Wednesday, November 26, 2008

the oberoi imperial hotel singapore





when i look at the red match-box, i remember the hotel tucked away in a corner of orchard road, at jalan rumbia. it was a grand hotel with a fine dining restaurant, in later years, called the rang mahal. it was very popular with visitors from india because the owner was an indian. today, the oberoi group still has hotels in indonesia, mauritius, saudi arabia, egypt and india but the one in singapore has long since been demolished. that was in 1998. in its place are now some luxurious private apartments.

in retrospect, collecting match-boxes is in fact collecting a bit of history. the building may not be there anymore but you still have the match-box as evidence of its existence.

i have also in my collection match-boxes of a few other hotels which have either disappeared and some which have undergone a change of name.

some hotels that may have been forgotten include aldelphi hotel, cathay hotel, hotel malaysia, prince's hotel garni and queen's hotel.

3 comments:

Victor said...

If I am not mistaken, Prince's Hotel Garni was featured in the movie Saint Jack which I watched recently.

Stevie O said...

Wow!!! the Oberoi Imperial Hotel! I remember staying there with my parents in 1983. I seem to remember the conceirge was an enormous, tall Sikh in a white suit with an AMAZING moustache :)

Anonymous said...

great to find this blog as there is so little to be found about the hotel (pre-internet era) -
I used to work there as an managment trainee for a year in 1996-1997 - what a memory rich year that was.

Henna Savolainen
Amsterdam