The Eastern & Oriental Hotel, or E&O in Penang has been my home for the last few days, whilst we escaped from the madness that ensues in central Bangkok, to which we returned last night just before the latest violent outbreak. Trips away are always good to clear one's head and to enable life's troubles to be viewed from a different perspective. I also find that they make you appreciate where you live with much greater clarity, and that is perhaps a surprising feeling to have, given the extraordinary circumstances in which Thailand finds itself today.
The E&O is within a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and more about that in the coming days. The hotel was founded in 1885 by the Sarkie Brothers. It was patronised by colonial administrators, planters and the local and international elite. Among its more famous guests it has welcomed Noel Coward, Douglas Fairbanks, Hermann Hesse, Rudyard Kipling and Somerset Maugham.
It was also home (separately) to my parents who came to live and work in Malaya in the early 1950s, and Penang was the city where they met, and thereafter married, (in England). They subsequently lived in Malaya until the late 1960s, when they moved up to Hong Kong.
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