Jauary 2017

Southeast asia

January 2017

Where to go in

2017 The Maldives cultural Kanazawa Cambodia’s Coast Sydney Singapore S$7.90 / Hong Kong HK$43 Thailand THB175 / Indonesia IDR50,000 Malaysia MYR18 / Vietnam VND85,000 Macau MOP44 / Philippines PHP240 Burma MMK35 / Cambodia KHR22,000 Brunei BND7.90 / Laos LAK52,000

Near-Away! by American Express

HOTEL FORT CANNING, SINGAPORE 11 Canning Walk, Singapore 178881.

Call +6559 6769 or email reservations@hfcsingapore.com to make your bookings now.

Hotel Fort Canning is a magnificent, award-winning, 86-room luxury boutique hotel set amongst 18 hectares of lush national parkland in the heart of the city. As one of the finest boutique hotels in Singapore, the hotel offers easy access to the Orchard Road shopping belt, the Clarke Quay entertainment hub, the Central Business District and the Civic District.

Hotel Fort Canning was styled to incorporate the finest hospitality amenities, while retaining and conserving its old-style, colonial glamour. The guest rooms are beautifully designed with expansive views of the park or

the city skyline, where guests are pampered with inroom Nespresso machines, a selection of TWG teas, Poltrona Frau statement furnishings, lavish Jim Thompson silk finishings, and deep bath tubs.

Rejuvenate at your leisure, with a dip in NASA technology-purified mineral swimming pools, complimentary evening drinks and canapes in the Private Lounge, or sip the afternoon away with High Tea at The Salon.

Hotel Fort Canning is your urban oasis in a park.

To enjoy a one night’s stay in a Deluxe Room at an American Express subsidised rate of S$190 nett, please present the voucher located in your Platinum Reserve Credit Card Welcome Pack or annual Renewal Pack.

HOTEL FORT CANNING, SINGAPORE NEAR-AWAY! BY AMERICAN EXPRESS IS OPEN TO BASIC AMERICAN EXPRESS® PLATINUM RESERVE CREDIT CARD MEMBERS. • Card Member must make advance reservation with Hotel Fort Canning, Singapore at +65 6559 6769. Any use of vouchers must be stated at time of reservation.

• All reservations are subject to availability and not applicable during blackout dates (i.e. Eves of Holidays and Public Holiday) or days of high occupancy. Please contact Hotel Fort Canning, Singapore for more information. A room reservation confirmation letter or email (in softcopy or hardcopy) must be presented, along with the physical voucher and your American Express Platinum Reserve Credit Card upon check-in.

• Offer may not be combined with other hotel programmes or special offers and is not available on pre-existing reservations.

• Complimentary parking during Card Member’s period of stay at Hotel Fort Canning is subject to availability.

• No show or cancellation policies apply in accordance to the hotels’ policies. Please check with hotel for details.

• Accommodation is for a maximum of two (2) adults and is inclusive of all applicable tax and service charges for such accommodation. Breakfast is not included. Cost of meals and all other incidentals (including applicable tax and service charges), will be charged to the Card Member’s American Express Platinum Reserve Credit Card.

• Merchant’s Terms and Conditions apply – please check with respective merchants for details. American Express acts solely as a payment provider and is not responsible or liable in the event that such services, activities or benefits are not provided or fulfilled by the merchant. Merchants are solely responsible for the fulfilment of all benefits and offers.

• Programme benefits, participating merchants and Terms and Conditions may be amended or withdrawn without prior notice at the sole discretion of American Express International Inc. In the event of any disputes, the decision of American Express will be final and no correspondence may be entertained.

American Express International Inc., (UEN S68FC1878J) 20 (West) Pasir Panjang Road #08-00, Mapletree Business City, Singapore 117439. americanexpress.com.sg Incorporated with Limited Liability in the State of Delaware, U.S.A.® Registered Trademark of American Express Company. © Copyright 2016 American Express Company.

January

features

ON THE COVER Under the tropical sun in the Maldives.

Photographer: Pornsak Na Nakorn.

Model: Nathalie Ducheine.

84

Mermaid Island Verdant, volcanic Cheju is a legendary treasure chest in the Korean Strait, writes Duncan Forgan.

Photographed by Yousun Moon

90

Wood and Water Hand-hewn phinisis are imbued with 500 years of romance, tradition and trickery.

Story and photos by Ian Lloyd Neubauer

98 c l o c k w i s e F R O M t o p LE F T: y o u s u n m o o n ; s e a n f e n n e s s y; fr e d e r i c l a g r a n g e ; i a n l l o y d n e u b a u e r

84 100 90 108

Coffee and a Slice of History Finding the romance of old Vietnam in Dalat.

Story and photograph

by Morgan Ommer

100

Among the Whales Off Tonga, Maggie Shipstead swims with some of the world’s largest animals.

Photographed by Sean Fennessy

108

Such Bountiful Land With beauty and drama at every turn, Joshua Levine goes to the heart Georgia.

Photographed by Frederic Lagrange

t r a v e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a . c o m / j a n u a r y 2 0 1 7

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In Every Issue T+L Digital 8 Contributors 9 Editor’s Note 10 The Conversation 12 Deals 81 Wish You Were Here 118

departments

15 Arun with a View A handful of

new addresses in Bangkok’s Old Town offer more reasons to visit.

Colombian chef Fernando Arevalo

20 Straight to the Top In Singapore, sets the bar high at Artemis.

pop barbershop in Penang.

23 Heritage Hairstyles A son-and26 Beautiful Day A new store in Rangoon curates the coolest Burmese crafts.

Seasons Kyoto evokes a ryokan.

30 Craving Colombo Czar of sweets, Rukshi Nethicumara 29 Secret Garden The new Four

readers’ picks of the world’s top 10 islands; a members-only luxury destination club; and more.

shifting norms, Tokyo is playing with tradition like never before.

Goode travels the globe to

62 Turtle Power Hotelier Eric

Special 33 Where to Go in 2017 From familiar getaways that have found a new groove to far-flung corners that are finally within easy reach, these are the buzziest destinations to visit this year.

Beyond 45 Pick Your Poison New bars in

Kuala Lumpur’s evolving scene.

dishes on Sri Lanka’s capital.

48 Cape Crusaders A two-wheeled

Plus A slew of exciting new hotel openings in China; travel trends to look out for this year; our

52 Land of Fire The thriving artistic

protect endangered chelonians.

66 History on a Hill The holy village of Moulay Idriss in Morocco only recently opened to non-Muslims.

70 Let it Snow In the wonderland of

Vermont, a snowshoe novice finds a new reason to love winter.

Upgrade

75 Fit on the Fly How to balance

healthful living with having fun?

Hotels, airlines, cruises and our wellness experts offer new ways to help you maintain optimum fitness throughout your journeys.

odyssey to the tip top of Australia.

movement on Java.

66

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58 Changing of the Guard Thanks to

january 2017 / t r av el andleisure asia .com

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F R O M LE F T: C é l i n e C l a n e t; e r i c c h o w ; c e d r i c a r n o l d ; s c o t t A . w o o d wa r d

Here & Now

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Lookout

phnom penh gets its groove back Meet the latest generation of entrepreneurs in Cambodia’s capital whose new shops, bars and eateries give back.

A Boutique with Balinese Flair Katamama may not look like your typical Balinese resort, but the whole place is steeped in classic Indonesian style.

3 Cutting-Edge Hong Kong Restaur ant Designers Jaw-dropping interiors help some of the city’s most sought-after tables shine.

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january 2017 / t r av el andleisure asia .com

tleditor@ mediatransasia.com

travelandleisureasia.com

fr o m l e f t: m o r g a n o mm e r ; m a r k l a n e ; c o u r t e s y o f a mm o

this month on tr avelandleisureasia.com

The Best of 2016; Rangoon’s grande dames revamp; trendsetting Singaporean boutique hotels; Penang’s lush eco-park; the hottest Thai restaurant in Sydney; the latest travel deals and more.

contributors

fr o m t o p : c o u r t e s y o f y o u s u n m o o n ; c o u r t e s y o f i a n l l o y d n e u b a u e r ; c o u r t e s y o f d i a n a h u b b e l l ; c o u r t e s y o f e r i c c h o w

2

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Yousun Moon

Ian Lloyd Neubauer

Mermaid Island Page 84 — Seoul-based Moon visits Cheju often for the hiking, the scenery and the food: blackpork barbecue, hallasan-soju and “the tangerine juice is divine.” Of the haenyeo, or women of the sea, “There’s a saying on Cheju, ‘Better to be born a working-cow than a woman.’ The land is infertile, so women had to dive without equipment for a living while their husbands sailed off far.

