Food, Religions, Nature and Wildlife (aka monkeys and huge lizards) of Penang

I haven’t blogged this week because my keyboard on my laptop broke. It was sad. I debated bringing my awesome laptop to Thailand for months before we left. I was really happy I decided to bring it until my “t” stopped working. Well at least it’s nothing 250 baht couldn’t fix. I now have a shinny new external keyboard. Bright green complete with Thai and English letters! This blog will contain all the T’s that my heart desires. TTTTTTT  J

Our trip to Penang, Malaysia was quite nice. I really enjoyed it. In order for Thailand to process our visas we had to leave the country so we had to go to Penang Malaysia where our schools sent the paperwork to the consulate for us. We made the most of our time and explored the lovely island.

Here’s a little Penang information. It’s a city in Northern Peninsular Malaysia. It is part on an island and part on the mainland. The longest bridge in Asia connects the mainland and the island. We spent all our time on the island because islands are awesome. Many cultures have tried to make Penang their colony including; England, China and India. The island had so many cultural influences it made it a unique place to visit. I’m sure we didn’t get the full Malaysian culture experience but we sure had a nice time talking to the locals in ENGLISH and eating amazing Indian, Chinese and Malaysian food.

I really enjoyed the food in Penang. Thai food is awesome but eating it for three meals everyday gets to be a lot. I can only eat so much rice, grease and sodium. That’s not all that Thai food is but it’s a lot of what I find to eat out there on the streets of Nakhon. It was refreshing to try new foods. Indian food is awesome. I think what I liked most about Indian food is the fact that their religion doesn’t allow them to eat pork or beef so all the meat was delicious white meat chicken. Not random parts of pigs or cows I don’t want to eat let alone want in my soup, like here in Thailand. While the food was awesome so was exploring the island.

The first day in Penang we bought a bus pass and started off to see the island. We took the bus to Penang Hill. I mentioned it a bit in my “Quick hello from Penang” blog. It was a super steep train ride to the top with incredible 360 degree views of the island. I am glad we decided to spend the sixty Malaysian ringgit ($20 USD) to get to the top of the hill.

View from Penang Hill

Later that day we visited a mosque. I had to enter on a separate entrance and wear a long black robe to cover my entire body. The women have a tiny prayer room compared to the men. Also a man was talking to Andrew forever and at first I thought I wasn’t allowed to talk to them because I was a woman. After waiting for a while I went up to them again and realized it was ok. But the first time I went up to them another guy told me to walk along the sides of the mosque, like I wasn’t supposed to stop and talk to men inside. Islam is an interesting religion.

Since the island has so many different cultural influences we saw many types of religious worship areas. Buddhist Temples from Thailand, Burma and China, Hindu temples from India and Islamic mosques from India. I think I already said some of this in my last blog but as the teacher in me knows repetition means you learn it!

The next day we saw a beautiful floating mosque. The mosque was built over the ocean and was absolutely beautiful. Again I wore long black robes plus put my scarf over my head to cover my whole body and entered from the women’s entrance and saw the smaller women’s prayer room. This room didn’t even have a view of the ocean like the men’s awesome prayer room. I’m still trying to understand the rights of Muslim women. And I’m also not trying to offend anyone with these statements; I am just stating what I saw. Actually the guy Andrew was talking to in the first Mosque was leading a conversation on how Christianity and Islam are very similar religions.  Not sure where the women’s rights got lost.

Floating Mosque

Covered up less than some of the women(hair) the random bulge is my purse. 

After we saw the mosque we went to a nearby beach and cooled off in the water. I have a list of oceans I have swum in going. It’s almost ten! This swim added the Malaysian Straight to my list. After the beach we bought some fresh orange and lime juice. Then waited for the bus at a place the juice makers said was the bus stop. But after twenty minutes of waiting a bus drove by and wouldn’t stop. We then learned it was in fact not a bus stop. So we walked on the narrow winding highway to the Tropical Spice Garden. It was probably a kilometer or two walk but was pretty scary because we were pretty much walking in traffic. In my month in Asia I have learned that walking in traffic is a necessary evil so I am learning how to do it. It gets less scary as time goes at least until you see a crazy driver.

Actually the drivers on Penang weren’t too bad. Most people I saw on motorbikes actually wore their helmets instead of just keeping a helmet on their bike in case they see a cop or not having a helmet at all, like here in Nakhon/Thailand. I also noticed the people in Penang were much quicker workers. For example, we went to a guest-house and asked to see the room before we paid. We wanted to see it because it was a cheap place and to test the hardness of the bed. The guy literally ran us to the room so we could see it then ran back down. If this event were in Thailand the person would have leisurely walked us there and talked to us for five minutes in our room before slowly returning to work. This example also applies to food service as well. The street vendors just worked faster. While this reminded me more of home, it also led me to appreciate the laid back attitude Thais have. Their attitude is so refreshing. I think a lot of people could benefit from adopting some of the “mai bien rai” attitude (translation: never mind, no worries)

The Tropical Spice Garden was very nice and beautiful we saw really cool plants and enjoyed walking through the forest. Sadly since our home has no kitchen we did not get any spices. I miss cooking! Although it is quite nice to not have to worry about the chopping and the clean up for the same price or less that I could cook a meal at home. Thailand is quite nice for skipping out on chores that are necessary in the states. Laundry here is pretty awesome. We just hand our bag of dirty clothes to the land lady and she’ll wash, dry, fold and iron the clothes. It’s between $2 and $4 USD per week for this, depending on the amount of clothes. Not bad because it saves the hassle of finding a washer, somewhere to hang dry the clothes and folding them and having wrinkled clothes at work because I sure wouldn’t buy an iron while I live here for only a short time. I told my mom about how laundry and food is in Thailand and she wants to move here.

