Last
April my wife Bora and I were able to secure ten wonderful days off
from work and decided to spend our well-deserved vacation in
peninsular Malaysia. There were a number of different reasons we
chose this region for our holiday; it was accessible, the food
sounded good, the culture seemed interesting, the food looked tasty,
the weather was supposed to be good, and the food was very appealing
to us. No bonus points for figuring out what our priority was on this
trip.
We
flew into Kuala Lumpur and then onto Penang with Air Asia to begin
our trip. Penang is an island, but we spent spent all of our time in
the main city, Georgetown. We got a cab from the airport to the Yeng
Keng Hotel, where we were staying, with very little difficulty. It is
a very atmospheric, recently renovated old Chinese shophouse. The
courtyard cafe at the front was especially inviting. By this time the
dinner hour was upon us, and we were in for a treat.
One
of the great things about Malaysia, and Penang especially, is the
blend of Malay, Chinese, and Indian cultures. Even though Georgetown
is supposedly the most Chinese of major Malaysian cities, we opted
for Indian food for our first night. We were not disappointed. We
happened into a roomy place in a neighbouring building called
Kashmir. Walking in was like walking into some sort of family party
in an eccentric uncle's basement (it was a basement, it was night,
and he never took off his Gaddafi-esque sunglasses). The servers were
very slow, but friendly, and the beer ice cold - a true blessing in
the tropics. Between a lamb curry, chicken tandoori, and some samosas
there wasn't anything that wasn't totally delicious. If we lived in
Georgetown I imagine we would go there quite often, but we had many
other destinations in mind for further meals so once was all we
managed on this trip.
The
next day we had some nasi lemak for breakfast at the hotel and headed
out to explore Georgetown a bit. We found some interesting colonial
buildings and museums, but it has hot... really hot. After wandering
around a bit more we popped into cafe for a pre-lunch iced coffee and
Tiger beer. The food here looked quite good, but we had a destination
in mind for lunch. We made our way back toward out hotel past various
mosques and interesting markets all in search of delicious
Chinese-style bbq'd pork. Now, I've had a fair amount of pork in
various formats and of varying quality over the years, but the stuff
we got at this place was truly transcendent. The place we chose was
called The
Sky Hotel, which is on a main road but not very well signed.
Bora went to the front and pointed at some various pork parts and I
ordered a couple Tigers. I'm not sure exactly how they barbecued this
pork, but however they did it was perfect - crispy skin, tender meat,
and good flavour. After this combination of heat and a lot of tasty
pork it was time for a nap.
For
dinner we headed out to the Red Garden Food Paradise, which is an
hawker centre (food court) composed of 50-60 food stalls in a market
setting. From the research I did some people seemed to complain that
this wasn't an authentic Malay food food court, mostly because it was
aimed at tourists and the food wasn't as tasty as other places around
the city. This may or may not be true, but we certainly didn't have
any complaints about the food at the Red Garden, and the location was
perfect for us. We both decided to go for Chinese and with the help
of a very accommodating 70 year-old(ish) stall owner we got our food,
and the Carlsberg and Tiger vendors are constantly roaming between
the tables. To be honest the choice was quite overwhelming; it would
be enjoyable to come with a big group and sample a dozen or so
different dishes. In the end Bora decided on some wonton soup and I
had some pork fried noodles. It wasn't as good as lunch, but still
quite good. The shear volume of choices made us want to come back and
try some more things.
So
we did.
To
start our last day in Georgetown we wandered around some markets in
the Little India district and had some very unremarkable Indian food
for lunch. We headed back to the Red Garden for dinner, mostly
because it was cheap, tasty, and there were about two dozen dishes we
each wanted to try. Bora went for Malaysian food with a fish head
laksa and I went for Indian with a chicken biryani. This was our last
meal in Georgetown and the next day we were off to Langkawi.
Langkawi
reminded a lot of some of the islands of Thailand, which shouldn't be
surprising given how close it is to the Thai border. We stayed in a
nice little resort, The Beach Garden, which was located right on...
the beach! To be honest we didn't do a whole lot when we were on
Langkawi. The whole island is a duty-free zone, so we enjoyed prices
considerably lower than the rest of Malaysia. The food we had there
was alright, but certainly not nearly as good we had in Penang.
However we did have some outstanding prawns and red snapper at a
Chinese place one night. When it came to weather our luck ran out a
bit, we got some rain almost everyday. Like most of the tropics it
would rain incredibly hard, but only for a short period of time.
Usually we would wake up, get some breakfast, find some chairs on the
beach and read for a while, come in for food and/or drink when the
rains came, then head to bed. Repeat.
Probably
the most interesting thing we did on Langkawi was a tour of the
mangroves through Dev's Adventure Tours. I would highly recommend
this operator, our guide was very knowledgeable and passionate about
the area. And just looking at other groups going out at the same time
as we did, I got the feeling we got a much more interesting
experience than other people did. We saw a bunch of wildlife: a
viper, proboscis monkeys, a monitor lizard, a small crocodile, a
couple hornbills, a bunch of brahminy kites, and a few huge
white-bellied sea eagles. Other groups were feeding these birds,
which is quite bad for them for a number of reasons (chicken is hard
for them to digest, discourages natural hunting skills, etc.), so we
were quite happy not to feed them. All in all we saw some cool
animals, learned a lot about the mangroves, and got soaking wet. A
great day.
After
four days in Langkawi we flew back to Kuala Lumpur and drove down to
Melaka. Melaka is a very interesting city, and we wished we had more
than our 1 and 1/2 days there. We stayed in the Jonker Boutique
Hotel, which was located near quite a large night market. We wandered
through this market both nights we were there, and Bora really
enjoyed the shopping while enjoyed sitting off to the side with a
cold Tiger doing some people watching. On the morning of our first
(and only) full day we found a great little dim sum place, Low Yong
Mow, for breakfast. Servers would come around with the dim sum and
you just picked what you wanted. I don't know what most of it was,
but all of it was delicious. The pork dumplings (one thing I could
identify) were especially memorable. After breakfast things started
to get hot, really hot. We walked through the old town for a while
and saw some old churches, fortifications, shophouses, etc. which
were quite interesting. But after not too long it was just too hot to
be outside anymore, so we ducked into a great little cafe, The Baboon
House, where we were able to get out of the sun and have a couple
cold Myanmar Beers. After that a nap was definitely in order.
After
dinner and a good night's sleep we awoke early to catch our bus back
to the airport in Kuala Lumpur. This was certainly an enjoyable, but
short trip. I would probably go back to Penang, just for the food. I
would definitely go back to Melaka and spend some more time exploring
that city, hopefully when it wasn't quite as hot. As for Langkawi,
once was enough.
