Perlis Road

I saw this image of a watercolour painting on a facebook page. The subject here was of a row of townhouses in Perlis Road, George Town. To me, this scene was instantly recognisable and brought back a lot of childhood memories. The house with the overhanging wooden balcony is very rarely seen today. I should visit this place one day to reacquaint myself with the old neighbourhood. After all, there was a similar balcony in a house opposite my old home in Seang Tek Road. 

That house was occupied by a family which sold chap fan or economy rice dishes for their walk-in patrons. Special dishes are also cooked on demand, especially soup-based dishes. Occasionally, my mother would ask me to go and buy their chap chai soup for dinner. This was a vegetable soup with various bits of pork and fish balls thrown in. For me, it was only a matter of crossing the road (Seang Teik Road) to place my order. Think it used to cost only $2 for a big bowl of soup. Of course, this shop and the balcony are no longer there. The back door of my old home opened into a wide back lane which connected to Perlis Road. You can see the entrance of this back lane in the painting. It is the exact one below the wooden balcony. 

If anyone is interested, this watercolour painting is available for sale at RM2,100. You only need to join this facebook group and place your bid there. This, and also many other watercolour paintings that are on sale. Amateur artists all, but very talented. 

I don't know about now but in the old days, Perlis Road was pretty notorious. Perlis Road and Irving Road. A lot of questionable nightlife activities occurred here. Once the sun had set, the back lanes assumed a new life. They were unlit. No street lights except for the headlamps of the occasional motorcycles that dared use the back lanes as shortcuts. This one and also another one across the road that led to Irving Road and beyond to New Lane. So all sorts of questionable nightlife and unsavoury dubious characters. To be blunt, prostitutes and transgenders. So much so that the houses along Perlis Road resorted to erecting iron barriers to fence off their five footways from these unwanted nocturnal visitors.