car so you could just drive from beach to beach along the coast discovering untouched wonders. We have been entertaining the idea of coming back and camping through Thailand in years to come and I think this would be a great part of the country to do it in. How much fun it would be to get dropped off at the secret beach and pitch a tent and stay a while 🙂

Categories: Thailand, travel | 2 Comments

Goodbye Penang and hello Trang

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Kristen

We eventually managed to drag ourselves away from the comfortable surrounds of the lovely Red Inn Court in Georgetown, Penang to continue on our travels north into Thailand.

We arranged a small mini van transfer via a counter at the Komtar bus terminal which conveniently picked us up from our accommodation. It was a bit of a hair raising ride across the border to Hat Yai, but our Thai driver did manage to get us there alive though. Or maybe it was Buddha looking after us as we also had a monk on board! Our driver was kind enough to help us at Hat Yai with working out which bus we took onward, as we were under the impression that we were on the one van all the way to Trang. Damien did ask the girl at the Komtar counter this question several times but I guess either there was a communication breakdown or we were just told what we wanted to hear!

Either way, it all worked out and we found ourselves seated in a larger sized and much older vehicle. This fact made us both happier as we knew older = slower! Upon landing in Trang we did a brief walk around the four or so guesthouses in the vicinity and ended up staying at the Sri Trang Hotel. It has a nice and relaxed chill out area with a large pond in the centre filled with fish. The pond, along with the bright green painted walls and large bamboo and green paper umbrella in the centre, combine to make it a great place to sit and eat and do some planning for our next part of the adventure.

Later that night we walked up the road to the local night market that had an abundance of tempting options. We walked the length of the market and then backtracked until we finally came to a decision, and we were not disappointed. I had a selection that consisted of a minced chicken dish which reminded me of chicken larb salads I have had before, a liver (I think!) and mushroom dish, pickled bamboo shoots and the best being an eggplant and minced chicken dish. Yum! I went back for seconds of the eggplant one. It was paltry in size and that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!

After the night market we retired to the Wunderbar which was attached to out Guesthouse where Damien had a few beers, and later I joined him as they looked very refreshing indeed 😉 After that closed we made our way up the street to a karaoke bar but refrained from joining in this time. During our drunken revelry at the karaoke bar in Georgetown I actually got up and sang. This is a sure sign that I have had too many drinks, as usually I would avoid unleashing my singing voice on unsuspecting patrons in a sober state. But how could I refuse? I discovered I had a friend in Becs (one of the English girls we met) as she was also a massive fan of Neil Diamond’s Forever In Blue Jeans. It had to be done and it was! Badly I’m sure but at the time it was legendary!

Once the karaoke bar shut in Trang we walked back to our digs and noted that this was not a party town as we were the only people left in the street. A good nights sleep was had and the next day we headed out for breakfast to the day market. We soon realised that we weren’t going to get any grub there as the few shops we could find selling food had nothing in English and we could not see anything we could point at. We did buy a bag of apples though and then headed back to where we came from, or so we thought. We got a little lost but once we did get close to Sri Trang Hotel we found a little shop selling noodle soup. It was very tasty and only a $1 each (30 Baht). The owner also sat and chatted to us and we used the opportunity to learn a few more Thai words.

The rest of the day, aside from going downstairs for food, was devoted purely to sorting out and booking what islands we would visit whilst in Thailand and also what towns we would visit outside of the Andaman Coast. This literally took us all day long as we work shopped what felt like a hundred different ideas. But in the end we came to a plan we were happy with, and it boiled down to us deciding that we wanted to maximise our beach time and downsize the other aspects of Thailand. All in all we were quite pleased with ourselves and felt quite excited about what was to come. This extended island time would not have been possible if we had not had our fortuitous meeting with CJ in Georgetown. CJ came to our aid again that day when Damien queried him about what our accommodation options should be during the Songkran Festival. To which CJ replied, “Dude, this is the biggest Thai holiday in the year, you will need to book something!” So we are now locked into a potential water fight in Ao Nang which is a beach town on the mainland.

I am sitting writing this post from a table by the beach on Koh Kradan and so far I have to say our choices have all come up trumps!