They are brave and beautiful, with a spirit for life. Some are old—almost 90—yet they dive every day, sharing and collaborating. Haenyeo received unesco cultural heritage status in November.

I’m glad; they deserve it.”

Instagram: @hellomygrape.

Cape Crusaders, and Wood and Water Page 48 and 90 — Neubauer embarked on an epic journey to learn about phinisi ships, leading him to the Bugis people of Bira in Sulawesi. “Everyone I passed, every woman holding a baby, and every baby, waved at me and said ‘salamat bagi’—good morning. The children are especially delightful.” Though the theory that the ‘boogeyman’ was a reference to the Bugis pirates, hardcore ancestors of today’s boatbuilders, has been debunked, there’s no doubt those guys were tough. “The Bugis were the original badasses of the sea. Their exploits and cruelty were legend.” Instagram: @adventure_before_dentures.

3

4

Diana Hubbell

Eric Chow

Land of Fire Page 52 — “Java is unimaginably lush, green and peaceful,” Hubbell says. “I was stressed out prior to that trip, but the second I arrived, I felt my pulse slow.”

In search of the creative soul of Yogyakarta, she sought out artists inspired by volcanic fire and Buddhist splendor.

“They were all so cool. John van der Sterren is charming, gracious and humble. He has so many stories to tell about the island and before I knew it our quick interview turned into lunch, coffee and a lovely, long afternoon.” And satirical painter Yogi Setyawan has “a wicked sense of humor that transcended our lack of a common language.”

Instagram: @diana.hubbell.

Pick Your Poison Page 45 — Kuala Lumpur doesn’t get enough credit. Its cool factor has skyrocketed in recent years, and native son Chow has had a front-row seat to the action. His favorite bar?

Skullduggery, an intimate, artisanal-cocktail bar run by mixologists who are serious about their mezcal and brew their own pear syrup. So, obviously, when it comes to what to order, “I let the bartender decide for me.” We sent him out to shoot nightlife at its liveliest, and he offers these tips for party shots: “It’s often low light or no light, so get a small LED light or a small flash. Use slow shutter speed with high ISO. Easy.”

Instagram: @ericblink.

W r i t er

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january 2017

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P h o to gr a p h er

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W r i t er a nd P h o to gr a p h er

P h o to gr a p h er

t r a v e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a . c o m / j a n u a r y 2 0 1 7

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editor’s note

|

january 2017

where to go in the coming year, but can’t get it down to fewer than a dozen possibilities, you’re in good company. Living in Asia, we’re faced with a region that is always rich in travel options. So you can imagine the debate that arises in our office coming up with our own short list of “Where to Go in 2017” (page 33). Our entries for this year number 20, but the tally could easily be double that, even triple. To help focus your destination planning, we’ve scoured the region to uncover unexpected places to visit simply to eat; events throughout the year that are worth a trip, at least once in your life; and spots on the Asian map that have never been easier to get to thanks to new air routes and highspeed train lines. We offer fresh reasons to revisit some of the more obvious destinations like Sydney or Sri Lanka. But also broaden your horizons to consider places like Kanazawa in Japan for its wooden teahouses steps off the bullet train from Tokyo and, farther off the beaten path, Bolivia, where a revitalized La Paz is now the rage in South America. While our brief list is meant as a teaser, something to whet your appetite for ambling, look out for future issues in which we’ll cover some of these locales in greater detail. And don’t forget to let us know your plans— we’re always open to new ideas when it’s about where to go next.

@CKucway chrisk@mediatransasia.com

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j a n u a r y 2 0 1 7 / t r av e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a . c o m

From My Travels

Given a chance for a quick weekend in Kyoto, there is only one answer. Autumn leaves the vivid color of persimmons, and a chill in the air that led to a long lunch later with friends, I woke early for a stroll around the Kyoto Imperial Palace. Away from the crowds, showered in falling leaves and under clear skies I made my way south to a neighborhood of paper shops, tea merchants and family-run restaurants. That’s what weekends are made for.

fr o m l e f t: t h a n a k o r n c h o m n awa n g ; c h r i s t o p h e r k u c way

If you’re the type of traveler who is trying to winnow your list of

Sense your life’s balance

here at Amatara Wellness Resort

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What toll does frequent flying take on our health?

On our watch

The Perk showdown

A speedy trip through security or an onboard cocktail? Extra room to stretch your legs or extra checked baggage? According to Sabre, a global travel technology company, more than 80% of travelers purchase extra services when flying. In their recent study, travelers from countries around the globe were surveyed on what perks they would be willing to pay extra for, and the results revealed that your preference for a G&T over travel insurance might have to do with your nationality. Does your region accurately represent your preferred flying add-ons? Here is the breakdown:

Asia

Middle East

One word: Shopping.

Get on with it, TSA.

Region

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North America

africa

Long legs much?

All about comfort.

More snacks please!

1

This month, our readers are taking their travels to whole new heights, giving us a taste of their envy-inducing views along the way.

Burning Question

With swollen feet, itchy throats, dry skin and, of course, that impending jet-lag, the bliss we feel after vacation can slip away in the time we spend up in the air. But that’s easily taken care of with the help of some hand cream, a pot of coffee and a nap. It’s the folks who spend significant time in the skies—we’re looking at you, management consultants, event planners and, obviously, flight attendants—who may have more severe health issues to think about. The risk for deep-vein thrombosis goes up with the more plane time you log. There’s also a concern about overexposure to radiation, a culprit in cancers and genetic abnormalities. But one point of comfort for even those who fly more than 85,000 miles a year: your radiation exposure might be more than the average person’s, but it won’t exceed safety limits for nuclear power-plant workers.

#TLASIA

the conversation

420 meters above Kuala Lumpur.

By @breathingtravel.

Vista of Tai Long Wan, Hong Kong. By @ming.t.poon.

Tianmen Mountains in Hunan, China. By @milica_grukic.

2

Views for days at Mt. GulugodBaboy, Philippines. By @ramng.

3

Preferred seating / extra leg room

In-flight Wi-Fi

Travel insurance

Extra checked baggage/luggage

Fast track security screening

Cabin class upgrade

Priority check-in

On-board food and beverage

12

j a n u a r y 2 0 1 7 / t r a v e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a . c o m

Share an Instagram photo by using the #TLAsia hashtag, and it may be featured in an upcoming issue. Follow @travelandleisureasia

editor-in-chief art director Deput y editor senior editor senior DEsigner DEsigner EDITORial assistant

Christopher Kucway Wannapha Nawayon Jeninne Lee-St. John Merritt Gurley Chotika Sopitarchasak Autchara Panphai Veronica Inveen

Regul ar contributors / photogr aphers Cedric Arnold, Kit Yeng Chan, Helen Dalley, Philipp Engelhorn, Marco Ferrarese, Duncan Forgan, Diana Hubbell, Lauryn Ishak, Mark Lean, Melanie Lee, Brent T. Madison, Ian Lloyd Neubauer, Morgan Ommer, Aaron Joel Santos, Stephanie Zubiri chairman president publishing director publishER digital media manager TRAFFIC MANAGER /deput y DIGITAL media manager sales director business de velopment managers chief financial officer production manager production group circul ation MANAGER circul ation assistant

J.S. Uberoi Egasith Chotpakditrakul Rasina Uberoi-Bajaj Robert Fernhout Pichayanee Kitsanayothin Varin Kongmeng Joey Kukielka David Bell Leigha Proctor Gaurav Kumar Kanda Thanakornwongskul Natchanan Kaewsasaen Porames Sirivejabandhu Yupadee Saebea

TRAVEL+LEISURE (USA) Editor-in-Chief Senior Vice President / Publishing Director Publisher

Nathan Lump Steven DeLuca Joseph Messer

TIME INC. INTERNATIONAL LICENSING & DEVELOPMENT (syndication@timeinc.com) Vice President E xecutive Editor / International Senior Director, Business De velopment Senior Director, Ad Sales & Marketing

Jim Jacovides Jack Livings Jennifer Savage Joelle Quinn

TIME INC. Chief E xecutive Officer Chief Content Officer

Joseph Ripp Norman Pearlstine

tr avel+leisure southeast asia Vol. 11, Issue 1 Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia is published monthly by Media Transasia Limited, 1603, 16/F, Island Place Tower, 510 King’s Road, North Point, Hong Kong.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the Publisher. Produced and distributed by Media Transasia Thailand Ltd., 14th Floor, Ocean Tower II, 75/8 Soi Sukhumvit 19, Sukhumvit Road, Klongtoeynue, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand. Tel: 66-2/204-2370.

