TBA Day 15: Last Day in Malaysia (featuring Bak Kut Teh)

I got a bit of a late start today because I decided to go ahead and watch the presidential debate (airing live at 9am) this morning. It’s probably the first time I’ve paid so much attention to such things but, as Stanley noted when we discussed it later, these things never make any difference anyway (as evidenced in striking fashion last election) so I’ll just leave it at that…

After the debate I set out to explore a bit down Gurney Drive, which is a road running along the coast where lots of expensive hotels are, as well as restaurants, a huge fancy mall, and what’s supposed to be a very good (though higher-than-average priced) hawker center. It was a gorgeous day other than the heat, and I found myself getting hungry (and about to die from heat exhaustion) when I happened upon a very busy open-air restaurant called Zealand Bak Kut Teh and Seafood.
I took a seat and ordered the Bak Kut Teh, a soup featuring a few different kinds of pork (pork rib, pork meatballs, pork shoulder, and pork belly) as well as mushrooms, tofu, and bean curd sheets all together in a wonderfully flavorful broth. It was served with steamed rice, a slightly sweet bread for dipping in the delicious broth, and some nice Chinese tea. The waitress also asked if I wanted steamed vegetables. I thought that sounded nice, although it turned out to be veggies with shrimp served in a really nice slightly spicy sauce. Tasty, but the result was that I was then dealing with way more food than I could reasonably eat for lunch.
All in all a really nice meal, though, and with the gorgeous view from my table (pictured below) I couldn’t complain, even if I never managed to make it all the way to that hawker center…
After lunch I wandered down a bit further to Gurney Plaza where, among other things, I watched a 6-year-old Asian girl playing Hava Nagila on an electric violin while doing little adorable dance steps and dressed in a glittery jumpsuit… I have no idea why that was happening, but it was fascinating and fairly awesome. Once I’d soaked in enough A/C to carry on, I grabbed a cab back to my hotel. The driver made the comment that if I’d tried to walk back in this heat I would have been barbecued by the time I got back, which I thought was cute. Turns out my brother is very wise in always telling me to take more cabs, and the cab ride home was US$5 very well spent.

I still can’t seem to eat like I used to, so a big meal like I had at 1pm pretty much does me in for the day eating-wise. It’s probably just as well since my transportation for the Thailand is picking me up at 5am tomorrow, so an earlier-than-usual bedtime would seem to be in order tonight. It feels so weird to just have this handwritten ticket from the travel agency while I’m setting off to board a mini-bus that will take me out of the country, transfer to another mode of transportation in Hat Yai (the first stop in Thailand), and then board a ferry to my final destination. It’s apparently all included in my ticket, and I’m sure it will be fine… I’m just used to booking things electronically so I have slight misgivings that my little handwritten paper ticket may not provide all that it’s supposed to. I guess there’s only one way to find out…