Of all the places we were excited to visit in Malaysia, Penang was at the top. Famous for its amazing food and street art, George Town on Penang island became a UNESCO world heritage site in 2008. Our group of five (Miłosz, Benjamin, Jessica, and us) took a bus to the Penang region and then a ferry over to the island of Penang. We didn’t realize we had landed in the city the weekend of Thaipusam, a huge 3-day Hindu celebration!

The Food

Since it’s Penang I have to start this post with the food. Our hotel had a “Penang Street Food” book with types of food and where to try them, and we made it our mission to try as many as we could. Some highlights –

• Oyster Omelet – as it sounds, and our favorite thing we tried!
• Char Kway Teow – stir fried flat noodle dish. Can’t go wrong!
• Laksa – spicy noodle soup, usually seafood and with a spicy coconut soup base. Delicious!
• Popiah – fresh spring roll
• Ais Kacang – imagine a bowl of shave ice, but then pile ice cream, beans, creamed corn, noodles, jelly, tapioca, and coconut milk on top. It was not for us.
• Pasembur – a cucumber and seafood salad covered in sweet and spicy sauce. Also not for us.
• Sweet drinks – throughout all of Malaysia every drink you get is incredibly sweet. We finally got to the point where we had to tell them no sugar at all or we couldn’t bear to drink it. You’ve been warned!

We also discovered that Penang curry is not actually from Penang! Disappointing because we love it, but we had plenty of other things to try!

Thaipusam

Our first night, we got on a bus to get to the center of the city (my knee wasn’t quite up to walking) and a man on the bus immediately starting talking to us excitedly about the festival. We had no idea what he was talking about and there was a serious language barrier, but after some googling we learned about Thaipusam.

Thaipusam is an annual Hindu festival that, according to Wikipedia, “commemorates the legend of the goddess Parvati offering her son, Murugan a divine spear so he could vanquish the asura Surapadman and his brothers”. Admittedly, we have no idea what that means. But every year a huge crowd – upwards of 1 million people – gathers in Penang to have a huge festival where they carry chariots through the streets, eat a lot of food, listen to music, and eventually hike to a temple. In Penang the parade started at 6am with the chariot leaving a temple downtown and taking all day to get to the temple on the hill. 
Our group showed up at 8am and the chariot hadn’t made it very far yet. The crowd was so excited and welcoming, we got a whole bunch of free food and drinks, and we joined the festivities for a few hours.

The most interesting part was along the parade route, they stack hundreds of coconuts and people smash them on the ground for good luck. We asked a few people about it and they said last year if you asked the gods for something and smashed one coconut and it came true, then this year you have to smash two coconuts if you want more luck. Imagine that logic compounding year after year – it leads to thousands of coconuts being smashed!

The other very notable thing John and I saw later that night was a group of people walking through the streets. At first we didn’t give them much thought but then we saw that one of them had metal loops pierced all through their back and a person behind him was holding ropes attached to the loops. It was shocking, and to be honest pretty disturbing, and we had no idea if it was related to the festival or a protest or what. We ended up asking our Uber driver about it the next day and he said it is part of the festival and people prepare for it for the entire year leading up. Supposedly if you are prepared and your body is “clean” enough (based on a set of rules about food and mindset mostly it seems) the metal loops don’t hurt you at all. As crazy as it sounds, right after we saw the guy one of the first things John and I both said was how calm and at peace the guy with the hooks in his back looked. It’s one of those things I never would have believed if I hadn’t seen it for myself – a very unique experience!

The Sites

Georgetown is a really cute town with lots of character. One of the coolest things about it is all of the street art. It’s so famous that UNESCO has a heritage walk that takes you all around the city to view the most famous pieces. Our group did most of that walk one night after dinner, and it was definitely worth it!

Not far from the city is Penang Hill, a beautiful viewpoint you can take a train up to. We enjoyed the views and then watched a group of monkeys while trying to eat our disgusting Ais Kacang. It was a good time!
Not far from Penang Hill is the Kek Lok Si Temple. Located on top of a hill itself, it boasts a huge Buddha surrounded by probably a hundred smaller Buddha statues. It was beautiful!

Teluk Bahang

Before leaving Penang island, John and I said goodbye to our little friend group and decided to stay a few nights outside of Georgetown on the north side by Penang National Park. Unfortunately due to my hurt knee and the fact that I wasn’t feeling well, I had to sit out the park. But I asked John to sum up his experience and he said “Pretty beaches, nice views, and warm water, but really hot, full of monkeys, and lots of trash on the beach.” So mixed reviews.
The town itself was very cute and small. It’s the first place we’ve stayed where the call to prayer from the local mosque was very present and it woke us up every morning. We could have done without that!

The Hospital

Unfortunately Penang was also home to our third hospital visit of the trip. After a rough day of nausea, I got a very high fever and started feeling way worse (note that the day started out with John running around town trying to find me crutches because my knee kept getting worse. When it rains it pours!!) The Tylenol didn’t seem to help and we worried it was Dengue fever so figured we better be safe than sorry (shout-out to travel insurance for making that an easy decision). The hospital was a brutal 45 min long windy road away. After some blood tests they ruled out Dengue fever but said I had some unknown infection. They gave me antibiotics and sent me on my way. The problem was it was still Thaipusam, and most the streets around the hospital were closed and we couldn’t find a taxi. Thankfully, we met a local guy the night before at dinner and he told us to let him know if we needed anything. He probably hadn’t anticipated we would call him at midnight the next night stranded at a hospital, but he didn’t hesitate and offered to come pick us up himself. We got a hotel very close by (we didn’t make him drive us all the way back to the other town), and we are so grateful for the kindness of this essential stranger. It was a rough night but he made it a little easier!
After a few days I felt a lot better….. temporarily. Stay tuned 🙂

Christine