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Near-Away! by American Express

M SOCIAL SINGAPORE 90 Robertson Quay, Singapore 238259.

Call +6206 1888 or email reservations.mss@millenniumhotels.com to make your bookings now.

Modern and vivacious, M Social is an inviting new hotel on the historic Singapore River. Conceptualized by renowned French designer Philippe Starck, M Social’s 293 rooms are known for their style. Book an Alcove Cosy room and bask in its high ceilings of 4.1 meters.

Feast at Beast & Butterflies to relish flavours from both East and West, while sipping on artisanal cocktails and soaking up live music. Venturing out is a breeze too, because M Social overlooks the vibrant Robertson Quay enclave, decked with diverse selections of restaurants,

cafés and bars. If you want to go farther afield, grab your room’s smartphone preloaded with city guides and catch the hotel’s shuttle downtown.

M Social helps you define your own reality and customise your comfort, whether it’s using the self check-in kiosk in the lobby or choosing among five distinct room designs, each with its own wow factor.

At M Social, life is all about collecting experiences and embarking on your next adventure.

To enjoy a one night’s stay in an Alcove Cosy Room at an American Express subsidised rate of S$190 nett, please present the voucher located in your Platinum Reserve Credit Card Welcome Pack or annual Renewal Pack.

M SOCIAL SINGAPORE NEAR-AWAY! BY AMERICAN EXPRESS IS OPEN TO AMERICAN EXPRESS® PLATINUM RESERVE CREDIT CARD MEMBERS. • Card Member must make reservation with M Social Singapore at reservations.mss@millenniumhotels.com at least 14 days in advance. The use of this voucher must be stated at time of reservation.

• All reservations are subject to availability and not applicable during blackout dates (i.e. Eves of Holidays and Public Holiday) or days of high occupancy. Please contact M Social Singapore for more information. A room reservation confirmation letter or email (in softcopy or hardcopy) must be presented, along with the physical voucher and your American Express Platinum Reserve Credit Card upon check-in.

• Offer may not be combined with other hotel programmes or special offers and is not available on pre-existing reservations.

• Card Member is responsible for their parking charges during the whole period of stay at M Social Singapore and no complimentary parking will be provided.

• No show or cancellation policies apply in accordance to the hotel’s policies. Please check with hotel for details.

• Accommodation is for a maximum of two (2) adults and is inclusive of all applicable tax and service charges for such accommodation. Breakfast is not included. Cost of meals and all other incidentals (including applicable tax and service charges), will be charged to the Card Member’s American Express Platinum Reserve Credit Card.

• Merchant’s Terms and Conditions apply – please check with respective merchants for details. American Express acts solely as a payment provider and is not responsible or liable in the event that such services, activities or benefits are not provided or fulfilled by the merchant. Merchants are solely responsible for the fulfilment of all benefits and offers.

• Programme benefits, participating merchants and Terms and Conditions may be amended or withdrawn without prior notice at the sole discretion of American Express International Inc. In the event of any disputes, the decision of American Express will be final and no correspondence may be entertained.

American Express International Inc., (UEN S68FC1878J) 20 (West) Pasir Panjang Road #08-00, Mapletree Business City, Singapore 117439. americanexpress.com.sg Incorporated with Limited Liability in the State of Delaware, U.S.A.® Registered Trademark of American Express Company. © Copyright 2016 American Express Company.

N e w s + t r e n d s + d i sc o v e r i e s

emerging

Arun with a View

A handful of new addresses in Bangkok’s Old Town offer more reasons to visit.

P h oto C r e d i t T e e k ay

By Jeninne Lee-St. John.

Photogr aphed by Cedric Arnold

The Temple of Dawn, as seen from a Premium Jacuzzi suite at Riva Arun.

t r a v e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a . c o m / j a n u a r y 2 0 1 7

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/ here&now /

at the wrong time of day and you’ll find that the street is flooded. It’s just a couple of centimeters, but it’s a solid sheen. This might not seem like a selling point, but wading through this wellspring should put a smile on your face. For it means you’ve arrived in the real Bangkok.

On the drive here, you likely passed the Flower Market, bursting with insanely cheap orchids and marigolds. The grassy campus of Museum Siam was your first landmark on Rattanakosin Island; come back to stroll the sculpture garden and see the interactive exhibits on Thai history and culture.

And as you turned into Riva Arun’s alley, you’ll have noted that Wat Po, home of the Reclining Buddha and the four chedis holding ashes of the first four Chakri kings (Thailand’s current ruling dynasty), is right across the road, and the Grand Palace just north of that.

Pull up to riva arun

16

These guidebook highlights sit cheek by jowl with a working neighborhood, a quiet little world nearly entirely unnoticed by the tourist masses clambering on and off the Chao Phraya Express Boats, having checked “temple trawling” and “street-meat eating” off their to-do lists. The alley housing Riva Arun empties onto the river, and sits on a low water table that’s at the whims of the tides. The wee streets around it are a grid of wooden shophouses, filled with local residences, mom-and-pop stores, the famous traditional massage and medical school affiliated with Wat Po, and an increasing number of cutesy cafés.

The area is cozy, serene and lived in.

And with the arrival of Riva Arun, it’s a complete destination. The spaceoptimizing, smallfootprint, 25-room hotel joins stylishly mod Sala Rattanakosin and older

january 2017 / t r av el andleisure asia .com

clockwise from top left: Shaking up sundowners at Riva Arun; novice monks from a local temple school; overlooking the spires of Wat Po from Riva Arun; the hotel’s calamari with salted egg; Attitude bar atop the Avani Riverside; inside rustic-chic Err.

homesteads Sala Arun and Arun Residence in enmeshing you in Old Town. This newest opening takes things up a notch, aiming to be a onestop cocoon of convenience and comfort, but still direct you outwards into the ’hood. Sandwiched between its namesake Wat Arun—that sandcastle across the water dedicated to the Hindu god of dawn—and Wat Po in its backyard, both of which you can see from its rooftop restaurant, this pretty little boutique feels like it’s in the beating heart of Bangkok.

December saw the debut of Tuk Tuk Hop, a brand-new transport daypass service through Old

Town whose designated stops include both Riva Arun and its upriver sister hotel, Riva Surya, giving guests speedy access to not only the latter’s bankside pool but also a host of cool restaurants and livemusic bars on localhipster strip Phra Athit.

Riva Arun’s friendly staff can arrange a private sail on a longtail boat to pick you up at the hotel’s pier, direct you to River Books for souvenir historical and cultural tomes, offer suggestions on where to drink in Soi Nana, that hopping Chinatown artsy enclave 10 minutes away, or make dinner reservations. (Sit practically on top of Wat Arun at The Deck, or try

the new Err, a rustic-Thai casual place from the chefs behind acclaimed degustation specialist Bo.lan.) They can also book massages for you at the Wat Po school, or order one delivery to your room, courtesy of Khun Dokmai, the very strong, sweet woman who usually gives treatments at Riva Surya.

It’ll be just one reason you might have trouble leaving your room, what with it’s cloud of a bed and cheerful emerald accents.

The compact spaces feel bigger awash in white, and with smart use of mirrors, screens and windows. Get one of the three top-floor suites, and you’ll have lots of room indoors and out: each has a vast deck with whirlpool tub—the better for soaking in river views.

Request the northernmost suite, where your first sight each morning will be the golden roofs of Wat Po shimmering in the sunrise.

The details Stay Riva Arun snhotels.com; doubles from Bt4,400.

Restaurants Err errbkk.com; dinner for two Bt1,200.

The Deck arunresidence.com; dinner for two Bt1,000.

Sala Rattanakosin salaresorts. com; dinner for two Bt2,000.

Activities Museum Siam museumsiam.org; adult foreigner admission Bt200.

