When is a Carrot Not a Carrot?

Our host kindly took us out for breakfast this morning at a local eatery on the street. We had previously remarked that people often seem to bring in food to a restaurant from outside to eat at tables. In the UK, this would not be tolerated by the owner of the establishment, which would soon be plastered in signs declaring "No outside food or drinks". While some of this might be blatant cheekiness, it turns out that there is a relationship between the owner and local vendors. The former charges the latter a nominal rent, in exchange for the additional business they may see from customers sitting in the restaurant and ordering up a dish of whatever they may be cooking.

We did just this today, ordering drinks and soup from the café, and two more dishes supplied by street vendors. We were introduced to two dishes whose names are confusing misnomers.

Chee cheong fun

Chee cheong means pig intestine. Chee cheong fun is a slippery noodle dish named after its appearance and fortunately contains no offal. However, the Penang version does include a rather non-vegetarian black sweet sauce made with shrimp paste (which is similar to the rojak sauce). I must say that it wasn't my favourite dish in Penang.

Chai tow kway sounds very much like a spoonered version of char kway teow, which is very confusing, but not as a confusing as its English name. "Fried carrot cake?" My imagination conjured up images of slices of sponge crisping in a pan, the cream cheese icing melting into a sticky pool.

Chai tow kway

The reality was (disappointingly) rather different. The dish contains no carrot (or raisins for that matter). Instead, it is made from a large white 'carrot' variously known as mooli, daikon, and in Hokkien as chai tow - a kind of radish - which is grated, mixed with rice flour and steamed into cakes. The 'carrot cake' is then sliced and fried with bean sprouts, egg, and seasonings, including liberal amounts of chilli in the case of this morning's breakfast.

Having been thinking about cake all morning, I insisted we return to China House for another crack at their amazing cake table.

China House cheesecake

After much deliberation, we both settled on 'turtle' cheesecake, which again defied its label and contained no reptiles, only chocolate and pecans. I am led to believe that China House buys in from local bakeries. Wherever it comes from, it is exceedingly good cake. We were fortunate enough to also stumble on a live set from two very talented young guys on acoustic guitar so that our ears were as delighted as our taste buds.

Given that this was our penultimate full day in Penang, we made the most of the eating opportunities and returned to by far our favourite vegetarian restaurant, Zen Xin, on Nagore Square.

From there extensive menu, we enjoyed Sichuan kung pao monkey head mushrooms. The already meaty mushrooms had been deep fried for extra chew, and were served in a spicy sweet sauce with generous chunks of dried chillies.

Two kinds of mushrooms

A nyonya mutton curry saw mutton balls made from umami-rich shiitake mushrooms served in a coconut milk-based spicy sauce. A depth of flavour was achieved from  key nyonya ingredients, such as lemongrass and galangal.

Nyonya curry and fish

Sambal petai spicy fish was a spicy sambal sauce over tofu fish slices with a smattering of green petai beans. The amount of petai was presumably restrained owing to their apparently malodorous aftereffects.

Lastly, we had abalone mushrooms, which we only ordered for the accompanying 'green vegetables', which turned out to be fried lettuce. This is odd, but we have noticed a dearth of green veg beyond kangkung in restaurants. This was the weakest of the four dishes, served in a weary soya sauce, when compared to the flavour powerhouses of the others.

Gratifyingly, Zen Xin does not scrimp on chilli, and it was interesting to taste three spicy sauces next to one another, each with its own flavour profile: nyonya curry (creamy, citrusy), sambal (fresh, garlicky and 'chewy'), and kung pao (sweet, peppery).

From up on Penang Hill

Eschewing the toast provided as breakfast by our own accommodation this morning, we made the short walk up Penang Road for, well, toast.

Breakfast eggs at Toh Soon

But this was toast with a difference. Sandwiched between two buildings, in an alleyway immediately behind Ban Heang on Campbell Street, is Toh Soon. Occupying an unprepossessing lean-to, this café is an institution serving roti bakar (toast) with kaya (coconut jam), half-boiled eggs, and coffee. While the set-up is simple, the quality is excellent, and the handful of tables are rightly full at breakfast time and for the majority of the day. The staff even have their own orange livery.

