My earliest memory of overseas travel is tied to the Hong Ping Hotel Penang, a dinky budget hotel on Chulia Street in George Town. I was there with my Amma, who had taken me to Penang for a health checkup, and for some reason my uncle and his family were staying at the same hotel too.
We came back to stay at the Hong Ping Hotel two or three more times. I remember the hotel room packed with the whole family, my cousins and me piled onto the bed. I also remember one of my cousins jumping on the bed again and again, even after his dad, my uncle, told him to stop. What a random memory to get stuck in my brain.
The hotel had its own distinctive smell, especially in the elevator, and I still wonder what it was. Maybe it was the Chinese takeaway people carried back to their rooms.
Speaking of the elevator, Amma told me never to touch it. She had seen (or heard) that the manager picked his nose before pressing the elevator buttons, and that story became family lore. Another memory is of my cousin pressing the wrong button (this must have been before the nose-picking lore spread) and shutting down the whole elevator, which gave my other cousin, who was stuck inside at the time, his first taste of claustrophobia. Funnily enough, it was yet another cousin who taught me what the word “claustrophobia” meant in the first place.
On my recent trip to Penang, I went out of my way to find the Hong Ping Hotel, but had no luck. It turns out I had been searching under the wrong name for years, because what I remembered as “Honpin” was really the Hong Ping Hotel.
A hotel can be small, a little worn and with an even smaller elevator, and still hold some of the best stories of a childhood. The forbidden elevator, the mysterious smell and the bed full of cousins are all still with me, and the Hong Ping Hotel Penang will always be where my first overseas trip began.
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