Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Secondhand Bookshop

I love wandering around in secondhand bookshop. There is unmistakably some kind of attraction that brings me to that place filled with books, books and books.
Surrounded by towers of books, time seems does not exist.

And it did two weeks ago when I made my pilgrimage to that Chowrasta Market,Penang. During my volunteering years in Laos (2002 - 2003), that was the place I went while waiting for the next train to leave for Bangkok. It was kind of ritual to take the night train to Butterworth from KL and arriving in Butterworth at 7 am the next morning. Jumping off the train, I would take the ferry to Penang and walked to Masjid Kapitan Keling to have my morning shower. And I would spend the next hours at the Chowrasta Market immersed in my reading before clutching some books for the 2pm train ride to Bangkok.


Jalan Chowrasta Posted by Hello


Chowrasta Market Posted by Hello


close-up: Bahagian buku-buku lama Posted by Hello



Inside: Heaven on earth! Posted by Hello


towers of back issues of Reader Digest Posted by Hello

11 comments:

Kak Teh said...

Is, so you called me from here lah kan?? Ha, now i get to see the place! And Is, I like the new template.

Berisman said...

Thanks Dr Bubbles!
At least I now know what Chowrasta looks like:-)
Btw, I never been there.
I hope to go there as soon as I can.

Pak Adib

Iskandar Syah Ismail aka DR Bubbles said...

kakteh,

yup! I sms-ed you from this place.it is only 5 minutes away from KOMTAR Penang and you will get a chance to stroll along the quiet lane of Chowrasta.surreal but nice!

it is actually the original template i used for my lost blog.kusyi told me recently of another blog using drbubble (with no s) and she said that the fellow blogger with drbubble name is female and a doctor. hahaha. that was my lost blog!

i think I will keep it as my templatelah.warnanya chantek kan?

Iskandar Syah Ismail aka DR Bubbles said...

pak adib,

kalau nak ke sana someday, let me know . :). to me that place gives me a great pleasure and it always reminded me of that book villages of Wigtown,Scotland and Hay-on-Wye,Wales. kakteh sudah ke hay-on-wye kan?

atenah said...

is, i sekolah dulu kalau ponteng kat sinilah lepak dgn pak we....tak de lah, acah je

Iskandar Syah Ismail aka DR Bubbles said...

atenah,

hahaha..what a strange place to lepak with yr pakwe. by the way prangin mall is just 5 minutes away. :)

atenah said...

sedih is, dah berkurun lamanya tak ke sana. prangin mall pun tak pernah jejak lagi. can you imagine that?

scrubber said...

oh oh oh oh oh....*run around as if seeing sweets, too many swees*

Unknown said...

Salam Is,

Thanks for showing the photo of the shop. If I am right, I've been there many times before, buying nutmeg and pickles. Never know it is in the same place!

Iskandar Syah Ismail aka DR Bubbles said...

naj,

tempting kan?

jiwarasa,

ironinya, betul-betul dibawahnya (ground floor)ialah bahagian daging khinzir!

Anonymous said...

Hi, can you tell me if the secondhand bookshops in chowrasta opens on Sundays as well? Thank you.