While I have been typing this Damien has been catching up on his news and read that there was a bombing in Hat Yai yesterday. We were both a little shocked by this escalation in the violence in the southern part of Thailand as from our knowledge it has not extended to Hat Yai before. We are glad we are out of there but sorry to hear the loss of life it caused.

Categories: food, friends, Georgetown, Malaysia, Penang, Thailand, Trang, travel | Leave a comment

The Rockerfeller of the East

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Kristen

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Penang is a state of Malaysia and the name of its constituent island, situated in the far north west of the country. This was to be our last stop in Malaysia for this trip. We originally had planned to spend two or three days here, but this was soon stretched to six nights in total. However, our reason for staying put was only in part due to sightseeing. Just as everyone needs a weekend after a hard week’s slog at work, a traveller also needs to stop, rest and do nothing once in a while. If you don’t, your life quickly resembles a never ending session of pack, unpack, bus, sightsee, pack, unpack, sightsee etc. This all too soon ends up being tiring, stressful and not at all fun. You hear people say from time to time that they “need a holiday from their holiday”. I believe this is in many cases due to too much go go go and not enough slowwwwwwww.

So after our day with CJ and our karaoke night with the rest of the crew we befriended at the lovely Red Inn Court we downed tools i.e. no thongs for walking, no camera for clicking and no backpack for carrying. I think you need to carefully pick the place to stop and just hang. There is no point stopping somewhere that you can’t at least call home for the time being. But when we find a place like this we are quite comfortable with deciding to opt out of traveller mode and into land of the sloth! Red Inn Court fit the bill for us as it was such a pleasant place to be. I really couldn’t fault it.

After our two day hibernation we remerged invigorated and ready to do some bushwalking. As I have alluded to in a previous post, the area of Georgetown where we were esconsed was a little shabby and I for one was aching for a little bit of nature to erase the concrete. We set off on the local bus service, which we noted had onboard wifi, how cool! Our bus wound it’s way up the coast and we soon realised that there was a big old world outside of the 500m radius we had been frequenting the last few days. That is aside from our brief trip into the “I’m loaded, baby” section of Georgetown, which we drove through on our visa expedition with CJ.

The coastline before you hit the beachside resort area of Batu Ferringhi is quite pretty with little beaches hugging the shore amidst massive skyscrapers. It reminded me a little of Surfers Paradise in QLD but seemed to work much better because the buildings weren’t all jammed in on top of each other and the lush green of the surrounding trees softened the effect, as did the rolling hills of vegetation in the background.

We eventually reached our destination, the relatively young National Park of Penang, gazetted in 2003. Although there were a few tempting options as far as tracks, we decided on the coastal hike that meanders its way to Monkey Beach. It was an enjoyable walk that was not too challenging but just enough to get your heart going in places with some interesting rope climb sections. There was a variety of fungi to admire as well as birds, butterflies, a monitor lizard and of course, monkeys. It was only just under an hour and a half one way. We had packed our cossies so we rested for a spell on the beach and ate the nuts we had packed. Not the best of lunches, but they were tasty none the less!

It’s not a National Park in the fashion I am used to from home, as there were locals riding four wheeled bikes in the bush. This is a bit of a problem when you are trying to hide behind a tree and get into your swimmers. Ahem. Even more so when the girl going past is decked head to foot in a black hijab. I was feeling decidedly inappropriate at that point. Suitably covered up I returned and was then even more amused and impressed with another hijab wearing chickie, who hooned past at a rate of knots on the back of a jet ski. Black cloth billowing in the breeze! You don’t see that everyday, I joked to Damien.

On our return walk we were stopped mid-track by a line of five monkeys blocking our way one behind the other. Not perturbed at this point we continued to move closer, when suddenly monkey number one pulled back his lips and snarled revealing fangs worthy of a vampire and we respectfully stopped in our tracks. Then Fang Boy hopped up close to us and looked kinda cute so I whipped out my trusty Cannon to take a picture, and he evidently didn’t enjoy having his photo taken ’cause in under 3 seconds he had gone from cute to killer. Like Britney taking a swipe at the paparazzi, I was aware in no uncertain terms to cease and desist! Damien to the rescue! Armed with an oversized twig he waved the wand at Fang Boy and friends so we could beat a path to safety. I helped with a few teeth barring snarls and arm waving helicopters, and we made it safely to the other side.

