The magnificent villas of the past are still standing, sleeping and unbreathing. Dustily uncared for.
These villas were the homes of traders who came here in the 1700's and 1800's and found their fortunes - Georgetown has always been a masala of people and business - Indian traders, Armenian Jews, Sultans, Portugese, Dutch, English. Raffles spent much of his time here while trying to establish Singapore and the Chinese had a unique ethnic community here for over 500 hundred years. They all came, made money and proudly built homes, schools and temples.
There is money here now but its not interested in staying here and making elegant places to live in.
This new money just wants to go up, up, up.
Just wandering around grubby Georgetown, you can find relics of the past still standing, unadvertised and unwatched. Catholic graveyards, over grown tombs with traders gravestones dating from 1829 - 'loved and passed away' English on one side, Chinese on the other.
Continue reading on crashpacker's blog
Comments by other travellers
There are no posts. Why not be the first to have your say?
About this author
The Crashpacker
I never meant to go travelling, I just went. You start moving and can't stop, and when you do come to rest the inertia swells i…
Also by this author
Nothing for tourists here....
So, i'm sitting in between a local MP and a big time property developer drinking bad red wine that passes as OK port
Markets of Madrid
Sunday morning. A Madrid hangover often involves a coffee in a bar while your fellow party animals carry on sinking cervezas.
What am I doing here, Drinking in Dubai?
Dubai rises out of the desert, all tallest, newest, richest, biggest and most expensives.
So, this is what its like to be Shipwrecked?
In Thailand, when the captain of a boat says the weather is too dangerous to carry on, he starts laughing. Thats when I started worrying.
Latest travel blog posts
This Meat Has Expired
Hauntingly empty buildings of old Berlin...
Faking it...
...language, yeah?
Financial Travel Tip #81: Free Accommodation With House-Sitting
The concept is as simple as it sounds: there are a number of websites that connect homeowners who need somebody to care for their pets/plants/etc in their absence, with travellers who are up for the task and enthusiastic about living a slice of “local lif
'Living like a local' in Berlin?
Where and how do you find local experiences?
