In my ongoing obsession with old colonial hotels, I just came across a place in Java called the Grand Hotel de Djokdja. When I looked closer at the old photo, taken about 100 years ago, something looked familiar.
Actually, the whole thing looked familiar.
I traveled to Yogyakarta with my mom almost 20 years ago. We visited the ruins of a sultan’s palace and took a day trip to Borobudur. And we stayed at a colonial style hotel that seemed a few steps above what I could afford.
Today I dug out my photos and found this one (left). I then googled Hotel Garuda, where I stayed back in 1991.
It and the Grand Hotel are one and the same.
According to Inna Garuda’s website (the hotel has yet taken on another name), the Grand Hotel was built in 1908 and has gone by the following names, some according to the changing political climate:
* Grand Hotel De Djokdja (when Indonesia was a Dutch colony)
* Hotel Asahi (when it was a Japanese occupied territory)
* Hotel Merdeka (after Indonesian independence, although it housed the government cabinet for several years)
* Hotel Garuda
* Natour Garuda
* Inna Garuda
I re-read my journal from that trip and this was only thing I’d written about the hotel:
When we arrived at the Hotel Garuda, the porter took our bags. While we were checking in, we were given some juice and a hot towel. We were shown to our room afterward. It was 9:15 p.m., so we went to the coffee shop for a late dinner, then came back to the room to go to sleep.
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