The rest of the return walk was thankfully uneventful except for a sighting of the monitor lizard in the water. The icing on the cake was when we emerged hot and sweaty from the forest and a local bus pulled up literally a minute later. Seems our good luck with transport, like at Future Music festival, continues :-D. The air conditioned ride back to Georgetown was pleasant but very long, so by the time we got back to our accommodation there was not much time left except for dinner where we enjoyed our sumptuous meal at Teksen.

We were keen for another walk the following day so we hitched a ride on the bus again up coast. We wanted to go to the Nature Reserve to walk the Monkey Cup trail; the trail’s name is taken from the carnivorous insect eating plant that can be found there (they are also known as pitcher plants). Our bus did not go as far as the Nature Reserve so we decided to walk the kilometre or so to our destination. Upon arrival we were greeted with a sign advising that the reserve was closed due to a disease outbreak. The sign had been erected in May 2011, so it looks like it may be a while before people will have the pleasure of walking there again.

So we walked back the way we had come and waited outside the Butterfly Park at the bus stop. The heat was searing and I soon retreated to the other side of the road for some shade. A group of men were sitting in a bus shelter nearby, and they asked me what I was waiting for. I explained we wanted to catch a bus to the Tropical Fruit Farm. Damien and I had decided plan B would be a visit there, since we figured we could benefit from learning about different tropical fruit. Three months in Asia would mean we would come across plenty we didn’t recognise.

Plan B was soon also quashed as I was told by the men that the bus comes irregularly. “Maybe every hour, maybe every half, sometimes two hour” I was told. Bummer. I guess this could have been a scam to get us into a taxi but we took it at face value. I have found Malaysian people to be friendly and honest so I wasn’t feeling too sceptical about their motivations. As a quick aside by way of example, when we were in Melaka we received some money back in our laundry bag when one of us had accidently left it in our clothes.

Regardless, we weren’t overly wedded to going to the Tropical Fruit Farm. When the cost in a taxi, along with entry fees would have exceeded the money than we were willing to spend, we let our stomachs do the talking and we decided that a meal by the sea in Batu Ferringhi would be better than a fruit juice for lunch anyway.

After lunch we headed back to Georgetown just in time to join the last English speaking tour of the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion. Although I had clocked this early in the piece as something I would like to do, it still turned out to be one of the surprising highlights of my time in Penang. I am sure this was not least because our tour guide was fantastic, regaling us with vibrant tales of the owner of the Blue Mansion, Mr Cheong Fatt Tze. He really breathed life into the rooms of this most impressive old building.

According to our guide, Cheong Fatt Tze grew up in the Guandong province in China in a poor family of teachers. Cheong Fatt Tze was a slow learner and it was not until the age of 8 or 9 that he could say his parents’ names. He was however ambitious and determined that he would become rich and successful despite the humble status of his origin. This dream of Cheong Fatt Tze’s was almost universally scoffed at by those who knew the young boy. Notably his uncle said that if he ever became rich and famous, he would hang his own lantern upside down in the entrance of Cheong Fatt Tze’s home. This is a bold statement from a man who obviously felt he had nothing to gamble. In Chinese tradition, we were told, hanging your lantern upside down in the entrance of the home is considered a very bad thing and is usually signifies the death of the owner of the lantern. In other words, Cheong Fatt Tze’s uncle felt he would be successful over his dead body. Charming!

As all good stories must go, the young man proved them all wrong. He set sail at the tender age of 16 to travel the world. His first job was a modest start: he was a water bearer. A water bearer with eyes for the rich bosses’ daughter no less! His character shone through and he won his boss over, who viewed young Cheong Fatt Tze as a worthy suitor of the young woman. Marrying into this wealthier family helped him establish a shop selling goods. He realised he could create great wealth by buying and selling things to people. There his empire had it’s modest birth. With his wealth he also gained great influence around the world, and he was later referred to as the Rockfeller of the East. Apparently the two men did meet in real life as well.

An indication of the massive power and influence of this man beyond his strong hold in Asia is that when he passed away in 1916, both the Dutch and the British ordered that flags be flown at half mast throughout their colonies.

The Mansion we visited was one of several homes he possessed in various different Asian countries but this one was the grandest and also where his 7^th and most favoured wife lived. Oh and he had 8 wives in total… and a posse of other women too as our tour guide told us, he was thoroughly enjoying sharing this saucier side to the tale! Yep, just like a sailor, we were told, a woman in every port, and then some.

