AI YO YO ... so much has been happening that I've not had time to do anything about updating this poor blog. Firstly, my good friend from Parkroyal has now moved on to better things, and my sincere good wishes for a successful career henceforth go with her. I shall miss you, but here's to getting together again.
Secondly, last week a fellow food writer was here staying at Traders for a couple of days so I was fortunate to be invited to spend time with her doing a trishaw ride food trail around George Town. It was HOT but inneresting (as she said, being a native New Yorker). We had so much food to eat that, although starving initially - having not had any breakfast in order to accommodate what I knew would be a stomach-stretching afternoon - we were so stuffed it was picking at everything at the end. We started off at the Beef Noodle place opposite the bomba, chendol off Penang Road and ended up at Lorong Selamat Char Kuey Teow. With a few other stops in between, that should give you an idea of how hawkered-out we were.
It's interesting to see Penang through strange eyes again, and I was delighted to be able to go back to basics, as such.
I bemoan the fact that our trishaw riders (lang chia lang) are now just tourist attractions and no longer a way of life. I am old enough to remember, as a child, my auntie hailing one when we were out shopping and the heavens opened. The strangely smooth rides, interrupted by the odd bump as the wheels went over an uneven part of the road, were unforgettable, especially as the rain water dripped down the back of your shirt. Pity the poor trishaw man.
Having said that, I do remember how these hardworking people were, to put it frankly, quite rude and crude, and woe betide the driver or motorbike rider who had the gall to honk them for their indiscriminate road sense. And whenever we were impolite we were told, "Sit properly! Don't be a lang chia lang!"
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