Patriot Games

While Mary and Hari were on their 'honeymoon' scuba diving in the Similian Islands I headed south to Malaysia. I really enjoyed my time in Malaysia. It was quite refreshing to be away from all the 'package tourists' that were on the islands in Thailand and to be somewhere really new and different. Malaysia is a country made primarily of Chinese, Indian, and Malaysian people. Each of the cities I visited had their own China Town or Little India. I was in Malaysia during the end of the Chinese New Year so the cities were in full celebration mode.
I arrived in the evening in my first Malaysian city, Panang, a city known for its food. The streets were packed with food stalls, red lanterns, and people. There was a huge parade that night packed with children doing a ridiculous synchronised drumming set (think smaller version of Olympic opening ceremonies in China), dancers, and floats. Lots of food, drinking, and general happiness filled the streets and the town enjoyed the festivities of their New Year. I enjoyed lots of food- cookies, candies, beer, dumplings, some strange duck meat noodle concoction, cookies, and more beers. Yes in that order. Good times. Good times.

The next day I was off to explore the city, I walked along the city's Heratige Trail looking at the historic sites, the Khoo Kongs Temple, went into some art and photo galleries. The city is so old that many of the buildings date back to the 1800s. I happened upon Little India and knew it right away with the incense filling the streets, women walking around in bright colored saris, Hindi writing on all the store fronts, and Indian music blaring out of huge speakers out on the sidewalks. Welcome to Little India. For lunch accidental I walked into a packed restaurant that serves the best beef soup in all of Panang. It is so good in fact that it is the only thing on the menu. I sat with two guys that work for the government in Malaysia. I got into a fascinating discussion about politics and Obama, what the election means to the Malaysian government and the positive affects that they have already seen in their government (younger guys running for office, general hope that bigger changes regarding parties or candidate's now being given consideration). The conversation really stayed with me.
The next day I took off on a motorbiking trip with two guys I had met at the bars the night before (Holland, France). One guy had lived in Malaysia for years and he knew all the secret spots to take us. We started off with a traditional Jim Sung breakfast of dumplings then rode to the nearby beach. From there we took a scenic drive and hiked down some crazy jungle type hill where I was eaten alive by spiders type things, but we eventually made it to the river we were searching for and had a swim. We stopped at a roadside fruit stand to eat some of the local spiky fruit that the Chinese say "Tastes like heaven, smells like hell". Our day continued onto a small local village where we encountered local Malay fisherman in the middle of an illegal card game (illegal in this country to gamble, they even had spotters watching out for cops). We joined in the game and they got a kick out of the fact that I am a girl playing with them. The fun slowed a bit as we started to win money, their money. I started to make larger bets in hopes to loose my money because I realized we couldn't leave until we broke even. Eventually we were even and we able to get out of the game. The next stop was at the village faire for dinner and I got distracted playing with all the little kids that were following me around yelling "hello" at me. I love playing with the local children in villages. It was really a very special day for me.