Construction of this house started in the late 19^th century and took several years to complete. A team of Chinese artisans were brought across to Penang specifically to complete the work, which although was overall Chinese also incorporated features of the Colonial era in which it was built. What I found interesting was that he employed the best feng shui masters of the time to design the mansion. Walking around the interior (which we were unfortunately not allowed to photograph) you really got a sense of this, the place really does have a wonderful aura about it. We were informed by our guide that the centre courtyard (there are five in total) has a place where you can stand to feel the chi vibrations. At the time of year we were there, the vibrations are felt most powerfully in the morning. So of course, I was off into fantasy land at this point imaging that when we came back and stayed in one of the guest rooms (which you can, this part is not fantasy) I would be able to get up in the morning and enjoy the sunrise through the open air roof and stand in the centre of this beautiful house and feel the chi! Our guide recommended doing some tai chi over the spot where the chi is most powerfully felt, or any exercise for that matter, so maybe I would bust out some yoga and feel the vibrations! A nice idle daydream indeed.

But fantasy aside, this was a stunning house and I think we are lucky that it has been so expertly restored to its original glory. Until 1990 many local families squatted in the building and it was a shadow of its former self. But years of work, again by a team of Chinese brought in specifically for the job, it looks wonderful and well deserves to be included as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

And if you are wondering what happening with uncle and his lantern, well Asia’s Rockerfeller ensured that the doubter’s lantern got upturned out the front of his mansion as promised!

Categories: Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion, Georgetown, Malaysia, Penang, travel | 1 Comment

Serendipity in Penang

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Damien

Thailand has some tricky visa rules. If an Australian arrives by plane at any international airport in the kingdom, they will get a 30-day visa free of charge on arrival. However if that same Australian arrives by land, eg. from Malaysia or Cambodia, then they will only receive a 15-day visa. For any traveller doing an extended ramble like we are, roaming around Asia by land and intending to stay way more than two weeks in Thailand, the 15-day visa is a major inconvenience.

The intention I’m sure is to encourage foreigners who want to stay in Thailand indefinitely to obtain the appropriate long-stay visa – if they can. With the 15-day limit, anyone who wants to continue to stay in Thailand must do a “visa run” to the nearest border post to extend their right to stay in the country. That usually requires taking a minivan to the border, crossing over and then crossing back again, then another minivan back to home base… a visa run can easily consume an entire day when you add it up. And over-stayers can definitely be penalised; I deliberately overstayed my visa by four days the last time I visited Thailand, calculating that paying the fine was cheaper than getting a visa renewal. But if I overstayed more than a week the equation would surely have swung the other way…

There is an alternative option, if you’re organised enough. Thailand offers 60-day tourist visas (for a fee) provided that you arrange the visa prior to entering Thailand. When we finally turned our attention to this issue before leaving Sydney in February, we were so busy moving out of our home that we didn’t have the time to apply for the tourist visa. I seriously considered doing it during our short visit back in March, but given that it took at least two working days and would require two trips to the city for lodgement and pickup, it wasn’t worth the risk. We knew we probably weren’t going to go through Kuala Lumpur so we resigned ourselves to the likelihood of having to do at least two visa runs during our Thailand leg. Annoying, but there was nothing we could do about it. Until a serendipitous meeting in Penang delivered 60-day tourist visas to us – on the same day – just as we were about to enter Thailand. Magic 🙂

It began barely ten minutes after we checked into our guesthouse in Georgetown. It was early evening, and we’d just dumped our bags in the room and headed out for a meal after the seven hour bus ride from Melaka. Walking down the street towards us was a lone backpacker who’d just got dropped off, and he approached us to ask where “the street with all the guesthouses” is. Whaddya know, he’s Australian, and in fact he’s the first Aussie traveller we’ve met since we left for Scandinavia in February (we don’t count the guy who’s been living in Oslo for ten years as a “traveller”). After doing the obligatory swapping of origins (Geelong, Sydney) we explain that we don’t know where that street is because we’ve just arrived ourselves. However the place we were staying at was really good, and it was literally just down the road so we pointed it out to him, explained how nice it was, and wished him luck. Then it was off to dinner and an early night.

