It’s a Jungle Out There: Taman Negara

Before heading back to Kuala Lumpur, we decided to spend a few days in the jungle at Taman Negara, which is considered to be the world’s oldest tropical rainforest. After a 4 hour minivan ride, we took a two hour boat ride down the river in one of these:

The scenery was beautiful, but after sitting on a hard bench for 2 hours, we were ready to get off the water and start exploring.

Before entering the jungle, we were greeted by this guy, a male pheasant, described by the sign as being “much more beautiful than female pheasants.” Sexist, yes, but I have to agree:

We continued on our way into the rainforest, with one goal in mind- The Canopy Walkway. Of it’s kind, it’s the world’s longest, winding over 400 meters in the forest canopy and running 25 meters above the ground. It’s broken up into 5 sections, here we go:

In addition to walking amid the treetops, we went on a few longer hikes. Here’s the view from the top of Bukit Terasek:

Along the way, we came across many disturbingly large bugs, here are just a few:

Centipedes/Milipedes

Army Ants

It was great to explore a new part of Malaysia, but after a few days, we were itching to get back to Kuala Lumpur for some serious eating and celebrating.

Goodbye lizard!

Cameron Highlands Highlights

For the past few days, Morgan and I have been staying in the bucolic Cameron Highlands. Our humble abode, an upstairs cubbyhole in the very inexpensive Twin Pines Guest House:

Unlike much of Malaysia, it’s quite cool here, perfect for the following activities:

Exploring tea plantations and sipping cups of the local brew, while gazing out at gorgeous views.

Visiting strawberry farms and seeing the unique way strawberries are grown here. For the past decade or so, Malaysian strawberries haven’t gone in the ground. Rather, they’ve been grown in bags of ground coconut husks, suspended on workbench-ish contraptions. The coconut husks are apparently very absorbent, and easy to get find. The strawberries here taste fresher and better than most at home, as these never leave Malaysia.

Forest strolls along the multitude of paths that lie deep in the woods.

Ridiculous photo shoots with the concrete statues in the rose and cactus garden.

Cooking “steamboat” dinners, a regional specialty, using two different broths (a milder chicken and a spicier tom yum) and many types of fish, meat and veggies.

Finding new favorite candies from the local candy store. All of the above was purchased for a mere ringgit, approximately 33 cents.

We’re catching an early bus tomorrow to the jungle, before heading back to Kuala Lumpur for Chinese New Year. We’ve had a lot of fun, but are ready to move on to new places.

Malay Menagerie: Monkeys!

After leaving Penang, we took a short bus ride to the beautiful town of Taiping. We had heard there were a beautiful set of lake gardens, with neatly manicured paths and rolling hills.

Sample:

What we hadn’t heard, was that these gardens were also home to a multitude of monkeys! You can imagine our excitement to be only a few feet from:

Monkeys on bridges!

Monkeys under trees!

Monkeys surrounded by trash!

I’ll close with the second of our highly amateurish, but hopefully entertaining videos. Enjoy!

Penang: The Eats

Malaysians are crazy about food, and Penang is the food capital of Malaysia.  Centuries of trade and immigration have led to a melting pot cuisine – mingling Straits Chinese, Indian and traditional Malay flavors – that is absolutely delicious.

Penang is noted for it’s hawkers.  They’re often found in big food courts, with a bunch of food stalls and lots of tables.  Each stall tends to specialize in one or two dishes.  You order your food and sit down – somehow, the guy at the stall remembers your face and brings over your food in a few minutes.  Here are a few food courts:

Two of my favorite hawker dishes:

 

Loh Bak, above, are deep fried goodies.  The two standouts are the Chinese pork sausages wrapped in a dried tofu skin (the crinkly dark golden brown guys towards the bottom, just to the right of the cucumber) and the light, crispy prawn fritters (disc-shaped blond guys on the top of the pile).  At the stall, you pick a bunch of stuff off trays, they fry it up to order, then bring it over to your table.  The two little bowls in the back are also key; one contains a savory brown/black tapioca flour mixture cooked with egg, some 5-spice powder and dark soya sauce, the other is a sweet-ish chili sauce to give it some kick.  Gille prefers the savory, while I like the spicy.

