We have been back in the USA almost 4 weeks now, but it took us a little time to get this last blog post out.  Currently, we are enjoying the fall colors in Upstate New York as we prepare to be in America while we snowboard and ski Hunter Mountain for the winter.  Who knows what the spring and summer will hold, but the word “India” is being thrown around a lot 🙂

Lacy: The flight to Penang was short and sweet as we flew from Perhentian Island’s sparkling beaches on the West coast to Malaysia’s foodie central on the East coast.  When we mentioned our upcoming travels to Penang to anyone while staying on Perhentian Kecil, locals and tourists alike all agreed that this city is one of the best places to visit in the country & has a reputation for serving up some of the best Indian, Chinese and traditional food due to the blending of cultures.  By 10am we were stepping out of a cab in Little India.  Standing with our our backpacks in front of accommodation we took in nostrils full of spicy and sweet aromas drifting down the street spice being accompanied by local music played loudly on speakers that stood on the sidewalk.  Oh, Asia how I love thee.  Being in this region is a constant playground for your senses no matter where you are.  For $12 we had a great private room with shared bath on the top floor of a simple hotel in the middle of all the Little India action.  Fresh samosas, fried onion balls, mango lassis, roti canai, fresh hot butter naan & paneer are now all things we can procure within a couple block radius.  Dropping our bags off quickly, we immediately sat down to our first of many outstanding meals for the next week.  Even though Chinatown is a couple blocks from us and local Malaysian food abounds, Indian food had to be first!

 

Often times when we first arrive to a new city we like to walk out the front door, turn down different streets and get a little lost as we explore our new surroundings.  That is exactly how we began our week long stay in Penang.  We spent the first afternoon wandering through Little India, Chinatown, down to the jetties where each is specific to a particular Chinese clan that adopted it when they first arrived to the area and finally to a much needed haircut.  Rob hadn’t trimmed his hair since beginning to grow it out before we hiked the Pacific Crest Trail – 18 months ago! At my gentle insistence, he had an inch trimmed off and is looking better than ever.

Rob: Penang was a feast. Yes, the city of Georgetown has beautiful Colonial period architecture and public street art set on a coastal island and is made for walking and taking pictures, but the food is what we will always remember. Penang is an island of immigrants. Malaysians, Europeans, Indians and Chinese have kept their individual cultures alive and well by sharing their traditions and food side-by-side-by-side-by-side here. It was refreshing to see Local and Foreign tourists from any group in an ethic area other than their own, eating, shopping, visiting the temples and enjoying eating some more. We did our very best to try so many of the specialties from every group. There were a few favorites that we will bring back home with us. Hokkien Mee is rice noodles in a thick broth made from dried shrimp and pork bones. Nasi Kandar is a chicken curry with rice that is all about the thickest, heaviest, darkest and richest sauce ever. Roti Canai is a fresh flat bread served steaming with a few sides of dipping sauce typically made that morning. These are 3 of about a dozen new favorites destined to be our new comfort foods.

Once again we rented a 125cc motorcycle for a few days to explore and enjoy more of the island than we could reach on foot. A waterfall and a beach later, we had a great ride around Penang, but much like our travels in total, the journey itself was the best part of the ride.

We made the big decision to head home from here. We would finish our 6 months of adventures with a lifetime of memories. The only souvenirs we would be bringing home were knit hats and gloves from trekking in Nepal, a bracelet and ring for Lacy from Bali and spices from Little India in Penang, Malaysia to go along with so many new friends made along the way. Lots of photos, this blog and 100+ stories couldn’t describe our experiences fully. The best part was doing all of this with my beautiful wife, partner and friend.

Lacy: In our typical style, we purchased our flights to Malaysia a couple days prior to leaving Nepal. We need to be in Pangkor, a tiny island on the west coast, to set sail to Indonesia on the 10th. We didn’t do much research on our next destination or even book a flight for the night we arrived before boarding our 5 hour, 80% empty flight from Kathmandu.  It felt like a private plane there were so few passengers. We have traveled through Kuala Lumpur (KL) airport for long layovers twice this summer, but never left the airport so imagine our excitement when we grabbed a taxi and realized that KL is a rather large and modern city! Highways that are paved and don’t have potholes! Speed limits?! High rises and skyscrapers, no cow shit on the street to avoid while walking, real laundromats! We are officially NOT in a third world country anymore after five months of traveling through Indonesia, Cambodia and Nepal.  Admittedly, we both experienced a bit of culture shock for the first 24 hours.  Rob will tell you that I am drawn to the lack of polish and rawness that are inherent in the other countries we have visited, but it’s still nice to experience what Malaysia has to offer us!