The next morning we head downstairs for the free and substantial breakfast (The Red Inn Court really is an amazing guesthouse, but more on that later) intending to eat and then head off for a day of sightseeing around Georgetown. We immediately get talking to a Brit, Mike, who’s at the tail end of a year off just like the one we are starting. He’s heading to Sydney soon and so we started answering questions and giving some tips, and within minutes we have his email address and an offer to stay with him when we get to London. Awesome! He’s still feeling the effects of the night before, which apparently was a raucous affair of booze and karaoke amongst new arrivals at the Red Inn Court, and some of his fellow carousers head downstairs over the next hour in various states of pain. There’s Peter, the computer guru from Hungary who’s job is so mobile that he can work from anywhere while travelling around Asia, as long as he has the internet. Then Bec, another Brit on a year off. And Tim, an Indian student from Singapore. They all look rather tender, to put it politely…

And then the man from last night, the Aussie, enters the fray. We didn’t even swap names last night, but we soon find out his name is CJ, he lives in Bangkok and he usually teaches English for a living. Although he wasn’t part of the previous night’s mayhem he slots into the group perfectly, and for almost an hour we’re all chatting away merrily. CJ is totally relaxed until someone points out to him that it’s nearly 10am, and he’s nearly an hour late for his trip to the Thai consulate – he’s still running on Thailand time. CJ starts to rush because, as he suddenly explains, the entire purpose of his visit to Penang is to get a 60-day tourist visa so he can stay in Thailand. What, I ask, you can get Thai tourist visas in Penang?? Yep, he responds, and on the same day too if you lodge them early enough. Kristen and I look at each other and nod, grinning, and we ask if we can go with him as that’s exactly what we’re after too. He says sure, as long as we can leave immediately as he was told there was a 10.30am cutoff for same-day applications. I race upstairs, grab our passports and within minutes we’re all in a cab to the consulate.

Leaving the confines of colonial Georgetown is a revelation. Coming from the beauty of Melaka’s charming streetscape, central Georgetown is frankly ugly by comparison. Supposedly the main attraction of the city, the strips of shophouses clustered around the old fort are dirty and faded, and the whole precinct has a vaguely derelict air. But just a few scant kilometres away the suburbs become freshly painted with carefully tended tree-lined boulevardes and modern shopping districts, and the Thai consulate is located in the middle of this wealthy zone.

Applying for a visa is quite straightforward, and there are some industrious folk set up outside to profit from the constant stream of applicants. If you’ve forgotten to bring along two passport photos (we sorted ours in Sydney before leaving), don’t worry: there is a mobile photo booth available that will print you some in minutes. Don’t have a photocopy of the details page of your passport either? Not a problem, just come over to this van sir where a photocopier is set up in the back (we did need this service). The only thing not available was an ATM, situated as it was in a residential suburb. Fortunately CJ was able to spot us the difference for our application fees. One final hiccup: CJ was wearing a singlet (a sure sign of an Aussie, according to Mike), and that was not allowed inside the consulate grounds. Disrepsectful to the King, presumably? After a bit of light banter, the guard offered him a too-small T-shirt to wear while lodging his application.

We had about four hours to kill until we could return to pick up our passports, so we all decided to hang out together back at the Red Inn Court before wandering the town a little in scorching 35 degree heat. During this time we swapped more stories, of course, and got to learn some more about CJ’s fascinating life over the past decade. As well as living in Bangkok for most of that time, he’s lived on a roof in Karachi, Pakistan, for three months because he was too poor to stay anywhere else. He’s hobnobbed with Karachi’s top actors and artists, because as a westerner in a largely shunned country he had easy access to the local elite. He managed a group of fast food restaurants on a military base in Afghanistan several years ago, a stint which ended abruptly and hilariously about a year later. And he is also now a film producer in Pakistan, successfully finishing one film that will shortly be released and about to start making another. Not bad at all for someone who’s only 35…

Anyway the afternoon flew by, and after we’d picked up our passports with their shiny new visas we returned to Red Inn Court for some well-earned beers. We’d been talking about alcohol on and off all day, so the subliminal urge to satisfy the thirst was irresistible. Chugging beer in the afternoon shade while watching a local road crew swiftly re-surface the road in front of the guesthouse was strangely fascinating, as was watching nearby shopowners lovingly watering down their patch of freshly laid bitumen. As afternoon turned to evening some of the morning crew returned and the beers kept flowing. By the time darkness fell the whole crew was re-united – us, CJ, Mike, Becs, Tim and Peter – plus a newcomer, Englishwoman Maria who we’d been spotting all day riding around town on a bike. We all decided that karaoke was in order, and after freshening up we headed to a local pub for a couple of drinks before hitting the same karaoke bar that the others had visited the night before.

