Malaysian is fascinating as a would be melting pot, as I’ve mentioned before.  Here in Penang, a mosque is a neighbor to a Chinese temple, not far from an Indian temple.  Sprinkle in the occasional Christian church and then you may better understand why this country has 14 national holidays (US has 11).  As we landed during Chinese New Year, the temples were decked out.  We went by this temple three times before finding the way to access it.  Hidden by shops to purposefully obscure it’s meeting place, this temple is home to the Khoo clan from a specific village in Hokkien province of China.  Khoo Khongsi temple was built in the 1884 and destroyed in 1901 reportedly because it was too aggrandizing with its gold and paintings.  Rebuilt in 1906, it stands today- the same and different. Before we’d found it, I knew it from the book An End of Rain.  The main character’s grandfather was from the Khoo clan, and took his previously estranged grandson there to help connect with his roots. …

At home, all I’d heard of Penang was its curry. But on the ground, specialties are made at individual stalls and come with names as foreign as some ingredients. Roti canai is a popular breakfast bread, flaky and delicious like many pastries. Assam Laksa was the only dish on the menu at one little restaurant, which simplified their staffing numbers to two: chef/waiter and manager/busboy.   Noodles in a flavorful soup topped with spices were slurped up by a pleased crowd. Do note, every menu in Penang claims to serve a “Best of….”  dish.  Blue rice flavored with floral spices accompanied by meat and sauce was a Malay specialty known as Nasi Lemak, while double fried pork understandably was a hit at the Chinese shop re-opened post new year holidays.    Char Kway Teow (rice noodles with shrimp, chives, oysters and who knows what else) was best the first night at the hawker stalls, where we learned to order at the cart and magically they would find you at a table numbered but unremarked. I …

Given Malaysia’s would be melting pot of cultures, would it surprise you to hear that their famous, traffic jam creating street art is done by a Lithuanian resident? Some street paintings started in 2009 but took off in 2012 as the artists integrated furniture props of bicycles, stools and motorcycles into the paintings. Now between meals, tourists pose with the murals, and follow the maps that show locations of 20+ paintings. Savvy peddlers wait nearby with souvenir shirts and books of the paintings.   In addition to these pieces, Penang offers two camera museums, a chocolate and coffee museum, history museum, batik museum and puppet museum housed in various store fronts throughout town. We made it to one camera museum, and as the chocolate museum was air conditioned as anticipated and had free tastings, it won a special spot in our hearts!

Georgetown, Penang was touted as a larger Luang Prabang, Laos. Both are UNESCO towns for their architecture preservation among other things. Penang promises a food lover’s paradise, with new dishes, cheap food and infinite flavors. We fell for it, and fell into a tropical swamp! Temperatures rested between 90-97 degrees Fahrenheit, with humidity around 70-90 percent. In other words, you step out of your room and in two minutes feel like you’d done back to back spin classes. Strangely, the trip photographer did not document this. With Chinese New Year, it has been a calculus of which places are closed and when they re-open. The year of the goat (or sheep – same difference?) has not had the most fortuitous beginning. So, I could regale you with our mosquito kills and amount of hand washing per day, but it would bore you and make me seem trite when others are suffering this winter. So instead, I will focus on glass half full and give you Penang as it would like to be: food, art and …

Sadly, the Petronas tower was closed on Monday, so we were off to the art museum instead. The Museum of Islamic Art was a lovely, well curated (and cool in every sense) refuge. We got ideas for future travel in their displays of mosques from around the world (Uzbekistan seems to have multiple treasures). We’d been too late the night before for a humongous fried chicken, so it was our next stop. No durian chaser. Then, back to the mall! We’d seen the shops, the grocery stores in the mall, the decorations. Now it was time to partake! While we’d skipped mall aquariums here and in Dubai, and mall roller coaster, we were in for archery! T- a lefty shooting with his right hand- had a methodical approach, where I let my summer camp memories kick in and the arrows fly! Why can’t they have this at our malls? Good fun! As our hotel was in Little India, we had a yummy Indian dinner. T briefed me from his history research on how Singapore had …