 The next day we took the bus to the national forest. Right next to the entrance to the national forest is a floating fishing village. The only way to the village is by boat but we walked on the pier to see it closer. It looks like an interesting life to live in a house on the water with beautiful views of the national forest and the ocean right outside your home.

Andrew sitting on the dock. The floating fishing village is in the background.

Walking through the national forest was awesome. We only went about two kilometers in and back but we saw monkeys, beaches, forests and huge lizards the size of Andrew’s leg! The first ½ of a kilometer was paved and easy but once we crossed a bridge we entered the real forest. Walking through this real forest in sandals was quite entertaining. Luckily I bought some awesome Birkenstocks at the weekend market in Bangkok and they were comfortable and easy to walk in. This kind of walk was more of a dance than walking. I say dance because you have to step in strategic ways much like dance moves to step around mud, over tree roots, on stones, and away from bushes. I want to go back with the correct shoes and clothing and explore. By the end of the walk I was sweating like crazy. Not because I was breathing hard but because I was moving in the heat and humidity that is South East Asia. I am quite used to sweating like crazy here. Luckily this summer at home in California I did a bit of Bikram Yoga and am very used to looking like I showered in sweat. Gross but fact.

After the national forest, we ate the best Indian food from a street vendor. They made us the Indian version of crepes, I forget what it was called. We had a savory one with veggies and a sweet  one with bananas and chocolate. Then we ordered a fresh coconut and fresh lime juice. We were very excited to put the lime in the coconut and twist it all up.  Indian food in Penang made me want to go to India on our next break from school. Eastern India is quite close to Thailand and we should be able to fly there for less than $200 USD. Not bad if you ask me. Hopefully we will make it happen. It’s actually hard because our schools have slightly different breaks.

Not wanting the day to be over we tried to take the bus to another activity but some busses stopped running at that time of day then we waited for an hour for another bus and by time we got to the next place, the Penang Botanical Gardens, it was dark and creepy so we went back to the hotel. Luckily we went back to the botanical gardens the next morning before we got our visas and returned to Thailand.

The botanical gardens were awesome. The place is beautiful and green. We walked around for about an hour. We took beautiful pictures with the low battery camera. On our walk out of the park just after the camera died. We literally walked past a group of twenty monkeys. There were five cute monkey babies! Some of the monkey moms saw people walk by so they had their babies hold on to them by hanging upside down holding onto her back while she walked on all fours. The older male monkeys walked around scraping a rock on the ground. We were an arms length away from these monkeys. I knew all weekend when we noticed the battery on the camera was low on Penang Hill on our first day that once the battery died we would see something awesome and I was right. Now I know I should bring my six-year -old camera on trips as back up or the charger for Andrew’s newer nicer one. Maybe packing extremely light isn't always the best idea.

One of our last pictures. Yes we are adorable but wouldn't a picture of twenty monkeys be cooler, if only we knew.

After the botanical gardens we had our last hurrah with the bus system in Penang by walking for twenty minutes looking for the bus stop to take us to the hotel. We made it back just in time to pick up our passports now each with an awesome page sized sticker from the Thai government granting us our non-immigrant B visas. Then we hopped on the mini van to head back into Thailand.

This bus was full of other travelers. Which was quite a change from the vans we take from our home Thai town of Nakhon. It was nice to talk to them. One girl from Korea told me I looked like Kirsten Dunst. That’s one I’ve never heard and I think it’s just how it works, you see someone and try to compare them to someone you know, or something? We also talked to her about interesting military stories from Korea.

Talking about the mini van from Malaysia with the travelers reminds me of what happened just before all our fun in Penang. Our bus from Nakhon not only transported people, it doubled as a UPS delivery service. We kept stopping along the way to pick up packages and drop off packages. On one of the stops one of the boxes started falling out of the van. This wet cardboard box had developed a hole so out fell the contents. Ah this just shows the laid back attitude of Thais right here. Inside this box were crabs. Live crabs. Like to cook and eat. So the driver and a passerby on the street pick the crabs back up and put them back into the box and off we drove to deliver those. Soon after the driver needed to get a box from under my seat. This box had strategic holes in it, so who knows what was alive under my seat the entire three hour ride. Luckily I sit with my feet up most of the time. It makes me laugh. The crabs were delivered to city called Hat Yai. We spent the night in Hat Yai, Thailand on Monday night after our adventure in Penang because we arrived to late to catch a connected mini van to Nakhon.  Guess what we ate for dinner in Hat Yai? BBQ crab. A whole BBQ crab. We wonder if we delivered that very crab a few days before.

Taking a week off from blogging is overwhelming, there’s so much to say! I have one week left of vacation then I start working! I am excited to start earning money again as well as to get to know my students! For now I’m off to help Andrew with his lesson planning for his middle school students!  

-Jenny