Cuti-cuti Malaysia - Day 4 through Day 6 - Sungai Petani and Penang

My hometown, Sungai Petani, SP in short, is often mistaken as a place in Thailand, Patani. And most of my Singaporean friends thought that it is located at the Thai border. Well, it’s nearer than what you thought. It’s just 30 minutes drive away from Butterworth, the seaport town of Penang state in the northwest corner of Peninsular Malaysia. Of course, near or far, it depends on where you come from, right?

I left my hometown for further studies in Singapore 17 years ago. This trip is my first trip driving my first car home. It feels great. It has a sense of achievement attached, especially when I have a family of my own with me.

SP has developed a lot in the past 17 years. Lots of new housing estates sprung up like mushrooms after the rain. Population has grown large enough for big retail chains Giant Hypermarket and Tesco Supermarket to open their stores here.

The economic activities here are mainly industrial. There are a lot of plastic and electronic factories located around this town. They provide the main driving force behind the banking and retailing industries.

I don’t consider myself as a tourist back in my hometown, but the priorities are the same: eating and shopping. My wife has fallen in love with Penang Assam Laksa – noodles in sour minced fish meat soup. There is this particular hawker that sells laksa from a corner house located at a T-junction in SP that is only well known among the locals. My wife could go there everyday if possible.

But, why not go for an authentic Penang Laksa in Penang? And so we went to Penang on day 4 of our trip. Driving to Penang Island through Penang Bridge took us about 45 minutes. The first place that came to our mind was the latest and largest shopping mall called Queensbay Mall (http://www.queensbaymall.com.my/). I won’t bore you with the details of shopping and eating in this mall. But I had my haircut in a newly open Quickcut outlet there. I was quite happy with the service. Not only it was quick – done in ten minutes – the vacuum suction applied on my head and shoulder after the haircut through a flexible tube hanging on the wall left me feeling clean and neat – no more irritating tiny hairs strewn all over my shirt. Do check out their website: http://www.quickcut.com.my/

Of course, Old Town White Coffee (http://www.oldtown.com.my/) has a branch there as well.

After Queensway Mall, we stopped by a coffee shop along Macalister Road for a treat on some mouth-watering authentic Penang hawker fare. Char Kway Teow (Friend Flat Noodles in Hokkien), Penang Laksa, Pok Piah (Shredded Radish wrapped in thin flour wrap), Hokkien Prawn Mee, O Luak (Fried Oyster Omelette) and so on. Felt bloated? Have some refreshing sugarcane juice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penang_cuisine

We spent the next day enjoying the mental peacefulness in SP – something that is hard to come by in Singapore. Met up with our uncle’s family for dinner before preparing for the drive back the next day. Before that, my wife, who is one of the lady bosses of Scent Discovery (http://www.scentdiscovery.com/), did not forget to check out one of the spas providing facial and massage services located in SP as part of her market survey. The service was just standard but overpriced, she said.