At the last minute, (meaning in the airport before getting into a cab) we booked 3 nights in the Bukit Bintang district of KL near the night market area. This was intentional since we didn’t check in until midnight and having not eaten a real meal since breakfast in Nepal, we were starving!  Throwing our backpacks down in our teensy tiny room we set out to explore what late night delicacies Malaysia could serve up for us. The best bites, by far, were the spicy chicken wings. So good, in fact, we had them again the next evening. Overall, we found the night market to be disappointing with bland food and massages being hawked as you walk down the street until the wee hours of the morning. All we wanted was some good spicy authentic Malaysian grub.  We went to sleep near 3am which we later realized set the tone for our first week in this country. Late nights! We are no longer rising and setting with the sun as on the Annapurna Circuit.  An entirely different scene emerges in the city as the sun sets. Tables and chairs are set up on the street as food stalls open, doors along the sidewalk that your didn’t even realize were closed before now reveal either a speakeasy or local bar. Sure, there has been a very prevalent street food scene at night throughout the countries we have traveled, but in Malaysia it seems to be working on a higher level here.  The food here has many similarities to Indonesia – rice, sambal, chicken, fried noodles.  We can lean on some of our comfort foods and explore new ones.  It’s easy to read the local signs because Malaysian and Indonesian are very very similar languages.  We have that prior knowledge of the language working to our advantage, but almost everyone speaks English so you don’t even need to speak the local language.  Honestly, that’s a bit of a bummer for me because the new languages are one of the things I enjoy most when traveling. You can feel the lingering British colonial influence here from the prevalence of English spoken, the architecture and existence of traditional high tea throughout the country.

We enjoyed walking many many miles the next 2 days throughout the city exploring the various parts from Little India to Chinatown and viewing the Petronas towers.  It’s very hot in KL right now and I wished I had brought my bathing suit in my bag when we stopped for a drink at The W pool overlooking the Petronas towers. Management was very kind to help us celebrate our 3 year wedding anniversary that day with free chili and kefir leaf infused tequila shots.  Yum!

KL, and Malaysia in general, may be a good soft transition from traveling in poorer countries to heading back home after sailing. While it is a big modern island it still has a lot of decent inexpensive options for food and accommodation that you wouldn’t find back home. There, you can hardly get a campsite for less than $20/night much less a hotel room.  Granted, $20 doesn’t go near as far as it did in Indonesia, which still remains my favorite country this summer. I haven’t been the biggest fan of traveling to larger cities on this 5 month adventure, but I quite like what Malaysia has to offer. It offers a lot of diversity for food, is clean, easy to get around and the people have been kind.

The third largest city in Malaysia is Ipoh and where we spent the following 4 nights.   After an easy 2 1/2 hour train ride we checked into a really cute hotel in Old Town Ipoh, The Happy 8. The town is split between “old and “new” by the river.  It’s also very hot in Ipoh, but we were excited to have our white coffee where it originated so we took a short hot walk to a local coffee shop right away. White coffee are beans that have been ground with palm butter and palm sugar giving it a nutty taste.  This began due to the lesser quality beans that the locals were using and they masked the strong flavor by adding condensed milk – hence, the “white”. Now, however, when you order a white coffee here it means you get a black coffee mixed with the condensed milk and sugar. Personally, it’s too heavy and sweet for me this way, but Rob loves it.  This is not a surprise since he eats cake for breakfast. Ipoh is known to have a great food scene. Locals travel here just to eat. Our first meal was so good and set the tone for a few days filled with good eating.  My veg curry was layered with flavor and spice and probably the best I have ever had.  Walking off our heavy bellies, we checked out Ipoh’s many murals and famous Concubine Lane.

This area is known for Buddhist cave temples that were discovered in the last 100 years.  Having visited so many temples this summer and enjoying seeing the differences between various parts of Buddhism and countries, we visited a few more.  It was a hot day, but we continued on to what we thought was a local village. When we arrived we realized that we were at a village replica!  It is set around a tiny body of water and looks like a movie set.  Most likely, you would take your kids to a place like this to show them what a typical Malaysian village would look like.  This wasn’t at all what we had in mind, but they had 2 seater bicycles and traditional hats and we thought, what the heck?! We are here, let’s be silly!  So we rode around the “village” a couple times laughing and taking photos before deciding we needed more food!  We had a great meal at the local food stalls the night before and there had been a fruit and ice cream dish I hadn’t had the space in my stomach for then, but after a hot day walking around I could think of nothing better!

