The Pearl of the Orient

Penang has certainly lived up to its nickname, The Pearl of the Orient. It's a city like no other I've ever been to. People like us come here because of the food. I must say that for me, this place equals or surpasses the other great food destinations I've been to; Oaxaca, Tuscany, Thailand and South India. Here in Penang you have so many cultures in one place, you can have great food from many parts of the world; Chinese, Indian, Thai and of course Malay. You can have a delicious dish of Mutton Chettinad on one block in Little India, listening to the latest Bollywood soundtrack, and walk over a couple of blocks and you will be in a giant hawker mall with stalls selling Fish Head Curry, Chicken Claypot Rice and Assam Laksa to the sound of Chinese pop music. Many of these hawker stalls have been around for 20, 30, 40 years and more; families handing down their recipes from one generation to the next. Talk about perfecting a dish! The food here wakes up tastebuds you never knew you had and goes rights to the nether regions of your palate. I guarantee you will experience favors here you didn't know existed

But Penang is much more than the food. Certainly that's a big part and the local people are very proud of their culinary tradition. It's also home to some of the kindest people we have met on our journeys. Many times Amy and I would be sitting somewhere enjoying a meal and the person next to us would strike up a conversation. Where are you from? What brings you to Penang? How do you like it? Are you enjoying our food? Pretty soon we would be learning about their lives, what it's like living here, what kind of travels they've been on themselves, etc. Several times they insisted on buying a dish for us and on one of those occasions the people were not rich, but they just wanted to welcome us to their country.

The highlight of the entire trip was staying with the Chew Family at Chew Jetty Homestay (www.mychewjetty.com). And the best time to be with them was for Chinese New Year when the entire Jetty decorates their homes and celebrates for two weeks. Firecrackers, fireworks, lion dances, you name it, it was happening on the Jetty. Siew Pheng, our lovely host, was so generous with her knowledge of life in Penang and on the Jetty and she was always right on when she suggested a restaurant or a certain Hawker stall. Sitting on their little balcony, over the outgoing tide at sunrise, was a magical experience and one I will treasure always.

The city of Georgetown is also home to some of the most beautiful buildings you'll see anywhere. While the east side of the island, from the airport to very near downtown, the island is chockablock with high rise apartments and office buildings and is not all that beautiful. But downtown has been declared a Unesco World Heritage Site. This will protect this amazing place from developers that would destroy it. Wandering down the alleyways is a marvel, with the old shophouses, many of them 100 years old and more and occupied by the same families for decades. Some have been restored into boutique hotels and nice restaurants. Many of the old mansions have fallen into disrepair, but many others have been restored to their original glory. One we saw today, the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion, is amazing and they brought in special artisans from China that know how to do very unusual sculpture.

It's not a perfect place, for sure. At certain times each day, the traffic is just awful. It's getting way too crowded (like most of Asia) and many places, especially the north coast beach area, have been mostly ruined by overdevelopment. The ocean is pretty dirty and I wouldn't swim in it. And in one of the most horrible faux pas, in the land of Hokkien Mee and Char Koay Tao, the airport's restaurants are a McDonald's and a KFC!!! But these are minor complaints as long as you just know what parts of the island to avoid.

As we sit here in the Singapore airport, waiting for our long flight home, I'm already dreaming of coming back someday in the not to distant future. I can only stay away from a good bowl of Assam Laksa so long!