We have welcomed our first visitors to Penang this week! Friends from Portland took advantage of a work trip to China and made a side trip to visit Malaysia. We’ll be heading to Tioman, famed tropical location for the film South Pacific, at the end of their stay, so first took in a few of the sites around George Town.
Somehow, but not very surprisingly, our itinerary evolved into one focused on where and when we would be eating copious amounts of local fare, so we stuck close to old town.
The Penang Base of Dr. Sun Yat Sen was our first stop, followed by the Yap Temple and the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion. We found time to dig into an indian lunch feast at Kapitan's in Little India along the way.
We also admired many of the things that give Penang its character – deeply tanned trishaw drivers, fragrant hawker food, colorful shop wares, careening motor scooters, temples of every faith, and people of all nationalities. These all stand shoulder to shoulder along jam-packed streets.
Over a myriad of offerings from the hawker food center in Batu Ferrenghi that night, our friends expressed surprise and delight about how authentic it felt and not very touristy. Like George Town hadn’t been ‘Disney-fied’ or altered to the point that everything feels fake, frozen in time, or sterile. We couldn’t have agreed more.
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