Penang Tropical Fruit Farm

I.. LOVE.. FRUIT. I wouldn’t say that fruit is my entire reason for travelling, cheese is great too, but seriously, when fruit is at its best, there is nothing better. Good mangoes are revolutionary. Mangosteen is as sweet as refined sugar. On our Malaysia trip, Rachel and I were already having a phenomenal time with fruit,  but when Rachel and I heard about a tropical fruit farm tour on Penang, we knew that our trip was about to get better. (Even if it put us in terrible peril)

Now the first thing we discovered about the tropical fruit farm is that it’s really difficult to get to the tropical fruit farm. First you take bus 101 or 102 to pretty much the end of the line, then you take bus 501 to the fruit farm. This bus only comes once every couple hours.  Good luck finding some friendly Finns and Swedes to pass the time with like we did. In all, the entire experience takes most of the day on public transportation.

Anyway, the tour was awesome. We basically went around getting shown tons of obscure (and not-so-obscure) types of fruit. Check out these pictures.

It turns out that dragon fruit comes from a cactus.

It turns out that mace and nutmeg come from the same plant. This is mace, nutmeg's seed covering.

A custard apple. We saw several different fruits related to this.

A wild boar trap baited with jackfruit.

Star Apple

I don't even remember what this thing is.

Elephant Apple

Fig trees look weird.

Jackfruit are big. They can weigh up to 80 lbs (36 kg).

After the tour, we were introduced to an excellent fruit buffet. I even ate a banana! I normally don’t eat bananas, but these ones weren’t the humdrum, boring Cavendish bananas that you find in every supermarket. The fruit farm has dozens of banana varieties and these ones were sweeter and more delicious than anything most people have ever tasted. I also found out that high quality figs are awesome! Let’s hear it for expanding your tastes!

RIGHT side, front to back: banana (not the Cavendish variety that you're used to), jambu, guava, pineapple, watermelon, yellow watermelon. MIDDLE: fig, mango, ciku. LEFT: longan, orange, grapefruit, papaya, honeydew, starfruit (carambola)

My first plate of many.

Directions: From Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia take bus 101 or 102 to the end of the line near the national park/butterfly farm/spice garden. Wait for a long time. Take bus 501 to the fruit farm. There will be a sign for the Penang Tropical Fruit Farm. Walk up the hill and buy a ticket. Price: 35 ringgit per person.