Perusing Penang…

Foreigners Rock straight ahead, Miami to the left... Had we taken a wrong turn somewhere...??

Many new apartment blocks such as this one stood close to our hotel...

Our hotel on the main road that ran towards Batu Feringgi, was one street off the one that ran parallel to it, and curved around a wide bay…

When the tide was out, it became a vast mud flat, but out in the distance we could see huge ships coasting towards the harbour in Georgetown…

All along this road, known as Gurney Street, stood huge hotel and apartment blocks, and at their bases, many small restaurants and bars…

Judging by the crowds, this was one of the trendier places on the island… We walked down Gurney street on our first night there and sat down at one of the first bistros we came to, to take on some liquid nourishment…

All this walking we were doing was sapping our energy no end…!!

When the waitress handed us the drinks menu, four pairs of eyebrows raised themselves to hairlines in seconds… The beers here were almost triple the prices we had been paying in Thailand…!!

Gives a whole new meaning to the word...

Seems bag-snatchers are giving bikers a bad name in Malaysia...!!

Chairs that had just been tucked in, scrapped back out again, and we made our exit as quickly as possible before the waitress returned…

Further down the road, we came to an establishment that sold beer at a far more reason able price and welcomed our custom with open arms…

It was a 7-Eleven of course, which had become a regular haunt of ours over the past few weeks…

"Mountain cabbage" is not sold here, much to the disgust of Dutch tourists...!!

Drinks in hand, we strolled along the seafront, watching people buying drinks by the bucket, literally…!!

A bucket of beers, depending on the size of the bucket, contains between six and ten beers, and is plonked down in the centre of the table so that the guzzlers need not bother the waitress too much…

We had never seen this sign in any of the other 7-Elevens we had frequented... No caps...!! What next...?? No stockings pulled over our heads...!!

We wandered into a very large seafood restaurant to look at all the live fish in the tanks that lined the walls… The sign outside said, “If it swims, we have it”….

“My God…!!” I said, “I think they might have my mother-in-law on the menu…!!”

I discovered that not EVERYTHING that swam was on the menu...unfortunately...!!

We eventually found ourselves at the large traffic circle at the end of the road, and saw a large outdoor restaurant nearby… The dozens of food stalls were arranged like a lager, with tables and chairs in its centre…

Every conceivable Asian dish was on offer… The selection was bewildering, and we wandered around the entire area before making our choice…

Satay "anything-you-like"...!! If it moves we have it...??

Cuttlefish and Cockles...?? No thank you very much...!!

Ignoring the exotic (because our doctors told us so…!!) we ordered a mixture of noodle dishes with either chicken or beef, and ended with waffles and ice cream… All in all a very pleasant meal…!!

Enjoying our less than exotic meal at the outdoor restaurant in Georgetown, Penang.

A strange thing happened on the way back to our hotel…

Modern as you like, the Gurney Mall in George Town...

We even found time for a little "gym work"...!!

We wandered into a very modern mall to kill some time, as it had barely gone 8.00 pm, and the prospect of watching CNN or the BBC News channels back at our hotel was too agonising a prospect to bear…

Six or seven floors high, this mall contained every brand name store you could think of, and was doing good business judging by the amount of people still shopping…

Both Trevor and I wanted to get a tattoo but had never settled on exactly what it was we wanted permanently etched, or where we wanted it etched…!!

I had also toyed with the idea of getting my ear pierced, but my fear of needles had kept me from going ahead with the plan… Trevor and Phil had had their ears pierced years ago in the Caribbean, although Phil no longer wore an earring in his… Trevor had a small gold sleeper in his left ear, and had been urging me to get it done throughout our ride through Thailand…

So far, a mixture of good luck on my part had prevented me from “getting the job done”… This did not stop Trevor from entering every jewelry store we passed to inquire if they did ear piercings…!!

We were passing one of those Barrow Vendors you sometimes see in malls, and the bubbly woman who owned it was selling earrings and other costume jewelry… As usual Trevor asked if she pierced ears, and she nodded in the affirmative…

Still a bit stunned by the swiftness of the "attack"... I now had the earring I had been "thinking about"...

Minutes later, having hardly uttered a word, or made a dash for the escalators that would take me to freedom, I found myself sitting on a stool, grasping the metal railing behind me firmly, and staring intently into the window of a storefront many, many metres away…!!

Chenty chose the earring, Trevor and Phil stood grinning like a pair of Cheshire cats, while the woman busied herself with the “equipment”, which I studiously avoided looking at…

“Hang on a second…!!” I bleated, “I haven’t finished thinking this thro….”…. I never got to the end of the sentence…

My left ear was grabbed none too gently; I felt some kind of medieval device clamp around the lobe; heard a loud “thwack”; and watched the woman step back with a look of satisfaction on her face, brandishing something that looked like it belonged in a farriers toolbox…!!

After a momentary bout of dizziness, I was able to stand up and pay for the pleasure of having had a hole drilled through one of my appendages…!!

I barely heard her explain how I should care for the ear in the next week or so until I could insert another of my choice, and for the next hour fingered the lobe constantly, feeling the foreign object that was now a permanent fixture there…

Naturally, Trevor was delighted to have “assisted” me in this little endeavor, and well pleased with himself, led us off to a nearby juice stand to celebrate…!!

“Right, now all we need is our tattoos, then we’re done…!!” he said…

“You’ll have to get me well pissed before I let you lead me into a tattoo parlor…!!” I said to myself… If I’d said it aloud, I feared it would have presented Trevor with too great a challenge to ignore, you see…!!

This sign was INSIDE the lift of our hotel...!! I couldn't imagine someone spitting in a lift, but I guess it happens in these parts...!!

