Excited for our first real day in Penang, we got up earlier than we have lately and set out for a walking tour Caitlyn threw together. We decided we wanted to get some coffee so we walked a few blocks until we found a place called “The maker”.
Caitlyn got the rose latte and David got the iced latte. We sat down to wait for them to be made and in a few minutes they brought them over! We hadn’t remembered to ask for them to go so they brought them in cups, but we went ahead and just enjoyed them while sitting in the cafe before heading out to start our tour.
We first went to the Chew Jetty, one of 6 famous dock areas in Georgetown Penang.”The Clan Jetties of Penang are historic Chinese villages built out over the water on long jetties. Typically, each Jetty belongs to a single family clan, with dozens of wooden houses on each Jetty. Located in George Town, Malaysia, the Clan Jetties are a reminder of Penang’s multicultural history. There have been 10 jetties in total, however devastating fires and recent construction projects means 4 have been since destroyed. The most well-known Jetty is the Chew Jetty, which is open so visitors can observe what life on a Clan Jetty is like.”
We reached the Jetty and saw a sign saying that due to some renovations they are working on, no motorbikes are to drive on the Jetty for now. We quickly figure out why…the dock is built just a few feet above the water, but the planks did feel a bit shaky. David wasn’t particularly worried or bothered, but it definitely brought out Caitlyn’s fear of heights and fear of water. Some planks had a lot of give, many had some gaps, and some even shifted or lifted up when walking on them. While it looks like a dock, it is essentially a road that connects dozens of stores and houses on either side. We walked along, looking at stores and houses (at least David was…Caitlyn was moving very slowly and watching her feet the entire time) until reaching the end and seeing the ocean. Caitlyn didn’t want to be on here much longer, so we turned back around.
We headed to another Georgetown attraction very close by – Seh tek tong cheah kongsi clan house. We know everyone reading this is quite familiar with it, but we will provide some information that we definitely knew beforehand.”…is one of the oldest Hokkien clan associations in George Town, Penang. Its members have their ancestral origins from Sek Tong Seah in the Sam Tor District of the Hai Teng County at Cheang Chew Prefecture, Fujian Province, China.”
Honestly, it looked a lot to us like a big government building in a classic Chinese architecture style. It was behind a big gate and it didn’t seem like we could enter so we kind of just did a flyby.
This area is also famous for its street art. We found tons of it everywhere, ranging from realistic murals to some art that combined real objects like bicycles with art painted on the walls.
We have decided that we want some type of souvenier from each country we have visited. In Japan Caitlyn found a handkerchief, in South Korea a decorative fan, and Singapore pressed orchids. Caitlyn has also enjoyed finding postcards as these are easy to bring back safely. We always have our eyes peeled for souveniers, and while looking for street art, we found a shop that looked like it had some good stuff. Caitlyn quickly discovered some beautiful postcards out front with pictures of classic Georgetown-style buildings, and decided to get a few that we could frame! We got our Malaysia souvenier and kept on the walking tour.
Next was the Hoek teik cheng sin temple, a beautiful Chinese temple a few blocks away. There isn’t much to describe as we didn’t know any of the history and didn’t have a lot to see, but we enjoyed taking a quick look!
Next up, we walked towards the Kapitan Keling Mosque, an enormous building that used to be the primary mosque of Georgetown. Along the way Caitlyn found a large rat running/swimming through the open gutters that run alongside the road. It was pretty big and we were glad it was down there. The mosque isn’t far from our hotel, so we have walked by it plenty of times, but we wanted a better look.
For every religious institute/shrine we go in, if Caitlyn is wearing anything that shows her shoulders or is anything less than conservative, Caitlyn has a scarf that she keeps in her purse that she will drape over her shoulders. She draped up and we we walked through a gate and up to the main door. A young woman walked outside and informed us of the dress code. She said Caitlyn’s scarf is good for her shoulders, but women must cover their hair here, and she showed Caitlyn how to do this with her scarf. For men, legs must be covered, so she provided David with a long flowing skirt-like piece. We took off our shoes and entered.
The same woman offered us to go anywhere we like in the mosque or to have a free guided tour if we like. We excitedly asked for the guided tour. The woman walked us through, explaining aspects of prayer in Islam such as the washing and the separation of prayer areas. At one point, she said “Come stand over here and then look at the digital display” we moved and asked if we were standing in the right place, and she said “oh no I just wanted to let you stand by a fan because it is so hot out today”. We died a little internally, as we were both soaked in sweat and this sweet (and completely dry) woman clearly noticed and didn’t want to embarrass us. She explained the call to prayer and how the time for the 5 prayers a day varies based on Sunrise and sunset. After this, she told us about what the prayer is and about what Muslims are saying during the prayer. She sung along some lines while pointing to the Arabic and subsequently translating. This woman had one of the most beautiful and flawless voices either of us have ever heard, but neither of us wanted to highlight this as she was trying to share something very important that just so happened to do with song.
