Hotel Niagara was built in 1918 and designed by Brazilian Fritz Joseph Pinedo. The hauntings are supposedly the result of a suicide on the premises.Rowan's coworker roughly translated one website, and said the hotel is known as the "Three Beautiful Ghosts" hotel, and rumors also include the murder of a Dutch woman by a Japanese soldier during Japan's occupation of Indonesia.
The hotel, while faded somewhat from its original grandeur, is still quite impressive.
The woodwork is still in good condition, and numerous windows let in lots of light during the day. There are several large sitting areas and several smaller ones, the larger areas having once been ballrooms. The character is far different from a modern hotel.However, the place has the strange feel of an old artifact being forced into a modern mindset. At night, the place is lit with the hideous fluorescent lighting that seems inescapable in Indonesia. The lights hum loudly, echoing against the cracked tiles.
The top two floors, the ones that are supposedly haunted, are closed to entry. I stood at the base of the stairs leading to the fourth floor and looked upward, and one of the hotel staff gruffly informed me that I could not enter.
We saw no ghosts, and if we heard any they were lost in the sounds of the city.
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The hotel is situated next to a market, so when we weren't sitting around waiting for ghosts to appear, we went exploring.
The people in Lawang are very friendly. While we got the usual amount of stares, we heard fewer chants of "bule, bule, bule," and saw less finger pointing.We ate dinner at one of the nicer small warungs we've seen in Indonesia.
The tables and chairs were of nice wood, the floor was of nice stones, and the place was impeccably clean. The menu, though small, offered some nice options.We chatted briefly with the girl working there; she was 18 or 19 and finishing up school. She told us we were the first foreigners to ever visit the warung, which has been operating since 1976. She asked why we had decided to eat there, and we told her we liked the vibe.
We also said we'd recommend it to our friends. So here goes: If you ever get to Lawang, East Java, Indonesia, there is a market just past Hotel Niagara. At the start of the market, go up the hill until you reach warung Bu Um, on the right-hand side of the road. The have a good soy peanut sauce, which is on most of the dinner entrees, which are all presented very nicely. They also have some buttery, flaky pastry/bread, which is quite hearty and delicious. For a drink, I recommend the STMJ, a mix of milk, egg, honey, and ginger. It sounds strange, but it works.
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After checking out of the hotel, we went up into the hills to the village and tea plantation of Wonosari (the link has sound). Wonosari is a sprawling complex with a zoo, orchards, tea fields, a factory to process the tea, and other attractions. It offers enough amusement for several days. However, the weather wasn't cooperating, so we didn't take a full tour of the place.
But we did go swimming for awhile. And we also rode a mini-train through part of the plantation. 
Overall, everything went well on the trip, especially while heading home. We finished eating lunch and had not taken two steps out of the restaurant when a bemo pulled up and asked if we needed to go to the town. He then dropped us off on the main street where a nice bus to Surabaya picked us up two minutes later.Before we knew it, we were back in the sparkling city. And our own haunted abode.
What? I haven't told that story yet? Next time...
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