WatPo Thai Traditional Massage School watpomassage. com; massages from Bt260.

Private longtail boat tour Riva Arun hotel manager Rattana Kaewsan can arrange a tour of the river and canals; Bt1,200-1,500.

Tuk Tuk Hop tuktukhop.com; day-passes from Bt399 for one.

Beyond the Bank this new hotel takes river views to greater heights.

The 26-story Avani Riverside offers some of the city’s finest views of the Chao Praya snaking through the spectacular Bangkok skyline. On the top floor, Attitude is a great roof-terrace alternative to packed sky bars at Lebua and Banyan Tree. Gaze over the river from the comfort of a private table, while sipping the Moulin Rouge, a blend of Absolut Rasberry, passion fruit and prosecco. avanihotels. com/riverside-bangkok; doubles from Bt3,800.

/ here&now / recon

Fine China

Regent Chongqing

Hilton Sanqingshan

Meixi Lake Hotel

Pullman Shanghai

It is all urban elegance and sleek design at this new property in downtown Chongqing. You’ll be cocooned in comfort as you explore the thrumming metropolis on the upper reaches of Yangtze River. regenthotels.com; doubles from RMB888.

Perched on a ridge of the majestic Mount Sanqingshan, this resort is enveloped in breathtaking scenery. Hop in a cable car just 300 meters from the lobby and ride to the peak; you’ll feel like you’re on top of the world. hilton.com; doubles from RMB790.

Views of Yuelu Mountain and Meixi Lake make this the ideal stay while you get aquainted with the 3,000-year-old city’s many historic sites. Nods to the ancient culture are woven throughout the 310 rooms. starwoodhotels.com; doubles from RMB700.

There are few destinations that are as exciting and fast-paced as Shanghai.

After long days enjoying all that the city has to offer, this sanctuary of plush beds and tasty restaurants is just the spot to unwind. pullmanhotels.com; doubles from RMB552.

Cheapest Rides

Clash of the Cabs New research by iPrice, an e-commerce price-comparison platform, analyzes the cost of Uber, Grab and local taxis for short-distance (five kilometers) and long-distance (20 kilometers) rides to find out which has the most affordable fares. Spoiler alert: in each destination, local cabs lost out to the ride-hailing applications, after tallying base fare, cost of distance and cost of time.

Indonesia

Malaysia

Philippines

Singapore

Thailand

uber

grab

grab

grab

uber

uber

uber

grab

grab

uber

Short distance

LONG distance

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fr o m l e f t: c o u r t e s y o f r e g e n t c h o n g q i n g ; c o u r t e s y o f h i lt o n s a n q i n g s h a n ; c o u r t e s y o f m e i x i l a k e h o t e l ; c o u r t e s y o f p u l l m a n s h a n g h a i . i l l u s t r at i o n : c o u r t e s y o f fr e e p i k

From a quiet mountain resort to a towering hotel in China’s biggest city, here are four openings that will add a little extra color to the Middle Kingdom. By veronica inveen

join up

Members Only

Goods

c l o c k w i s e fr o m t o p ; c o u r t e s y o f a f i n i ; c o u r t e s y o f l o e w e ; c o u r t e s y o f c h o s e n e x p e r i e n c e s

A new luxury destination club makes high-end travel a breeze.

Billing itself as Asia’s only luxury destination club, Afini is now accepting its first members. Once you register, you will be assigned a lifestyle consultant who will work with you to find out all your personal preferences and peccadillos. They then tailor each travel experience to suit your fancy. In addition to trip planning and organization, perks of membership also include discounted rates at luxury private villas and hotels, access to a portfolio of multi-million dollar private residences located in top resorts, and an on-site concierge who will cater to your every whim. afini.com; one-time initiation fee of US$15,000 (the first to sign up will be given a foundingmember discounted fee of US$8,888), and an annual renewal fee of US$2,000.

Pl anning

Pen to Paper

Creature Clutches A new line of accessories at Loewe will bring out your wild side.

Unleash your inner animal with Loewe’s bold new accessory line. The Spanish luxury brand with stores in 14 countries around Asia Pacific, including Singapore and Thailand, is putting your piggy bank out to pasture with its jungle-green frog coin-purse.

Their colorful minibags that come in elephant and panda designs are worth trumpeting, too. loewe.com; coin purse €295, minibags €990.

Map out your 2017 travel resolutions with this handy low-tech planner.

If “travel more” and “get in shape” made your resolution list this year, the Chōsen Travel Planner can help you get started. Created by Chōsen Experiences, a tour operator focusing on wellness trips, the planner is designed to encourage healthy living on-the-go. In addition to the standard features of a planner (weekly diary pages, a lined notes section), it also includes inspiring tips on mindfulness, nutrition and time-efficient workouts. It is perfectly organized to map out your personal and travel goals for the year; the hard part will be sticking to them. chosenexperiences.com; US$40.

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/ here&now /

The Dish

Straight to the Top From 40 floors above Singapore, Colombian chef Fernando Arevalo sets the bar—and his sights—high when sourcing ingredients for his menus. By Christopher Kucway.

Photogr aphed by Scott A. Woodward

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to the source, to go back to the land.”

Admittedly, it is a delicate balance between sourcing quality ingredients and his insistence on sustainable methods of growing.

Arevalo says suppliers in Asia are at the top of his list, but Europe and Australia are close behind.

So he makes sure to work with what he considers ethical suppliers.

From its 40th-floor perch in an energyefficient office tower, Artemis has sweeping views of the urban dynamo that Singapore has become. Modern office blocks of the city center sprout into the equatorial sky. Glassy and chic, the restaurant itself features an outdoor bar encircling an olive tree. “We found someone in Majorca who is super passionate about his oil, about his trees,” Arevalo tells me. Like the

When Fernando Arevalo

is not out in the world sourcing ingredients for Artemis, his restaurant in Singapore, the world tends to come to him. That’s one of the perks of being a bigname executive chef in one of the globe’s leading cities. “Every week, someone comes to my kitchen with a basket of magic,” the Colombian tells me over coffee one morning before the kitchen heats up. A day earlier, he says, one supplier arrived with some chervil from France, a sweet member of the carrot family, and, as Arevalo put it, “I went nuts.” It was actually the little-used root of the plant that stirred both his imagination and his taste buds, its aniseed-like flavor to be used in, say, a soup, the thirty-something chef tells me.

Sourcing ingredients from all over the world— yes, that’s a marketing tool or, as Arevalo puts it, “it

makes you want to brag”—Artemis is not alone in the breed of top restaurants where quality is sought at any cost. Step aside locavores, finding the best of the best regardless of where it comes from is back in vogue. Arevalo’s pedigree is as distinct as the ingredients he chases.

He’s toiled under Daniel Boulud in New York City, in a Michelin-starred kitchen at Telepan Restaurant in the same city, and for Mario Batali in Hong Kong. Now, he’s running his own show.

“As you grow, you start understanding how important it is to go back

from top: Chef Fernando Arevalo in full food animation; colorful carrots cooked with brousse. opposite: Red

kuri pumkin and butternut squash gnocchi with truffle.

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Fine-tuning a Solliès fig dish at Artemis.

grower, this dedicated chef wants to know the traceability of the oil. Who harvested the olives? Who pressed the oil? His producer knows.

That also means grassfed and hormone-free meats, as well as a large selection of vegetarian and gluten-free dishes. Come autumn, it means seasonal dishes dotted with figs, pumpkins and carrots.

Arevalo’s most recent fling outside the confines of his kitchen was an eight-day, all-in road trip through France. Caviar, oysters, butter, cheese.

Normandy, Brittany, the Massif Central, Paris. Like the food chain he follows, it all ended just outside of

the French capital at Rungis, the famed food market. There, Arevalo was a known entity, the face of Artemis recognized for demanding quality ingredients and ready to pay top dollar for them.

But does this approach run the risk of becoming as lofty as the restaurant’s location? Arevalo smiles, rolls his head and politely disagrees. The culture of food, he says, doesn’t emanate from fancy restaurants but from what people, regardless of where they are, eat on a daily basis. Local food, not necessarily fancy menus. In food-mad Singapore, he counts ban mian in that equation.

With that, encased in glass, amid modern urban Asia, and out of coffee, Arevalo leaps out of his chair. “I want to show you these pumpkins, you’re going to flip out.”

