Adventures & Misadventures Abroad: January 4 Drive around Penang Island with Emanual

Today we took a driving tour around Penang Island with Emanual. We left a little before 9am and returned home a little before 5pm. Spending that much time with someone you get to know them - at least superficially! He is Indian by nationality and Malaysian about 4th generation. He is 29 and was dating a Chinese girl. His parents very subtilty discouraged him from this arrangement and just as subtilty they encourage him to find an Indian wife. A friend asks his mother - so when is your son getting married? And they both turn and stare at him waiting for him to answer. He wants to travel and establish himself in the business world before he settles down and has a family. He planned a very interesting day for us and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

The first place we headed was to a Malay food market pretty close to our building. This market does not have an early start - but caters to a later crowd. We were there for breakfast. Emanual explained that while there might be several stands that sold the same thing - they would be open at different times. A lot of the food preparation takes a lot of time - so you don't want to be working all day!

We passed this guy carefully tearing off the petals of the Blue Butterfly Pea Flower. This flower is used to make blue rice that is popular in Malaysia and Thailand. I had some the other day at the Peranakan Mansion cafe. It is supposed to have a sweet taste - I did not notice that.

This is in the meat section of the market they are just getting set up, not ready yet for customers.

They also sell "prayers" in these bags that you can burn for the Chinese New Years - this year on January 22. Prayers light!

The first thing we tried were these doughnut like products. The one on the left - also shown below on top - taste very much like our doughnuts, but had a crunchy toping. I am not sure what it was - but very good. On the right and also at the bottom below was another style doughnut. It was hallow and filled with a cinnamon brown sugar like paste that was also very good.

This very thin crisp and crunchy shell was filled with crushed peanuts and sugar and not sure what else.

The next thing Emanual brought us was this sampling of Chinese desserts. I have never been a fan, but I gamely tried them all. They are mostly coconut based with different flavorings. But they all have the same gelatinous texture and are not very sweet. If I had a favorite it would be the one in the plastic bag in the upper left. As it had a liquid filling that was a surprise.

I did not get a picture of this dish. But later we went to his stand to see how he makes it. It is rice noodles with seasonings and egg made in this large wok. It is savory which made a nice contrast to the other things that were more sweet.

On the way back to Emanual's car we passed this truck. I made the comment - that is not something you would see openly in the U.S. I think it is pork.

We drove to the George Town area and parked. As we walked to the next thing on our schedule we saw this huge line of Trishaws passing by us filled with people. Emanual commented - ah, the cruise ships have arrived. In the two times we have visited George Town I have never seen that many Trishaws in use!

We were heading towards the Acheen Street Mosque. This mosque was founded by an Arabian merchant and has an Arab style Minaret.

The houses in the compound are Indonesian-Malay style and very interesting.

Some are in great disrepair.

This house is really falling apart. It was the home of someone of high importance and is projected to be renovated soon.

This cemetery is very old. It has markers that do not have any inscriptions on them. For quite some time now they use the same type of grave markers, but they do contain the name of the deceased.