A Sunny Detour to Balik Pulau

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoSun today, properly so, the kind that makes yesterday's rain feel like something we imagined. Breakfast happened indoors, air conditioning doing the job the outdoors clearly wasn't interested in — Penang heat has a way of announcing itself early and meaning it.

After that, the day needed a plan, and we gave it one: laksa. Not any laksa — proper laksa, the kind worth a drive for, which meant Balik Pulau. Fortunately the new highway has shortened what used to be a proper trek into something almost civilised, and we made good time, stopping briefly at a vista up the hill where Penang spread itself out below in that hazy, sun-flattened way islands do at midday. Worth the two minutes it cost us.

Balik Pulau delivered, as promised. We found Fara Idlan Cafe, selling something called Laksa Ikan Sekoq, which sounded specific enough to be trustworthy, and was. Properly good — the sort of bowl that justifies the entire detour on its own, no further discussion required. Sometimes the whole itinerary is just an elaborate excuse to end up at one plate of food, and today that was fine by everyone.

The drive back went via Telok Bahang, which is scenic in the way that mostly means winding, and winding in the way that Anita does not care for. She bore it with the particular patience of someone who has voiced her opinion on hairpin bends before and will again. We stopped at the Spice Garden, or rather stopped outside it — too hot to venture in properly, and Anita hadn't come dressed for a jungle trek, entirely reasonably. So we admired the entrance, made a mental note for a cooler day that may or may not arrive, and carried on.

Back at the hotel for a rest that felt earned, the kind where you lie down with every intention of a short lie-down and the day quietly negotiates otherwise.

Evening took us to Batu Ferringhi with the boys, seafood on the agenda, which on Penang's coast feels less like a choice and more like an obligation you're happy to meet. Plates arrived, conversation drifted, the sea did whatever the sea does after dark that you can hear but not see.

And somewhere between the laksa and the seafood, the low-grade realisation set in that we'll be missing Penang before we've even left it — that specific, slightly premature nostalgia the place seems to induce, as though it knows exactly how good it's being and wants credit in advance. Fair enough, really. It's earned it today.