I try to steer clear of glossy business hotels in favour of more interesting boutique or heritage type places. Sometimes I make mistakes (!) but we've stayed in some interesting places on our Indian tours and I hope our accommodation in Malaysia will live up to expectations.
Our first 2 nights will be spent at the Ren i Tang Inn in George Town on the island of Penang. The Inn is the result of a 2 year long restoration project. Ren i Tang is the phonetic spelling in Mandarin of S. East Asia's oldest Chinese Medical Hall wholesaler, Yin Oi tong which translates to "The Hall of Benevolence".
Yin Oi Tong Chinese Medical Hall was established in 1796 by Koo Suk Chuan (who arrived in Penang 10 years after Captain Francis Light founded the British Colony) and established his business as a herbalist in a small shop. The business thrived and had to move to these larger premises in 1885 and continued trading there till 2009 - 124 years in total.
Now the Inn has 17 rooms occupying the first and second floors. Keeping the concept of a shophouse, the restorers have retained the working quarters on the ground floor and living quarters on floors above. The downstairs working quarters houses Tang (Bistro) and The Yin Oi Tong Chinese Medical Hall museum.
The main characteristics of a S. East Asian shophouse have been restored and reinstated to keep it as authentic as possible including original wood staircases and Chinese roof tiles etc.
The building has open air wells and a central courtyard which allows natural light into the middle section of the building. The air wells create convection, ie hot air accumulated within the building rises up and at the same time cool air from the sea breeze is brought into the building to ensure maximum air flow throughout. We're told this negates the need for air conditioning - I sincerely hope that is correct as the temperatures will be in the mid 30s.
Actually, after brilliant flights with Qatar (the subject of another post) we picked up our hire car at Penang Airport and with the aid of Sat Nav got to our hotel around 3.30pm and drove round and round the one way systems trying to find a parking spot. On the 5th circle round David got a parking spot almost directly outside the hotel doors so the car will stay put now till we leave on Saturday morning.
This is our home for a couple of nights - the Ren i Tang Heritage Inn. (from their website - and without too much traffic in the streets)
As expected our room is quite basic but very comfortable and roomy with a small kitchenette area and large shower room (and it does have aircon - its just the central areas that don't).
We checked in, freshened up a little then went for a beer in the Bistro downstairs. Just the one beer - we have two flights of very steep wooden stairs to negotiate and the treads are very shallow - obviously made for smaller feet than ours so we need to keep our wits about us. Our cases were hauled up by a pulley housed in the central atrium area.
We haven't really looked at the medical hall museum or taken photos inside this hotel as we were keen to get out and explore a little before exhaustion/heat overcame us.
Our first 2 nights will be spent at the Ren i Tang Inn in George Town on the island of Penang. The Inn is the result of a 2 year long restoration project. Ren i Tang is the phonetic spelling in Mandarin of S. East Asia's oldest Chinese Medical Hall wholesaler, Yin Oi tong which translates to "The Hall of Benevolence".
Yin Oi Tong Chinese Medical Hall was established in 1796 by Koo Suk Chuan (who arrived in Penang 10 years after Captain Francis Light founded the British Colony) and established his business as a herbalist in a small shop. The business thrived and had to move to these larger premises in 1885 and continued trading there till 2009 - 124 years in total.
Now the Inn has 17 rooms occupying the first and second floors. Keeping the concept of a shophouse, the restorers have retained the working quarters on the ground floor and living quarters on floors above. The downstairs working quarters houses Tang (Bistro) and The Yin Oi Tong Chinese Medical Hall museum.
The main characteristics of a S. East Asian shophouse have been restored and reinstated to keep it as authentic as possible including original wood staircases and Chinese roof tiles etc.
The building has open air wells and a central courtyard which allows natural light into the middle section of the building. The air wells create convection, ie hot air accumulated within the building rises up and at the same time cool air from the sea breeze is brought into the building to ensure maximum air flow throughout. We're told this negates the need for air conditioning - I sincerely hope that is correct as the temperatures will be in the mid 30s.
Actually, after brilliant flights with Qatar (the subject of another post) we picked up our hire car at Penang Airport and with the aid of Sat Nav got to our hotel around 3.30pm and drove round and round the one way systems trying to find a parking spot. On the 5th circle round David got a parking spot almost directly outside the hotel doors so the car will stay put now till we leave on Saturday morning.
This is our home for a couple of nights - the Ren i Tang Heritage Inn. (from their website - and without too much traffic in the streets)
We checked in, freshened up a little then went for a beer in the Bistro downstairs. Just the one beer - we have two flights of very steep wooden stairs to negotiate and the treads are very shallow - obviously made for smaller feet than ours so we need to keep our wits about us. Our cases were hauled up by a pulley housed in the central atrium area.
We haven't really looked at the medical hall museum or taken photos inside this hotel as we were keen to get out and explore a little before exhaustion/heat overcame us.
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