Penang: Spice Garden Tour for Colleen and Nanny!

July 20, 2010

Where do the spices we eat come from? Torch Ginger? Cinnamon? Cloves? Star Anise? I had no idea.

The spice garden in Penang, Malaysia holds the answer and more. Turns out it also holds peace and intellectual stimulation for the curious, like Mom. Mom deserved a therapeutic break after a stressful time with Dad's health crisis. And, out of sight of Dad, might be out of mind for her caregiving self. So, she and I went further up along the beautiful, rocky coast of Penang to the famous Spice Garden.

A Chinese Malay man gave us a tour of the spice garden, with much ancient Chinese herb healing knowledge in addition to many claims that modern science also supports the healing herb properties. For instance, he said that an herb called "king of bitter herbs" cures malaria and dengue fever, but pharmaceutical companies would rather us pay big bucks for their anti-malarial pill malarone. We were so taken by his careful, articulate stories of each herb, that we accepted whatever he said as gospel...only after the tour was over did we recover enough to speculate over whether or not the cinnamon we have in our kitchen cabinets was "toxic," as he argued (for the curious, he argued that cinnamon is made from cinnamon tree bark which he said was toxic...I guess Mom's been slowly poisoning herself by dusting her daily oatmeal with cinnamon).

Needless to say, the garden was beautiful and fascinating -- in the pictures above note that the sign of the spice, like cinnamon precedes the tree that it grows from. And, I took pictures above of insect bats, a red bark tree that is so strong and fire-resistant that it's used for the structure of Malaysian buildings, and of a huge fern that towered over Nanny.

We ended our spice garden tour with a solo lunch for just me and Mom, overlooking the spectacular South China Sea. Such a rare, quiet chatting moment for the two of us, usually followed by 3 grandies in tow. We both realized that we wouldn't see each other for a year, after they leave this Friday. It made us both so sad that we cried and held each others' hands over lunch. Then, again, we held hands on the bus ride back to the hotel, tearing up a bit, while the bus hugged the coast.