Sourcing, tasting, cooking, it’s all a jolt to his system.

Out comes a tray of the strangest shaped and colored pumpkins I’ve ever seen—one is white and flat like a Frisbee, another is phallicshaped—French gourds that diners in this citystate will indulge in over the coming days. “Right now,” Arevalo beams, “Singapore is the best place in the world.” artemisgrill.com.sg; dinner for two from S$120.

LE MERIDIEN PUTRAJAYA T +6 03 8689 6888 lemeridienputrajaya.com

INSPIRATION AWAITS

Uncover a timelessly chic perspective on travel at Le Méridien Putrajaya. Enjoy destination focused discovery at every turn, with a lifestyle shopping mall adjoining the hotel and a golf course just minutes away.

For more information or to make a reservation, visit lemeridienputrajaya.com or call +6 03 8689 6888

©2016 Marriott International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Preferred Guest, SPG, Le Méridien and their logos are the trademarks of Marriott International, Inc., or its affiliates.

N 2° 58’ W 101° 43’ DESTINATION UNLOCKED

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noticed

Heritage Hairstyles A son-and-pop barbershop is bringing classic 1950s styles back to Penang.

By Marco Ferr arese.

Photogr aphed by Kit Yeng Chan “We give George Town’s men the

classic touch they deserve,” master barber Elyas Yunoos tells me with pride.

He is wearing a brown hat and white apron that make him look like a mix between knowledgeable doctor and wayback-when Mafioso; the perfect attire for Son & Dad Barber in Lebuh Acheh. This shop where Elyas and his young assistants spend most of their time, only a few doors down from one of George Town’s oldest mosques. Elyas’s creation is a carefully reproduced vintage world sealed behind glass doors. Original barber chairs from the 1960s mix with retro memorabilia and old-style razors, scissors and shiny metallic hair clippers that look tailormade to fit George Town’s Old World atmosphere.

“When we started business in Tanjung Tokong more than two years ago, I didn’t know much about vintage hairstyles” Elyas confesses as he combs a customer’s hair to the side, never lifting his gaze from the sideburn he’s trimming, like Michelangelo sculpting David, freeing potential from raw stone.

Back then, Elyas was still working with his dad, Yunoos Salleh, 62, now retired but still involved in Son & Dad’s management. Tonight, dad overlooks

Close Shaves Three other options for a neat and trendy trim around southeast asia.

operations, popping in and out of the shop for a smoke. Yunoos started his barbershop Yus de Cherie in the 1980s in komtar, George Town’s first shopping mall. “Back then, rock and roll was king in Malaysia, and everyone wanted to keep long hair to imitate English and American bands,” he remembers with a

clockwise from top left: Tools of the trade;

keeping up with the trimmed clientele at Son & Dad; son and dad in the flesh.

BANGKOK

Black Amber Skilled barbers in a space with a gentleman’s club vibe. Next door, you’ll find Dirty Hands Club, a new men’s nail salon. fb.com/ blackamberbarber; cuts from Bt700; fb.com/dirtyhandsclub.

smile. “I had to work on those men: they looked so... untidy.” Son and dad look at each other for a second, and then break out in hearty laughter.

The family moved shop to Lebuh Acheh only two years ago, when Elyas discovered the work of the Schorem barbers, a famous men-only salon in the Netherlands. “I do Dutch haircuts,” he tells me, but to my untrained eye the hairstyles seem plucked from the American 50s: navy crew cuts and hairsprayed rockabilly quaffs. These foreign influences helped establish Elyas’s classic style as George Town’s newest trend and, seven months ago, Elyas and Yunoos opened a second shop just a few doors down from the original Son & Dad. Rolling out an additional locale so close to the original was a gamble, but there was demand aplenty to keep both buzzing. One barber, Fitri, a young chap of 19, says of their clientele: “The truth is, from six-year-old kids to foreign tourists to the average uncle, every man in George Town wants to look classy and cool.” And a spin in the shiny Old World barber chairs of Son & Dad is the fast track to that debonair hairdo. 53A Lebuh Acheh; 60-4/263-0019 for appointments; haircuts from RM30.

KUALA LUMPUR

The Oven Cuttery

Both a barbershop and home to Mentega, shop owner Kevin Tan’s oil-based pomade that is geared to tropical climates, this is the city’s spot for a fresh cut. fb.com/ theovencuttery; cuts from RM38.

SINGAPORE

Sultans of Shave With barbers trained under the tutelage of England’s finest, we get why gentlemen around Singapore are flocking to these luxury shops. sultansofshave.com; cuts from S$35.

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/ here&now / Trending

On the Horizon

A look at things to come in the ever-evolving world of travel. is the perfect time to be looking ahead, and J. Walter Thompson Intelligence has released its Future 100 report, predicting what’s to come. Plucked from those findings are six travel trends that could impact your trips this year.

open-air bedding down

Middle East Rising

There’s rustic and then there’s the Memu Earth Hotel (memu.earthhotel.jp), which is open in Hokkaido. At this open-air resort you’re fully exposed to Mother Nature, so you can soak in the Japanese countryside and sleep under a canopy of stars. The Null Stern Hotel (null-stern-hotel.ch) in Switzerland also opened a wall-less, roof-less bed (above) in the Alps last summer.

Three destinations on the precipice of a tourism boom this year.

Oman

Vistors to Oman shot up almost 18 percent in 2015 and the destination has so much to offer we included it in our “Where to Go in 2017” special (page 33).

Iran

As economic sanctions are being lifted, hotel chains are rising up. Accor (accor. com) has an Ibis and a Novotel in Tehran, and this year Melia (meliahotels​ international.com) plans to open Gran Melia Ghoo Hotel (above) in Salman Shahr, on the Caspian Sea. Georgia

Halal Tourism Asian destinations are rolling out the red carpet for a new wave of Muslim travelers. In 2015, the Tourism Authority of Thailand launched an app to help Muslim travelers find their favorite dishes, and in 2016 Al Meroz (almerozhotel.com), Thailand’s first halal hotel opened in Bangkok (above). In Taipei prayer rooms have been added to the train station and seven new halal restaurants opened in the city last year.

In Japan, the halal Syriah Hotel Fujisan (fuji-bb.jp/syariah) hotel opened last July, welcoming Muslims to Mount Fuji.

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Homeware Hospitality The line between retail and hospitality is blurring, as hotels become shoppable, like the Banyan Tree (banyantree.com), which sells its toiletries and accessories at Banyan Tree Essentials, or MicroLuxe (micro-luxe.com), which bills itself as a hotel, design showroom and store (above) and has three locations in Melbourne that can be booked via Airbnb; in each you can purchase all that surrounds you, from the bed linen to the furniture and artwork. While hotels are developing their own retail lines, retail lines are rolling out hotels. In the United States, Restoration Hardware and West Elm both have hotels in the works.

The wine-making province of Kakheti is luring oenophiles to the foothills of the Caucacus Mountains while the Sheraton and InterContinental both have properties slated to open in the historic capital of Tbilisi.

Travel Action Travel platforms are showing heart with ethically and socially responsible initiatives, from Airbnb’s Disaster Response Tool (airbnb.com/disasterresponse), which helps people seek free emergency shelter during natural catastrophes such as the recent earthquake in New Zealand; to TripAdvisor’s new policy against selling tickets to most wildlife attractions, aimed at improving the health and safety standards of animals.

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DNA pilgrimages As people gain a better understanding of their origins through DNA testing services such as 23andMe (23andme. com) and AncestryDNA (ancestry.com/ dna), we can expect a boost in travelers going in search of their roots.

c l o c k w i s e fr o m t o p l e f t: c o u r t e s y o f n u l l s t e r n h o t e l ; c o u r t e s y o f m e l i a ; c o u r t e s y o f m i c r o - l u x e ; c o u r t e s y o f 2 3 a n d m e ; c o u r t e s y o f a l m e r o z

the new year

Almost-too-cuteto-eat dim sum.

Stuffed strawberries with foie gras.

