The Nirvana Bus Tour – Come As You Are

1.

Bald Eagle has a persistent smirk on his face these days. “You’re writing about Spain already, eh? Have you finished writing about Penang? Have you finished writing about Australia?”

Variety is the spice of life, Sir Nag-A-Lot.  Spain today, Apong Guan tomorrow.

2.

If you’re visiting my blog for the first time, welcome!  If you’re curious about the Nirvana Bus Tour, read about it here:

The Nirvana Bus Tour Part 1 – click HERE
The Nirvana Bus Tour Part 2, Prologue and A Nirvana Tribute – click HERE
The Nirvana Bus Tour Part 3, The Tanjung Tualang Chapter – click HERE
The Nirvana Bus Tour Part 4, Street Food in Pulau Tikus, Penang – click HERE

3.

Come as you are, as you were
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend
As an old enemy
Take your time
Hurry up
The choice is yours
Don’t be late
Take a rest
As a friend
As an old…
Memoria

Lyrics from Come As You Are, Artist: Nirvana, Album: Nevermind

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you wear.  The coffeeshop is old, bearing scars and marks of days gone by.   On an aside, it’s wonderful to see the preservation of old buildings in Georgetown, Penang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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Sai Lam Coffee Shop isn’t devoid of tourists, mostly backpackers, but it is also well patronized by the locals.   The wanton mee here is springy, cooked al dente, and is served either with beef tendons or with char siew.   If you can look past the rather ordinary tasting char siew in a deep red hue, I can assure you that you’re in for a treat with the darling looking wantons – little pillows of minced pork, unadulterated and absolutely delicious.  Freshly made, take 5 or 50.  Now tell me, don’t you just want to caress them?

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Sai Lam Coffee Shop
307 Chulia Street
Penang.

The Nirvana Bus Tour – Street Food in Pulau Tikus, Penang

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Penang may be my birthplace, but I feel like I have not earned the right to call myself a Penangite.  In many ways, because we moved away from Penang when I was just nine, I have more of an affinity to my current hometown than to Penang.  Despite that, some memories remain.

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Like catching tadpoles in puddles of water at the nearby construction site behind Penang Free School until my mum would yell for me to come back home for dinner.   Picking up pretty mosaic tiles when the workers were not looking, and gazing at the colourful reflective pieces for hours after.   Walking with my mum to the wet market, and afterwards treating ourselves to a bowl of kuay teow th’ng, perching ourselves on battered steel stools and ravishing the noodles with wide smiles on our faces.

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My life at nine through rose-tinted glasses, perhaps.   As a child, it never occurred to me that we were different from others.  My brother used to say, “Appa is black, Amma is white, and I am brown”.   We weren’t blind to colour, but we were colour blind.

(all photos above taken on location in various parts of Penang)

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1. Pulau Tikus at night

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We arrived at Penang at about 10.00pm and before even checking into our hotel, we drove straight to the Pulau Tikus market for Round One of Penang street food.

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Five of us shared one plate of Penang chee cheong fun – flat rice noodles with a dark sauce containing the primary ingredient – prawn paste.

2. Pulau Tikus in the morning

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Chee Cheong Fun

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Kway Teow Th’ng

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Kway Chap

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Chai Tow Kway

One can never go hungry at the Pulau Tikus market in the morning.   There is an amazing selection of freshly cooked food – from currypuffs to pancakes, chai tow kway (fried carrot cake) to mamak mee.   The market bustles with activity and loud voices compete as customers haggle for the best prices.

3. Swee Kong Coffee Shop

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One of the bestsellers at this coffee shop is the apom stall manned by an Indian man.   The apom (crispy “pancake”) is sweet, eggy and coconutty – I can’t believe it costs only 50 sen a piece.

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The hokkien mee (or prawn mee in this part of the world) is another fast selling item.  Thanks to Boo’s persistence, the owner scraped the remnants to make up this last bowl of noodles for the day.

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Wantan mee with fried wantans is another popular dish here.   It is served with a little bit of thick gravy, quite unlike anything I’ve ever tried before.

Swee Kong Coffee Shop
Burmah Road

4. Seng Lee Coffee Shop

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At the corner of Burmah Road and Bangkok Lane (across from Swee Kong and a short walk up) is Seng Lee, another institution, famous for hokkien mee, pasembor and mamak mee.

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The pasembor (mamak rojak) containing fritters, hard boiled eggs, bean curd and boiled potatoes in a spicy peanut sauce is highly addictive.

5. Pork satay

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Take a short work down Bangkok Lane in search of the elusive pork satay man with his pushcart.

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Pork satay

Instead of ketupat (rice cakes), this satay is served with toasted bread.

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~ Those who have much are often greedy, those who have little always share. ~
Oscar Wilde

I guess we must be paupers.

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Also check out:

The Nirvana Bus Tour

The Nirvana Bus Tour, Prologue and A Nirvana Tribute

The Nirvana Bus Tour – The Tanjung Tualang Chapter