Anatomy Of A Stupid.

A Champagne Wish and Caviar Dream Moment

400kms, 7 people, 4 states, 1 hell of a road trip. Nothing else can describe the vacation we planned for ourselves to Penang in conjunction with supporting our lecturers in a competition organized by the Penang Chef’s Association at the iFoodEx, a food exhibition. In a way, I had a lot and too much fun at the same time. The awkward feeling of responsibility, as if I was driving a wife and 5 kids back to the hometown, as if I’m supposed to make sure everything goes right, the fact that it’s just me, friends and the road this time, and the desire to just let go from everything all set together like a pudding in a freezer… all too perfect. With the exception of a couple of wet blankets, I tell myself this is going to be an awesome time.

We started our journey on Wednesday morning at approximately 9am 10am. Yeah, sure we had some technical errors only to surface right there and then, like the suddenly jammed CD player, or the not so sudden lack of space thanks to the huge luggages we brought along but we managed to leave by this time. Everybody was neatly seated in and we were on something like never before.

Thanks to my very responsible co-pilots, Sherry Nana Dia and Vincent "Pyroboy" Liew, passing by tolls and looking out for oncoming trucks about to pull a Final Destination on us went by smoothly. Made our first stop just after Rawang for a quick snack and loo break, and we were back on the road shooting straight until Ipoh where we arrived for some lunch.

Note that I’ve never actually driven on a road trip solely with friends and outstation before, but I tried my best to give a good recommendation… But fudge it, I guess I didn’t really do a good job when I recommended Mee Rebus Ramli, a small time shop near the Excelsior selling what used to be my dad’s favorite Mee Rebus. Well hey, I always have sushi at Jusco, what did you expect? The guys wanted something Malay since they presumed that Penang would be blooming with Chinese hawker cuisine. Oh how regretful they were.

Lesson learnt, only buy a Ramli if it’s a burger, not Mee Rebus. It was to some bland and to me, too spicy to handle. But then again, I’m a wuss when it comes to hot food. Some people like my co-pilots had chicken rice, Malay style. Don’t bother guys, I already know it’s terrible We had to compensate with some Tau Foo Fah from a place Vincent recalled which had a name just as weird as his obsession with lighters.. Funny Mountain. I’m sure it’s a very famous 10 by 15 feet stall, since it’s almost covered in newspaper pull-outs. I personally thought the owner was a bit uptight, since he seemed humorously annoyed when I asked if they had brown sugar instead of white. Brushed off with a nice, "we unfortunately dont give options so that it’s easier for everyone" I was.

But the tofu itself was unsually firm, yet soft, and almost sponge-like that it bounces like the perfect mattress. Nothing special about the sugar though. Still craving for some brown sugar, I opted to stop at the next shop too, selling Cendol. Cendol is a Malaysian dessert consisting of shaved ice, coconut milk, brown sugar, pandan jelly and kidney beans. But personally I’d prefer it without the beans. It was very unsual, it had a bitter aftertaste which makes me almost want to never stop the feed so that I won’t taste it. Everyone came down for Cendol, unlike the Tau Foo Fah stop where only me, Vincent, Calvin and Tommy had it.

Back on the road shortly after, with David Cook’s Time Of My Life constantly playing on every station miraculously, but the pleasure could only last so long until we approached the north Ipoh tollgate. The sudden appearance of a run of the mill Proton Waja next to us, what looks to be a Mat Rempit with a decent haircut in it flagging us down to stop while holding only a namecard size ID which I could barely see. Immediately my mind went into panic mode, and recalling my incident 3 years back where I got mugged the exact same way, I decided not to stop yet but instead try to cut them off.

However, it all brings to no avail, they are still next to me trying to stop me, and sometimes almost running into me even, it was getting serious. In an attempt to dodge, I accidentally excited the highway and was forced to stop the car at the shoulder of the road. The thug-like passanger came down from his vehicle and marched over to mine. At this moment, everyone kept giving me different instructions on what to do, but sadly… all I could remember doing was trying to unjam my window which I was trying to roll up. Imagine that, of all the time for it to jam.

The guy went to Sherryna’s side first, and not mine. Fearing for her safety, I asked him to come over to my side. To my surprise, he’s actually just a reposesor! Sheesh. It’s a long story but, the previous owner of the car had an outstanding 4 months which he didn’t settle, and of all the time for the reposesors to come out was when I used to for the trip. Sighs! Well eventually after some pretty scary moves from his behalf like snatching the keys from me, walking off with my phone, we settled it all with the best solution, an RM20 bribe.

Trauma still in my head, we continued our journey. At this point, everyone was literally making jokes about how other reposessors would run into us to makes us stop, tow the car from the hotel, etc. Gee, thanks guys. Quote unquote Cook, this is the time of my life.

Finally we arrived at the Holiday Inn at 4pm for the check in. Instead of two single doublebed rooms, we got one double doublebed room. So the boys and girls slept in the same room, in what qualifies to be a close proximity offence, but I’m sure none of us mind, what more with handsome chicks like Mischa and Sherryna, right boys? Oh and don’t forget to send me their snoring/drooling/naked pictures.

Hahah!

Just kidding lar…

So after we got settled in with our sections, we went down to see what the beach at Feringghi was like. The girls seemed to like it by the looks of their surprisingly already wet pants, and I thought we were there just to survey it but alrighteo. After that we showered, some took cat naps, and at 7 left for the town for some grub. So determined that the usuals at Gurney would suffice their appetite, I took them there but again to my dissapointment, Gurney Drive has changed.

The food is terrible, and the variety is slashed to half. Prawn Mee which tasted like normal soup without the salt, claypot chicken rice which tasted worse than the ones you get at the Giant food court, we were very dissapointed. So we left Gurney before ordering anything heavy and stopped by a food court I once saw but never patronized in Chinatown.

Safe to say, everything there was great. The oysters were wonderful, I had an extra RM5 plate and Calvin and Mischa liked the Ikan Bakar, satay and fried cockles. I’d go there again, and recommend it if only I knew it’s name… Sorry guys!

After that we went around town for a while for some sightseeing, then went back to the hotel where we stopped by the night market to get some DVDs to watch before the night ended. Ended up buying RM40 worth of movies and the rest spent quite a while at a marble stall where you could get anything you want engraved on the marble for a steal. Tommy got a necklace and ankle bracelet at RM10 each and got his funky Naruto-ish phrases engraved on it.

So we’re back at the hotel, and the theme for the night were horror movies! Some of which included 28 Weeks Later and Saw IV.

*to be continued*

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