Gurney Drive

I walked around the hotel area and was struggling to find food again tonight so decided to go down to Penang's famous Gurney Drive. It takes less than 10 minutes by cab but being the Malaysian taxi drivers they are, it cost me RM11!

Taxis are a real pain and bane in Malaysia. I wonder how the government is ever going to attract more tourists when all cabbies behave like this? I travel a lot around the ASEAN countries and Malaysian taxis are easily the most expensive and the drivers are all extortionists. Given that they are still not making big bucks, if they want to charge more, they should at least raise their own level of service and maintain their cars better. Grrr....

So I got down to Gurney Drive. It's very different from the last time I remembered it. No more street side stalls. They've all been moved to a designated food centre. All the usual stalls were there and my mouth was just salivating as soon as I got out from the cab. I can't do it all in one night so just Assam Laksa (or more commonly known as Penang Laksa) and a "Ramly burger" tonight. I only had the laksa initially but couldn't walk past the burger stall with a big sign proclaiming himself as the burger king. This ain't burger the way you guys know it back in Ozland, this is Malaysian style burger! Yummy! The guy even has a special giant pattie burger which I promised to go back and try one night this week. Got his card so I'll give him a buzz to 'book' my burger. :-) The burger guy took over from his dad who used to run the stall on Gurney Drive itself 20 years ago. I want to try the other stalls too: grilled dried squid, Penang rojak, fried stuff including pig intestines, more muachi, dry noodles, curry noodles, etc. etc. The list is too long!!

Assam laksa - sour-ish soup (from the plum) with fish garnised with thinly sliced cucumber, ginger flower, pineapple, shallots, chilli, etc. etc. Deeeelicious!

Faster than the naked eye could see, I woffed down the burger so you get to see the guy's business card instead. :-) "Raja Burger" translate to "Burger King" but it sure isn't Burger King! :-)

I took a nice stroll down Gurney Drive after dinner. The beach is almost non-existent now. Very sad. It got washed away and destroyed by that great big new year's eve tsunami that hit a few years back. The cabbie was telling me how they had big fishes on the road after the wave hit. Must have been scary for the people who lived on the beach front.

Anyway...getting late again and it'll be a long day again tomorrow!

chet