Malaysia 2022/23 - #15 - Circumnavigating Penang Island

We secured a guide via AirBnb Experiences who offered a custom designed full day tour experience getting out of George Town. We were highly attracted. The vast majority of tours are focused on very specific things oriented toward the cruise ship excursionist or other mainstream tourists. Finding guides who are open to going off the beaten trail as Wife and I prefer, are few and far between. Let's just say we hit a home run. This was one of the best, if not THE best guide experience we've had in all our travels.

Meet Emmanuel

 Disclaimer: I put WAY too many pictures in this post. I've been trying to discipline myself. I probably should have broken this into two posts but I am already behind 😬

We start at a market for breakfast

This was a real working market with half devoted to prepping food to be sold to food stalls and restaurants around the city, with the other half devoted to cooked food stalls selling retail. There was a lot of gastronomy and a lot of people watching going on here.

People of the Market

Prepping flowers used to make blue rice

Prepping Chicken

Packaging dessert cakes

 Laying out fried donuts and fritters

Frying up large amounts of shallots

Cooking up an order of noodles for a breakfast order

Prepping a Sweet Bun

 Taking an order

 Market Mass Quantities

Of Crabs

 Of Roasted Bird

Of Hog Carcasses 

 Of Chinese Prayers for the New Year

Breakfast in the Market

Coffee...blessed, wonderful, real Malay Coffee

 

 I don't even know what this is called. It is a very thin, crisp pancake filled with some palm sugar, crushed peanuts and something else. Label this Good.

 Two kinds of Chinese donuts. Label the one on the right as Very,Very Good

 A selection of...well I am not exactly sure what they are, confections, cakes, etc. Label these as Not my Thing

Char Kew Toewy - Stir fried rice noodles. Label these GREAT

Rice Noodle Soup - Label this Great as well

 George Town's Kampung

A Kampung is a Malay village. It has a particular style of architecture. In the early 20th century, there was a need for workers in George Town. The British Governor at the time made a deal with a state in Sumatra to bring over a group of people. As part of the deal, they were allowed to set up their own community within Georgetown. It exists to this day with its own governance. A town within a city.

The Kampung Kat

Street Art Commemorating the Immigration

A couple more Jetty scenes

Leaving town and we see fishing boats

We drove up a steep, winding, narrow road (like the kind I've frequently subjected us to with our rental properties over the years), getting to a very unique restaurant with the craziest artwork.

The restaurant

The Artwork

We're ready to Eat!

Some Excellent Fried Soft Shell Crab

A Freaking, Crazy Good Steamed Fish in Thai Seasonings. The fish was steamed first before going in the sauce. Even though the sauce was quite potent, the flavor with the fish was very balanced.

Views from the Restaurant to the West and North of Penang Island showing the only operating rice paddies.

Street Art on the more rural west side of the Island

I thought the artist did a particularly fine job with the emotions, inner thoughts expressed on the face of the young girl.

Why yes, this is a sign for a nutmeg tree.

This was a nutmeg orchard and processing operation. We think of nutmeg as the seed only we use as a spice. But the whole fruit is utilized

 Juice is made from the fruit

The red covering is dried and used for Chinese medicines and the spice, Mace

 

 We learned so much on this trip about the country, the economy, the interactions between the cultures, food, the island geography, and so much more. It was a great excursion.