Pith helmets and rotary-dial phones: Penang, Malaysia hotel’s colonial splendour
- Eastern & Oriental Hotel is the grande dame of Penang properties and brainchild of the Sarkies Brothers. Treat yourself to a rainy-season bargain stay
- The hotel is one of a quartet opened by the indefatigable Armenian hoteliers across Southeast Asia in the late 19th century
Do you mean the world-famous E&O? Yes. Or the Eat & Owe as it was known in its colonial heyday, when nobody paid cash for their stengah (a drink made of whisky and soda water) and the chits piled up behind the counters. Manager Arshak Sarkies was famously hospitable, not always an ideal trait in a hotelier.
His name rings a bell. It should. He was one of the indefatigable Sarkies, originally an Armenian family in Iran who, in the late 19th century, studded Southeast Asia with upmarket hostelries. Raffles, in Singapore, The Strand, in Rangoon (now Yangon) and the Majapahit, in Surabaya, were all created by various Sarkies.
The E&O – which was established in 1885 but not called that until 1889 – preceded them all. Hot spot, having inspected the family’s famed quartet over the years, thinks the E&O has the loveliest location of them all.
Go on … It’s right on the seafront in George Town, Penang’s state capital. Apart from being within walking distance of pretty much anywhere you’d want to visit in the Unesco World Heritage Site, it has wonderful views across the Malacca Strait to Butterworth, in the mainland section of Penang. During the rainy season, you can see the afternoon thunderheads mass up from the sea in satisfyingly dramatic fashion. Lounging round either pool, sky-watching, is a form of tropical meditation.
So there are two pools? The initials E&O originally referred to two Sarkies hotels that were combined into one. But just before Armistice Day 1918, Arshak Sarkies bought a nearby property and created the hotel’s Victory Annexe. That expansion, along with his freewheeling generosity, eventually led to the fall of the House of Sarkies and the E&O has had several owners since.
These days, the existence of a new Victory Annexe next door to what’s called the Heritage Wing gives the odd sense you’re staying in two completely different hotels, each with its own pool and restaurants.