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Your Appetizing Penang Travel Guide – Delectable 3 days in Penang

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Update 2022: Malaysia has reopened its international borders from 1 April 2022. Get Malaysian government’s complete rules for travelers planning to visit Malaysia on the official Ministry of Foreign Affairs Tourism website. I’ve also listed down the guidelines and compliances in this article on Kinabatangan River Wildlife Sanctuary. My guide to Malaysia visa is recommended, too.

What to do in Penang in 3 days

Introduction to Penang

After a short walk under the bright sun from the bus stand to my guesthouse in Georgetown at Lebuh Carnarvon, I put my bags in my room and went out for a stroll. For those who don’t know, Georgetown is the capital of Penang state or the Penang island.

I was famished after a long bus drive from Taman Negara, and Carnarvon street seemed like the right place to be. Little did I know that soon I was to be lost in the labyrinth of the streets of Penang flaunting exquisite art and some delicious Penang food.

The streets seemed empty, and I wondered if there were any tourists. A friend had questioned my Malaysia trip by saying that the only thing to see in Malaysia was Penang.

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Update 2022: Malaysia has reopened its international borders from 1 April 2022. Get Malaysian government’s complete rules for travelers planning to visit Malaysia on the official Ministry of Foreign Affairs Tourism website. I’ve also listed down the guidelines and compliances in this article on Kinabatangan river wildlife. My guide to Malaysia visa for Indians is recommended, too.

Penang is a spicy potpourri of Chinese, Malay, and Indian ethnicities. But I didn’t realize how thick this gravy of cultural mix is until I went to Penang.

On my first day in Penang, I stayed in a Chinese guesthouse, ate rice and fish curry at a Muslim Malay restaurant, and my evening stroll took me to Indian food stalls proudly flaunting crispy samosas.

Wait. What was happening?

Indian Malaysians, who were mostly from South India, told me that many Indians were taken to Penang to work as laborers during the 130-years rule of British over Malaysia. Penang port was the main trade route for traders from China, Spain, Arabia, and India, and the British wanted their chunk of the trade.

A Malay Chinese whom I met while hiking the Penang hill cleared my doubts about the origins of Chinese Malays. He said that the Chinese sailed to Malaysia in the 18th century to trade and work as laborers.

Over time, all three ethnicities blended to form the current Penang.

While the Chinese relished the Malaysian coconut flavors, Indians used sweet-chili sauces in their curries, and Malaysians ate biryanis and noodle soups with the same fervor. Given the rich mix of the three cuisines that the island is blessed with, the question of what to eat in Penang and what to do in Penang can be more complicated than you think.

While admiring the street art in Penang, I felt that the cultural evolution of Penang had been pasted onto Penang streets in a raw and hilarious manner.

Daroji Bear Sanctuary, Hampi, Karnataka – Home of Indian Sloth Bear.

I have grown up in a small town in North India where pet cows and chirpy parrots in the balcony are still a thing.

My mother has grown such a lush garden that while growing up I always spent my evenings looking at the garden activity when bulbuls flew home or the tailor birds settled in their chosen tiny branches. A Sunday was less about Popeye or Duck Tales and more about protecting ripe guavas from monkeys who were attracted to our garden from miles. When we got relief from the monkeys we were chasing away squirrels who were adamant to build their nests out of our school socks.

My affinity for animals often sends me to national parks around the world (I found many during my travels in Karnataka.). No prizes on guessing that you can also find me strolling in Indian jungles just to get a glimpse of the local animals.

When I traveled to Hampi this September, I hadn’t even heard of the Daroji Sloth bear sanctuary. But when I got to know that Daroji is just an hour away from Sanapur, my stay in Hampi, I postponed the ruins and other things to see in Hampi to another day and instead we jumped in our car to drive straight away to the Daroji sanctuary.

Manali to Naggar Village, Himachal Pradesh.

Who would think that just 20 km away from Manali, India’s top tourist destination, lies the Naggar village, a town that refuses to think beyond stone temples, apple orchards, and wooden huts accommodating both cows and their humans equitably.

Manali to Naggar bus ride took about an hour. After roaring along with the Beas river for a while, the bus passed through tiny countryside settlements halting at them shakily. Call those clusters of country houses a hamlet or a village, but more often then not, the bus had to stop for cows unabashedly crossing the roads or villagers dashing to the opposite side with baskets of farm-fresh apples on their heads.

Once you get down at the main road at which Naggar village peeks from the high Himalayan hills that rise above the Beas valley, one has to trudge up a steep uphill road to get close to any of the Naggar’s many historical attractions some of whose origins are still unknown.

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Update 2022: Malaysia has reopened its international borders from 1 April 2022. Get Malaysian government’s complete rules for travelers planning to visit Malaysia on the official Ministry of Foreign Affairs Tourism website. I’ve also listed down the guidelines and compliances in this article on Kinabatangan river. My guide to Malaysia e-visa for Indians is recommended, too.

When I was thinking about visiting Malaysia after my Bali trip, everyone told me to not go to the country that only has Penang and Kuala Lumpur. They said maybe you can see a few orangutans while traveling in Malaysia, but what else?