Toh Soon cafe

Since arriving in Penang, we have intended to ascend the local hill in one manner or another. A funicular railway runs up Bukit Bendera (Flagstaff Hill), but it is also possible to walk to the 735m peak. Today we chose to make the climb and so would be needing calories for the journey.

Loading up at Luk Yea Yang

We have been guilty of neglecting probably the nearest vegetarian restaurant to where we are staying. Luk Yea Yang on Lorong Madras offers both buffet and à la carte dining. We chose the 'pile things on rice' approach and were not disappointed.

Vegetarian otak otak

Alongside the usual array of soya meats were daikon radish in a light yellow curry sauce, tofu dumplings, and otak-otak. This version of the steamed fish cake was more authentic, but less palatable, than the one I ate in The Leaf. It had a distinctly fishy flavour, owing to judicious use of seaweed, but lacked in spices.

Botanical Garden

We started our journey at the botanical garden (taman botani), where a pleasant walk around the park revealed cannonball trees, dozens of macaque monkeys, and a mountain horned lizard.

Mountain horned lizard

The park was full of people exercising, so we set off on our own exertions up a set of steps we were assured would lead us to the top of Flagstaff Hill to join the funicular for the journey down.

Penang Hill is a collection of peaks, the highest of which is Western Hill (833m). I believe the term 'hill' is underselling this natural feature, as, at well over 600m, it easily falls within the UK's definition of 'mountain'. Starting from under 100m above sea level at the botanical gardens, our climb to the summit would take us the top of a mountain.

The climb started with a near-vertical set of steps, up and down which local Malays were merrily jogging. At the top of this, we joined the so-called "jeep track", presumably named owing to its steep gradient that requires four-wheeled drive. Our faces scraped the tarmac, which seemingly rose like a wall in front of us, as we twisted and turned our way up.

On the route, we saw both macaques and, higher in the trees, timid dusky leaf monkeys, large, lumbering monitor Iizards, and flighty racket-tailed drongos.

The climb was a leisurely two hours and eventually reaching the summit was anticlimactic. No fanfare greeted us, only the bemused stares from the amassed tourists who had let the train take the strain.

A cloudy outlook

Mercifully, the weather was cloudy for the walk - it would have been almost unbearable in the full force of the tropical sun - but the haze lay like a pall over the surrounding land, impeding our view. We could barely make out the imposing Komtar tower, signposting the centre of George Town, or the megastructures that are the dual bridges to the mainland.

Lights of Air Itam

However, as dusk fell and the lights came on, the shape of the city, and of Butterworth across the water, revealed itself. We took the funicular down to the base at Air Itam. At night the route is lit in coloured lights. Half-way down, just after the passing point where two trains execute a coordinated dance around one another, the gradient of the track increased sharply. However, the train proceeds at a stately pace, so the effect was like the least thrilling rollercoaster ever.

He Who Controls the Spice

We obediently returned to Kimberley Street for a dish of loh mee again this morning after yesterday's hiatus. It was early this morning, as we had to get to Penang's Tropical Spice Garden for a cooking class with Pearly, a nyonya chef.

Black bamboo at the Tropical Spice Garden

On arriving, we were first taken on a guided tour by a lady who was adamant that the plants had healing properties and subscribed to the theory of their being either 'cooling' or 'heating' to the body. She animatedly tried to persuade us of the medical properties of the different herbs and spices, which have variously been claimed to improve sexual stamina (tongkat ali), control PMT (kacip fatimah), relieve flatulence, and cure cancer. While few of these claims can be verified, the one plant that does fulfil expectations is stevia (which strikes me as a "but I've already painted the nursery blue" kind of name for a baby girl). Even in the tiniest amounts, this miracle plant is super sweet and has zero calories. While it has been used as a natural sweetener in Asia for years, it is likely to be a great disruption to Europe and America's sugar-laden diet.

