Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Halfway Down Love Lane @ Penang Georgetown [Malaysia]

Faced with over a hundred pictures to cover day two of the penang trip, i made the decision to break it up into smaller, bite-sized postings so that it's less tedious for me to blog; i did notice that once there were too many photographs, i did tend to share lesser information towards the end as i am just too tired! 

Anyway, this is one of the mini-entries and the reason for putting this out is because i was intrigued with the name of the street that's known officially as Love Lane.

Images of romantic looking houses, beautiful parks and couples walking hand-in-hand came into picture and i couldn't wait to see what lies further down the lane. 

I was mistaken and sorely disappointed; colonial shophouses lined the street as with many other lanes / lebuhs at the UNESCO site and this made me wonder how the name "love name" came about.

Apparently, it was filled with brothels in the past although i read from a blog here that another likelihood was that it's named after a British officer with a family name "love". Sometimes in life, the origins of street / place names can never be confirmed; just like Ang Mo Kio in Singapore. 

Nowadays, Love Lane is better known as the place for B&Bs and heritage themed boutique hotels and there were quite a number along the short street.

This one, called simply by its address of 23 Love Lane, was the most noticeable for its walled compound that made you wonder if it used to house some wealthy merchants or big shot officials. 

Likely a high ranked official. According from the website of 23 Love Lane, it was originally a private residence owned by a European and the buildings were constructed starting from the 1800s! 

Want a cheaper place? Consider the Wan Hai Hotel but do be mindful of this harrowing experience by a female traveller. Click here to check it out!  

Since we already had a hotel to sleep in, it was mostly a look-see-look-see walk for us and we were keener in getting to see the street art supposed to be dotted all over the place at Georgetown heritage district. The above wasn't the straightforward street art i expected. 

The ballet lady dancing on top of the passageway would be the kind of street art we were looking for. For more street art, do check out Armenian Street instead! 

=====

No comments:

Post a Comment