Brad's Birthday!!
Trip Start
Aug 13, 2011
1
8
18
Trip End
Oct 01, 2011
Where I stayed
Penang, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Elise attempted to arrange bacon and eggs for breakfast but after some confusion and a bit of giggling from the staff (silly white girl...) they eventually served us a plate of beef bacon, very proud of their customer service.
We had planned to have a spa treatment but instead just walked on the beach and around the pool to farewell our hotel. It had been so relaxing and memorable, the hotel had been a perfect mix of fun and luxury, and all the locals had been super friendly.
Did a quick pack before our transfer arrived, and had a final tour of Georgetown and the island on our way to the airport. Short flight to KL, took the Ekspres train to KL Sentral Station with views of plantations, suburbs and sky rises, short teksi to Melia Hotel in the Golden Triangle in Kuala Lumpur. Happy to see that there is a monorail station right outside on the crazy busy main street, and a huuuuge mall opposite, Berjaya Times Square.
We dump our bags and head across the street to check out the mall. Whoa. So many crazy Malay young people, everywhere, huge mall, twelve floors straight up and two theme parks inside. Will definitely come back for some serious shopping tomorrow.
Elise has read up on some Indian night markets that run every Saturday night in Little India so we take the monorail to the closest stop, and as we walk to the markets we enjoy views of the Menara KL and the Petronas Towers lit up, dominating the night skyline.
We get to the markets and are instantly swept along the metre-wide path crowded in each side by stall after stall after stall of every possible consumer item. Elise buys a soy milk from a lady miraculously dragging a trolley through the crowds. Hagglers yell out to us from every stall, some even with megaphones, the noise and heat are incredible.
We stop for dinner at some hawker street food stalls, genuine Malay-Indian food. Because of our curious stares we are offered samples of food, including deep-fried durian and home made curry puffs. Brad settles on some authentic nasi goreng with ayam (chicken) which turns out to be extremely spicy, even by Elise's standards, and Elise is excited to find a stall selling rojak duah. Rojak is a Malay salad of fruit and vegetables served with spicy fruit jam and crushed peanuts. The girl cuts up star fruit, green mango, cucumber, guava and various other unknown fruit in front of our eyes, and is so pleased that we enjoy it.
Elise bought a genuine sari, mauve and glittery, and we had a cendol for dessert, shaved ice with coconut milk, sweet black beans and green pandan noodles.
We made it out the other end and back to our hotel in time to do some washing at laundromat a few blocks away past an hourly-rate hotel, wink wink.
Malaysian experiences:
- beef bacon
- teksi :)
- epic shopping mall
- Indian Ramadan night markets
- deep fried durian, firey nasi goreng, rojak duah, cendol
- sari shopping
