Hunting down street food and street art in Georgetown, Malaysia

After a fantastic 10 days in Koh Lanta, our Thai visas were about to expire and it was time to move on.  Our original plan had been to take a bus from Koh Lanta to Georgetown, Malaysia.  However, our research indicated that the overland route passed through a small part of Thailand that is recommended for "necessary travel only".  The US State Department travel warnings can sometimes make it seem as if people should hide in their closets, but when my secondary countries (the UK and the Netherlands) also advise against going somewhere, we stick to the consensus advice.

With the overland route no longer an option, we instead booked flights from Krabi (about 2 hours of Koh Lanta) to Georgetown.  We did a short overnight in Krabi in order to catch our early morning flight.  Later that day, the new King of Thailand was scheduled to visit, and preparations were underway at the airport as we boarded our plane to leave.

Our flight from Krabi went to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.  This is one of the region's biggest and busiest airports, so we took advantage of the international setting to enjoy some American comfort snacks...Baskin & Robbins ice cream for the boys and a Starbucks peppermint latté for me.  Yum!

From there we flew back north to Georgetown, on Penang Island.  Georgetown, a UNESCO heritage site, is known for its colonial architecture, street art, and street food.  At some point, we picked up this map, which helpfully listed the most famous dishes, complete with descriptions, pictures, suggestions of where to try them.  Our focus in Georgetown quickly turned to "how many of these dishes can we try in 3 days?"  It was a delicious game!

We tried laksa, which is a spicy combination of noodles, vermicelli, meat, pineapple, onion, and a few other things.  This was the street cart that made our laksa (which cost a whopping $1.10 US).  Bob was a big fan!

We also tried cendol, which is a crazy dessert concoction of shaved ice, green jelly noodles, kidney beans, coconut milk, and sugar.  Colin was not a fan.

Emmett, on the other hand, liked cendol.

The cendol stand had a huge line, and those guys were dishing out the cendol fast and furiously.

We tried char koay teow, which is my favorite Malaysian dish so far.  It is stir-fried flat rice noodles with shrimp, egg, bean sprouts, chives, a type of dried sausage, and a soy sauce mix.  It's stir-fried in a super hot wok, so everything gets a bit charred.

Finally (yes, this was all in one stop), we tried something else that, unfortunately, I can not remember the name of anymore.  It had fruit and vegetables with a sauce and was topped with chopped peanuts.  It was not anyone's favorite...the sauce had a distinct flavor that none of us really enjoyed.

We found a tiny cafe and ate breakfast there twice because it was so delicious.  These are naturally leavened bread rolls with melting butter and tropical fruit jam inside.  Plus strong Vietnamese-style coffee.  Breakfast perfection.

As the days went on, we checked off more Georgetown dishes and also found as much of the street art (also helpfully laid out on its own map) as we could.

We saw some beautiful buildings as we scouted out art and food.  This part of Malaysia has a strong Chinese influence, both in the architecture and the food.

The mosque in Georgetown was really pretty (we saw the outside only), including the minaret.

We stopped in for a tour of the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion, also known as the "blue mansion".  Cheng Fatt Tze left China as a poor teenager but established a huge empire before his death, earning him the nickname "Rockefeller of the East".  The mansion was laid out following feng shui principles and is now partially a boutique hotel.

We took a short break inside a chocolate and coffee "museum" (makes it sound more educational than  just "store", I think), primarily to take advantage of their air conditioning.  Malaysia is HUMID!  We read a little about the history of chocolate, chocolate consumption around the world, and how coffee is produced.  Mostly, we just savored the air conditioning, though.

Another diversion from our street food eating and street art viewing was a trip to the Upside Down Museum.

This place was a lot of fun, but I wouldn't exactly call it a "museum".  Rather, it was a tourist place to take funny pictures.  Realistic room settings are mounted on the ceiling, so when you take pictures and flip them, it looks like you're upside down.

We all had a good time posing for the silly pictures, though.

The boys particularly loved setting up these photos.

In the final room, things weren't upside down but slanted.  I really got into it for this video clip. :)

We ate dim sum (also a must-try in Georgetown), and wan tan mee, another noodle dish, in the street.  Literally.  Much of life in Asia happens in the streets, with people eating, business transacting, traffic passing, and animals sniffing around, often all at the same time and in the same place.  It's chaotic and sometimes a bit of sensory overload, but mostly fun!

I took this picture to document how much more adventurous we've become when it comes to eating from street carts.  At the beginning of this trip we avoided food carts due to their sometimes questionable food handling and hygiene practices, and now we're like, "They're washing the dishes over the gutter?  She's taking my money in one hand while chopping raw meat in the other? Well, there's a lot of people eating here, so it must be good.  Bring it!"

The boys were excited to ride around in one of these four wheeled bikes.

Bob took one front seat to help steer, and each boy wanted a turn steering in the other.  However, we quickly realized that Bob's steering wheel was not connected and thus did nothing.  Our lives were then in the hands of a 7 year old driver, which is about the most terrifying thing EVER.

After weaving through tiny Georgetown streets, narrowly missing passing busses, parked cars, and heart attacks, the boys switched places.  Emmett did slightly better at not hitting stuff, but it was still a crazy ride.  We found a few more street art spots, but the happiest sight of all was the time on my watch telling us our rental time was up.  I think Bob will be teaching our boys to drive.

We took a ride in trishaws and checked off even more street art and Georgetown sights.

For our last night in Georgetown, we planned to head to a restaurant to try chee cheong fun, which is a dish of steamed noodle rolls.  Our Uber driver was first surprised (telling us, "most Westerners don't want to try this") and then insistent that we had to go to a specific street cart at a specific night market to eat it, instead.  We followed his advice and, while we were there, ended up also trying popiah (a thin crepe dish filled with sauce and all kinds of vegetables) and ais kacang.  This dessert is basically a sugar bomb filled with shaved ice, ice cream, red beans, jelly balls, sweet corn, jelly, evaporated milk, rose syrup, and sarsaparilla (gives it an unexpected root beer flavor).  Bizarre and yummy!  We liked it better than the chee cheong fun we'd originally been searching for.

Georgetown was a fantastic introduction to Malaysia, and we moved on excited to explore this country further!