Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion

Sunday, December 13 – First order of the day in Georgetown was to take a short tour of the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion. This is the place where we really wanted to stay the night (Instead of the Hotel Continental where we ended up). Our friend Ed told us about the mansion – which serves both as a world heritage site and as a boutique guesthouse all in one.

But we couldn’t book a room on such short notice. And after the tour, it was very clear why. The place only has room for 16 guests (8 couples), and it’s absolutely gorgeous!

The house was built by a very successful Chinese businessman in the late 1800s. He built it for his favourite wife (7th wife) and had it decorated to match her beauty. But it fell into disrepair after he died, and the the mansion was looted of much that Cheong Fatt Tze had put into it. New owners bought the building in the 1980s and undertook to restore it meeting the exacting standards of UNESCO. All that to say they’ve done a simply marvellous job, and the interiors are stunning.

Unfortunately for you, we weren’t permitted to take photos inside the house, but their website has some nice photos of the interiors, to give you an idea what we saw. We were, however, allowed to take photos of the exterior, which you can see below.

We definitely plan to make our way back to Georgetown next time we’re in Malaysia, if for no other reason than we both want to stay a night in the mansion. It only costs about C$100 a night for two people - perfectly reasonable, give the nature of the guesthouse.