We finished the tour, thanking our generous guide, and decided to go grab some lunch.
It truly was so hot out today that we couldn’t wait 15 minutes for water at lunch and went into a 711 and chugged 1.5 water bottles. We will be doing a cooking class later in Penang and the chef (Samuel) sent us a ton of good recommendations for restauranrs and foods to get while in Penang. He recommended a fantastic nyonya/peranikan food place called Baba Phang, so we headed in that direction.
Peranikans are the original Chinese who came to Malaysia. Their food is a mixture of Chinese and more local southeast Asia flavors and is not super common to find. We got a nice table in the back and checked out the menu. Samuel had even gone as far to say what items on the menu are good, so we decided to use some of his recommendations.
We ordered four small portions of four plates: tau ewe bak (braised pork belly in soy sauce), inchi kabin (a nyonya fried chicken dish), kapitan chicken (a coconut milk curry chicken) and kerabu kacang botol (winged bean salad).
We ordered two beverages at the recommendation of the server: a nutmeg drink and a soursop. The soursop had a strange flavor and had little bits/chunks in it that we didn’t love. It was kind of sweet but that wasn’t the overwhelming flavor. The nutmeg was really nice and tasted almost like a cola.
The pork came out first with nice-sized cubes in a super dark, almost molasses in sight and texture. It had a nice flavor, but had some bitterness and a strong flavor that made it tough to have more than a few bites before it became too much. The other dishes came out next all together. David can’t eat lots of raw vegetables, so he didn’t eat the salad, however Caitlyn reports that she enjoyed it however the grated ginger flower is a texture that she isn’t a huge fan of. The fried chicken had amazing flavor, not subtle but not in your face. It came with a nice sauce that Caitlyn really enjoyed as well. The Kapitan chicken was in a beautiful yellow-brown sauce with slices of potato and pieces of chicken. Many places in Asia do chicken differently than in America. I think we first noticed this in South Korea…they will cut pieces like the breast, thigh, and leg into multiple pieces through the bone. The leg is often cut down the middle or the thigh into 2 or 3 pieces. We both loved this dish. The curry was delicious, the chicken had great flavor and juice, and David thought the potatoes were amazing with a perfect soft tezture that still held up and soaked in so much flavor. Caitlyn’s favorite dish was the fried chicken actually. She enjoyed it but when dipped in the sour sauce (maybe tamarind based?) It was delicious. David had trouble deciding between the chicken dishes but loved them both. Also the rice that we got with the food was blue. No idea why.
After this we headed off to our next stop.
While we were walking around, suddenly David looks a few feet ahead and to the left and sees another gigantic rat just standing on the sidewalk. This one didn’t seem super healthy…it’s fur was poking up and it was kind of shivering. It ignored us and another woman nearby and slowly made its way to a damp patch of concrete and seemed to be trying to drink.
We left pretty fast because this was not a healthy rat. The next stop on our tour is the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion. It is also known as the blue mansion as it is blue and a mansion.
We entered the grounds and went up to the gate to get into the mansion courtyard. We informed a security guard that we were interested in entering, but there was clearly a language barrier. He eventually told us to wait for 10 minutes a few feet away and then he will let us in. This seemed strange, but we had seen signs for tours so maybe he thought we were waiting for a tour? This is strange as the final tour of the day had already ended. We wanted to see the museum so we looked online and there was a bar on site. We went back up to him and told him we want to go to the bar. He told us to wait a moment and called someone on his walky talky. A moment later he waved us forward and into the courtyard.
We walked into the front hall of the mansion and quickly found the bar just to our right in what looks like a former study. We sat down in a nice cushioned couch in the corner and checked out the menu. We ordered a cocktail each and sat for a while enjoying the nice A/C.
After we finished our drinks, we did a self-guided tour of the mansion. Caitlyn was hesitant to do anything but leave out the front door, but David noted that some areas were “for hotel guests only” so the other areas seemed fair game. Also what is the worst they will do other than tell us we can’t be in that room? We stealthily walked around the first floor, looking first in a room that wasn’t roped off. It seemed like a museum as there were older artifacts from the younger days of the house behind glass, with some signage and descriptions of the items.
We explored a little more then went into a room that seemed to be a giftshop. David asked the woman if we could walk up to the second floor and she said “of course”. We backtracked and went up one of the two beautiful staircases upstairs. We entered a few more museum-adjacent rooms before running out of things to see.
