22nd July - Penang

Despite learning in China that there is very little that I like about Chinese food, we somehow ended up having breakfast at Chinese place. Turns out that even toast and porridge are gross!

We went to Penang State Museum and learned about the multi-cultural origins of island. There was lots to look at and read but the really fun bit was finding the dressing up section. My second 'discovery' of the day was that Matt suits a fez, wrap and blazer combo - who'da thunk it? It was especially fun because we were soon joined by a young guy from the museum who took great pleasure in dressing us.

We headed back through little India for lunch and enjoyed a South Indian thali whilst thinking of Nic and our jaunt to Kerala.

There was a shuttle bus that circled the city but we waited for it for quite a while and it didn't show. Determined not to be thwarted, we set off on foot, looking for some of the places of interest on the tourist map. We saw lots of Chinese temples and mosques as well as a few interesting colonial-style buildings. We also discovered a street art installation type thing with a bike stuck to a wall with kids painted on the the wall itself and a phone box with 'fitting room' graffitied on the front and a guy changing spray-painted inside.

Shortly after stumbled across a flea market and Matt enjoyed wandering around looking for new cables to replace the ones that he left at Silver Sands in Koh Tao. Compared to car-boots back home, the people had very little on their stalls but it was still interesting to nosy at what people were getting rid of.

We headed back to the sea front to look at some of the buildings there and stopped for a cold drink. I tried chrysanthemum tea (not a fan) and Matt had 'lychee juice' - which was actually just the syrup out of a tin of lychees!

We visited Fort Cornwallis but didn't feel like reading the nonsensical boards so just enjoyed exploring the gunpowder store (shaped like a teletubby house), the cannons, the spooky, empty chapel and the prison. The fort was built for admin purposes not defense which was lucky 'cos it was tiny, though apparently it's the largest standing fort in Malaysia.

We sat outside the fort for a while, watching a tall Western lad play basketball with bunch of Indian kids and decided to spend our evening searching out some of the dishes outlined in a leaflet we discovered about how great Penang food is.

We found and tried Roti Canai, a soft, fluffy roti served on a banana leaf with a dash of curry; Mee Goreng, fried noodles in a thick, spicy tomato gravy with tofu and  stewed squid (apparently but we couldn't find any); Ais Kacang, shaved ice with sweetened syrups, jelly, condensed milk and sweetcorn (all of Asia seems to think it's a fruit and they put it in sundaes at McDonald's - they also do a sweetcorn rather than apple pie!). It also contained pearl barley instead of the traditional 'sweetened red beans' but I'm not sure if that's an improvement or not!