Details from here are hazy, but the abiding memory we both have of the end of the night is the image of CJ, sitting with his back against the wall wearing Kristen’s wraparound sunglasses, microphone in hand, belting out a brilliant version of U2’s With or Without You and looking (and sounding) uncannily like Bono. It was the perfect end to an unexpectedly awesome day, not just for the new friends made but because we obtained the coveted 60-day visa right when we needed it. It’s made our coming adventures in Thailand all the more exciting, because we can now indulge our fantasy of spending several weeks bumming around the Andaman Coast’s beaches and islands without a care for such trivialities as doing a visa run. Serendipity indeed 😀

Categories: travel | 5 Comments

My Malaysian food odyssey

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Kristen

Before I start talking about Malaysia I need to back track to when we were still in Norway. We were chatting to Lillian, who we visited in Nannestad, about some of the people who had stayed with her before. She mentioned one particular chap who came from India, who has come back several times to visit her and who she referred to as her ‘son’. She remarked that the first time he came to stay he did not speak a scrap of Norwegian, but that he was super intelligent and within two weeks flat he could hold complete conversations with her. I was astounded by this story and Damien added his little take by telling us about a doco he had seen regarding an autistic British guy who went to Iceland. He underwent intensive language lessons for a week and by the next he was able to conduct an interview in Icelandic on TV. Icelandic is apparently one of the most complex languages to learn and thus his ability is one to be admired.

Some days later I was quietly musing about these brainiacs who walk in our midst when I pondered out loud to Damo, “I wonder what people as intelligent as Lillian’s Indian son think about? I mean what higher order thoughts go on in their heads?” Damien poker faced and I believe somewhat seriously replied, “What’s for dinner?” There was my answer. Well this brought me instantly unstuck. Of course! What’s for dinner indeed! These are the thoughts that must keep the intellectual elite busy!

And if this is truly what dominates the minds of the enlightened ones, well, let me count myself amongst the elite! Since Damien’s profound statement in Norway, “What’s for dinner?” has become a bit of a running joke on the trip and it ramped up quite considerably when we hit Malaysia. It’s entirely fair to say that thoughts of food dominated our pathway through this country and served as meaningful punctuation marks throughout each day. It reached its peak in Melaka where we soon were stretching out what was supposed to be a two night stop into a five nighter, not least because we swiftly came to the conclusion that three meals a day was utterly insufficient to accomodate our ever burgeoning list of must eat venues.

I should take a quick pause here to mention that Malaysia is such a great dining experience because of the mix of cultures that live here. The three cultures that dominate are the Malays, Indians and Chinese. It is not uncommon to enjoy a blend of these cuisines all in the one delectable meal. Malaysia is also the home of Nonya cooking. The origins of this cuisine are based in the heritage of the Chinese of the Melacca Straits who combined their cooking with Malay spices. Which in my humble opinion is a wonderful marriage.

Something tickled my fancy when I was later reading the Lonely Planet Guide to Penang (a renowned foodie destination) and the author stated quite matter of factly:

“People come to Penang to eat. Even if you thought you came here for another reason, your goals might change dramatically once you start digging into the Indian, Chinese, Malay, Thai and various hybrid treats available. Days revolve around where and what to eat, and three meals starts to soundly depressingly scant.”

Excuse me, but were you eavesdropping on our conversation and stealing the very words out of our mouths? It appears we are not the only slaves to this stomach driven dilemma! Same country, different town it seems.

So without further ado let me list off the foodie highlights of my journey through Malaysia.

Tioman

We loved Tioman but sadly the food was not as beautiful as the view. Lucky for us Tioman was our first foray into Malaysian cuisine and fresh off the back of the heavy cold winter food of Northern Europe. By comparison it stacked up okay but I am pleased that it in no way set the standard for what we should expect in the rest of this country.

