The day before yesterday I hired a car to drive me out to “Kellie’s Castle“, the ruins of a hundred-year-old colonial estate.
It was both more modest, and less ruined than I expected. Even though it was built in the 1920’s and intended as a residence, the construction is like a medieval fortress. It’s going to be here for a long time.
The whole place is deeply paranoid. In addition to having those crazy walls and a tower with arrow slits (which could all be about historic charm) there are also countless escape routes, including a tunnel to a neighboring temple.
There’s probably some sort of lesson about colonial guilt/fear going on here. But, hey Kellie, maybe if you wouldn’t make people haul a castle’s worth of bricks and imported marble all the way from Penang they wouldn’t be in such a hurry to string you up.
