On arrival in Penang, we were picked up by a car from the Hard Rock Hotel, where we would be staying. The lady who showed us to the car said, ‘have a rocking time!’ and that set the flavour of the next four days. The first Hard Rock Café was, I believe, in London, and since then the brand has grown. When I used to stay in Penang as a teenager, there were only a handful of hotels but now there are so many that there is even room for something as themed as this.
We had looked forward to finding out what the Hard Rock was like, especially since eating in the Hard Rock Café in Melaka. All of the establishments are decked out with rock memorabilia and, whatever your taste in music, there will be something to impress you. The service is much more matey than the elegant and gentle attention one routinely experiences in South East Asia, which was an interesting and refreshing change.
Entering the Hard Rock Hotel, it was as if we had joined a party even before we booked in. Reception is at the bar and we were given drinks to have while we went through the formalities. Rock music plays everywhere, all day and night. Even the rooms are full of themed pictures; we had Ray Charles in the bathroom and the Beatles in the main room. Even more exciting, the hotel had arranged for the Teenager to have a guitar, headphones and amplifier in his room for the duration of our stay. He could even change it for a different one on the ‘menu’ each day if he wished. This was a distinct bonus; dragging a musician away from his instruments to go on holiday is not easy, so it helps to have a period of that holiday during which he can play without even disturbing anyone.
This is what the Hard Rock is like everywhere. Music plays by the pool; there is memorabilia absolutely everywhere and at every opportunity there are puns. ‘Sleep like a rock,’ for example. Even the spa is called the ‘Rock Spa.’
Luckily, I am a rock mum and even have a respectable amount of Nirvana on my i-pod. I didn’t find the music too much or the puns boring. A lot of the music was just to my taste and I really liked the relaxed atmosphere. It was easy to feel at home in the Hard Rock very quickly. We were an unusual pair: a small middle-aged woman with a much taller young man with masses of unruly blond hair. No husband/father figure. Difficult to miss in that environment. So it only took about a day for most of the staff to recognise us and even remember our room number so we didn’t have to provide it. They were also extremely helpful and attentive especially when we needed to find a doctor at one point.
This did occur to me, however. If I was visiting Penang for a holiday and making it a significant part of that holiday, especially if I hadn’t stayed in the Far East before, I might feel that I wanted a more Far Eastern themed hotel, rather than the particularly Western backdrop of rock music. I might have wanted gentle Asian music in the background, pictures of local scenes or Asian art and more typical local service. All that might have contributed more to what could feel like an authentic Asian experience. Of course I didn’t need that and wasn’t particularly looking for it. I knew what Asia was like and we also stayed in four other hotels which were much more typical of their settings, especially the hotels in Melaka and Langkawi. And, thinking about it, somehow the experience helped to merge different areas of my life – my previous Asian home and the rock music I have enjoyed so much since I lived in the UK. So it was fine. Perfect, in fact. I enjoyed it and would love to go back.
This might sound like a write-up for a travel site, and indeed I do plan a post later on outlining each of the hotels, but I felt that, when writing about Penang, it would be appropriate to include the Hard Rock experience because I am so glad that’s where we stayed.
