Penang, Malaysia is about mid-way between Phuket and Kuala Lumpur. The cruise terminal is on an island just off the coast. I decided it was time to get spicy.
The Tropical Spice Garden was once a rubber plantation but now claims to be an “open-air bio-diversity living museum” with over 500 flora specimen. It was an hour bus ride from the ship followed by an hour walking tour of the grounds.
Most of the spices were out of season, so no exciting photos. There was a nice Bird of Paradise.
Vanilla is the second most expensive spice after saffron. Yet I was confused about the cage it was growing in. Was vanilla so valuable poachers would come into spice gardens? Kind of – seems the local monkeys like the taste of vanilla just as much as humans do.
We had a bit of a surprise entering the next pavilion – there was a family of fruit bats waiting out the daylight hours.
After touring the grounds we had a cooking demonstration. Not as much fun as yesterday where we participated, but this tour had three-times as many people. The meal was chicken curry and roti jala, a type of “netted crepe” I have not had since 2019 in Sandakan.
The surprise of the day was nutmeg juice. I am not kidding. For the new Cruiseboysians, I visited a spice farm in Zanzibar in 2019 where I was introduced to the nutmeg fruit and nut. Below images are from that visit.
Seems you can soak the fruit overnight and drink the juice. The more you know.
