It's the only hotel in the world where guests are invited to steal something from the rooms.

In the space rocket room – Lady Gaga goggles, the typewriter room – vintage hardcovers, princess room – tiaras and pearls and vanity mirrors.

Guests at the Wanderlust Hotel opening party were tentative, do I, should I, am I...till prodded by the pretty room attendant, go on, you’re supposed to!

I noticed a woman lusting after an Enid Blyton, but decided she would be all grown-up and picked the James Joyce instead.

Corporate lawyer turned visionary hotelier Loh Lik Peng launched his latest property in the heart of Little India, the 29-room Wanderlust in Dickson Road.

The 38-year-old said: “I love Little India, it has the most fantastic streetscape in all Singapore.” (His two other properties here are in Chinatown, plus there’s one in Shanghai and one in London.)

In the 1920s, the old-charm building was the Hong Wen School in a settlement where Indian immigrants once reared cattle and livestock.

The cattle and livestock have since given way to purveyors of banana leaf curries and thosais, gold by the yard and pound, luggage and mangoes, mobile phones and Indian DVDs.

The hip hotelier was mum on the price he paid for the four-storey block. A room for a night starts from $300.

No two rooms are alike. Each of the four floors is the work of a different designer.

On entering the space rocket room, we were met with a tray of goggles, one’s instinct to snap on a pair in anticipation of some 3-D hologram.

“No, no, it’s kinda futuristic, and we want you to take a pair of the Lady Gaga spectacles for souvenir.”

In the pop-up room, furniture is the wallpaper, guests were encouraged to “lift” a vanity mirror, “Please take one.”

A gem of a boutique hotel in an ethnic enclave, Wanderlust will appeal to the madcap and curious and radical, because it is so alternative.

Wander no more, take yourself to Dickson Road and Cocotte, the hotel lobby traditional French restaurant, where table football juxtaposes with supermarket trolley chairs and barbershop seats.

“Oh, can I take this elephant home?”

Sorry, mate, those are designer stools and part of the hotel fixtures. Besides, your hands are so..o..o full already.

This article was first published in The New Paper.