Although we had an official email from Malaysia Airlines advising us to be at the airport extra early due to crowds and lines …
On the up side, there was a kiosk serving long blacks – freshly ground beans turned into black coffee with no milk or sweetener! Granted, two cups cost the equivalent of a lunch entree in KL, but it was a real treat after drinking instant all week.
Our accommodation in Penang is the stay I’ve been most looking forward to, which is best explained by taking a quick look at their website: Campbell House. It’s one of a very few truly pampered experiences that I included in this trip. After all, if the idea was to compare five self-arranged travel months to five months on a Viking world cruise, there need to be some times where it’s apples-to-apples.
It started out by being picked up at the airport by their private car service – a driver waiting after baggage claim with our name on a sign.
The convoluted drive on Georgetown’s inner streets made us glad we weren’t the ones driving.
We were greeted with sweet cold nutmeg tea with lime while we got all our orientation information, plus maps to food markets and attractions within walking distance. Kumar, the concierge and welcoming committee, made us feel immediately welcome.
This heritage building has no elevators and a long and winding polished wooden staircase, so luggage was taken to our top floor room in a very unique way.
No one offered to take us up by rope and pulley, so we left our shoes on the landing shelf (Campbell House goes by the Chinese shoeless tradition in order to protect the original wood floors) and walked up the two flights.
That took us past the library/sitting room on the middle floor…
… and the second floor landing.
We were put, totally unironically, into the Rose room.
The website described it this way: Rose: A Gorgeous room (32 sqm) with super high ceilings and exposed original beams. The focal point of this room is a huge baroque style mirror behind the sumptuous King Size bed, laid against a background of Rose detailed wallpaper. An eclectic mix of Chinese and European inspired furniture add to the luxurious setting with en-suite bathroom offering salvation from the heat with a powerful walk-in rain shower
In addition to bottles of filtered room temperature water, there was cold water and iced tea in the mini fridge, and a bowl of fresh fruit on the desk: bananas, plums, lychees, and tangerines.
Before leaving us to our own devices, we were shown the terrace, just down the hall from our room. It’s crazy hot here, but there are fans that will make it a nice evening space instead which to relax. Ted’s only criticism of Campbell House so far is that our room only has one upholstered chair, which means that unless one of us sits on the bed, we do our sitting/reading/blogging either elsewhere or separately.
Just after 5:00 p.m., fresh chocolate cake appeared in our room to tide us over until we were ready to decide on where we’d be having dinner.
Campbell House is home to Il Bacaro, our daily included breakfast venue which each evening becomes a Michelin-selected Italian restaurant, but – at least initially – we want to focus on the authentic Malaysian flavours of Penang.
While Campbell House is an award-winning boutique hotel, the neighbourhood is genuine Penang, not at all a glitzy tourist area. The uneven sidewalks recall our stay in Mérida, as does the condition of the old buildings (belying former glory), the street art, and the open food stalls.
Kumar suggested that the nearest food street, Kimberly, is the most convenient but not necessarily the best, so we should get it over with on our first night and then move on to better things.
We took his advice and simply ate at the first decent looking hawker stall that also had a few tables away from the road. It specialized in pork and rice. I had Longjiang (Pork Knuckle) Rice (the top photo), and Ted had Guangdong Paired Roast Pork and Barbecue Pork Rice (the bottom photo). Both came with half a Chinese tea egg, a bit of gai lan (Chinese broccoli), some braised bean curd, and a garnish of fermented mustard greens and pumpkin chutney. We added a healthy dollop of chili oil.
It was typical local street food, not fancied up for tourists. Dinner totalled 44MYR/$15CAD. That included a mystery dark coloured cold drink that came in an unlabelled bottle. When we asked what it was, the server said “it’s Chinese”. Research after we got back to the hotel makes me think it was Sarsae, which is similar to sarsaparilla.
By the time we’d walked around long enough to find a place serving ice cream – which turned out to be almost right across from our hotel – we were no longer in the mood for it.
We were parked in our room by 9:00 p.m.
Tomorrow we start some slow exploring, and I find a place for a much-needed pedicure.
Rose and Ted’s Excellent Adventure 