Penang's Tropical Spice Garden |
In my right hand, I squeezed the orange, plastic chopsticks and lifted the koay teow noodles into my mouth. Mark slurped up the last drops of his fresh nutmeg juice and raised his eyes to my drink. I kept my other hand tightly around the glass. It was automatic when I heard that sound.
“Can I just have a sip?”
“Nop.”
“Just a little.”
I shook my head and slid the glass of nutmeg juice closer to me. I had heard that line before. Of course, I wasn’t the first Southeast Asian in history to hear it. White guys have been following the Spice Route to this part of the world for 500 years trying to steal nutmeg.