4 Days in Penang, Malaysia and 3 Days at Sea

Malaysia was by far one of my favorite stops. It was the perfect place to go after India and I feel completely refreshed, happy, and more like myself than I felt after India. I had no expectations for what Malaysia might look like or be in anyway – and I was so pleasantly surprised. Penang is a city that I would love to return to later – the people were so friendly and the food was amazing – I had a wonderful time.

Tom on the other hand only got 2 days in Penang because he came down with the most violent stomach illness I have ever encountered. The night before we arrived in Malaysia he woke up throwing up like crazy – this continued until about 10am and the doctor had to come and give him a shot, which pretty much knocked him out cold for 2 days. The stomach flu was going around the ship and at first everyone thought that it was Delhi belly, but it turns out – it was not! Thus far, I have not gotten this stomach thing – but I will now knock on wood, because as many of you know – my belly is not the strongest of my organs! J

So while Tom laid in bed for 2 days, I went out with a bunch of people from the ship and hung around the city of Penang. Malaysia is a Muslim country, but there is also a strong Chinese culture mixed in. There are temples and mosques all over the city in between businesses, stores, and restaurants. Traffic was so manageable in comparison to India that we felt like we were back in the states. The food was amazing!!! More tofu and veggies and fruits – I thought I was in heaven! The first day we ate at a Chinese Restaurant and I had what can only be described as small bricks of tofu mixed with mushrooms and cabbage. It was soooo good. The shops in Penang had a distinctively ‘punk’ feel to them and this was really refreshing to see as well. I visited an internet café for a morning and re-discovered the glory that is the internet!!! It was so fast and beautiful…tear J

For 2 days, I basically ate everything in sight, shopped, and wondered around Penang with friends. We visited the temples, ate some more, sweat our butts off again – Malaysian heat makes India look like a slightly warm bath – it was so hot and humid that you could not even move without sweating profusely! I have yet to feel heat like this and apparently Vietnam is supposed to be even hotter…I cannot imagine – after India my limbs were swollen and my body ached from the heat and the same happened after Malaysia – so by Vietnam, I may just completely lose all feeling in my body. J

The only bad part for Malaysia was that we had to dock away from the actual pier and use our ship’s safety boats to get to and from the city. Now, initially this seemed like a lot of fun, but once you are stuffed into an enclosed lifeboat with 75 other sweaty people with no breeze – it is not so fun. So, after 2 days (and Tom felt better at this point) 5 of us went out to a beach community at Batu Ferengi for 2 days. It was beautiful! We had a bit of a rocky start though, we had initially reserved a “Guest House” but when we got there, we soon discovered that a guest house means a cement block with some pillow/mattress type things on the floor. The bathroom was just one open room with the toilet and shower in the same area – i.e. no curtain separating anything – and so you could literally shower as you used the toilet! Not exactly what we had in mind, so we upgraded to the Holiday Inn down the street for an extra $10. The Holiday Inn was one of the fanciest things I have ever stayed in – we had a massive room with a shower that could fit like 10 people, full bathtub, Malaysia TV – it was definitely worth the extra $10!

We rented scooters for the 2 days and rode all over the island. Scooters are so fun, that I may have to consider getting a motorcycle when I get back! Although really, I just enjoyed riding them and not really driving – too much to see from the bike to have to worry about driving it. We went to a Spice Garden, which was this great little sanctuary on a hill where we could wonder through forest trails, get eaten alive by mosquitoes, see a beautiful landscape and just be in a very peaceful, quiet place. We also went to a Butterfly Zoo type place, where you go into this back area and are surrounded by hundreds of thousands of butterflies. We also got to see some seriously nasty looking bugs and massive spiders too! Then we headed to the Tropical Fruit Farm, which was at the top of this giant hill and for 25 Ringette or $3.50, we could go on a tour of the farm (again, while getting eaten alive by mosquitoes) and then receive a free fruit drink and attend a fruit buffet. It was needless to say amazing – we tried 15 different tropical fruits, most of which I have never heard of before along with pineapple, mango, dragonfruit, starfruit, bananas, guava – it was fantastic. We wondered around the night markets and got some great bookleg DVD’s and a bunch of other fun stuff for people at home. We drank Tiger beer (another Coors Light basically) and ate over and over again. J I think after my tour through Asia, I will certainly be gaining some healthy world travel weight! On the last day, we traveled around the island by scooter – visited the Snake Temple, where Tom held a snake around his neck – and pretty much just drove through local towns and coast lines – we also tried to scale a mountain with our scooter, but that wasn’t really working all that well – but anyways, we stopped at this little market and got fried bananas 10 of them for 1 Ringette or like $.30 and mixed it with ice cream…I think its my new favorite food.

The one true cultural experience that we had happened at a local fish restaurant – Tom and I had gone along with another couple and when we sat down to order, the men were clearly favored. They got to order their food first and their drinks magically continued to be filled with our beers. The men’s food was brought to the table right away, while we didn’t get ours until after the guy’s had finished. If we asked for something, we were ignored and so we would have to ask one of the guys to order it for us – it was quite the experience and yet so obvious that we couldn’t really even get mad – we just sort of observed and took this experience in…very interesting.

After 4 great days in Malaysia, we boarded the ship for another 3 days at sea before arriving in Vietnam! I am sad that I no longer have a superfast internet connection or tofu, but I will soon – since Vietnam can be veggie heaven! These past 3 days, the ship has barely felt like it was moving cause the water is so calm and I have been doing a lot of GLI work, attending sessions on Marathon running, and just hanging out with people. I realized today that Easter Sunday is actually here…its strange to be so far away from commercialized life that you don’t even know what holiday is coming up – without the chocolate bunnies being thrown in your face, its so easy to forget what you are supposed to remember. At this point, the trip is flying by – so I will stop here and update after Vietnam.