Life as we don't know it

Exploring Penang in 2 afternoons

Monday, December 16, 2013 @ 12:08 AM PERMALINK

In November I took some leave off work and went with the Bongs to Malaysia. The intended destination was Merbok, Kedah. A small town where their long-time friend (who we call Uncle Steven) has built the most amazing residence. I've had the pleasure of vacationing there 3 times and it is always the best way to recharge and get away from the city.

To get to Merbok though, we fly in via Penang. The last time we were there, we were brought around by Uncle Steven but I wasn't really paying attention. This year, I wasn't about the make the same mistake.

In 2008, Georgetown was deemed to be an UNESCO heritage site and rightfully so, Georgetown is brimming with culture and tradition and is a great juxtaposition of the old and new.

Click on the "Read More" button below to read on about what we managed to cover in our 2 afternoons there.

Our first order of business was to fill our stomaches with some lunch. We headed to Teksen Restaurant (18 Lebuh Carnarvon, Georgetown, Penang). Teksen started out as a roadside stall selling zhi char but has since moved into a two shop unit.

I really should have snapped a picture of the food before we started eating, but I was otherwise occupied. That dish that looks like chai tao kway is actually roasted pork fried with chilli and it was AMAZING. Just thinking about it now makes me want to go back to Penang to have some.

The homemade tofu was really silky and the sauce was light enough to not drown out the natural taste of soy but just tasty enough to add another dimension to the dish.

After lunch we walked around Georgetown for a little bit.

We also dropped by a couple of hotels to take a look at possible accommodation for the future. Our first stop was Yeng Keng Hotel. Housed in an old bungalow, the building itself has been around since the 1800s. The house was then a residence for an Indian Muslim Family.

Yeng Keng Hotel itself has been around since 1939, when the building was leased to the owners by the Straits Chinese Building Association.

I didn't take many photos but if you are looking at booking a boutique hotel, you'll definitely want to consider Yeng Keng Hotel. The courtyard is beautiful and the decor is very tastefully done. It is also right in the middle of Chulia Street and walking distance from many of the sights of Georgetown.

Chulia Heritage Hotel is another hotel we visited. The rooms and decor are not as grand as Yeng Keng but it's also in a good location and the staff seemed to be very friendly.

We eventually had to stop for a coffee break and some kaya toast. The toast is toasted (what I've been told is) the old fashioned way, over a charcoal flame. I don't know how that man in red did it but his knees never seemed to tire even with all that squatting and getting up.

After coffee, we decided to visit a different part of Penang. Quayside is located in the Tanjung Tokong area and is mainly a luxury residential development. There is a mall and a yacht dock located in the area as well.

After looking around Quayside for awhile, we got back into the car and headed up to Merbok. I'll save the update on Merbok for another day and just go straight into what else we saw in Penang when we visited again on our way back to Singapore

While making our way back, instead of driving the whole way, we took the Penang ferry from Butterworth to Georgetown. The ferry has two levels and transports both people and vehicles. The Penang Ferry Service began in 1920 and is the oldest ferry service in Malaysia.

Check out Bong's mop of hair

Again, our first stop was to get some food! This time, we headed to Loh Eng Hoo Coffee Shop. Penangites are really serious about their food. Most will have recommendations on which coffee shop or hawkers to go to for a certain dish. Stalls in Penang coffeshops also seem to operate in 'shifts'. Some are only open in the morning while others only in the afternoon.

Loh Eng Hoo located at Lorong Selamat is known for a couple of food items, Char Kway Teow and Ais Kacang. I'm sure that many Penangites have their favourite stalls but if you ask me, everything I ate was really tasty.

Penang Laksa. I don't eat this because it is basically noodles in fish stock, with fish cake doused in prawn paste. All the things I don't eat combined in one deadly noodle dish. People around me with normal eating habits seem to really enjoy this though.

Fruit Rojak. I really liked this. There was cucumber, pineapple, mango, jambu, turnip and cuttlefish.
I don't usually eat seafood but the sticky dark sauce (which is actually make out of prawn paste) is just so delicious.

Curry Noodles. This was served with curdled pig's blood cubes, cockles and tau pok. Since the sale of pig's blood has been stopped in Singapore, this is actually one of the first time I've had it served to me in a dish. I didn't like it because of the strong iron taste but my mum has fond memories of it and Bong's dad seemed to really enjoy it.

