la merde en direct: me and you and a dog named boo

Idea for this road trip was born during the exams when I found out that Jullian would be heading back to Penang for the holidays. Plus, air tickets to Bangkok were too expensive. I had also wanted to improve on my spoken Malay, and where else better than to do it in the land of the Truly-Asia?

Thus on a very stormy 2 May (Wednesday) morning, I began my road trip up. First went over to CCK to pick up Cheuk Fong (CF). We had actually driven over to Mont Blanc together before so this trip looked like a longer version of our previous trip.

The drive up was quite uneventful. Fueled by horror stories regularly published by our own Straits Times, I had braced myself for drive-by shootouts at the rest stops, murders and the like. But nothing of that happened and I managed to eat my Dunkin' Donuts in peace at Sungei Buloh. The plan was to get to Penang ASAP before the evening peak hour traffic. Well, I need not have worried much, since we hit the bridge at about 1430, meaning that the trip up took 7 hours (we left at 0730). Sweet.

Some tips for those of you who may want to drive up to Penang or the NSH in general:
1. Keep to the left at toll stations. The ones on the right are for Touch and Go (MY's version of the ez-link) users only. Having to reverse would be a highly stressful and embarrassing situation.
2. Bring enough ringgit. Exchange rate at the toll counters is 1-1. Highly unfavorable.
3. Total toll one way up to Penang is about RM100.
4. Always ask for a receipt.
5. Keep left unless overtaking. Ikut kiri kecuali memotong in malay. Highly obvious, but often taken for granted.
6. A&W at Ayer Keroh. Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin Robbins at Sungei Buloh. Actually quite alot of other rest stops have them, but I do not have their names.

rainy weather ahead. lots of mist.

things brightened up considerably later on

one tree hill

Dunkin' Donuts! Boy do I love those sugar raises!

interesting billboards along the way

first views of the bridge and penang

Met up with Jullian after crossing the bridge. Went to his place which was at Bayan Lapar (west of Penang). Amazingly met Ben from ME in Penang too! He went up with his family and his two younger sisters were there too.. Woot! Rest of the day was just spent catching up on lunch and dinner, and sleeping. We had to wake up at 0200 the next morning for the Man U match!

my first meal in Penang - fried rice

dessert

they have Paulaner's in Penang too! Cheerios!

First day proper was spent wandering around in Georgetown, the main commercial district in Penang. Jullian brought us too all the famous hawker stalls. Food was a good way to get over the devastating loss to AC that very morning. Sigh.

I can't really blog the tastes or the smells of the food so I guess you just have to make do with photos! Haha.

took a bus down to town. damn retro bus.

CF and me

from the back of the bus

georgetown

Penang assam laksa..

.. eaten in a retro kopitiam like this!

thereafter we went for chendol

large crowd just milling about and eating

you tiao!

penang char koay teow! not the one in yellow.. the one on the plate!

dinner at Jalan Penang

Some views of Georgetown:

bright sunny day

Rolex!

KOMTAR

Bored of eating so much, CF decided to get his hair cut at one of the malls. I went to get some tausarpiah then went to look for him. Amazingly while waiting for him to be done.. This happened:

going to be baked

result

How? You can't really see the colour in here but I guarantee it looks "flammier" in real life! Yaay.. I love the Human Torch look! =D Always wanted to feel what would it be like to be ang-moh. Ok lah I had to pay RM60 for the chance to be ang-moh, but who said you can't? Anyway I'll be returning to Singapore as FT! Crikey!

Day 2 we headed down to Batu Ferranghi, which literally means White Man's Rock. So in a way I was on home ground. Drove over and I parked (quite illegally) at the Shangri-la resort. Went to the beach but there was nothing much to do except for expensive water sports. So we got ourselves some deckchairs to get some tanning done. More hotel-hopping and then we headed to the botanic gardens.

The botanic gardens were not really much of a park. Just a less polluted part of town. Walked around and CF got really excited over the flowers again. Hop over to his blog if you want to look at the photos he took; I'm not going to post any of them here.

Went to Queensbay mall in the evening to watch Spiderman 3. We wanted to take advantage of the student offer where students pay only RM5 for a movie before 1800 so we just managed to catch the 1730 screening. GV and Cathay can really learn from Malaysia man.. Not as though the cinema we went to was very shabby. It was a new cinema with the whole works! Why do we have to pay almost 4 times as much as students in Malaysia! Malaysia Boleh lah!

After movie Jullian took us to eat again. This time it was at a zhi-char stall near his place. Ever tried marmite chicken? Well I can tell you its really tasty man.. Nothing like anything I've tasted before! Then we went back to Batu Ferranghi for the pasar malan, or the night market. Loveliness.. Bought some friendly PS2 games and a lucky star lantern!

me and batu ferranghi

relic left over from the 2005 tsunami

botanic gardens

zhi-char dinner

crocs galore!

cornerstone of the Malaysian economy

Ok nothing much on the last day. Went to swim and then tan some more. Then stopped by Gurney for more hawker food. Drive back was as uneventful as the drive up. This time I stopped at Ayer Keroh for A&W! Remember those root beer floats and Coney dogs? Hmm.. Why did it die out in Singapore?