Penang Hills and Trails - Indian Summers
The Crag Hotel 2017

This is one of a series of pages on walking the hills of Penang, click here for the index. We made this visit at the end of our reported climb up from Tanjung Bunga past the Haunted House. Of course, it's not necessary to come in the back door, these days I guess you can walk unchallenged across the bridge as there is no longer any apparent security presence.

Please visit my Penang buses page for information on accessing the starting point.

This account is linked from my Penang Peaks page which lists peaks over 400 metres as well as other places of interest and viewpoints. To find other hikes which visit this peak please check the maps of this are using this link.

The historic Crag Hotel has had a chequered history, in my time in Penang (1972 - 1979) it was a school (Uplands) which has now migrated to Batu Ferringhi. Afterwards it seems to have fallen into disrepair and not many years ago it had its moment in the sun when it was tarted up to become the Royal Simla Club in the UK TV docudrama 'Indian Summers'. I have been told that it was quite enjoyable for those totally ignorant of that place and time. In a sensible world, that would have been a cue to spend a bit of money to renovate it properly and market is as a nostalgic boutique hotel, but you can see below what has actually happened. In the event, Indian Summers failed to maintain its initial momentum and was axed after the second series. Yuehong and I had been here in 2009 and we fancied a revisit. 

The Crag was built on an outcrop at the east end of the main Penang Hill. No doubt the British colonialists who came here enjoyed walking across the bridge, as if entering a castle, although the nearest thing to the moat would be the concrete drain that runs all the way around it. You'll have to make do with Yuehong leaving as we had arrived through the 'Tradesman's Entrance', the path from rain gauge 9 (RG 9). Just up to the right is what might be termed the gate house., obviously abandoned, like the rest of site, as soon as filming was finished. Yuehong is holding a security notice from Biscuit Productions who had set up a production office in Northam Road for the duration. Just like all Penang's developers, they loved their 'greenwash', in this case "GO GREEN - LOVE MOTHER NATURE - SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT - LOCATION RAJ PENANG'. Too bad they couldn't be bothered to tidy up the place properly when they finished.

I'd have to ask a friend who knows the Hill well for more background, but the main building is said to have been constructed over a giant boulder, so only part of the lower area actually contains rooms. Today, windows and doors have been left open to the elements and the only inhabitants are bats. The roof is presumably more secure now than before, at least for the time being.  

This is the panorama from the top, when I lived here in the 1970s, the only high rise building was Komtar.

Inside almost everything had been removed post-production, the shelving had no second hand value and the chair Yuehong is propping up has just 3 good legs remaining. 

I was both barman and customer in the bar, the bottles at the serving hatch were all empties of course.

Actually, I hadn't missed anything, the labels on the 'champagne' bottle I checked indicated it was non-alcoholic which is sort of a contradiction in terms.

What's that in the back of the second picture? No less than a classic serving hoist, but I doubt they did any filming 'down below', even going down the decaying steps was dangerous enough.

Below the main building and behind are more abandoned buildings, this first one was at least locked.

Behind were three more, not shown is a second similar building to that on the right below. Possibly some filming was done in them as their were peacock designs on some walls. In the lower rooms were what looked like the remains of school cloakrooms.

I doubt much filming was done in the other building...

It would be fascinating to wander around The Crag with a local historian who could flesh things out and paint a much netter picture of its past.