The Selesa is No More

Nobody is ever prepared for that inevitable moment when the end comes. Though we might have seen it coming for quite some time, when the end actually embraces us in its trembling embrace, the moment is never what we thought it would be. I just never thought this would apply to the closing of a hotel.

In the past seven years or so, I’ve been doing a lot of work for a client in Pasir Gudang, Johor. Almost invariably, the client would put me up at the Selesa Hotel. For the past twenty years or so the Selesa has been Pasir Gudang’s premier hotel. In fact, it is the only decent hotel that serves the Pasir Gudang area. Come 15 March 2017 it will be closing its doors to the public for good.

As I am unfamiliar with the star-rating system for hotels, I have no idea how many stars I would give the Selesa. Let’s just say the Selesa occupies a space somewhere between The Sheraton Imperial (where the bath towel is even more expensive than my weekend sports watch) and the no-frills hotels that bear two-syllable Chinese names we usually find in smaller towns (where the thinning bath towels are so tiny that I can hardly wrap them around my waist).

I have met many who have stayed at the Selesa. More often than not, the general consensus is that it hardly lives up to its name. I suppose in its early days the Selesa might have been a nice place to stay (one of my childhood friends was even the General Manager once). But I suppose financial difficulties, challenging maintenance issues and poor design finally took its toll. Once in a while, much to my consternation, I have found the occasional cockroach crawling up my headboard and a toilet or two that just refused to flush properly no matter what I did. However, to the Management’s credit, a maintenance guy would always come along within in a few minutes to fix the problem. Still, in the case of a non-flushing toilet, embarrassment was always part of the deal.

Despite all this, I have grown very fond of the hotel. Yes, hospitality professionals are trained to serve you well. But my experience tells me that things at the Selesa were something else - for me, at least. At the standard 5-star hotel, for instance, I could never shake the feeling that the polish and smiles of the staff were just their training kicking in. At the Selesa, however, I have never needed any vigorous convincing to believe that the staff treated me more like a friend than just another guest. Of course, having had more than 600 room-nights over the past seven years at the hotel has had something to do with this.

Yes, there have been cockroaches. Yes, there have been toilets that wouldn’t flush. Yes, there have been occasions when the lifts would fail (sometimes with me in it). But their coffee house still serves the best mee goreng mamak in the country – even better than the one at the mamak stall in Kampung Jawa, Melaka. And while everybody else gets two sachets of Nescafe for their room every day, I get four.  Oh, and there’s also that bit about me getting only the biggest, cleanest, and fluffiest bath towels whenever I stayed at the hotel.

I’m not saying that the Selesa has the mystique and history of the former Majestic Kuala Lumpur, the former Station Hotel of Ipoh or the former E&O Hotel of Penang. Anyone with an IQ above 50 would be able to tell the difference between these hotels and the Selesa. What I’m saying is that over the years I have developed a soft spot for the hotel.

Let’s say money was not an issue and the Raffles were to open right next to the Selesa, would I still choose to stay at the Selesa? I would still choose the Selesa in a heartbeat. Of course, this is all academic now. Come 15 March, the Selesa will be no more.

And when I checked-out of the Selesa for the last time yesterday, the staff and I parted ways with hugs instead of handshakes. No, there were no tears. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.