Sunday Telegraph (Australia)
September 17, 2006 Sunday
Inside Entertainment Edition
Hotel a gem of colonial elegance
MATP
by LEAH CREIGHTON
There aren’t many places that make you feel like landed gentry in
shorts and thongs. The Eastern and Oriental Hotel, in Georgetown,
Penang, is one of those rare places.
It’s also an undisturbed portal back to a time of British colonial
elegance.
Built in 1885 by the Armenian Sarkies brothers, of Raffles Singapore
fame, the E&O quickly became one of the British Empire’s finest
hotels.
It boasted Moorish minarets, a spacious, domed lobby and ”the
longest seafront in the world”.
By 1927, the E&O was being advertised as ”The Premier Hotel East of
the Suez” — with more than a hundred rooms and hot and cold running
water.
Its guests included Noel Coward, Douglas Fairbanks and Hermann Hesse.
Rudyard Kipling and Somerset Maugham are also reported to have
written extensively there.
Today’s Georgetown — sinking slowly into charming decrepitation —
is a strange
setting for the opulence of the Eastern and Oriental.
In its steaming, streaming streets, scores of hawkers, as sun-dried
as their wares, call out for custom.
Kerbside eateries hum with diners, and the aromas of roasted meats,
nuts and sweet ices curl into the humid and heavy air.
Gradually, like the intermittent rain that drenches you by degrees,
you feel a strength and pride in these people who have experienced
colonial rule and lived to tell the tale — in their own language,
and with their own leadership.
The Eastern and Oriental is one of the few reminders of this period
in Penang’s history. Like a slightly aloof matriarch, its imposing
white colonial facade stands just outside the bustling city centre.
Ushered inside by porters dressed in period safari suits and pith
helmets, you instantly morph into the era.
In a ballroom-sized reception hall, the immaculate customer manager
greets guests with a chilled martini glass of the fresh-fruitiest
cocktail that liquor never graced. (This, after all, is a Muslim
country, where drinking isn’t the norm.)
In the long, white-and-wooden hallways, etched with the heel marks of
a thousand guests, ornate ashtrays hold grey sand stamped with the
hotel’s initials. It’s meticulously restored after every extinguished
butt.
There’s soft music emanating from the pool area, and fresh violet
orchids are scattered around my waterfront room.
It’s filled with the sound of soft-slapping waves on the low-walled
walkway, where a lone antique cannon sits as a reminder of less
peaceful times.
There’s a parlour-sized bathroom with his-and-her areas and a
bacchanalian bath. This place feels six-star, without even having a
flat-screen TV.
A solid armoire from the 19th century dominates the bedroom. Behind
its thick doors, you can imagine lace petticoats beneath
whalebone-fortified skirts and pressed safari suits, redolent with
the smell of lavender, cigars and mothballs.
There are five eateries in the hotel, the most famous being Sarkies
Corner.
Each morning, Sarkies is decked in bone-white china and steaming
trays of Malaysian nasi goreng, Chinese yum cha, fried American
morsels, English teas and lots of Japanese delicacies.
* The writer was a guest of the Eastern and Oriental Hotel.
THE Eastern and Oriental Hotel isat 10 Lebuh Farquhar, Georgetown,
Penang, Malaysia;
Prices range from about $300 (850ringgits) a night for a doubledeluxe
suite up to $4200(12,000 ringgits) for theultimate E&Osuite.
Malaysian Airlines flies from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur twice aday, with
10 flights a day from Kuala Lumpur to Penang.