Days 74-82: Penang, Malaysia

The train ride from KL up to Butterworth on the northwestern corner of peninsular Malaysia was similar to the ride up from Singapore, although the country is clearly more developed towards the northern end. We passed several large towns, including Ipoh, the gateway to the central highlands of Malaysia. It would’ve been fun to stop there and see the national park, but we decided to go straight up to Penang. Similarly, we were sad to miss Malacca, on the southwestern coast, but the train doesn’t go there. Next time! There’s a lot of Malaysia to explore, including Borneo, which I’d love to visit.

After getting off the train in Butterworth, it’s a short walk to the ferry to Georgetown, on the island of Penang, The ferry only takes 15 minutes, and is somewhat reminiscent of the Star Ferry in Hong Kong (not surprising, given that they’re both former British colonies, I suppose), although Georgetown is not nearly as built up as HK. All the locals on the ferry (especially the kids) were very interested in us, and had a hard time deciding whether to look out over the water or at directly at us. One guy actually did a double take as we sat down and asked where we were from.

We decided to stay in Penang for a while so that I could have some solid time to do some contract work for my former employer, Black Duck Software, as well as do planning for the next few stages of our trip. When we weren’t working, we spent most of the rest of the time sampling some of Penang’s spectacular hawker food. There are hundreds of food carts along the roads, selling a wide range of food, including local Malaysian specialties, fresh fruit, Chinese, and “Western” dishes. The food is uniformly excellent, and an entire meal for two can be had for 6 US dollars.

Every night, but especially on the weekends, there is a large night market stretching down one of the roads near our hotel. Incredibly, the market is entirely disassembled every day, and all the stalls are pulled off onto hidden alcoves, only to reappear and be reassembled in half an hour every night. It was fun to watch the locals roll the stalls out into position, pull up a car or truck packed to capacity with goods, and load everything directly onto the racks. The highlight of the market was the food court, which had 20 vendors offering a variety of food. There were also delicious fruit drinks. We tried, but failed, to sample them all.

Days 70-73: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The train from Singapore to KL starts off very oddly. The train station is Malaysian property, just like an embassy, so you go through Malaysian customs then and there. Then you get on the train and travel through Singapore for 30 minutes until you reach the border, where you disembark, go through Singaporean customs, then start off on your journey once again. The transition from Singapore to Malaysia is quite abrupt; fancy suburbs are exchanged for miles upon miles of palm trees (palm oil plantations) and occasional shacks. The train ride takes about seven hours and is quite comfortable, at least in our first class train with AC.

The best parts of KL are the night markets, filled with vendors selling food and knock off goods. The city is quite large and switches from run-down buildings that are ready to collapse to the Petronas Towers in the blink of an eye. The people are as diverse as the buildings, with a seeming even mixture of ethnic Chinese, Indian, and Malay peoples. Apparently the British brought in the first two groups less than a hundred years ago, but despite some earlier racial tensions, things seem very well integrated now. The muslim heritage is very strong, and many of the women walking down the street wear head scarves, and some cover their faces too. We’ve seen many more tourists here than I expected too. I knew very little about Malaysia before arriving, and still have a long way to go.

We’ve walked through the beautiful Lake Gardens, Chinatown, Colonial District (yes, another one), and the Golden Triangle (business district). KL’s downtown is relatively small (if not highly walkable), but the city stretches out for miles. The Petronas Towers were closed the day we tried to go up, but even from some of the hilltops you can see the city stretching out quite a ways. There are quite a few interesting museums here; due to time constraints we only made it to the Islamic Arts Museum, which had a good collection of pieces from all across the Islamic world.