Above is Mee Goreng, a fried noodle of Indian descent.  This dish is yellow egg noodles fried up in a savory brown gravy made with garlic, shallots, curry paste and dried fish.  The goreng above is (according to the newspaper articles pasted to the guy’s stall) famous throughout Penang for it’s squid sambal.  After the noodles are cooked and plated, a big spoonful of a sweet, salty gravy made with dried squid is spooned on top.  The whole thing was delicious – nicely toothsome fresh noodles bursting with spice from the curry paste, and pleasantly salty from the squid.  If you like anchovies and Indian food, you’ll love this.

We also ate a lot of Indian food in Penang.  There were a ton of South Indian lunch places serving a half dozen vegetable curries and rice scooped directly onto a banana leaf.  A guy in Little India sold 1 ringgit (30 cent) samosas that were unbelievable – I think we consumed, on average, two or three a day.

I’ll leave you with this sweet vision: dozens of pounds of pork belly curing in the sun.

Penang: The Sites

After a lovely bit of relaxation at Koh Jom, we continued on to Penang.  It was a long day: two hours crammed in the back of an extended cab pick up, two hours on a bus with Thai pop songs cranked to 11, then four hours in a packed mini bus from Hat Yai to Penang.  Our mini bus driver stopped twice to make some sort of hand off/transaction to dudes on motor scooters.  This is the kind of thing appears to be standard practice – the few natives on the mini bus didn’t even flinch.

Anyways, Penang is incredible.  By far the most compelling city we’ve visited.  It’s got a gritty, colonial look that’s very attractive.  Mostly two story buildings with shuttered windows and a ground floor set back from a portico-ed walkway:

The tourist sites – forts, temples and the like – have been interesting.  Here are some highlights:

Above and below is Fort Cornwallis, on the northeast corner of Penang Island.  It’s one of the island’s original structures, built by Captain Francis Light, the founder of Penang. 

Our favorite Fort Cornwallis Anecdote: Capt. Light apparently exhorted his sailors to clear the island of brush by firing a cannon load of silver coins into the wilderness.

 

Sweet barrel-soldier.

This is Khoo Kongsi, a Chinese Clan House.  The Fujianese are really big on ancestor worship.  The Khoo Clan, an extremely wealthy bunch of Fujianiese traders and merchants, built this extravagant clan house to honor their ancestors in 1906. 

My Favorite Khoo Khongsi Anecdote: The men of the Khoo Clan gathered in 1835 and decided to build a clan house.  Donations were collected.  For ten-plus years, nothing was done.  The money was invested until they had enough capital to construct an adequate clan house, opened in 1851.  For some reason, I just can’t picture this happening today.

We’ll have more about the Penang’s food in the coming days.  It’s been the best of our trip so far.

The Best of Street Snacks- Drinks Edition: Penang

Kickapoo Joy Juice: I initially bought this guy on a whim. With such a funny name, how could I not try it? However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it tasted delicious- like Sprite but more citrusy, and it quickly became a must-drink. Sold in all restaurants and bodegas (well 7-11s), it’s easy to come by and is surprisingly refreshing.

Coconut Milkshake: While eating lunch on our first day in Penang, I noticed a young man rushing these delicious treats to nearly every table in the food hall. Seeing as they were so popular, I knew I needed to figure out what the buzz was all about. One sip was all it took- creamy, cool, sweet, a winning combination. Ice + fresh coconut + coconut water + 1 scoop of Vanilla ice cream = heaven. You may find me peddling these in Chicago, come summer, as the rest of the US needs to know what they’re missing out on.

Iced Coffee: We were first introduced to SE Asian style iced coffee in Thailand. By adding sweetened condensed milk, it’s much sweeter than the ice coffee I drink at home; often tasting more like coffee milk than coffee. However, a new addition in Penang was the handy wrist strap. We saw countless vendors with their drinks hanging off the sides of their carts, so they could snag a sip between filling orders. Unlike Thailand, where this treat can be found all day long, in Malaysia it seems to be more exclusively a morning drink, and can be trickier to find later in the day.

Vavavoom! Koh Jum

Problem: Our remaining beach time in Southern Thailand was limited. We wanted to find a place where we could relax without tourists, read to our hearts content and spend much time swimming and sunning.

Solution: Koh Jum

We had only planned on staying for 2-3 days, but we ended up staying for 4 nights. To get to this little piece of paradise, you take a bus to a ferry to a long tail boat:

Choose a not so humble bungalow in which to dwell:

And the rest will take care of itself. A sampler of activities from the past few days:

shell collecting

sunny snorkling

seaside reading

scooting around the island

by the end of our stay, we felt relaxed, rejuvenated and ready to head to malaysia. in short, like this: