Creepy Picture Hunting at Hotel Tugu Malang

Hotel tour isn't really my thing, unless it's an unique one, like this Hotel Tugu in Malang. It's indeed a must-visit place for those who love old-fashioned furniture and antiques, especially the one influenced by Javanese-Chinese mixed culture, usually called Babah Peranakan. The Hotel itself wasn't too attractive from the outside, but jaw dropping and narcissism triggering at the inside. Since I'm not antiques expert, yet not a detail reviewer, I can only say its collections are indigenous and remarkable, each sections gives different feeling, each corners are unique. I LOVE THIS PLACE!!! There, I shout it out.

Apparently Hotel Tugu is also well known for its creepy stories, the most notable one is the picture of Oei Hui Lan (Madame Wellington Koo), daughter of Oei Tiong Ham -a former sugar baron- one of the richest man in South East Asia. The first visit to the hotel, we were just wandering around taking pictures whilst admiring the atmosphere, enjoy being drawn back to hundred years ago. Then it's Wempi -our Malang CS friend- asked if we saw those enormous picture of Oei Hui Lan, but we didn't, so we went back the next day to hunt for it. Wempi told us some stories bout the picture, either the urban legend one and the personal experiences.

After strolling the whole hotel's public area, we still couldn't find the picture, that's when we started to get more and more curious. Right after we gave up and about to leave the hotel, we saw a huge wooden board leaning on the wall. It's back side of a photo frame. We tried our best to peep on the photo, including taking picture using mobile phone cos it's not possible to view the photo with those limited angle. After several random snaps, we were sure THIS IS IT!! It's 100% the picture we're looking for.

I dunno if they hang it back already, or move it to other place, or still let it be there flipped against the wall. A conspiracy theory was created, that due to lots of visitors got freaked out or possessed after seeing those picture, hotel management decided not to showing it off again :p It's a superstitious theory, but make sense tho. Who's not freak out seeing huge picture of a long hair woman wearing long white robe, standing with reflection of her hair at the mirror behind her?? I will too *goosebumps*

There's one interesting dining room with super long table and a big picture of two girls smoking called Tirta Gangga, part of The Silk Road Pavilion. It's a nice big room with an open end, connected to beautiful Kubilai Khan Chamber. The lights are dimmed in those room, and reddish shades give spooky sensation. I tried to take pictures of that room, but due to low light exposure, it's blur without tripod, then I tried to turn on the flash light, but somehow it couldn't work properly there, wondering if we had tripod, will I get a good picture of that room? @__@ In other hand, it's a very gorgeous hotel, and I'd love to visit the rest of Hotel Tugu, which located at Blitar, Bali and Lombok. Hope it's all as beautiful as this one at Malang :)

Tirta Gangga room (courtesy of Hotel Tugu Official Website), even their picture is still not that sharp ehh




*Lots of interior pictures taken, but most of it are narcissistic pictures, please forgive us :p