First Impressions...

I try not to make snap decisions particularly on places that I visit as very often they are totally wrong. Years ago I made up my mind about a man at the tennis club where my brother Jan and I played a lot and it wasn't good. As it turned out he was one of the nicest men that you could know. So I try to keep that in mind.

Mind you, quite often the first impression you get is the one that stays with you longest too. A bit like the current environment of accusation for this and that, particularly through social media. If I was to say, for example, someone had a big nose and put it out there on social media. Chances are that that would stick irrespective of the fact that that person may indeed not have a big nose, but a very nice one. That is almost irrelevant these days it seems. What will stick is the 'big nose' comment. You see it in newspapers which may make wild accusations one day then 3 days later print a retraction on page 16 after the obituaries or something. Now I know that I don't have a huge following and that anything I may say will never see the light of day, which incidentally is fine by me, but still I don't really want to have to print a retraction at some later date.  So I've waited a bit, just about a month actually, before I address our arrival in Penang.

Map of Malaysia with Penang to the toppish left

What, where, why?

Penang is an island originally settled by some rascals from the East India Company in 1786 but of course it had a massive history before that which you can find on Wikipedia here (and do please contribute to their coffers as I think they are pretty wonderful. Everything you may want to know is there. I think it's even better than YouTube which in itself is also pretty wonderful). But for us it was the modern period that has the most relevance.

We've wanted to travel more in the Far East as to this point most of our travels have been using Bermuda as a base which has therefore given an emphasis in the west. So we thought that using Penang as a base out here would do the same job for us. In addition Viv's brother Anton plus family moved here something over a year ago and waxed very lyrically indeed about the place so we thought why not.

Penang is about 60% ethnically Chinese, 10% Indian, 20% Malay and the rest is a mixture of expats and other nationalities and races. In fact it is a real hodge podge as even those who are ethnically not Malay are more Malay in many ways than they are their original ethnicity... if that makes sense. And they all seem to get on. Certainly the religions here (and there are quite a few) get on. Practically immediately we arrived came the festival called Thaipusam, a Tamil hindu festival which was a public holiday here -- read about Thaipusam here again on Wikipedia. There are plenty of others too, currently we are in the middle of Chinese New Year, another public holiday.

For Thaipusam, people dress up in their finery and parade along a route that takes  in a number of temples passing by stalls erected by others, associations and companies who provide food and drink for the pilgrims all in a party atmosphere. Imagine Indian rap music and people dancing! From Bermuda it reminded me very much of Cup Match.

Talk about noise and colour with a 'u' not the washed out version which drops the 'u' as that is one of the biggest things I have noticed here. It was to me a total all out assault on all my senses: sight, sound, smell, taste and touch.

First of all sight, my goodness what sights to see. Coming from Bermuda, a small relatively quiet little place with few people where everything is ordered or at least compared to Penang it is, the sights were amazing. Many people, huge vibrant colours, absolutely nothing held back or in any way understated....

Penang is very religious. For Thaipusam, hindus who'd had something good happen in the previous year dressed up, were impaled by spikes and in this case hooks upon which were balls which dug into their skin and which they wore on their pilgrimage. It is a way for them to say thank you for a great year.

The sounds are all different too starting with the language or should I say languages. With all the ethnic backgrounds the lingua franqua is English but what a variety of English! We are staying for the moment at a serviced apartment and the manager was speaking to the cleaner about something and we asked him to confirm a couple of things as we couldn't understand one another and she said that she hadn't a clue what language he was speaking, so it may be tricky. It sounded to us that they were speaking the same language so we asked where he was from and the manager said he didn't know and sure enough after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing he found out (it wasn't a simple where are you from Q&A session it included much gesticulation and commentary) that the cleaner was from Myanmar which is right next door. Well the country is. The language apparently is nothing like Malay or any other languages the manager spoke but somehow they managed to communicate and that is how it is here. You may not share the same language originally but you are here in this melting pot so you just have to get on and talk. Take a look at the map and you'll see all the different countries around. None speak the same language really except English.

Today is one of the many days of Chinese New Year (year of the dog) and we went into a shopping centre to find a couple of dragons dancing to the beat of deafening drums and other musical instruments. This troupe worked their way bit by bit around every shop doing their bit of dancing and prancing before moving on to the next shop. Exhilarating, colourful, noisy.... yup.

We ran into this troupe time and again in the shopping centre. They were welcomed by the shop staff and danced all around the shop inside and out accompanied by a deafening band behind them. First impression is that it would have driven me nuts but then again this is Penang...

Smell is the sense that most westerners would nod sagely at and believe the smell differential is to do with the plumbing etc. and whilst those are shall we say different to what may be expected to be the norm in the west (although I have had some horror experiences in France particularly the trains, and now that I think of it Italy too... again trains) it absolutely is not what I think of when I think smells. It is the plants, the humidity, the spices... Penang is a spice island so if you fancy a mind boggling adventure with spices whose names you've probably never heard of but which are essential components of shall we say 'curry', come here. We went to a museum and one of the things we looked at was cooking and one such item was a Musselman Curry, one of the great foods in my opinion. But the number of ingredients!  Probably 20 if not more separate spices all available fresh in any downtown market. And that's before you get onto the meat, potatoes, etc.

That leads nicely to taste and there again wow. I'm not sure I have the words to describe the new tastes I have experienced in just about a month here. I thought I'd eaten a lot of different types of food particularly 'curry' but the difference with what Patak, for example, puts out in their Madras Curry paste and what I have eaten here is night and day. And that is all down to the availability of the underlying spices and the methods used in preparation.

Some staples in this food city: chicken rice and Hainan chicken. Just phenomenal!

Forget Gordon Ramsey and the celebrity chefs. Some of the best curry I have tasted comes from some guy or lady on the street with a single burner (always gas) which sends up a volcano of heat into the massive single pan in which everything is prepared. Into this goes the oil to start then onions, garlic and the plethora of spices. After a while the final result is simply unbelievable. Never hot, I mean never chilli hot. Forget vindaloo, that doesn't exist. The hottest food I have eaten here so far is a Thai salad which was almost nuclear.

Street food during Thaipusam

Finally touch. Not sure how to describe but the array of things that are totally different here makes you want to touch everything to make sure they are real. They are. In Penang they are entirely normal.

So summing up, Penang has been an assault on all of my senses, so far in a great way and I love it!

Gong Hei Fat Choi!