My first trip of 2020 and first time to Penang, Malaysia 👍🏼 I'll definitely be back for another look around!!

Crossing the road is done South East Asian style. You just set off across the road, looking straight ahead to the other side and hope that cars and motor bikes will go around you. It's an act of faith every time!

Photos in this blog were taken on an early morning and evening walk around Penang old town.

Perfect blue sky sets off these suspended umbrellas. Must be some of the most instagrammed umbrellas in all of Asia...if not the world! Georgetown gained UNESCO Cultural World Heritage Site in 2008.

Familiar architecture, the 5 foot passageways in front of shophouses, the tiles, plasterwork and carved wooden doors all dating back to the 1920's when the Dutch, Portuguese and British colonists lived in Penang; periodically swopping ownership of what was never theirs in the first place.

The state of dereliction of some of the shophouses is a reflection of how expensive it is to renovate these crumbling properties, not a lack of desire to do so. High ceilings, long rooms and thin walls make these properties difficult to convert into easily liveable spaces. The UNESCO status of Georgetown has meant that rebuilding and modernising has to be in keeping with the original style of the building.

An Aladdin's cave of bits and pieces of wood and metal work. Everything you could possible need for patching up your shophouse!

A replacement window frame being taken into a smaller, more modern shophouse in Little India. Tourist rickshaw ready for action!

Every size of tandoori and cooking pot. Little India, Georgetown. 

My favourite shot of the trip. Inside one of a short row of what must have been warehouses during the time that Penang was a major duty free port. I'd like to think that opium was secretly stored in these rooms, at least up until 1867 when rioting broke out and the trade was, 'stopped'. 

Georgetown, Penang, January 3rd 2020.

More of my Travel and Social History blogs here:

Date with Demolition: Historic Saigon,  End of an Era: Dakota Crescent HDB's and Early Morning in Little India.

Thank you for reading my blog and supporting my passion for photography, writing and social history!

Ruth 😊

Ruth is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society and has a Diploma in Professional Photography awarded by the Photography Institute.  RPS_ARPS_CMYK