E&O Hotel, Penang, Malaysia. December 2005
My favorite Armenian brothers
I thought my love affair with the Sarkies brothers hotels started in Singapore. Singapore's most famous hotel, the venerable Raffles, was the crown jewel of their Southeast Asian hotel empire. I fell in love with the Raffles on my first visit in the mid-1980s when she was an old, colonial mess, like some architectural Miss Havesham glorying in her decrepitude. The Eastern and Oriental Hotel in Georgetown, Penang, however, was the first Sarkies property established, the first I visited, and the first place that set a travel theme for me. 23 year old Tigran Sarkies bought the Hotel de l'Europe in Penang when he was not much older than me at the time and transformed it into his first luxury property. Followed by the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, the Strand Hotel in Rangoon, Burma (Yangon, Myanmar), and other properties now gone, the Sarkies brothers set up a "brand" before such things existed in the hotel industry. Two runners up also made the list: the Sarkies family getaway in Batu, Malang, Indonesia - the Hotel Kartika Wijaya (formerly Jambe Dawe, only later converted into a hotel); and the Hotel Majapahit, Surabaya, Indonesia (formerly Hotel Oranje), constructed by a second generation Sarkies. These brothers had made a hotel "realm" at the peak of the British Colonial Era. Even though that period is vanished and the hotels all have different owners, their properties continue to exude history. Thanks to Tigran Sarkies I fell in love with a region and an era.
My first trip to Penang was a spring trip in 1985 with my Japanese friend from work, Masaaki Ono. That journey to Southeast Asia was actually inspired by Brian (whom I had not met!) via our mutual friend JM. They had gone on a vacation from study abroad in Tokyo to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. After meeting JM in Tokyo right after their trip, he insisted that I just had to go! I convinced Masaaki, my best friend in Sendai at the time (who had not yet been abroad), to tag along. The cheapest flight we could find was on Malaysian Airlines' "Milk Run" flight: Tokyo-Taipei-Hong Kong-Penang-Kuala Lumpur. We exited the plane in Penang a little sloshed after all the free alcohol and stayed in a cheap hotel in Georgetown. This "adventure" is what started a fascination with the region.
Probably in Tony Wheeler's break out book, Southeast Asia on a Shoestring, I read about the E&O Hotel. At that time, it was in even worse shape than the Raffles. However, there was a fabulous old colonial bar there, Farquhar's, which "had to be experienced". That bar had served the likes of Noel Coward, Rudyard Kipling, and Somerset Maugham! Maybe I hoped some of their literary genius and fame would trickle onto me? Masaaki and I went for very cheap beers there at the bar. I think Masaaki was in a daze just drinking in all the new sites and sounds as well as literally drinking the cheapest beer he had ever ordered! As for me, it was my first experience in a decayed building from the British Colonial Empire. I have to admit, I loved it. It was not only history, but it was history that was actively being forgotten (as Malaysia was working hard to establish its own identity, understandably). The place wreaked of adventure of days gone by.
Fast forward into the early 2000's and I was on that very same trip with my friend Kelle. She heard about Brian and my "luxurious" expat lifestyle in Singapore and wanted to come for a visit. We visited Bangkok, Penang, Kuala Lumpur, and ended in Singapore. In Penang, because now I had more money and because Kelle's motto was "Luxury or Bust", we stayed at the E&O Hotel in one of the old suites overlooking the Straits of Malacca. Even Kelle, who found the Hamptons "tiresome", was impressed. By that time, Malaysia recognized that tourists would pay a lot of money to come back and experience "colonial splendor". The E&O was brought back, most likely even better, to its glory days. Even if over-glamorized, there was something to sitting in that old hotel bar and feeling part of a forgotten age. Waking up and opening louvered doors to a small balcony overlooking the the blue Straits of Malacca was unforgettable. I think a period tv series lurks within one of these properties - a Downton Abbey of the Overseas British Empire, perhaps?
After my time spent in Asia, I visited all of the Sarkies brothers' properties - to stay in, to drink in, and even to attend weddings! Some of their hotels, of course, no longer exist, but those that do have been brought back to the peak of their glorious past, no matter how inaccurately. In the case of a grand colonial hotel, it is not about accurate portrayal of the hotel details, but instead about the recreation of that "feeling" of stepping into a world of over the top luxury. In a far more equitable world, that luxury is now open to everyone, too (well, at least to those with money). That luxury was the buffer to the harsh realities that existed just outside the Sikh-guarded hotel lobby doors in old "Malaya".
Ironically, it was not until I lived in the region that I learned about the Sarkies brothers. I thought I had fallen in love with old colonial hotels via the Raffles in Singapore on my first visit about a week after I landed in Penang. Only later did I learn that they had also built the E&O Hotel in Penang. In my mind, the first colonial hotel I "fell in love with" was the Raffles, but in reality it was the E&O.
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