We ended up leaving, wondering about how the security seemed so tight with the guard needing to buzz us in to the bar yet no one keeping track of if we were still inside. We left and kept walking, this time towards the ocean for our next sights.
We then briefly did a driveby pass at the “Gereja Assumption/ Church of Assumption”. We don’t know anything about the church, and didn’t even bother reading this sign but took a picture in case anyone does want to.
We then kept walking and suddenly heard super loud sounds of planes overhead. We soon spotted a fighter jet overhead roaring through the sky. This was an awesome sight and we JUST missed getting a picture. Thankfully less than 2 minutes later, we heard more sounds and managed to catch a video of two Fighter jets flying.
After this we were almost to the beach. We passed by the town hall and some other nice buildings before doing some historic walk by the water.
We then walked by Fort Cornwallis which is an old British fort from the 1700’s. We rounded the corner and found an entrance so we decided to look inside the fort.
We walked up to a ticket booth and asked how much it was. He told us 20 ringgit per person ($4 USD) before giving us the “but wait, there’s more!” look and said “and each ticket comes with a free water bottle or beer.” We gladly bought 2 tickets and headed in.
There wasn’t much to see. A few old cannons and a munitions storage area. Upstairs they converted part of it to a beer garden, and we exchanged our two drink coupons for two draft beers. We were going to sit to here but it felt potentially like a mosquito hotspot so we found a table downstairs and sipped for a few.
We had a lot on our list so we didn’t spend much time here. We headed out and eventually managed to cross a very busy street. Once across the street, David looked behind us and said “wow look at that building!” It was a big clocktower, and turns out it was on our walking tour but we had gone too far and passed it. There was no way we were going back across the street so we admired it from a distance and took a picture.
Caitlyn found a food museum earlier that looked fun and we noted it wasn’t open much longer. We got there in just a few minutes and paid the entry fee.
The museum was two floors with multiple rooms celebrating Malaysian food. Most rooms had plastic versions of a Malaysian food with a description and some history of the food. Some rooms had comically large plastic versions of foods to take pictures with as well as some funny props like a frying pan that looks like the food is flying up in the air.
We walked through the whole museum and thought it was a pretty cool activity but not sure if we would recommend it. Caitlyn’s favorite part of the food museum was learning about the most ____ thing in the world (sour, bitter, etc.). There were little cubbies that asked the question on the outside and then you open a tiny door and it shows the answer in food form inside.
After this we walked through Little India, but quickly realized there was not too much to see. We went to a temple but didn’t stay long. It was still raining so we decided to take shelter in a bar.
We found a place called De Old Bar and entered to find ourselves the only patrons. We take a seat and quickly met Jun (“June with no E”) who we believe was the owner of the bar. She was a very kind woman of Chinese origin in her 50s.
We ordered a cocktail at her suggestion then proceeded to talk about everything under the sun from Malaysian politics to her children and their goals in life to technology conspiracy theories. Jun was incredibly kind but did hold a lot of interesting conspiracy theories. She was open minded enough to talk about them in a way that really didn’t feel confrontational or anything, and we enjoyed our time here.
It was getting towards dinner time, and Jun recommended a Chinese restaurant very nearby named Teksen. She told us her recommendations and we took her word for it and headed to the restaurant.
We sat down and ordered twice cooked pork with chili, a steamed egg dish with mixed duck egg and century egg, tamarind prawns, and a vegetable dish that seemed like spinach. We were a little nervous about century egg, as it is “a Chinese egg-based culinary dish made by preserving duck, chicken, or quail eggs in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, quicklime, and rice hulls for several weeks to several months, depending on the processing method”. After the preserving process, the eggs come out dark black and are known for having a strong smell. The eggs were actually amazing. It came out looking like normal steamed egg, mostly white in color, but when you cut in you either got yellow yolk, black pieces resembling the whites of a hard boiled egg dyed black, or a gelatinous almost black/off-gray colored piece (possibly yolk from the century egg?). It had no funk and all delicious egg flavor with a wonderful texture.
All of the food was good, but the prawns were probably our least favorite being a little boring in flavor. David’s favorite was the steamed egg dish, and Caitlyns was the vegetable dish. We finished up and walked home to go to sleep.
David’s thoughts of the day: None
Caitlyn’s thoughts of the day: It was very interesting to hear Jun’s perspective on some of the politics and culture of Malaysia. While it seems like such a cultural melting pot, Jun indicated that there are more tensions between the largest cultures including the Chinese, Muslim, and Indian Malays. She spoke of how the elected government is currently of Chinese-focus, which was a shift from the Muslim focus previously. The previous government caused tension in Malaysia, due to many of the Chinese-Malays feeling that ideals were being pushed on them that did not align with their own beliefs.
Steps walked: 16,473
Miles walked: 8.02
Bluming Travelers 