Food Critiques of Penang

4th to 9th October - Penang & Cameron Highlands

Our next stop off in Malaysia was Penang, a place i’d almost dropped from visiting as i knew very little about it, all i’d read online was the sheer quality of food and that, no surprise, interested me. Another boat and a good five hour minivan ride and we landed at our hotel where bags were dropped and we headed straight to a close by mall. After several months out here i’ve fairly mastered the whole ‘traveller’ appearance of sandals and no interest in shaving however within minutes i felt as out of place as i did when we first arrived in New Delhi! We walking around the mall looking for bits and bats and everyone was dressed up in jeans and shirts, not a sandal in sight! None the less it didn’t stop us from exploring the whole place and having an evening of normality. Our first full day was hilarious, hands down one of the funniest things we’ve done out here. We planned to walk around the streets of George Town to spot all the street art created by Ernest Zacharevic along with seeing some local temples. We walked past this side street that was renting out these colourful, six seater buggy type carts and we instantly got one for an hour. Driving around beeping these comical horns and peddling to the fastest the thing would go. Almost everyone we saw burst into laughter and started photographing us, six British guys on this thing causing mayhem of the busy roads. For further comical value i even filmed us pulling up to a petrol station and attempting to fill the buggy, the staff saw the funny side thankfully. We managed to see a lot more of the town which was great, until i jumped off for a quick photograph to find the guys had began peddling off and i ended up chasing them down Little India, one of the close by districts. 
     During the evening we managed to visit a Burmese temple, Dharmikarama. Fairly interesting as far as temples go with loads of interactive things to do. As mentioned earlier the food was incredible in Penang, there was two meals that stood out, firstly a lemon chicken dish served with rice and accompanied by a three layered ice tea. It was absolutely jaw dropping, i love the Chinese dish and it had blown any others out of the water by a mile. Secondly we read of trip advisor about a place down town that did the best roasted duck, they weren’t lying. Apart from the fact it was served quite cold (thats normal out here) it was brilliant. I think half a duck cost something silly like £4. On another day we got another few places we wanted to see out of the way, starting with The Snake Temple which Ingham had been to a few years back on a family holiday. Unfortunately there wasn’t as many snakes as expected and the place seemed very quiet, but none the less i’m glad we went. If we didn’t, i’d of been kicking myself thinking about how it could of been. Kek Lok Si was next on our agenda and after being dropped off by our taxi in the wrong place we walked through this market for a good 10 minutes before reaching the place, however we saw much more doing it this way including this pool with gigantic terrapins, never seen anything like it. I use to own a few when i was younger and they didn’t get to a 10th of the size. It was a huge temple with loads of complex architecture but absolutely no information that i could find, so because of that it wasn’t the best. 

     I’d been looking forward to Cameron Highlands quite a lot ever since planning this trip to Asia, unfortunately it didn't live up to expectations, this could of been due to the weather, constantly throwing it down during mid-day or simply we struggled to find where the hikes began as there was no wifi at all! None the less we had several days of relaxing instead but still managed to go and see the most famous strawberry farm in the area. A waffle, cheese cake and milkshake later (of course everything was strawberry flavoured) definitely helped make my decision that the strawberries grown here were superb. We were happy to leave the area but also felt quite underwhelmed, i'm sure the areas great but unfortunately we didn't get the best of it! Onwards to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia where we couldn't wait to meet two more friends from home, Paul and Jenny.

 Lanterns going into a local temple in George Town

 One of my favourite street art pieces

Two more that can be seen around George Town

 Interesting architecture was everywhere

The guys in our six man speedster

 Rival speed squad...

One of the street vendors clocking me while i photograph him

 The best lemon chicken i've ever had!

 Dharmikarama temple. You had to throw coins into cups that read 'prosperity, health' etc.

 Ingham, Rob and Dan

 Taken from the bell tower at the temple

 One of the only snakes at snake temple!

 A farther and daughter feeding the terrapins

 I said there was quite a few of them!