The Quotidien cocktail.

dining

Drunken Dumplings

c o u r t e s y o f T h e Dr u n k e n P o t ( 3 )

The dim sum at this new Hong Kong eatery is dizzyingly adorable. ducklings, penguins, angry pumpkins: you never know what will march across your plate at The Drunken Pot. Less than a year after this innovative hot-pot spot opened its first branch on Observatory Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, the Drunken Pot is expanding with a Causeway Bay location. The 480-square-meter restaurant looks out over Victoria Harbour, but the dishes are so eye-catching you may have trouble focusing on the view. The Drunken Penguin steamed buns look like something out of a Pixar cartoon and

the Drunken Mon dumplings, molded into pretty pink butterflies, are almost too cute to eat, but go on, take a bite. The filling, consisting of cheese, kimchi, shrimp and pork, is a savory explosion. If you’re feeling adventurous, order the signature Ultimate Drunken Pot soup, with five broths: Sichuan, Chiuchow satay, meat-bone tea, fish maw-and-chicken, and the centerpiece—lobster, black truffles and three-cheese broth. thedrunkenpot.com; small plates HK$42–$88.

/ here&now /

Shopping

Beautiful Day

These days, everybody wants a piece of Burma. With more than 135 different ethnic groups, each with its own distinct culture and heritage, the country has no shortage of traditional souvenirs for visitors to take home, but not all crafts are created equal. An imitation lacquer box isn’t going to wow the seasoned traveler, and how many wooden masks does the savvy tourist need?

A new addition to Rangoon’s

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shopping scene, Hla Day (hladaymyanmar.org) caters to a more discerning clientele by combining traditional crafts with contemporary designs to create beautiful giftware, fashion and lifestyle products.

Housed in an airy colonial building on Pansodan Street, Hla Day—the phrase means “beautiful” in Burmese—is a treasure trove of colorful clothing and accessories,

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elegant homeware and woven textiles, all handmade by Burmese artisans. A commitment to the local community is an extension of Hla Day’s overall vision of sustainability.

Their wares are created using locally sourced or recycled materials and they work with around 35 producers from disadvantaged backgrounds, providing a vital source of income.

“Many of our producers can’t read or write, but they create these

c o u r t e s y o f h l a d ay ( 6 )

A new store in Rangoon curates the country’s coolest crafts. By Charlotte Rose

Look-good, feel-good souvenirs at Hla Day.

This quirky recycled soda-tab bracelet was designed by a group of disabled women who produce accessories with everything from bicycle inner tubes to cans.

Hla Day’s color-pop papier-mâché animals are reviving the local art, and are a hit with adults and children alike.

The store’s new collection of jewelry is custom-designed by the UK’s 2015 Ethical Jeweler of the Year, Pippa Small—a favorite among celebrities such as Nicole Kidman and Kate Middleton.

Created by non-profit organization Turquoise Mountain, in partnership with the Suu Foundation, each piece is crafted

by Burmese master goldsmiths using ethically sourced gold and semiprecious stones from Burma’s Mogok Valley, funneling more jobs to the region.

These hand-woven textiles are produced by minority Chin women living in Burma’s Rakhine State. The intricate silk and cotton weavings, which range in price from US$90 to $450, make for sophisticated home décor.

beautiful crafts and textiles,” the shop’s co-founder Ulla Kroeber says.

“We show them how to use traditional products in contemporary ways, to create something totally new, so that they can earn money and our customers can enjoy unique, quality products.”

The system is rigged so that every purchase has a positive impact on the local community, and the customer’s home décor.

Whimsical children’s toys are handmade by women living with HIV, as part of a program by local NGO Action for the Public, which provides them with training and income.

reader favorites

|

january 2017

World’s Top 10 Islands

These are the islands that resonated most with our readers from around the world for their tranquility and away-from-it-all natural beauty.

To vote in this year’s World’s Best survey, visit TLWorldsBest.com/intl

Palawan, known for its dramatic karsts, is one of Asia’s best secrets. If you’ve not been, make plans to visit for the waters in and around these islands are crystalline, the skies a deep shade of blue and the living entirely laid back. Hire a banca to get even further afield and you’re guaranteed carefree days.

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E m i l i o M a r a n o n III , P h i l i pp i n e s / g e t t y i m a g e s

1 Palawan Philippines 2 Boracay Philippines 3 Ischia Italy 4 Waiheke Island New Zealand 5 Santorini Greece 6 Cebu Philippines 7 Maui Hawaii 8 Hilton Head South Carolina 9 Kauai Hawaii 10 Bali Indonesia

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debut

Secret Garden

c o u rt esy o f fo u r s e as o n s h ot e l k yoto ( 3 )

The Four Seasons Kyoto just opened, but with a design imbued with classical ryokan tropes and an intimate connection to the city’s past, it feels like it has its own history. By Diana Hubbell Entering a cit y steeped in history and dotted with more than 1,600 temples, 400 shrines and 17 UNESCO World Heritage Sites—more than most countries—could prove a daunting task for a new hotel. Yet the Four Seasons Hotel Kyoto stepped onto the stage with the quiet grace of a geisha, seeming to blend effortlessly with its surrounds. It helps that the spiritual heart of the hotel is more than eight centuries old. Once the private ikeniwa (pond garden) of a revered samurai, the Shakusuien is a two-hectare sanctuary for local avian life and a textbook example of the dreamy, meticulous miniature landscapes for which the country is known.

“People remember it from when they were children. So many have told us that they are grateful for how we’ve protected the pond garden, and how we’ve respected it,” says general manager Alex Porteous. While its nostalgic value never waned, over the years the garden had lost a little of its luster. Painstaking efforts and research were necessary to bring it back to the level of splendor it must have had when it made a cameo in The Tale of the Heike, a 12th-century Japanese epic poem. “A lot of the wildlife has come back,” Porteous says. “We have kois and carps, little lobsters and an egret.”

After the time and energy put into reviving the estate, it is little wonder the

property is oriented to focus on the 800-year-old garden at its center.

Throughout the rooms and corridors, nine-meter-long windows accented with traditional Japanese fretwork face inwards towards the ikeniwa, to showcase its tranquil and ever-shifting scenery. Sakura bloom pale pink in spring, while autumn foliage sees the scenery blaze into scarlet and crimson, before the stark ink-brush composition of winter. Carved cedar doors, aji stones, washi paper, shoji screens and designer Agnes Ng’s architectural nods to a Miko’s parasol or a waving bamboo forest extend the aesthetic to the rest of the hotel. “Agnes has taken the garden and brought it inside,” Porteous says.

The mission of immersing guests in Kyoto’s multifaceted story extends beyond the shady garden and into the city itself. Dozens of cultural activities, from geisha performances in the teahouse for adults to manga-drawing for kids, offer in-roads to the local culture. Best of all, bespoke tours by Hana Morioka, the hotel’s experience curator, include a visit to a secret shrine and a garden sealed off to the public. Says Porteous: “This is for those who want to explore a little deeper.” 445-3 Myohoin Maekawa-cho Higashioji-dori Shibutanisagaru; 81-75/541-8288; fourseasons.com/ kyoto; doubles from ¥51,000.

From Top: Views take in the

natural side of Kyoto; one of the hotel restaurants; modern design incoporates ancient Japanese motifs.

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/ here&now / Insider Intel

Craving Colombo Czar of sweets Rukshi Nethicumara gives us the scoop on her hometown in Sri Lanka. By R achna Sachasinh

clockwise from above: Rukshi

Nethicumara; pick up hand-loomed gifts at Barefoot Store; a Butter Boutique cake; shoes are among the cornucopia of quirky buys at Good Market.

hip gourmands. When not scouring the city for the lastest hoppers-andcocktails den, Nethicumara can be found mixing decadent and unexpected confections at Butter Boutique (34, 27th Lane; 94-11/2574119; cake and coffee for two Rs2,000) her patisserie in the trendy Kollupitiya neighborhood. We turn to her good taste for a well-balanced itinerary of must-visit eateries and specialty shops in Sri Lanka’s biggest city.

SEE & DO

Get in with the locals straightway among street hawkers and kiteflying crowds at Galle Face Green’s (Galle Main Road, on the waterfront) seaside fields. Once you’ve noshed on a plate of isso wade (fried lentils patty with prawns) and soaked in a brilliant Colombo sunset, you’re automatically one of us. + Old Dutch Hospital Shopping Precinct (Hospital Street; 94-78/854-1400), the city’s oldest architectural relic, is teeming with boutiques and eateries. I love to wander through the massive colonnades and breezeways for a bit of window-shopping and peoplewatching. + I often slink into Spa Ceylon (spaceylon.com) for an Ayurvedic foot massage with handcrafted sandalwood, Ceylon cinnamon and cardamom oils.

