The alarm buzzed at 6am waking us from a deep sleep. We have been going to bed at about midnight after enjoying a casual singalong style of entertainment each night in the Crooner Bar. Tonya Scott is a young stunning looking woman who has a range of covers that she sings along to as she plays the baby grand. She has an endearing manner and welcomes each person, couple or group as they enter the bar, often in the middle of her song. With a cheery wave she calls out "the New Zealanders are here". She knows people by name and often mucks up a bit of a song and just stops and laughs and replays it. It makes for an easy evening and she has a great voice.
There is one man who comes in who is quite odd, we’ll call him Tom. Because actually that’s his name. He just walks in and moves the chair from our table without asking if it is free, plonks it in the middle and sits there by himself all night. Everyone else is laughing and chatting and singing along and he just sits there. Sometimes he will call out for her to play a song but it is usually something obscure.
Back on track in Penang. We sat on our balcony with a cuppa and phone service as the ship glided into port. There were many huge container ships moored or slipping past and in the middle of these was one tiny fishing boat. It was just getting light and the sky scrapers were silhouettes on the sky line, but the funny thing was that there were no lights on in any of the buildings.
The port is very close to the city, about a 5 minute walk, but once again we had a tour organized and our first stop was the markets. At last we felt like we were in Malaysia! Shuffling down narrow streets we were rubbing elbows with old women all bent and wrinkled, families out for breakfast and traders. The wet market was the best and was inside. The tiled floor was clean and the only smell was the fresh briney smell of the sea. Chinese, Indian and Malays were working with the fish, mutton and beef chopping, scaling and slicing. I felt a bit like I was in the middle of Rick Stein’s cooking show.
Everyone was friendly even though they knew that we would not be making a purchase. Back outside there was hot and fresh food. We would have loved to have sampled more and felt that we would be fine as everything was being cooked on the spot. Chestnuts roasting, samosas sizzling and noodles flipping. Even flat white spring roll wrappers were being made on the spot. Lance managed to nip in and buy us some sort of hot puffy fried bread. It was light and crisp with seasame seeds through it. We wish we had bought more than one. And it was only one ringgit which is about 33cents.
Our guide had been telling us about the nutmeg and seemed quite excited about it. You could see that everyone was thinking the same thing. We know about nutmeg. But this was a bit different and looked like a small hard peach crossed with a nashi pear. The stall holder told us that it was not only good in food but also medicinally. I have been suffering from a chesty cough since the middle of December and since I have been on board it has become much worse. I sound like I smoke two packs a day and have been really wheezy. There are a lot of others in the ship with the same thing. I don’t know if I have caught a new bug or if they have all caught mine! Anyway I have purchased some nutmeg balm and will rub it on my chest tonight. Another couple on our tour who are Chinese said that it is best if you catch it at the beginning. But I’ll give it a go.
After the market we had a quick visit to the botanical gardens which were lush and tropical with little monkeys and big lizards. Whilst it is pretty hot the humidity doesn’t seem as high as in Singapore or KL.
Next stop was little India which was very clean but not as colorful as I thought it might be. The music was booming in the street and I actually wanted to put my hands over my ears as I passed one head high speaker. We walked on footpaths and on the road, cars, bikes and people all making way for each other. At one point I was about to walk next to a small truck and there was a man lying on the ground. He was coughing and was obviously either unwell or injured. A couple of local people were standing watching him but no one seemed to be going to his aid. I just had to turn my head and keep walking. Hope he is okay.
After a quick stop at a temple where people were giving thanks and prayers with incense and flowers our tour was over.
We really wanted to try some local food so we wandered down to a hawker stand by the port. We had no idea what to order so Lance took a seat and I found the longest queue. Actually no one was queuing anywhere else so I guessed that this was a good choice. After about 25 minutes I plucked up enough courage to ask the people in front of me what I was queuing for and they said squid. So I ended up with some squid goreng and some passambur which I was told has a lot of stuff with a peanut sauce on it. By this time I was drenched in sweat. My eyes were stinging as it dropped down my forehead.
We didn’t like it. Both had a sweet smokey sort of flavour. I was worried about the squid but it was all sort of dried up so I thought that there couldn’t be much bacteria left. I ate some just to say that I had tried it and we wandered back to the ship. We truely feel like we have had a Penang experience and highly recommended a visit. I just would have liked a Penang curry. But maybe it is like butter chicken and isn’t a local fish.
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