Worth their weight in gold

It was wonderful to see how the spices we are used to in the kitchen actually grow. In some cases, this yielded a few surprises.

Nutmeg, along with cloves and pepper, was one of the original spices so prized by the Europeans and drove the spice trade. We saw the nutmeg fruit on the tree, where the brown kernel with which we are familiar is the seed. It is surrounded by a pale yellow flesh and the seed is covered in a bright red lace, which is dried to become the spice mace.

Nutmeg fruit

In Penang, the nutmeg flesh is candied, salted, and used to produce syrups and juices. We have tasted nutmeg juice, which when fresh is the same pale yellow and tastes like lemon barley followed by a distinct nutmeg flavour. It is also served having been double-boiled with sugar, in which case it is a browny red and has lost the fresh lemon aroma.

Heliconia

Other interesting plants were the heliconias, whose flowers form strings of bright red and yellow 'lobster claws', and the bromeliads. Bromeliads are diverse and have adapted themselves to a number of different environments. Some grow on rocks or hanging suspended in the air - their roots able to derive moisture from natural humidity. The best known bromeliad is the pineapple, whose fruit is actually formed from multiple berries that coalesce after the flowers have fruited.

We didn't only see flora in the garden, but fauna too: flying lemurs, a mouse-deer (K saw this unusual creature, which looks like a miniature deer), and of course dusky leaf monkeys, which we have seen on numerous occasions. This time, one of the timid leaf-eaters was carrying a baby, which had bright golden hair that will later turn black. This doesn't seem like a very good way to hide from predators, so the mother was keeping a close eye on the child, making a photo difficult.

A glimpse of the golden child

Pearly runs a cooking class at her own home and occasionally at the Spice Garden. She has published a recipe book on the Peranakan, or nyonya, style of cooking.

Pearly at work

We had a small cooking lesson with her after our tour of the Gardens. The set-up in the kitchen was for a much bigger class than the three students there were today.

Preparation is critical

We cooked four dishes, each of which was fastidiously prepared in advance and then cooked in the wok in quick succession. In such a warm environment, it is not imperative that the food be served hot (unless it is soup), but it should be freshly cooked.

Lunchtime feast

First up was a simple salad, made interesting with a dressing of garlic, shallots, nutmeg syrup and ground cardamom seeds. The hot dishes were sweet-and-sour tofu, fried rice, and Chinese cabbage stir-fried with egg. We ate looking out to sea and chatting to Pearly and her sous-chef/husband, Chandra, about their travels in Europe and New Zealand.

As a cooling pit-stop when we arrived back in George Town, we sampled another ais kacang by way of dessert. This time from a shop, rather than a stand.

Ais kacang

While pleasantly refreshing, this was still mostly ice with some meagre toppings. The syrup on the ice had the same medicinal quality as the one we tried yesterday. Nothing so far has beaten the dessert at Loke Thye Kee.

Returning to the Hin Bus Depot (now arts centre) for the second evening of the Tropfest film screenings, we were treated to another handful of short films and a feature.

These films were from Asia courtesy of Viddsee (the films can be watched for free online) and alongside two films we had already seen at the coffee shorts last week (The Lying Theory, Lotto), were two new ones: Lola, a different take on the zombie genre, and In the Name of Love, seemingly a tribute to Bladerunner with a twist in its tail.

The main feature of the evening was Lost Loves - a film by Cambodian director and University lecturer, Chhay Bora - which deals with a very personal story of life under the Khmer Rouge.

Dealing with the history of the director's mother-in-law and her family, the film graphically depicts the suffering of the people of Cambodia over the five year rule of Angkar (The Party).

The grandfather and patriarch of the family was a high-ranking government official prior to 1970. When it became evident that Lon Nol's government was about to be defeated, precipitating a cultural revolution led by the Khmer Rouge, he refused to flee Cambodia out of pride in his country and the shame that would ensue. The consequence of this decision was that his family was evacuated from the capital with the rest of the "New People" to join the peasants and farm labourers, whose way of life was so venerated by Pol Pot and the other cadres.

