When I entered the courtyard of my hotel in my Land-Cruiser, the gravel made some comforting noise. The doorman in its beautiful uniform could not hold back a big smile when he saw the huge and for once spotless clean Off-Roader. We tried to park in the hotel garage, but it was too low, and so I got a parking space in front of the beautiful hotel, right in the middle of Bentleys and Aston Martins.
Some words about this wonderful hotel: breakfast is served wherever you want it. At the pool-side? Certainly Mr. Reichmuth. In your suite? No problem, Sir. And the best of it: You can discuss its contents! Some exotic fruits, perhaps? Or the hotel’s own and most tasty breakfast tea?
I loved it! When you leave your book with open pages on your bed, room service will put in an earmark made of fine leather with the hotel’s signet and lay it on your bedside-table. If you care for music: the stereo is of finest quality and together with Johan I made my choice from the hotel’s collection of classic music. The suite was rather big – you enter in a living room with dinner table and couch, then go into the huge sleeping room with its beautiful colonial-style furniture and finally arrive in the dressing room, from where you can step into the marble bath-room. However, most of all liked the gay hangers: check out the picture!
Whenever you walk through the spacious court-yards of the 120 years old hotel, everybody will greet you most friendly and chat a bit about the weather, the up-coming fireworks or ask about my trip (the whole hotel seemed to take notice of the strange car parked in the middle of all that limousines).
If you go the pool, Joe, the waiter, will lay out some soft towels on your deck chair and bring you some ice water before you can ask for. Or a cocktail, for that matter.
I really was tempted to just stay four days in the hotel and do nothing at all – but it was even more tempting to follow the many kind invitations by couchsurfers and friends to discover Singapore. In order to combine both options, I decided to invite some friends and surfers over for an aperitif in the hotel. Since on Friday evening, the hotel management invited all guests present for some drinks, I decided that this would be a most suitable moment to have my friends coming over.
Sitting among other guests I had great fun talking with Maryanne, Miriam and Odelie when all of a sudden a gentleman in dark suit and tie appeared. He offered his welcome greetings to us and I wondered whether this was the hotel director. He was not. Now seated on a chair next to Maryanne we found ourselves in the presence of the hotel’s "Resident Historian", Mr. Leslie Danker. We clinked glasses and I inquired what this was, a "Resident Historian". He then politely explained that he had worked in the hotel for the last 35 years and that his job was to document the history of the hotel. And to tell all VIP guests about the history. I wondered whether we were VIP enough to hear the story, but before I could ask, two factors played well together. First of all, I could clearly see that he liked Maryanne a lot, and that he regarded her as a VIP for sure: Maryanne is Singapore’s best archer. Secondly, and this factor worked just fine, too, Miriam, my friend form Germany, asked most charmingly and quite directly whether he could not do us the favour and fetch his presentation right here and now. Mr. Leslie Danker had no option: on the one hand he wanted to enjoy the presence of Maryanne a bit longer; on the other hand he simply could not downturn the wish of a lady.
And there we were: For the next 2.5 hours and while drinking the next three Singapore Slings (this famous drink, so we learnt, was mixed first by a Raffles bar-tender who wanted to conceal the fact, that some lady guests were drinking alcohol at day time which was most questionable some 100 years ago) we learnt about the history of this fabulous hotel. The first hotel managers rented a bungalow (well, a rather big bungalow) from an Arabian sheik and soon built a much more spacious hotel they called "The Raffles" after the English founder of Singapore, Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles. The brothers who managed the hotel had their rroots in Armenia and were perfectionists. Every single wish should be read from the eyes of every guest. With this policy and while enduring the 1929 economic crisis, they went bankrupt. However, this time under Swiss management, the hotel reopened before it really was closed down and saw better times than ever before. Everything worked fine, Eva Gardner handed the door to Charley Chaplin and the hotel guest list even included Queen Elisabeth and George Bush. However, long before Bush senior made a trip to Asia to see whether there really were other continents than America, the hotel management faced an incident of a different sort: a tiger from the nearby zoo (at that time there were not too many skyscrapers around the hotel) had escaped and found his new home in the Raffles’ billiard room. There he is said to have drunken some beer (that’s why Singapore’s beer is called "Tiger Beer" I assume) before he was shot between the eyes. Unfortunately, the champion shot being quite drunk, he had missed the tiger three times before he landed the fourth killing-shot and the billiard room was quite destroyed by the large calibre ammunition used.
Leslie showed us pictures and newspaper articles and lost many words to explain his personal friendship with Michael Jackson (there really was a picture with him and the King of Pop) and some astronaut who had send him an email to thank for a lunch. The email was sent right from the ISS, the International Space Station.
We enjoyed Leslie’s stories and forgot time. Therefore we missed dinner with some other couchsurfers and went straight on to party. At 3AM I was super tired and most hungry and not even a late night swim in the hotel pool could help me. I had to sleep and to eat all fruits in my room.
Well, two more days in the Raffles, and then I will be back to sleep in my roof-tent, take showers on highway rest areas, fight with mosquitoes, and cook my own meals in the back of the Land-Cruiser.
However, if you want to pamper yourself, book a stay in the Raffles. It won’t get much better.