SHOP

I’ve been filling my cupboards with handcrafted batiks from Salt (34, 27th Lane; 94-77/923-5576; cotton and silk dresses Rs2,000 to Rs20,000).

Their dresses and kaftans are brilliant, and the newly launched bed collection celebrates tropical island living. + The 1920s shophouse Barefoot (barefootceylon.com, prices start at Rs200) is as good-looking as its wares. I can’t seem to get out the

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fr o m to p : s u pac h at v e tc h a m a l e e n o n t ; c o u rt esy o f ba r e fo ot ; J e e wa n Ku m a r a ; c o u rt esy o f b u t t e r b o u t i q u e

the first place tourists leave. The charming port town has been short-changed as a transit pit-stop for travelers flying into Bandaranaike International Airport and then heading on to surf in the south or tea-estate hop through central hill-country, but there are plenty of reasons to stay put, as 31-year-old Colombo-native Rukshi Nethicumara will tell you.

“People in Colombo are warm and friendly,” she says. “We have an island mentality, ever ready to chill out and have a good time.”

Inspired by the city’s penchant for melding exotic flavors, Nethicumara crafted fanciful cakes using local spices and homespun ingredients in her teens. In her mid20s, the budding foodie peddled confections at the Good Market (goodmarket.lk), a hub for the city’s

Colombo is usually

from below left: Strawberry

c lo c k w i s e fr o m to p l e f t : c o u rt esy o f r e . p u b . l k ; c o u rt esy o f ga l l e fac e h ot e l ; yas e n d r a a m e r as i n g h e / c o u rt esy o f sa lt ; c o u rt esy o f lo n d o n g r i l l ; c o u rt esy o f u pa l i s

Basylum cocktail served in jar at Re.pub.lk; the recently renovated Galle Face Hotel; Nethicumara fills her closet with Salt’s batik designs.

a creative farmers market, it’s a great spot to catch pop-ups where artisans and foodies flex their talent.

DRINK

door without a pile of hand-loomed cotton kurtis, or tunics. For gifts, I pick up a few exquisite pillow covers in Dumbara, a local weaving style with bold graphic motifs. + Cruise Good Market for organic herbs and tinctures, contemporary crafts and recycled threads. Billed as

The wine list and a dizzying line up of local crafts beers make it easy to rack up a bar tab at Re.pub.lk (57 Hospital St.; cocktails for two Rs2,400). For something pretty with a kick, I order Strawberry Basylum, a berry, basil and gin tonic that goes down smoothly. + When pulling an all-nighter, we invariably end up at 41 Sugar (sugarcolombo.com; cocktails for two Rs1,800), the rooftop bar at old Gymkhana Club. Neon cocktails and live music will keep you amped ’til the wee hours.

STAY

Check in to the recently spruced up Galle Face Hotel (gallefacehotel.com; doubles from US$170). The white colonial façade, fabulous lawns and sea views are straight out of a Merchant-Ivory production, and their afternoon tea is a delight.

WEEKEND EATS SATURDAY

9

a.m. Folks flock to Upalis

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(upalis.com; breakfast for two Rs3,600) as early as 6 a.m. for their legendary hoppers, an island staple made from fermented batter. Pair that with roti, pattu and parripu for a Sri Lankan breakfast of champions.

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p.m. Jaffna-style cuisine at Palmyrah’s (renukahotel.com/dining/ palmyrah-restaurant; lunch for two Rs6,000) is my go-to spot for comfort food. The vintage-hip dining hall lined with buttery leather booths is perfect for a long, lazy lunch with friends. It’s oldschool home cooking with fabulous crab curry and a hot list of hoppers.

3

p.m. When I’m fighting midday

inertia, I head to my place, Butter Boutique, for our freshly roasted beans flown straight in from Niccolo Coffee in Melbourne, and a slice of Arabian Nights cake.

sunday

7

p.m. The newly opened Curve

Bar (curvebarcolombo.com; drinks and dinner for two Rs3,900) brings tapas to the city; order the sesame-tuna with horseradish and a passion fruit mojito.

a.m. Head to local institution

Green Cabin (483 Galle Rd., Kollupitiya; lunch for two Rs2,200) for brunch with the whole family, Sri Lankan style.

The tropical courtyard and laidback vibe are the perfect accompaniment to spicy sambas and ginger beer, a winning combination that has kept the place buzzing for six decades.

12

p.m. After a decade-long hiatus, famously delectable mutton rolls are being dished up again at Nippon Hotel’s newly refurbished KAFÉ (123 Kumaran Ratnam Rd., Slave Island; mutton rolls from Rs140 per piece), which feels like a cross between a bakery and a diner, with red booths and a pleasant atmosphere.

7

p.m. When I’m in the mood for top-notch steak paired with a meaty Bordeaux, I dress up and head to London Grill (at Cinnamon Grand Colombo hotel on Galle Main Road; dinner and wine for two Rs15,000). Red brick, live piano, and a no-kidsunder-six-allowed policy make for a refined dining experience.

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Traditional Japanese architecture of teahouses at Higashi Chaya district in Kanazawa.

Where to Go Wibowo Rusli/get t yimages

in

2017

We know that technology and globalization can make the world feel small and thoroughly explored. But we also know that the world is big and that there are always places to discover—and rediscover—for yourself. From familiar getaways that have found a new groove to far-flung corners that are finally within easy reach, these are the 20 buzziest destinations to visit this year. t r a v e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a . c o m / j a n u a r y 2 0 1 7

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checking in

T

So many villas, so little time.

he islands have reached beyond the honeymoon market and are seeing the next generation of overwater bungalows cater to a wider variety of niche interests like surfing and yoga. A staggering 23 new hotels opened in 2016 and about a dozen more will open in 2017. Baglioni Hotels (baglionihotels.com; doubles from US$1,100) acquired a private island named Maagau, part of the Dhaalu Atoll, a 30-minute sea plane ride from Malé. It will be home to a brand-new resort to be completed this summer, composed of above-sea villas, and three restaurants.

Soneva Jani (soneva.com; villas from US$3,085) is a new 25-villa family-friendly resort set within its own private six-kilometer-long lagoon, which opened in late 2016. Its modernist timber architecture and bedrooms with retractable roofs are raising the bar for bungalow design. Another newcomer is the Four Seasons Voavah Baa Atoll (fourseasons.com; rates not yet available), which will be the world’s only private resort located entirely within a unesco biosphere. And those who can’t bear to leave the water will appreciate Hurawalhi (hurawalhi.com; tasting menu at 5.8 Undersea Restaurant US$280), the world’s largest subsea restaurant where you can dine on the very fish that swim past you.

Getting to the Maldives will be easier too: this year Costa Cruises (costacruise.com; rates not yet available) is launching a cruise with stops in the Maldives, and Malé International Airport’s US$450million refurb includes a new runway to accommodate more passengers. If all that weren’t enough, unesco has been working with Maldives officials to make the entire archipelago a Biosphere Reserve by the end of this year. The plan includes a massive UNfunded clean water project that will start on Funadhoo and expand to at least 48 other remote islands, helping the Maldives become less wasteful and more self-sufficient. —Adam H. Gr aham

Voavah Baa Atoll, soon home to a Four Seasons.

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Cliff pool villa lounge, Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar.

history lesson

Oman of My Dreams The Arabian peninsula’s bestkept secret is on an upscale swing.