Mersing

The mainland town of Mersing serves as the launching pad to Tioman and is not a particularly amazing town, but it is memorable to me as I view it as the start of my food odyssey proper. It was here that I had the best meal of my trip ’til that point, and it was only knocked off its perch three days ago in Penang.

It commenced with our breakfast in a dingy, stray cat ridden, roadside establishment where there were (initially) no other patrons. Generally I read this as a neon sign flashing ‘Do not eat here’. However, we were hungry and hell bent on tracking down some nasi lemak and took what we could get. Happily, we were not disappointed. Nasi Lemak is a simple dish of rice, a few peanuts, chilli paste, some little dried fish and then usually either egg, salted fish or fried chicken. I went the salted fish and Damo the fried chicken. Let’s just say for the record that ol’ Damo has had a bit of a love affair with the fried chicken of Malaysia.

It was lunch that stole the show for me. We walked all of about ten paces to the right of where we were staying to an open air restaurant which offered a range of different meal choices from which you could serve yourself. This is a very common way of dining in Malaysia and one I like because I don’t have to bother with trying to remember the Malay word, I can just look and pick. Excellent. Anyway, I was introduced to a few dishes here that I would revisit many times on my trip and some I didn’t have the pleasure of tasting again, but all in all it was so yummy and I was even more ecstatic because it set me back not much more than $1. Bloody brilliant! And might I add that I was eating seafood for that price – prawns and fish, amongst a fine selection of other meat and vege dishes. One that I tried first here (and was a regular feature of meals henceforth) was the simple but always tasty fried kailan. This is a basic dish of fried greens with chilli and often tiny salted fish and garlic. Yes, chilli. If you don’t enjoy chilli you are pretty well stuffed in this country as they seem to slip it into everything. However, it is possible to dodge it if you need to, which I did for a stint after some pretty hectic chilli eating sessions in a row!

Melaka

I cannot emphasise enough how much sorting out what we were going to eat for the day (and the days after that day) consumed our thoughts and time whilst we were there.

In no particular order I am going to detail the best moments:

Dim sum breakfast. This is yum cha for breakfast in essence, and a lot of meats in steamed stuff feature. Sorry I can’t be more informative than that but we literally just sat down and pointed to things and tried them out. All were delicious. We tried to go back there for another breakfast and were quite bummed it was shut on that day 😦 We did soon come to realise while we were there that Malaysians don’t always have set open hours or days, and you really just have to hope and pray that if you liked it once it will be open again. We were caught out this way more than once when trying to revisit good places.
Night market. Although as night markets go it wasn’t outstanding, it was interesting in that it really was (aside from the gaudy coloured kitsch items on sale) all about stuff on sticks. And let’s face it, in my experience stuff on sticks are always oh so good and oh so bad in equal parts. What’s not to like? I was having a ‘damn the diet’ night that night and gravitated towards the potato on a stick very hastily. I had seen a girl eating one in the street a few days before but was having a health kick day and staunchly refused to succumb. Not the same Kristen was found lurking in the night market. I was the stick monster! Potato on a stick is a simple pleasure of a whole potato magically twirled around a stick like a slinky…and tastes like a kettle chip. A series of other meats on sticks ensued. I must note for posterity here though, that none of this stick food reached the lofty heights of my ultimate food on a stick discovery in a Japanese department store: fatty chicken skin on a stick. Amen.
Selvam. Indian restaurant extraordinaire. Damien had dined here when he was last in Melaka and was very keen to revisit. He mentioned to me on more than one occasion that he maintained it was the Indian food that got the gurnsey from him last time. Eating at Selvam makes it easy to understand why. We ate here twice in total. They serve your meal on a large slice of banana leaf and you can opt to eat like the locals, with your hands, or just do it the usual way, with cutlery. I attempted with hands the first time and soon realised that there was a knack to this style of eating and clearly, I didn’t have it so I just embraced my western-ness and ate with fork and spoon. Our first meal was a 12 dish-a-thon of vegetarian delights. Oh Mumma! It was goooood. I have often thought that it is the vegetarian dishes that are the standout for me when it comes to Indian food, and this culinary experience was an excellent example of that. I have to say that the Indian food in Malaysia is outstanding and different to a lot of what we get in Australia. I wish some of it would find it’s way across the sea quite frankly! Selvam was a standout, no doubt about it.
Baboon House and Casa del Rio. Good coffee is a little hard to come by in Melaka and we came across the Baboon House one morning when strolling in the streets and decided to give it a shot. It was a great little find. It tasted like real coffee which was a bonus but it was made all the more enjoyable for the location. The Baboon House is a lovely little oasis with very interesting art works adorning the walls, and an abundance of plants in pots to make it feel more like I was in some funky little cafe in hippy land than in Melaka. We decided another day to take our books and go and relax there for a coffee and a bit of fiction, however, it was shut. We were somewhat directionless after that unlucky discovery and stood dejected outside on the street trying to think of what we should do next. Yes, yes, I know, the pressing decisions of the jobless! When suddenly I had a blinding flash of brilliance (insert tickets flapping in the wind here) that we should try our luck down the road at the five star Casa del Rio, well appointed darlink, on the Melaka River. I figured a five star resort should cater to our western tastes and we could enjoy some upmarket surrounds to boot. We arrived and soon found ourselves ensconsed, sipping coffee, in a cushioned cabana by the beautiful and extravagantly large water feature in in the centre of the resort. Noice. Very noice.
Pineapple tart place (name of shop deleted from the memory files…but not the tarts!) We read that one must try the pineapple tarts when one is in Melaka. If one must, then, who am I to argue? So we tracked down an outlet that funnily enough had baked the worlds largest tart which was on display and was there for the viewing. As were a bunch a funky young, Malay twenty somethings doing a TV special on the tarts in that store. Thus, Damien and I found ourselves hiding behind display stands trying to avoid getting our dials on TV. Trapped for a rather long time (we had tarts to devour, damn it!) we were eventually able to escape, eat the said tarts and hopefully remained unfilmed. And yes, one must! For the sweet lovers out there (which I am not overly as a rule) they are soft, sweet pineapple fillings encased in a buttery, flaky pastry. A legacy of the Portuguese in this country.