 Kek Lok Si Temple

 Street vendor just across from our hostel at night

The view from our apartment in the Cameron Highlands

The Malaysian Beaches

29th to 3rd October - Perhentian Islands

Our day began still on Koh Phangan with a ferry we were told arrived at 10:00AM, turns out our information was completely wrong and getting down into Malaysia was going to be a lot more difficult that first thought. With a wait near the ferry until 3:00PM, on the mainland of Thailand it didn’t get much better, we waited a few more hours until nearly 8:00PM before catching a night bus for a further 11 hours to the boarder! It was the longest day we had endured yet racking up well over 24hrs. A brisk walk at sunrise got us to the Malaysian boarder and through we went, ready to begin yet more travel to the Perhentian Islands. I don’t know how but i began speaking to a local guy, he was quite possibly the happiest man i’ve ever seen, he had travelled loads himself and went off telling me about his journeys to England, Canada, Italy etc. He gave us loads of tips for our destination and after we failed at bartering a taxi to the right price he actually argued for us and got a price everyone was happy with! His wife wasn’t too happy for waiting around whilst he helped us, i think they were off to Thailand themselves for a little holiday. I felt like i was back to real travelling once more, Thailand sapped that drive i had in other countries, everywhere we visited was built for tourists and you don’t see the real people of the country. After an hours drive there we are again sat on a tiny speed boat shooting towards what could only be described as paradise! The two islands looked beautiful with white sand beaches and crystal clear waters, in comparison to other islands we had visited there was nothing on Kecil, the smaller of the two. We chose this as our home and grabbed somewhere with air conditioning for the first night, mainly to recover after the journey. 
     What came over the next two days was such a shame as we had high hopes for Perhentian, every meal we had on the island was average at best, as an example, i ordered a spaghetti carbonara one evening, i know that typically Western food is worse but its never horrendous. The cream and butter had split making it look grim but half way through i decided to tilt the plate and sure enough i managed to pour around 100ml of oil straight out of the pasta. I wanted to complain but with the staff being so relaxed they just wouldn’t of cared even if i did. One restaurant actually turned us away because the chef “couldn’t be bothered to make anything”. We were in paradise but angered at the lack of enthusiasm the people there had. Luckily on our third and final day the entire place was redeemed with the smallest of things. We simply booked a snorkelling trip which turned into one of the best activities in Asia so far. Our boat driver and guide topped it off with generally being great! He couldn’t of been better and instantly glued with the whole group, tormenting me with the fear of sharks and even throwing bread at us whilst were in the water so fish swarm at us! It was a great laugh. The coral and array of fish was insane, i’d never seen anything like it and we had so much time there. The fish in a multitude of colours would swim all around you, hundreds of them. Each time we got back into the sea we thought it couldn’t get any better until i scratched a big thing off my bucket list, our guide took us to turtle point and went around gently until he spotted one about 10-12 meters down and in we got. I got the chance to swim literally side by side with this huge turtle, i kept up with it swimming for some time before the turtle began going deeper. It was absolutely amazing and even now i’ve a smile across my face that i got to do it! To top the whole day off i moderately conquered my fear of sharks! After a few moments of panic stood in the boat, our guide threw fish heads into the sea to lure the sharks and shortly after i was in as well. The black tip sharks never got too close thankfully and i’m so glad i did it! At one point i saw three swimming together with the largest being around a meter and a half. Sure they’re not great whites but this will do for now! 
     I felt like i could now leave the island happy in knowing i’ve got the most out of it. I’d still advise anybody to visit just for that experience, the near no wifi, electricity blackouts for up to six hours and the feeling of being cut off from the outside world was actually really good. It allowed you to remember the fun of exploring and just lounging around. Wifi i’ve found out here is typically just a distraction. If i could access my blogs and photographs just once a week, i’d be happy with that!

The 'almost' deserted island we planned to stay on for a few days! 

And our 30 minute boat journey to the island was on a fairly small boat

 This is just to show how crystal clear and blue the water was

 We were literally surrounded by thousands of these fish whilst snorkelling

 Me after just jumping in!