In the one-month I stayed in Malaysia, I not only traveled to Penang and Kuala Lumpur but I fell in love with the country.

I wanted to write these reasons to visit Malaysia since the day I came back to tell those friends they were wrong and to urge the rest to explore Malaysia. Of course, I did have wild encounters with orangutans around Kinabatangan river in Sabah, but there are many more things to do and interesting places to visit in Malaysia.

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I traveled from Cusco to Bolivia on an overnight bus, and Copacabana was, first, just a rest stop before La Paz. While I slept in the bus on an almost full bed, I kept an eye open as travelers had told me that the buses in Bolivia are theft-prone. The bus didn’t stop anywhere, and nothing unpleasant happened. Our minivan crossed into Bolivia, and though the bus driver was reluctant to bring us to Copacabana, he left us in the town( thanks to some Chilean travelers who almost made the fraud driver cry.)

After getting down at Plaza Sucre, I strode straight towards the Casa del Sol homestay that my travel friend Alison had finalized for our Copacabana stay. Things to do in Copacabana Bolivia were many, and she wanted to stay rooted in one place in this lakeside village of Bolivia. That was my first time in Bolivia, and I didn’t know that the country would later surprise me with its indigenous culture, delicious salteñas, historical sites, and relics, imposing mountains that never leave you alone, high cities, and the consumption of an insane amount of coca leaves to keep it all going.

Recommended Read: My Comprehensive Bolivia Travel Guide

I trudged up the cobbled lanes with my rucksack, passed by the main market, crossed the Basilica of the Virgin of Copacabana, turned to the left, and descended a very steep lane to find the homestay nestled in the sunshine for the weather was pleasant at that time of the year (March). I had been used to the high altitude (almost 3900 meters above sea level) for by then I had done many things in Peru, including exploring Cusco and visiting the many islands of Lake Titicaca on the Peruvian side (I had been on a South America backpacking trip for almost seven months).

Samaipata is easily one of my favorite places in Bolivia. Why? Maybe this quaint village in east Bolivia showed me how to slow down. Or perhaps the Bohemian attitude of Samaipata made me think about life differently. Or maybe the German, Dutch, and Arabs who have settled down in Samaipata taught me that home is where the heart is.

I cannot pinpoint on any one reason, but Samaipata, a lush town in the foothills of Andes, calmed me down. It is after all the resting place in the mountains (the meaning of Samaipata in Quechua).

Unlike the US schools, we do not have a Spanish course or learn any foreign language at schools in India, especially in the small town where I studied. I grew up studying Hindi, English, and Sanskrit. I took a French language course during college, but a few classes and a French certificate was the farthest my foreign language aptitude took me to.

When I landed in Chile to teach English, I couldn’t even speak a few simple Spanish words coherently. I started living with a Chilean host mother who took upon herself to teach me the common Spanish phrases and words so we could communicate. Thus began my struggle of learning to speak Spanish in Chile.

I didn’t know then that the Spanish language would become one of my favorites, and also my third language.

Without trying to be melodramatic, I promise that if you start speaking even the most basic Spanish travel phrases when you are backpacking in South America, you would fall in love with this language; for Spanish is a passionate dialect. Spanish words and phrases cover almost every emotion; some of the feelings that can be described eloquently in Spanish are strangled by the lack of words in other languages I speak.

Covid-Related Travel Update, July 2022: Chile is open to international tourists. Visit the Chilean government’s official website for travel-related information and regulations. Don’t forget to read the government’s rules to be followed in public spaces here. My guide to Chile visa would be helpful for Indian citizens.

What does this Chile Travel Guide contain?

Covid Update July 2022: Indonesia is now open for all travelers. But the official declaration by the Indonesian government for travelers during covid-19 pandemic suggest travelers need certificates of both the vaccine doses. Please visit the link to read all the details carefully.

Bali has been a relief from the chaos of the overcrowded and the ever-rushing world. Though I had heard really touristy things about Bali, I love the place.

I have spent most of my twenty days in Ubud, old Bali with a modern twist, a village called Laplapan, which is close to Ubud, and also biking my way to far away floating temples, hidden beaches, and rice fields whose pictures were able to enchant me enough.

Before I came here, I thought Bali would be a tourist jungle packed with hotels, restaurants, tour shops, yoga centers, and bike rental shops, along with some greenery. But Ubud and Bali are places that have all these things and also have artistic temples the Balinese people visit daily, lush paddy fields in the heart of the island, cute ducks wobbling around in open pastures, deserted turquoise beaches (such as Nyangnyang beach), hidden jungles, a cool river cutting through the middle of Ubud, splashing waterfalls, a colorful underwater world, and all with the backdrop of a gaping volcano.

In the nine months that I was travelling through South America (SA), I visited three countries: Chile, Peru, and Bolivia.

White roses, pink bougainvilleas, golden marigolds, and red hibiscuses bloom throughout the day in my parent’s garden, but then comes night, and the queen of the night takes over. These memories from SA waft through my being as the scent of the queen of the night drifts through my parent’s garden and settles in our wistful dreams.

Hope you enjoy these amazing memories from the time I was traveling in South America.