DAY 3 Alor Setar

So among other endearingly cute features of the 30-year old classic VW were:

Hanging 3rd break light - cute until it fell on our heads :/



classic dashboard! :D


loose side mirrors - had to hold it up while driving! hahaa...



Anyhow so we got to Alor Setar, home town of former PM as announced by the signage:


Small town but had trouble looking for the hotel, so we went round and round the roundabout while Grace got directions over the phone :D



The hotel was... not so great so we headed to Seri Malaysia instead.

Some usual fiddling with the car



And guess what? We found a friend! classic VW van :)


This was the first kawan we met in Ipoh hehe..


The hotel was located next to a stadium and this stadium is unlike any KL ones - lining the outside all around are shops! This is said to be a very hip night mamak spot in Alor Setar too.


The manager of Giant Alor Setar was so generous and kind to us! Apart from agreeing on short notice allowing us to collect signatures at their premises, En Fauzi (and his boss) also collected signatures from all his staff. To top that off, he also recommended and made reservations for foot reflexology for us on top of packing a few bags of goodies such as drinking water, hot water flasks etc etc. This certainly gave our dampening spirits a real boost! We heart you En Fauzi!

Anyway, going back to the A W E S O M E foot reflexology, this is a must-try! if you're ever in Alor Setar that is :p


Very painful but very experienced sifu(s) hit just the right spots because after that our pains and aches and tiredness melted away! Extremely good value for money as it's only RM18 for a high quality 40min session.


A bit hard to find but here's the address...
SL Foot Reflexology Centre
44 Taman Pelangi
Jalan Gangsa
Mergong
05150 Alor Setar
Kedah
Tel: 604-7351 222

Call in advance for an appointment as they are always full!

Needless to say we slept like babies after that :D

The next morning, we had a mini soap production before leaving the hotel hehe.. Here's Stephen the videographer and behind him is his wife kak Salmiah taking the stills.

DAY 3 More of Penang

The next morning, our intension was to approach some traders and marketers at the Penang market but our efforts were obviously futile so I entertained myself with some interesting sights instead :)



Alive and kicking - mantis prawn!


There's no problem with pork shops here... legitimate business afterall.


Ever tried apam-balik with egg inside? - First time i see too - was yummy!

Somewhere along the way we discovered this age-old popiah-skin maker! Notice at the end of this video they felt compelled to give me the evil eye for filming tsk tsk... hahhaaa... oh well :P


Then near the main entrance to the market (i think) is a small jeruk stall - pickled mangoes and nutmegs are my favourite! - honeybees love them too heehee...





The tauke loved our cause so much in addition to signing our petitions he gave us extra jeruks hehe...


Check out the size of that packet - for only RM2.50.

DAY 2 Penang!

After Ipoh, in all tiredness here we are crossing the Penang bridge...



We checked into the Heritage Hotel near Gurney drive - they had a lovely pool but we barely had enough time to sleep so we only managed to dip our legs for five minutes.


We went to what was suppose to be a happening Gurney Drive - can't imagine why anyone would call this view happening :/


But ahhhh Penang - land of scrumptious Chinese food - it would be so wrong not to have some :)
So we went to the hawker centre next to Gurney Plaza where there was a huge variety of choices.


And here-in lays the danger of lands of scrumptious food - does not mean everything in that land
is guaranteed to taste good. And unfortunately for me, yummy was not to be :(

Thinking char kuey teow was my best salivating bet, i ordered from this stall where the queue was pretty impressive.

'The food i got was however, less so - testament that following the crowd has no guarantees sighhh... a bit soggy for my liking.


The curry noodles from a stall opposite the Lor Har Mee on the other hand, looked pretty good and according to Patrick was not bad at all.

Continuing Telur Rangers' journey

Sorry for the long silence, the week after my last post was crazy! Between collecting signatures and sleeping, we were perpetually on the run - rushing to meet our scheduled stops mostly. Also, we had a lot of trouble with internet connections where we stayed.

To give you an idea, here's what it was like in our cool turtle car! :)



A certain glitch gave me a little reminiscence of my old Kancil!




And here's Patrick showing us how to do it without a glitch :p

DAY 2 Ipoh and then Penang

The next morning, some belt in the engine got dislocated so we were stalled once again. Thankfully the problem was soon fixed by our very diligent Patrick and Mr Lim *phew!



Breakfast! Was introduced to more Ipoh awesome food :) Keng Nam Coffee Shop, Jalan Cowan (towards Jalan Low Lit Ching)


The curry noodles was recommended to we tried that - very yummy!



Chee Cheong Fun also came recommended - it's the Anson type - filled with sengkuang.




Its third specialty was pulut with kaya (glutinous rice with sweet coconut paste).


And another variation of it - pulut with curry chicken! Very yummm...

the Kopi ais was also very awesome, same with the hot kopi:




After breakfast Patrick sent the car in so we can have air condition - the intention was not to use air-cond all the time but for warmer and shorter legs of the journey. Here's the car being fixed:





We were recommended to have some nice desserts at the coffee shop just behind our mechanic on Jalan Leong Kian .



We couldnt eat anymore so we roamed around, collected some signatures then we waited...

and waited...

and waited...


and finally...


The car was chugging so off we went!