As the family toiled the land, indignities were heaped on the mother and her children. The family was separated in order to break down filial bonds and increase allegiance to Angkar. The workers were kept compliant through starvation and brutality. Torture and death inevitably followed.

Films such as Lost Loves and Rithy Panh's The Missing Picture are important works that shine a light on a dark period of Cambodian history. For victims of the genocide, these are memories that they do not willingly share, not even among fellow survivors and least of all with the younger generation.

According to the director, in the Q&A that followed the screening, some of those born after 1979 treat such tales of this period with incredulity. Who can blame them, when the perpetrators of the atrocities lied to the UN at the time and, when eventually brought to trial, failed to accept responsibility for, or, in some cases, knowledge of the heinous crimes committed in their name. Coming to terms with the past is not as simple as forgetting it.

Snakes on a Bus

Nasi lemak is considered a national dish of Malaysia. The names means 'fatty' or 'rich rice', as it is cooked with coconut milk and flavoured with pandan leaves. Typically a portion of rice is wrapped in a banana leaf (bungkus, meaning 'packed'), which also imparts a fragrant flavour, topped with some beef rendang curry, and is served with ikan bilis (dried anchovies), boiled egg, cucumber or French beans, and peanuts.

Nasi lemak 

The packet of nasi lemak (the 'k' is silent and forms a glottal stop) that I picked up was slightly disappointing, as the rice didn't seem to have been cooked in anything other than water. It came with a smattering of 'fish' curry, a few peanuts and green beans. It was small but I couldn't complain for 1.50RM (30p). I decided to sex it up with a selection of sweet cooked purple aubergine and char siu pork from the buffet.

We took a bus south to a temple close to the airport. We passed on our way the two bridges that connect Pulau Penang to the mainland. The narrowest stretch of water is in the north east between George Town and Butterworth, but a ferry operates this route to avoid diverting additional traffic through the town. A 13.5km bridge was opened in 1985, immediately becoming the longest in Malaysia and being incorporated into an annual international marathon. Last year, an even longer (24km) second bridge was opened, usurping the 'longest bridge' title and marathon status.

We could have done with a bridge of any kind as we arrived at our destination. The bus deposited us and a few other people on the side of a busy road. With no footbridge or underpass in sight, we had no choice but to leg it to the other side. I had visions of smeared tourists on the tarmac, but even the workers at the offices on one side had to frogger their way across for lunch.

Having heard about a temple in  Penang that was apparently filled with snakes, having been built in honour of a Buddhist monk, Chor Soo Kong, who gave shelter to serpents of the jungle, we were initially nervous. Neither of us is afraid of snakes - beyond the natural fear of chancing upon a snake in the wild and receiving a deadly bite - but we were concerned that the legend that snakes spontaneously arrive at the temple each day was, if ever true, perhaps no longer the case.

We had heard tales of the snakes being devenomed, defanged, sedated, or shipped in each day, rather than making their own way. I can imagine that many of these rumours are true as the temple, when built in 1850, was among snake-filled jungle. Now it jostles for room among office blocks and the aforementioned highway. It is not a conducive environment for snakes.

Pit viper

Inside, there were indeed several pit vipers snoozing on sticks fashioned into hat racks. Those that had recently shed their skin were a vibrant green and yellow. Next door, a python that two gentlemen were eager to wrap around the shoulders of an unwary visitor was certainly not a voluntary resident. Besides this windy man, there were other species in the accompanying snake farm, which we declined to visit, preferring to see the long movers in their natural habitat.

Python

Having had such an excellent example of ais kacang from a nearby restaurant, we sought a version from a husband and wife team at the end of Lorong Macalister. Using a hand-operated machine to shave the ice, they serve up cendol as well as ais kacang.

Take-away ais kacang

We got ours to take away, assembling it in a bowl at home. This led to a less appealing presentation than perhaps the lady on the stall would have managed. The bowl was more ice than topping, which was welcome in the heat but not as flavoursome as Loke Thye Kee.