The curry gravy was really tasty though.

Bong's dad and Uncle Steven enjoying their lunch together. It's really sweet that they've been friends for so long and I can only hope that my friendships are that long lasting.

Once our bellies were filled, we took a walk to explore more of Georgetown. These wire sculptures have been installed all around the area and not only do they look great and inject some humor into the area, they also give you more information about the streets and locations.

There are 52 sculptures in total in Georgetown and they were all done by KL company Sculpture at Work.

Another thing that many people now associate with Georgetown are the paintings done by Ernest Zacharevic. Done only in 2012, Zacherevic's murals have caught the attention of locals and tourists alike and have become an almost characteristic feature of Georgetown.

Ernest Zacharevic has said that he drew on the activities and people of Georgetown to craft his murals. The children featured in "Little Children On Bicycle" are actually Penang siblings whose parents Ernest Zacharevic met during a sketching outing. (more information here)

What I really love about Ernest Zacharevic's work apart from his distinctive painting style is his mischievous incorporation of every day items and the cheeky use of the space the murals are painted on.

Ernest Zacharevic has painted 8 murals around Georgetown and some of them have already started to disappear due to the elements. Nonetheless, since Uncle Steven knew where most of them all, we managed to take a look at quite a few of these great pieces of art.

You can find out more about the murals and their locations here

Armenian Street in Georgetown is full of surprises. You'll often come across little alleys marked by chinese gateways. Turn into one of these and you are likely to find yourself face to face with a chinese temple or clan house.

The Cheah Kongsi (clan house) was closed for restoration and renovation so we weren't able to take a look at it. But if the gateway was anything to go by, I'd bet the interior is as grand as the imposing exterior.

A while later, we turned into another gateway and found ourselves in front of the Hock Teik Cheng Sin Temple. This taoist temple was built over 165 years ago and is dedicated to Tua Pek Kong.

The temple is built the traditional way where no nails are used.

While we were in the car, I noticed a couple of murals featuring cats. Turns out that they are part of a street art project called 101 Lost Kittens. The street art project is mainly to create awareness towards the strays in Georgetown but also serves to help add to vibrancy of Georgetown.

Georgetown is full of new street art and old influences. So much pride is put into details and restoring cultural artwork.

Our 2nd last stop before heading to the airport was Chew Jetty. In the past, these jetties ensured that clans had their own fishing and living areas.

Built right above the sea, it is really interesting to see how the people if Penang island used to, and some still continue to live.

Most of the Chew jetty residents seem to operate little shops out of their houses to earn money from the tourists stopping by to visit. The usual Penang souvenirs are hawked as well as snacks and drinks. If this is their family's main source of income, it does seen like a hard way to earn money.

I imagine that is also must not be too fun to have tourists running amok around your houses. A couple of houses even have no photography signs on their doors as they are strictly residential. However, most of the residents of Chew Jetty seem to be proud of showing the public how they live and many houses are specially decorated.

It's hard to believe that under all these wooden planks is the sea.

Our last stop after the Chew Jetty was Padang Brown Lok Lok. For the uninitiated, Lok-lok is skewers of food that is cooked by dipping into boiling hot water then dipped into a variety of sauces before consumption.

Even though I've seen many roadside stalls and hawkers in Johor and Kuala Lumpur selling Lok-lok, this is actually the first time I've had it. I can't say much about the quality of the seafood (since I don't eat any) but there was a huge variety of skewers and the sauces were all very tasty.

A word of caution though, the stalls here don't operate with the same standards as most of our hawkers in Singapore so you may have a bit of a culture shock if you haven't eaten street food elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

At Lok-lok places like these, customers are free to take and eat whichever skewers they want from the dishes and the remaining uneaten skewers at the end of the meal will be placed back on plates for the next customers to select from.

Once our stomaches were full of Lok-lok we went left for the airport. Penang is a city that is chock full of culture - both old and new and I'd definitely love to go back to explore in the future. Everywhere you turn there is something to look at or to eat. Culture and development seem to be working side by side (for the most part) and that's something I find very amazing.

Penang - I'll definitely be back!

Labels: ernest zacharevic, georgetown, malaysia, penang, travel