Rosalind's tours
Trip Start
Mar 18, 2007
1
65
101
Trip End
Mar 16, 2008
Penang,
Malaysia
Friday, November 9, 2007
It was back down that very winding road to head for Penang which took a little longer than normal as it was Deepavali (a public holiday here) meaning the bus had to stop at most lamp posts on the way. However 6 hours later and a few panicked phonecalls to Rosalind who was to meet us at the bus station and we were on Penang island.
Rosalind had the pleasure (or more likely pain) of sharing an office with me in Glasgow for almost 3 years, before coming back to Malaysia. She now works in Penang and we even got a tour of her well stocked lab at the university which was alot of fun for us, but I won't bore the non science geeks out there!
Penang is an island with plenty of history, once being strategic in the spice trade
Butterfly farm
. On the weekend we were able to tempt Rosalind out of the lab to give us a bit of a tour along with her flat mate Kim Su they made quite the driving double act.On saturday we visited a spice garden along with about a billion hungry mozzies (note to self, wear insect repellent as though it is perfume from now on!), an amazing butterfly farm where the butterflies couldn't help but land on you, and a tropical fruit farm where we tried a variety of weird and wonderful fruit and also had Cendol (shaved ice, coconut milk, brown sugar syrup, and weird bright green strands made of sweetened pea flour...it is actually really yummy!). In the evening we went out to the night market just outside Rosalind's flat to try more food, for those that didn't work with Rosalind for the last 3 years she has been telling me how great the food is here (and how lacking it is in the UK) so I just had to make her prove it!
On sunday there was no break for our tummies as it was off for dim sum for breakfast (at 8am!), fortunately as Kim Su's family are chinese she knew the best place to go and it was very tasty indeed. Then it was off to Penang Hill for a slow train ride to the top for a view over Penang, a canopy walk (I'm glad it wasn't windy!) and a bit of snake holding. With my frayed nerves we headed on to the Kek Lok Si temple, the largest buddist temple in Malaysia
Canopy walk 1
. The place was already huge and is still growing. I recommend heading there is a couple of years some of the current work will be absolutely spectacular on completion. However it is still a wonderful place to visit at the moment, with the most intricate tiles (makes the job I did on my bathroom seem tame).While Rosalind has been at work we took the chance to visit Georgetown, the main town in Penang and visit the fabulous Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion (sorry no pictures allowed inside, you'll have to come see for yourself or watch the film Indochine). Cheong Fatt Tze was known as the Rockerfeller of the east having houses in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and China however only this one and one in China are now left.
We also visited the Penang museum which gave a very interesting view of the history of Penang and also all the different ethnic groups that live here.
Last night we took Rosalind and Kim Su out for dinner to say thankyou for all their tour/culinary guiding. We went to a steamboat restaurant, you chose two soup bases and then what you would like to cook in the soup base (vegetables, seafood, meat) and then off you go. Thankfully Kim Su knew what was good and it was very tasty indeed.
As you can probably see from this huge entry it has been a busy time here in Penang, and now we are off to Langkawi (an island in the north of Malaysia) before heading to Thailand.
Thanks to Rosalind and Kim Su for all their hospitality.
Bye for now.