Fast food: char koay teow

This evening saw a showing of films as part of Tropfest, starting at 6pm, so we grabbed some quick noodles to see us through. At a vendor on Kimberley St. we found vegetarian char koay teow and bee hoon (two types of fried noodle). It was cheap and filling but wouldn't win any awards.

Mural at Hin Bus Art Depot

The derelict Hin Bus Depot has been repurposed as an arts space and is frequently used to show films.

Film showing

Tonight saw four shorts drawn from the Berlinale, plus a feature-length film.

Mural at Hin Bus Art Depot

The bus depot is a great space for art and, alongside murals on crumbling plaster revealing bare brick walls, is currently hosting an exhibition by Thomas Powell, which brings together icons from two contrasting cultures in a single image. The most effective for me, given the location in Penang, was the portrait of Queen Victoria holding a sceptre and a durian fruit in place of the usual orb.

"King and Queen"

The feature film was called Transit and focused on the recent plight of Filipino migrant workers in Israel, whose young children were threatened with deportation under a new law. This was an indignity heaped on children who in some cases, as the film depicts, are (required by schools to be) fluent in Hebrew, and, although not Jewish, are deeply familiar with Jewish culture and beliefs. Although their parents work legitimately in the country, children were, until recently, forced to leave the only home they have known.

Self-made Men

We diligently presented ourselves at Chang Sow Chai vegetarian café for our morning noodles today.

Curry mee, curry you. Aha!

Curry mee was the special of the day, which used a relatively bland stock, livened up with sambal chilli paste, and the usual mix of mee and bee hoon noodles. Bulking up the soup was dried spongy tofu, soaking up the flavours, soft tofu, stained dark with soy sauce, sweet pieces of char siu pork, and fresh mint leaves.

Suitably fattened up, we were sent on our way to discover the history of two of Penang's self-made men.

Yeap House

On Lebuh Penang stands the house of Yeap Chor Ee, an immigrant from China, who started as an itinerant barber. His rags-to-riches tale sees him open a provisions shop with money saved from cutting hair, before becoming a merchant of sugar, among other things. With increased wherewithal, he began loaning credit, and made the obvious leap from financier to property owner. With his financial nouse, he bought shares in Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), which sealed his financial security. In later life, he moved into philanthropy, supporting others' education.

Yeap had four wives in his lifetime. The first, he left in China, while the second ran away, and the third died of tuberculosis. The fourth wife (married at the age 15, while he was 44), was intelligent but betrothed before she could start her own career, and stewarded the business after his death.

Cheong Fatt Tze House (The Blue Mansion)

Next we had a tour of Cheong Fatt Tze's house - called the Blue Mansion after the film Indochine, featuring Catherine Deneuve. The house has been turned into a boutique 18-room hotel, so the only way to see it without staying is through one of the three tours a day.

We had the most animated and engaging guide who brought the history of the ambitious Mr Cheong alive.

Dubbed the "Rockefeller of the East", Mr Cheong's story is arguably even more impressive than Mr Yeap's. Having also left South China in his mid-teens, Cheong headed to Indonesia - first to Batavia (Jakarta), then to Medan - where he amassed a fortune, working his way up steadily over thirty years from shopkeep, to trader in rubber and coffee, and inexorably to financier.

With his accumulated riches, he built the Blue House in George Town. In order to keep and grow his business, he had the building constructed according to the principles of feng sui - literally meaning 'wind' and 'water'.

Feng Suit courtyard

It was these elements that our guide was moat excited to show us. Rain (representing wealth) pours in through five open spaces in the roof, while that collected on the roof is funnelled through a set of pipes into the same courtyards. The collected rainwater swirls around, representing amassing wealth (standing water is bad luck) and is released to the drains at a slow rate, as a reminder to spend gradually.

Whether you believe in the science or superstition of feng sui, flowing these design principles builds in subtle cues to one's living space that subconsciously alters one's mood, behavior and, therefore, confidence. I can well imagine that this helped Cheong Fatt Tze become the successful businessman and politician that he was.