 One of the turtles we swam by throughout the day

The Islands we Craved

12th to 29th September - Phuket, Koh Phi Phi & Koh Phangan

As we flew into Phuket i was gob smacked at the beauty of the green islands scattered through the light blue sea, it looked absolutely amazing, that was me itching to get exploring! After a short taxi ride we arrived at the best accommodation we had yet, big rooms, comfy beds and a damn good pool, best thing was it was all below budget. With me being far from healthy and the guys just wanted to relax thats exactly what we did for several days, hanging out by the pool and eating at the hotel. Our second night however, we decided to go to a quiet bar and have a few drinks which i was just about feeling up for. After a cheap sweat and sour chicken we were directed to a place called Bangla Road, even though i'd researched Phuket i'd never heard of it and wow we were in for a surprise. The place was more hectic than Bangkok! Instantly we had 20+ vendors offering us ping pong shows, night clubs, you name it. We settled down in a bar on the far side where you get offered matches of connect 4 and jenga for free tequila shots from the staff which in turn made our 'quiet night' into a much bigger event. We spent hours going from bar to bar laughing with people and getting the main part of our drinks for free, i'd admit this was the best night we had in Thailand so far, much better than what Bangkok had to offer. For the next two days of our stay in Phuket i stayed in, trying to eat plain food and try to get back on track. Several of the guys headed out for yet another round of bars and told me of their crazy antics the morning after, at times i was glad i stayed in, not to mention how bad the weather turned, a tropical storm had come down from Vietnam and began battering the surrounding islands of Phuket.
     We set sail once more to Koh Phi Phi via a quick taxi followed by two hours on a ferry. If you've ever watched the film 'The Perfect Storm' you'll understand around how choppy and dodgy the ferry was. Waves were bouncing off both sides to the point where the window next to me began leaking! Ingham hates the sea and generally anything to do with it, he slept for the first half of the ferry thank god but woke up half way through and quickly went pail! I don't blame him, even i was a little on edge! We jumped off the boat into the relentless rain and quickly found our new home for 7 nights, it looks absolutely nothing like what we booked but it was a bed and air conditioning, got the basics at least. The first two days it rained again none stop and we struggled to do anything apart from eat and sleep but finally the clouds began to clear and we had the choice of two very different beaches within a 5 minute walk from us. Firstly an incredibly shallow and slightly murky water bay which was good to just lay in, where as the other side was deeper and very clear. I didn't drink a drop during my stay at Koh Phi Phi as i began to get even worse, one night whilst the guys went out to the parties on the beach i was getting stomach cramps and started to actually pass blood... Sorry for the information! But this obviously got me incredibly worried and the next morning i went straight to hospital, they took a blood sample and asked a million questions, thankfully i was told my chances of survival are very high and with some antibiotics for a stomach infection i was on my way and within a few days i was beginning to feel my real self again.
     Nearly two weeks of feeling horrible got me quite down in the dumps as i'd done next to nothing but we finally headed out and began sea kayaking which was awesome, i bought myself a snorkel kit and parked up our kayaks at a place called Monkey Beach which, you guessed it, had loads of monkeys on it, that was fairly cool but the actual snorkelling here was much better! I'd never done it before and to be swimming with these fairly large, colourful fish cheered me up no end, only panicked once about sharks as well! We did the same on another day because we enjoyed it that much and later on hiked up to Koh Phi Phi viewpoint, nice and easy hike with a cool view of where both bays almost meet in the centre of the island. We bought most of our food from this restaurant called Cosmic which did surprisingly, really great Italian food for damn cheap, it sorted me out in terms of staying away from spice and grease whilst recovering. It was a good place for a none alcoholic drink and a few card games. Our time, even with a week there passed very quickly and before long we had planned our trip over to Koh Phangan for the biggest party of the month, the full moon party!
     Koh Phangan mainly consisted of sitting around the pool and drinking beer, that was our aim for the island and it was definitely achieved, its not something i’d do again on this trip but with five of your best friends you’ll struggled to have a bad time! It was nice to chat to other people as well, they had mainly arrived just for the Full Moon Party but because of that they brought a different, fun vibe with them. The beach was littered with bars and loud music every night we went down but the best place by far was Mellow Mountain, a really relaxed place where everyone sat with cushions on the floor. After one of the nights we jumped into a pick-up truck for our lift home, about a 30 minute drive with crazy roads and fast speeds... It was once way to get an adrenaline rush! All six of us were bouncing around in the back whilst the driver couldn’t care less, great fun though, it was like being on a rickety roller coaster. The Full Moon Party itself was like any other night on the beach but with 10 times more people, getting anywhere became a struggle but the atmosphere was brilliant, everyone was in high spirits and there to generally have a good time. We sat on the beach and watched the sunrise in the traditional manner of the party, it was a good ending to a great night. 

 Sunset at Koh Phi Phi Viewpoint

 Enjoying the beaches for the day

Monkey Beach which was only a short 15min kayak away

 Leaving the islands and heading off to Malaysia