Gamelan and Garuda in an Old Colonial Mansion

I remember seeing the façade of the hotel from the airport shuttle and thinking, “Wow, I hope this is our hotel.” And it was, as Tri, a lady from the Indonesian delegation, told me. “It looks like an old house,” I blurted out. I meant it as a compliment, in the sense of being ‘antique’ rather than ‘aged and decrepit.’ In the Philippines, such old mansions are few and far between, and most of those that do survive belong to affluent clans. That was the nuance of ‘old’ that I intended, but perhaps something was lost in translation because Tri laughed awkwardly at my remark, as though thinking, “How rude of her!” So I resolved to make it up to her somehow in the coming days by showing her how much I liked the place. Thankfully, I didn’t have to pretend at all because it was a beautiful hotel, not grand exactly but elegant and charming, full of character.

The Grand Mercure Yogyakarta was all quiet white halls with marble floors and intricately carved hardwood furniture, brass lamps and delicate carvings against the walls. It had tall antique Chinese vases secreted in alcoves, and elegant white orchids in flowered blue ceramic pots and traditional native wooden wayang puppets in the corridors. The brass handles of the swinging doors to the function rooms were shaped like garuda, the phoenix of local lore. It had a pretty fountain with women in dishabille in the stone courtyard and an inviting pool lined with blue tiles that accentuated the cerulean reflection of the sky on the water, contrasting with the red-orange of the cushions on the wooden lounge chairs around it.

In the mornings, a pair of old men would sit on one side of the courtyard playing the gamelan, their traditional headgear reminiscent of albularyo, as we call medicine men or witch doctors in the Philippines. There was an ethereal quality to the sound of the xylophone-like instrument, as though it were emanating from some indefinite place, completely surrounding the listener.

The rooms were lovely too, with batik-covered throw pillows, sepia-toned period photographs, and a tray of salak, the local ‘snake fruit’ that it was my first time to see. Each room had a little balcony and I thought how delightful it would be if you happen to get a room looking out into the courtyard or at least the pool. My own room had a more modest view, overlooking some palm trees on one side of the courtyard, and a little lane on the side of the hotel.

According to Nina from the Embassy, the room used to be a government office during the Dutch colonial period. The Accor brochure in the room said that it was “originally a private house dating back to the early 1900s.” If it is indeed the latter, wow: What an aristocratic family must have lived in that gorgeous, sprawling place. When you glimpse the hotel’s façade, you might think it a cozy and intimate fifty-room inn. You’d be surprised to discover that the hotel extends inwards in a maze of corridors, with 144 rooms, according to its website. The wonderful thing is, the place does exude a sense of coziness and intimacy regardless of its size. What a delight business trips would be if you are billeted somewhere like this, rather than in one of those hotels that make you wonder if you’ve even left home at all!

(May 2007)