Cheong was far more prolific in his marriages than Yeap. He had a total of eight wives in his seventy-six years, the last being married only shortly before his death. However, Cheong had the wherewithal to maintain all eight wives, and seems to have treated them as businesses in themselves - setting them up in separate countries to spread the family farther and wider. Like Yeap, Cheong had a favoured wife (number 7) whom he loved and trusted as a confidante. He married her when he was 70 and she 17.

Exiting the mansion after 3pm, we found that many vegetarian places were closing up. This seems common the world over, as though vegetarians eat only in the morning and at lunchtime, fasting the rest of the day, giving them more time to tend to their alfalfa sprouts and get another batch of yoghurt on.

Not feeling up to a delicious, but inevitably enormous, Indian lunch, we sought a Chinese café. Of the eateries displaying the universal yellow and green signage of vegetarianism, we found one still open.

Cannon Steeet

Cannon Street is so called because the Khoo clan fired a cannonball into the area during the rivalry spats in 1867. At No. 1 Cannon Street, we lunched on herbal soup, containing mock fish balls, tofu, and Maggi noodles, steamed 'pork' shumai dumplings, and 'chicken' sate skewers with a particularly chunky peanut sauce.

Lunch at No. 1 Cannon Street

I was disappointed that the veggie har gow and bao weren't available to complete our dim sum selection, but the rest was sufficient and tasty fare.

PaperPepper space

Upstairs at PaperPepper café, there was to be the second Coffee Shorts showing of Tropfest. We arrived early, partly to secure a seat and also to linger over a coffee before the films.

Hipster drinking vessel

The start time came and went and we were still only 2 of 8 people, including the organisers. I was incredulous. Such an event (which was free) put on in London, Liverpool, or Bristol would be well attended to the point of oversubscription. Unfortunately, we chose to leave, causing the numbers to dwindle further, as we had seen most of the films at the previous showing.

Loke Thye Kee

We exited for dinner at Loke Thye Kee. This is a beautiful heritage building that was an institution in its day but fell into disrepair. Now renovated, we chose a seat in the balmy evening air on the verandah and ordered a vegetarian set.

Owing to ambiguous phrasing ("platter for two people" was interpreted as "one meal to share"), we fought over a single plate of veggie pork char siu, mushroom curry, and stir-fried vegetables with rice. The food was nice, but couldn't compare to the quality and variety of the meals we have eaten at humble stalls and cafés.

Sago pudding

Frankly a small serving was what we needed given the habitual overfeeding we have become accustomed to, but it left room for dessert. I ordered the 'signature' Snow Sago with banana, papaya, raisins and chia seeds. This was a clear sweet ice 'soup' with the aforementioned fruit, flecked with the black chia seeds, and a blob of starchy sago.

Ais kacang

K ordered ais kacang (literally 'ice beans'). I had assumed this would be largely shaved ice topped with some sweetened beans like the Japanese kakigōri, which is often just a bowl of ice with syrup on top. I could not have been more wrong. A huge bowl was presented containing rose flavoured shaved ice, jelly cubes, stem ginger, sweetened kidney beans and sweetcorn, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Each spoonful yielded a different mouthful of tastes and textures. Serving beans and corn in a sweet context is anathema to western tastes, but is very typical in Asia and works very well.

Noodle Soup for the Soul

We are becoming loyal patrons of a particular noodle shop on Kimberley Street, partly owing to their delicious range of noodle soups, but also due to the owner's canny sales tactics. Each day, as we are leaving, she tells us the special dish that will be available the next day.

Hokkien mee

Today it was Hokkien mee. To be more specific, it was Hokkien hae mee, which is served as a soup in Penang, as opposed to Hokkien char mee, which is a stir-fried dish. Both variants traditionally involve prawn and are named after the Chinese dialect spoken by many of the diaspora in SE Asia.

The vegetarian version we ate this morning had a brown savoury broth that worked well to emulate the prawn-based equivalent. The soup hid the usual thick and thin rice noodles as well as pieces of mock meat and tofu. With chilli paste (sambal) on the side to add to taste, it was a wake-up for the senses. Tomorrow: curry mee!

