The Grand Old Dame,Singapore

First opened on 1 Dec 1887 by the Sarkies Brothers, the Raffles Hotel is the grand old dame of hotels in Singapore. Among the rich and famous who stayed at the hotel during the 1920s to 1950s include film starts such as Charlie Chaplin, Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner, writers such as Noel Coward and W Somerset Maugham, and political leaders such as Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi. When W Somerset Maughma paid his final visit to the hotel in 1960, he described it as 'standing for all the fables of the exotic East'. The hotel is also associated with the Singapore Sling - a cocktail invented by a barman at it's Long Bar. In 1987, the hotel was gazetted as a national monument of Singapore.