The next morning we set off to ride around the island…

Ready to circumnavigate Penang... We covered about 80 km, staying away from George Town to avoid traffic on the way back...

We parked our bikes at the entrance gate of the Penang National Park. Directly in front of us was the fishing village of Teluk Bahang...

Our route around Penang...

Phil borrowed a helmet from somebody in reception, and we were off…!! We rode west along the twisty coastal road, and then turned south to ride up into the mountains that occupy most of central Penang…

Our first stop was at the entrance to the Penang National Park, where self-guided walks through the rain forest could be taken on routes from as short as 5 km to others that would take an entire day to complete…

After wandering around the visitors centre, we opted for the cool breeze we would get riding our bikes, rather than the hot and sweaty conditions we were bound the face in the rain forest…

We planned to visit a fruit farm on the way down south, as well as a butterfly sanctuary that I hoped would be better than the one we had seen in the Cameron Highlands… The butterfly sanctuary was closed for renovations when we got there, so we motored on up into the mountains along a road littered with hairpin bends and steep inclines…

We stopped at the fruit farm, and took the guided tour we were offered… We were taken further up into the mountains, and dropped off on a level piece of ground where a guide was waiting to show us around…

It was a very informative albeit short tour… He led us through an area where many different fruit trees stood, and carefully explained what they were and where they originated from…

I discovered that Dragon Fruit grew on a cactus, and the difference between Jack-Fruit and Durian’s were pointed out to me… I had always thought they were one and and the same thing… Durian’s are known as the King of Fruit here in South East Asia, while Mangosteens hold the title of Queen of Fruit…

Mangosteens and Rambutans... Local favourites...!!

Afterward we were led to an open air restaurant, where we were treated to a fruit buffet, and introduced to many other fruit that we had not seen growing in the orchards outside… We piled our plates high, and I was surprised to discover that neither Trevor, Chenty or Phil had eaten Passion Fruit before, or what we back home know as Grenadillas…

Trevor grows a pair of melons... I warned him that "more than a handful, was a waste", but he wouldn't listen...!!

Judging by the state of this sign, the frail better kept a close eye on the traffic around them...!!

The mother of all Top-Boxes...!!

We were taken back to our bikes and resumed our ride around the island, passing through Sungai Pinang and Balik Pulau, before turning off for the short run to the southern coast near Teluk Kumbar…

We reached the eastern side of the island, turned north, and then cut inland through a large industrial area of Bayan Baru, to avoid going directly through George Town…

The road took us through the heart of the island, and brought us out on the coastal road close to our hotel… It had been a great ride, technical in places, where it climbed into and back out of the mountains, but for the most part smooth and flat…

We summoned a taxi to take us into downtown George Town later that evening… While the driver was talking to the receptionist of the hotel, I walked out to where the taxi was idling outside, driver’s door open… Trevor, Chenty and Phil were already seated in the taxi… The temptation was too great to resist…

Had we had more time, we could have had a bit of fun here...!!

I hopped into the driver’s seat, shouted “Where to, folks…??”, slammed the door and we were off…!! Trevor and Phil shouted encouragement, Chenty shouted for me to stop, but we were all laughing when the taxi driver breathlessly jogged up to his taxi, where I had parked it, some 50 yards away from the entrance to the hotel, and out of sight of the reception where he had been chatting…

That might well have been the last time he ever left his keys in the ignition with the engine running…!!

He was a good-natured man, and spoke English fluently… In fact, the first words he uttered when he was back in the drivers seat were, “Where to…? Police station for this man…??  pointing at me…!!  “I have been driving taxi sixteen years, and first time that has happened to me…!!”

He took us into the area of the city where many pubs and restaurants were located, gave us advice on which to avoid, and then left us with a wave…

We walked around for a while, and I can’t be sure if we had dinner somewhere or not… but I recall our walk down into the “seedier” section of town, where bars and go-go clubs abounded… While Trevor and Chenty went off to photograph the facade of an old hotel, Phil and I did some “window shopping”…

We sat down near the entrance of a busy bar, ordered a few beers, and then began our banter with the “waitresses”… They quickly realised that we were there for the beer only, and soon lost interest in us… As it turned out, this proved to be a “practice run” for our visit to Kuala Lumpur, where we were able to keep the “game” going much, much longer…!!

By sheer luck and a little black magic, we found ourselves in the "interesting" part of town...

Trevor had hoped to gain free entrance by proving he was from Vancouver... Fell on deaf ears...!!

Must be all the olive oil they cook with...!!

When Trevor and Chenty came back from their photographic expedition, they found Phil and my throats already well lubricated, and quickly made an effort to catch up, but by then we were already too far ahead…!! We walked back to the main road, passing rickshaw taxis packing up for the night…

Alive...but unwilling...!! This guy had clearly had enough for one day...!!

Our visit into town wasn’t ALL fun and games…!! We did manage to have a serious discussion as to where we wanted to go next, and settled on the Cameron Highlands, a decision we would not regret…

Phil arranged his transport, bought his tickets and carefully tucked them away, before the evenings festivities began… Smart boy…!! Buying a ticket afterward might have meant ending up back in Bangkok, or some other unsuitable destination (especially if I was “assisting”, if you know what I mean…!!)

Toasting Penang with rice wine, or "sake"... Stuff had a kick like a mule...!!

Our first day in Malaysia had been a bit of a downer, but today, the sun had shone brightly again for us, showing us some of the delights of Penang… We were smiling again, after a great ride, an interesting day, and an enjoyable evening in each others company…

Life was great…!! And we were living it to the max…!!

©GBWT 2011