The former Nam Wah Hotel (on Lebuh Chulia in Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia - just a few yards from the bar where I spent most of my evenings in Penang) is - and evidently has been for some while - most emphatically up for sale. I don't think you can see them all in this picture, not at this resolution, but, as I recall, there were something like 15 different real estate agents splashing their contact details on the front of the property.
It's a charming little house - although in need of a spot of work. Quite a decent location too, in the quaint historic district up in the north-east of the island, where most of the tourist hotels and backpacker dives are.
However, it does suffer the challenge of being a divided space - how can you make a bar work over two separate floors?? And I reflect that even budget drinking den, the Monaliza Café, just a couple of doors along, was not exactly doing a roaring trade (typically - one elderly, teetotal expat, two or three locals [friends of the boss], myself, and three or four other random tourists: half a dozen or so not-particularly-high-spending punters per night is scarcely going to cover the overheads). No, there's probably a good reason why its previous owners failed to make a successful business of this place, and why it's now been so long derelict.
But a man can dream, a man can dream.....
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