Rob: While in Ipoh, Lacy found a White Water Rafting outing we could do to take a break from the heat that wasn’t very far away. We could actually take a Grab (Uber here) all the way there, 40 minutes, for just 29MR (about $7). I’ve actually never been and neither had she. The water was a bit low and calm that day so we can both still say that we still haven’t been White Water Rafting, but we had a nice ride in a raft on a lazy river that had a few spots where we picked up a little speed and got a little wet. It was also up in the low mountains on a clear day, clean clear water and we were with a nice group of people.  Lunch at a local Warung was also great so overall it was a very nice outing in the Malaysian countryside.  The 1/2 day trip turned into a 2/3 day trip and threatened to have us miss our 3:30 Museum reservation.  We caught a ride back into town from one of the guys from the Rafting place just in time.  The little Museum in Ipoh told the story of how the Hakka people from China came to build and grow the town. It is a young town as far as Asia is concerned – really just a few hundred years old and only coming to worldwide prominence when Tin was discovered in large quantities right at the beginning of WWI and the need for packing and shipping canned food became a necessity. The Museum was fun and intriguing because even though it was Tin and not Gold & Asia, not the American West, the story of a mining boomtown with opium dens instead of saloons, prostitution and gambling was exactly the same.  It was also housed in the same building that had been the actual Hakka Miners Club with original interior and furniture which made the stories, excellently described by our guide, come to life.  A little Tin Mining Museum really is one of the “must do” things in Ipoh.

 

Lacy: One of our favorite things about the way we are traveling SE Asia is the flexibility of our schedule. The only thing we have needed to plan around is our VISAs and that’s not difficult at all. We began with a 1 month commitment to be in Indonesia working on ecological housing on the small island of  Kenawa, but entered the country with a  60 day VISA if we decided to stay longer. 3 months later we actually left Indonesia with a day’s notice and wound up here in Cambodia. We really have very little plan for this country except to travel north from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap and explore the cities, villages, mountains and beaches along the way. Every day is a new one and can change at a moments notice. We thought we would leave for Kep the day before we actually did, but upon waking up late (we are really only good at getting up early when we absolutely have to catch a ferry, bus or boat) we opted to stay a day longer in Phnom Penh. After a four hour morning bus ride we arrived in the hub of Kep, a coastal town known for its shoreline, crab and seafood market.  It’s quiet here this time of year and a few shops have already closed due to the beginning of rainy season. We like it quiet.  Our first afternoon we rented a scooter and checked out the crab market. Being the weekend, the market was the busiest place we have seen in town and Rob wasn’t in the mood to have the vendors hawk their goods at him so we quickly left and found a cold beer and excellent view of the water in a quieter scene.  Rob got a huge bonus at the hotel when we realized that he could watch the World Cup in the room. The channel was a little fuzzy, but he was a happy guy!

Rob: It was so nice to have 2 wheels underneath us again as we headed out into the Cambodian countryside. As soon as we turned off the paved road, we drove right into agrarian village life. The first thing you notice here is that the cows are different. They are all large pure white Brahmas. It’s a sharp contrast to the lush green rice fields. We don’t see a lot of goats here like we have been accustomed to seeing. With rivers and the sea having such a dominant influence in this southern part of the country, there is so much fresh fish that it is the staple in your diet here along with rice, of course. I’ve had at least 1 version of Amok, the coconut fish curry, every day since we have been here. #FishCurryObsession🐟🍚❤

We arrived at La Plantation after about an hour’s ride. It is a massive Pepper Farm in an idyllic setting tucked in-between small coastal mountains overlooking a lake. It is only a few years old but the all wooden open Plantation house is architecturally stunning and beautifully built in the old local style. It overlooks blocks and blocks of trussed pepper plants that stand about 10’ high each. In between these vineyard looking plots, there are rows and smaller plots of Passionfruit, Dragonfruit, Pomegranate, Mango and Papaya trees. As you look down the hillside toward the lake, you see the rice paddies literally growing up and out of the water’s edge. It was a really stunning movie-set-like feeling.

As we looked out over the vista, a moment of cool breeze blew through the front of the building. It ruffled a menu that caught my eye. I saw that there are 2 restaurants on the Plantation and you could have a glass of wine at the main house while you waited for your tour to begin if you liked. In true Romero style we ordered a bottle of French Rose’. It wasn’t expensive and was a nice light variety of the type that Lacy calls “Breakfast Wine”. It was a perfect fit for the moment.

