Malaynutrition

I like getting local insight into places I visit, and in Malaysia more than anywhere else, people have been pointing me towards the food I should be eating, rather than highlighting tourist attractions, activities or the best budget brothels (these placed further down the list).

I'm not exactly a food connoisseur, but I'm getting better at treating eating as an enjoyable activity rather than a biological necessity to be taken care of as cheaply and expediently as possible. While this means I probably miss out by not fully appreciating (or even noticing) some excellent cuisine when I chomp it down, it also luckily means I haven't developed any annoying preferences or eating habits that would restrict my options. I am truly game for anything, even if the results are sometimes bloody disgusting.

I should have paid more attention to the great local food I was eating in Taiwan, but this was tricky considering my substandard Mandarin meant I couldn't even read the menus, and I had to resort to pointing at walls and enjoying my mystery dinners. But since I've been in Malaysia (and evidently developing some form of obsessive compulsive disorder if you've seen my blogs lately), I thought I'd give this Malayzin' food the attention it deserves.

The Secret of Monkey Beach

So it turns out Penang is really nice once you get out of Georgetown, which means my new favourite hobby of visiting remote corners of tropical islands and hanging out with the local monkeys didn't have to stop when I crossed the Malaysian border. Not when the cheeky rascals have a whole beach dedicated to them in Penang National Park.

Those unfamiliar with LucasArts' classic 1990 adventure game The Secret of Monkey IslandTM may find that some of the more obscure references go over your heads. So much the same as usual then.

Look at photos.

By George! (Town)

This is what The Real Georgetown looks like: no pavements, typical Asian traffic and charming open-air sewers making their valuable contributions to the fascinating bouquet of disgusting smells. Welcome to Penang!

But it isn't all bad, especially when you head to the Historic City of George Town World Heritage Site (wow, UNESCO really hands these things out) where Malay, Chinese, Arabic, Indian and colonial influences mix on every street, and cultures from all over the world get together to celebrate their different, incorrect beliefs (don't you know Raëlism is the true faith? Stupid earthlings).

So plug up your nose, look upwards and share the wonders I've seen. (It's mainly old buildings and stuff). This is what happens when you give a detailed tourist map to a borderline obsessive person with an afternoon to fill.