In each place we have stayed on our trip thus far, there has been a cat - sometimes multiple. Either owned by our host, our next-door neighbour, or wandering in stray from the streets to deliver a litter of kittens in the cupboard, we have always had feline company. That is until now. Our accommodation is catless, but is perfect in every other way - well located, friendly, clean and tidy (possibly owing to the lack of pets). K especially misses a cat to stroke, so we headed to Penang's first 'cat café'.

Cat-eaux

As we enjoyed the requisite cake and coffee (no, it really was required to buy these as the entry fee), signs on the wall were at pains to inform us how 'not weird' this set-up is, and that in Japan it is customary for the petless to hang out in similar cafés. We have been to Japan, and to a cat café there - it was weird.

Cat-ppuccino

Still, K was insistent that we spend some time there and so, lured by the cake, I endured her attempts to rouse clearly affection-weary sleeping cats. Unlike the strays, which are hungry for love and, if not too timid, prostrate themselves at one's feet, these cats were fed, fluffy and pampered.

Grumpy cat is grumpy

On our walk up and down Kimberley Street, we have passed Hameediya on several occasions and often a man with an expansive grin and arms outstretched has beckoned us in, bellowing "Delicious food!". I didn't doubt that this was true, so I insisted that we make a detour there prior to (re)visiting the mosque.

Roti telur

Although not a pure vegetarian place, Hameediya, like most Indian establishments, offers plenty of choice alongside tandoori goat. Roti telur was our choice for a quick snack. This is the famous thin roti bread stuffed with egg (telur) as it is cooked on a hotplate. Served with a sambar and red onions, it made a slightly more substantial meal than intended. Raw onions are not to my taste, but these were lightly pickled in lime juice, which takes the horrid metallic taste out of them.

Inside the mosque

We returned to Masjid Kapitan Keling for an informal chat about Islam with a volunteer in the information centre, prominently located in the base of the minaret. I applaud the mosque's openness and willingness to engage with non-Muslims about their faith.

We spoke to the man for over two hours about various aspects of Islam and Christianity, but also of Judaism and Hinduism. He struck me as similar to the eponymous protagonist from Life of Pi, as he was similarly intelligent and well read, and familiar with not just the tenets of the major religions, but seemingly conversant with large swathes of scripture from each of them. From initially being taken to a Christmas service, he investigated the fundamentals of several religions, and eventually chose to follow Islam.

The discussion was interesting and insightful, and covered the similarities and relationships of three monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam in a way that was theological and not judgemental.

Muslims recognise a number of prophets, from Noah, through Jesus, to Muhammed, where the latter is believed to have brought the final, inerrant word of God. I marvelled at our guide's conviction that no prophet can have followed Muhammed, given that he also subscribed to a theory that allows for a series of flawed messengers that preceded him. Of course, I didn't entertain such obviously blasphemous questions in the discussion, but our guide himself brought up the notion, asserted by sects such as the Bahá'í and Cao Đài, that follows such logic to its natural conclusion - if a message is periodically delivered to mankind from a supernatural and singular entity (God) via a series of earthly prophets, the message can be expected to be contextual to the culture and environment of the time of each prophet's life. Therefore, there have been and will continue to be messages and messengers. It's a compelling argument, but one which does not persuade our guide nor others who follow more orthodox religions that allow only for fixed doctrine, delivered through scripture, with any interpretation permitted through exegesis by religious leaders.

In the evening, we returned to Ee Beng - not for their vegetarian buffet, but for a bowl of noodle soup.

Asam laksa

Asam laksa (also called Penang laksa) was in the pot today and is a speciality of the island. Unlike the kind of laksa with which I am familiar, this version does not include coconut milk, instead being soured with tamarind (asam jawa), and spiced using lemongrass, and galangal, with fine slivers of pineapple, cucumber, lettuce, fresh mint, and thick udon-style noodles, made of rice. Normally being a fish-based soup, it was nice to be able to sample this specialty. A day bookended by noodle soup.