We started our tour with a Water Buffalo Cart ride. It was a quiet slow motion ride behind 2 exceptionally big and strong Buffalo. They bumped and plodded us along through the Plantation and down through the rice fields. Our cart driver picked a fresh ripe papaya and cut it up for us to eat along the way. Soon we had to put our feet up on the seats of the cart as we traversed from one rice field to another going through water about 3-4’ deep. It was a very unique view and experience for sure.

 

Next we headed into the farm with our guide who spoke both English and French. He was very eager to help us understand as much as we wanted to know about pepper farming. What I didn’t know, but soon learned, was that Green, Black, Red and White Peppercorns all come from the same plant but their maturity and processing are what differentiates their taste and color. We tried some the maturing peppercorns right from the plants in the field. We both appreciated the organic manner they ran such a large farm very much.

Kampot Pepper is one of just 2 regions in the world with an Agriculture Standard and Controls just like Wine from Bordeaux or Napa Valley would have. The owners of such a large operation have also invested in the community by building 2 Elementary Schools and providing scholarships to Secondary Schools as well as subsidies for housing and healthcare for their workers. Pretty great for us to see in person knowing what this region has gone through in the last 40 years.

After spending 4 hours at the Plantation including an amazing lunch, we went about 30 minutes deeper into the countryside. Our destination was a series of ancient caves including a small Temple within them that has been in use for 1200 years. Our 7 and 8 year old guides showed us the landmarks in the main cave that lead to the hidden Temple. It was made of carved stone, ancient brick and definitely showed building, rebuilding and restoring processes spread out over a very long span of time. It made me wonder if it’s natural survival was due to its location and constant use only by generations of local people who maintained it. Our guides showed us one cave trek we could take that would be about an hour through the caverns. We opted for the “easy” route out that still took us 15 minutes of very careful climbing from handhold to foothold through dark bat filled chambers and finally out an unmarked exit. It was a great side trip that let my imagination run wide open thinking about who would have known and kept the secret of the little Temple in their family or village for so many hundreds of years before making it public only recently for people like us to see and appreciate.

Lacy: Monday morning we planned to get up early (always a pipe dream for us), hike the National Park and make the 1pm boat to Rabbit Island nearby where we planned to stay a few nights. The 6:30 alarm came and went and when we finally started to walk out the door for our hike at 8:30 it began to rain. Luckily, it passed quickly and we were still able to make our “hiking date” happen. Since we move with the wind, and adapt easily, we quickly decided to take the boat the following day to be able to take advantage of a longer hike and the World Cup game that evening.  Rob had read up on the trail and out hiking options in the park. With an elevated view that overlooked Kep and Kampot we began the ring road of the park. Surrounded by lush foliage, tangles of tree root vines and serenaded by passing birds we settled into our happy place together. The ring road itself is a flat easy trail, but naturally we craved a little more. Rob took us on a traverse trail that cut though the middle of the parks jungle. This part of the trail was very obviously rarely used as it was overgrown and reclaimed by the jungle. We forded through the trees and plants until we reached a very steep rock scramble that would bring us up the final bit of the 200 meter ascent to the summit. Using knotted ropes that hung down to assist in climbing this narrow the gorge, we were both dripping sweat. In area without the rope I lay on my belly in the dirt planning each handhold and foot placement ahead of me so as not to slip down from where I just came. Some of it was slippery and my bun kept getting tangled in the the low lying vines, but our adrenaline was pumping and we were so in our element. There was no one else around us and when we stopped to listen to the jungle around us we could hear monkeys in the trees above. I had hoped to see one, but no such luck. Rob was beaming when we reached the top and his healing foot didn’t seem to be bothering him much. The trail back down the other side was a piece of cake in comparison.  Five miles later and covered in sweat, we hit the outdoor seafood market next for lunch.

Fortunately, being a weekday, it wasn’t crowded at all and Rob was able to stuff himself with shrimp, octopus, squid, rice and chilis until he felt about to flop over. I loved hearing him say what a great day he was having as we cleaned up our table and paid the lovely lady who fed us. After a nap back at our hotel we found ourselves back at the restaurant down the street. Walking in, we recognized a motorcycle we saw in town the day before that has a luggage rack on the back. Any bike that seems likely to hold us and our backpacks catches our eye. We spent the next few hours inside making friends  with a Canadian couple, Evan & Jessa, who bought the bike in Vietnam and just entered Cambodia after riding for 3 months there.  The four of us shared travel stories and it was readily apparent that we all have a similiar sensibility when it comes to travel. We have said it before, but the people you meet when traveling are really amazing and help make your trip so special. We all plan to meet again here in Cambodia as we are traveling in the same general direction and enjoyed our evening together.