Georgetown

As the Lonely Planet guru stated above, apparently Penang (which Georgetown is a part of) is a foodie heaven. However, despite the fact we stayed there six nights in total we nearly completely missed understanding how this could be so. I am not ashamed to say that a fair amount of the reason for us staying was, quite honestly, the people and the the pillows. Seriously. It is one of the shittier parts of the island but we happened upon a bunch of completely cool people who we had a mad day and night hanging out with, followed by an equally bad hangover. This was then followed by the allure of the lovely newness of our guesthouse, the Red Inn Court. It had amongst other attractions amazingly great beds and super soft pillows …. I miss those pillows already. I wonder how long it will take me to find some more like that? But it was over our free brekky at the Red Inn Court that we met some of those lovely peeps, so that meal in itself deserves a mention. For a free spread, it was top notch! No sooner had we sat down for breakfast when a still drunk Brit called Mike was chatting merrily to us and in not too many more words was insisting we come and stay with him in London. And Bec, this line is especially for you cause I know you will understand…it was exactly like when Freddy meets George in Room With A View and his first words are, “How do you do, come and have a bathe.” Anyway, a day of hangovers followed by a day of sloth meant that the Old Trafford Burger cart on Chulia Road was getting a work out and shaping up to be the food highlight of Penang. Dear oh dear, a tad pathetic really. But should you ever make your way to Georgetown, do track it down if you are hankering for a little somethin’ somethin’ that reminds you of home. But never fear, we foodies got our shit together and upped the ante and landed ourselves in Chinese food heaven for dinner on nights five and six…the Teksen Restaurant (ranked #1 of 183 restaurants in Georgetown by Tripadvisor). This is by far one of the most amazing Chinese dining experiences I’ve had. It is somewhat expensive in local terms, meals starting at an exorbitant $3 a plate but the food is to die for. The aubergine in red bean paste was amazing and reaffirmed my love affair with all things eggplant. Damien has his fried chicken, I have my eggplant. The hand-made tofu with scallop and egg white was also amazing and could sit proudly on any hatted restaurant menu in Australia, and we paid diddly squat for it. So there you have it, that was the highlight of my Malaysian food odyssey. Sorry Mersing, you lose.

Categories: Art, food, Malaysia, Melaka, travel | Leave a comment