Merepek

Whenever I am in Penang, I hardly eat at home and I don’t do rice I’d rather binge on the yummy hawker food and New Lane is one of my favourite place to pig-out because of variety, convenient location and easy parking.

Talking about parking, the local council officially collects parking charges up to about 10.00pm or so but unofficially you have those jaga-kereta fellas who collect 24 hours. These jaga-keretas are everywhere and come in all shapes and colours and I’ve seen some young kids looking no more than 10 years old to other old, grey and hunched species. They are normally friendly and polite when they approach you to collect their fees upfront but should you ignore or shoo them away, they can turn pretty nasty. So, the car owners usually will put some coins into their grubby hands and they’ll be on their way. So much for their jaga services! And during the couple of days I was in the island, I observed that these fellas now demand to be paid something like RM1 to RM2. I commented that it’s expensive and they just coolly told me off that everything also increase price already, so if they were to just chance upon our generosity with the loose coins, it would be untenable. Hmmmmp..**roll eyes**

Ya, going back to the New Lane story la. I'm not going blog about the food but about the hazards of eating at this place which is infested with beggars especially on weekends and public holidays. Spend an hour or so there and there’ll be no less than 4 approaches. They will be standing with a filthy outstretched hand next to your cramped table and also using the same line, “Ah Chek/Ah Ee, hor chit nor khor lai” (Uncle/Auntie, pass over 1 or 2 ringgit) Aisehman, this is outright demand. Real brazen. And aitelyu, most of these beggars are youngish-looking, able-bodied with all limbs still intact.. Tsk, tsk, useless bums all, so lazy to find proper work. Once, my brother was there with me. He put on his most fearsome-looking face and blasted out the most original and colourful Penang @#*&^%?$@&* and that bugger immediately back-off. No pitying them la – most of them beg to feed their drug-addiction.

Wuuaah...Beggars also demand for payrise. Who said beggars' can't be choosers?