Y

ou’d be forgiven for wondering how a cradle of civilization and a major intersection of global trade routes has managed to stay off the tourism radar for so long. Oman, with its rich history exemplified by the 10,000-year-old city of Al Wattih and its unrivaled scenery that ranges from the limestone Al Hajar mountains to a 3,000-kilometer coastline, has big draws for every type of traveler. Trek windswept deserts, spot rambunctious dolphins in the gulf, visit dazzling mosques, stay in charming Bedouin towns. Even capital city Muscat, famed for its souks and seafood, boasts an incredibly diverse terrain—not to mention a laid-back, liveable scene that’s less over-thetop than neighboring Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

No, the wealth hasn’t run rampant in this sultanate, but they still know how do luxury right. Intrepid brands the likes of Six Senses, The Chedi and Alila long have had covetable outposts in Oman, and the 30-tent, Arabian fantasy Desert Nights Camp has been on our bucket list for ages. Last year brought the opening of the first five-star on the south coast, Al Baleed Resort Salalah by Anantara (salalah.anantara.com; doubles from US$395), and, on the curving rim of a canyon, the Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar (jabal-akhdar.anantara.com; doubles from US$636), the highest-altitude resort in the Middle East. A Jumeirah is scheduled to open near Muscat later in 2017. Now’s the time to avail yourself of that legendary Omani hospitality. — Jeninne Lee-St. John

fr o m t o p : c o u r t e s y o f A n a n ta r a A l J a b a l A l A k h d a r : c o u r t e s y o f f o u r s e a s o n s

Maldives Multiplication

Grilled octopus is a tentacled treat at Toyo Eatery, in Manila.

hot tables

Feast of the Future

Lively drinking and dining scenes have put three destinations on the culinary map.

c o u r t e s y o f t o y o e at e r y

M a n i l a / Ph i l i ppi n e s The recent renaissance in Filipino-cuisine culture, slotting classic menus into quirky settings, makes Manila a worthy destination for the traveling foodie. The Alley at Karrivin Plaza (thealleyatkarrivin.com) is an easy one-stop shop: browse handembroidered tunics and gorgeous sting-ray home décor while sipping an iced coffee from Lanai (lanai-manila.com) before heading to dinner at Toyo Eatery (63-91/77208630; tasting menus from P1,000) where chef Jordy Navarra fancifully recreates childhood memories on a plate: think dolled-up street-style pork barbecue and wagyu beef silog. If you’re after an evening drink, sip a refreshing gin-based Cucumber Frost on the terrace of Wild Poppy (5666 Don Pedro St., Poblacion, Makati). For gooey desserts topped with homemade soft-serve ice cream, stop in at neighboring Bucky’s (buckysnotabrownie.com; soft-serve ice cream P100). Stay at La Casita Mercedes (lacasitamercedes.com; doubles from P3,000), a small bed-and-breakfast in a restored 1930s home, in the Poblacion district: the hotspot for quirky rooftop bars, artsy cafés and hipster restaurants. —Stephanie Zubiri

B E L G R A D E / SER BIA Since the end of the Yugoslav wars, Belgrade has attracted steady investment—its graffiti-covered neighborhoods are now full of restaurants and bars. You’ll find hearty platters of ćevapi—smoky sausages without casing—and stuffed somborka peppers at Sokače (381-11/328-7939), paprika-laden kebabs at Tri Šešira (trisesira.rs; mains RSD914–1,714), and pan-Latin tapas at Toro (richardsandoval.com/torobelgrade). But the biggest draw is the growing craft-beer scene (the city has 37 breweries). Don’t miss the Kabinet Supernova IPA at Prohibicija (fb.com/prohibicija.beograd) in the bar-filled Savamala district, as well as Kas’s full-bodied pale ales and Salto’s IPA at Bajloni (bajloni.com), set in a former brewery.

Ipoh

/ M a l aysi a Though it is one of the largest cities in the country, Ipoh’s dining scene is still something of a secret held by Malaysian foodies. At Restoran SYW (sunyeongwai.com; mains RM8– RM55), birds reared in former tinmining pools result in tasty roasted duck. Drive by Aun Kheng Lim Salted Chicken (60-5/254-2998; 24, Jalan Theater, Taman Jubilee; whole chickens from RM16) to bring home steamed chickens packed in coarse salt, angelica root and five spice powder. Meanwhile at Garvy’s (garvysmy.com; tasting menus from RM250), one of the city’s swankiest date spots, you’ll find French-tinged dishes like cod with artichoke puree.

Check in to the funky Happy 8 Retreat (fb.com/thehappy8; doubles from RM250), located in the foodie haven of Old Town for a Bohemian taste of what life must have been like half a century ago when the neighborhood buzzed with commerce and social intrigues. — Mark Lean

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A tent at Wild Coast Tented Lodge.

natural wonder

Go Wild

A new glamp site in Yala National Park, Sri Lanka, is adding creature comforts to creature sightings.

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ith more than 200 avian species flaunting their plumage and mammals including ruddy mongooses, golden jackals, sloth bears, langur monkeys, elephants and Indian palm civets roaming the forests, this 130,000-hectare protected park has always been a mecca for wildlife enthusiasts. Later this year, nature-lovers will be able to explore the biodiverse region in comfort while keeping their eco-footprint to a bare minimum. Set on the southeastern Sri Lankan coastline just outside the park boundaries, Wild Coast Tented Lodge (resplendentceylon.com; rates not yet available) will feature just 28 plush, low-impact tents. Some 30 leopards prowl the area, meaning the odds of spotting one of these elusive creatures are uncommonly high. — Diana Hubbell

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royal treatment

Pure Jaipur

T

The new wave of trendy boutiques in Jaipur is both modern and, in keeping with the city’s past, super lavish.

F ro m to p: c o u rt esy o f S u ja n Ra jm a h a l pa l ac e ; c ourtesy o f c on te m p o ra ry H ote ls . op p os it e : c o u r t e s y o f w i l d c o a s t t e n t e d l o d g e

he bedrock of Indian royalty and village craft, Jaipur is pivoting. Young heirs and a new wave of hip design studios—a lively milieu of kings and king-makers—are transforming the Pink City into a modern craft-anddesign hub. A mere 300 years old (a babe in the woods by Indian standards), Jaipur has become an emblem of the jewel-encrusted Raj. From the get-go, the famously lavish Rajput clan filled their city with decadent palaces and positioned handsome stone fortresses atop the golden Aravalli hills. Inside the city walls, the creative din of goldsmiths and embroiderers fuelled the world’s love affair with Indian handicrafts, textiles and jewels. Old and new have always mixed well here, and these days the collaborations head into uncharted territory.

Studio Kassa’s (studiokassa.com; leather bags Rs3,640-15,000) designers introduced a collection of hand-crafted leather bags; Kalee (B-42, Lalkothi, Sahakar Marg; 91-141/274-4621) is turning heads with minimalist threads; and AnanTaya (anantayadecor.com; Rs150) teams up with kaligars—the city’s traditional craft guilds—repurposing old techniques to create haute homeware.

Rasa’s (rasajaipur.com) arresting prints and geometric motifs push blockprinting into the realm of contemporary art. Artist Siddharth Kasliwal reimagines his father Munnu’s legacy at The Gem Palace (gempalacejaipur.com; prices upon request), as jeweler to the international jet set. After exploring and shopping the bazaars, stow your loot at the arty quarters of 28 Kothi (28kothi.com; doubles from Rs8,763) or retreat to rarefied chambers at Sujan Rajmahal Palace (sujanluxury.com/raj-mahal; doubles from Rs47,000). — R achna Sachasinh

Haute homeware at AnanTaya.

I

Rockridge, managed by Contemporary Hotels.

detour

Hamptons Down Under

Just an hour north of the city, Palm Beach is the go-to escape for the Sydney’s wealthiest residents and now new home-sharing sites are making it easier to rent one of the mansions that dot the peninsula.

f the perfect, sweeping arch of sand edged by pine trees an hour’s drive north of Sydney looks familiar, that’s because it’s the set of Home and Away, the iconic Australian soap opera about the lives of small-town people. But the real Palm Beach sits far atop the food chain: stacked with the high-design weekend escapes of affluent Sydneysiders. Now, thanks to the sharing economy, many of the best properties here are being rented out to celebrities like Nicole Kidman, Mick Jagger and, frankly, anyone who can afford it.

“Sharing beach houses has always been an Australian tradition. But the offerings in Palm Beach differ dramatically from the rustic no-frills cottages of yesteryear,” says Terry Kaljo, CEO of Contemporary Hotels (contemporaryhotels.com.au), which manages and provides concierge services for 34 high-end holiday homes in the area. The list includes Rockridge, an elegant 1940s residence with a clifftop pool; and the Spaceship House, a six-bedroom mansion with its own cinema. Add a smattering of cafés, restaurants, galleries, a liquor store that only sells wines that have been tasted by staff, and an annual polo event (polobythesea.com.au) held January 14 that attracts the who’s who of Sydney, and you’ll see why Palm Beach has emerged as the Hamptons of the Antipodes. — Ian Lloyd Neubauer

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Weekend Getaway

Rotterdam Uncovered

Known for its pulsing student nightlife and alternative vibe, Rotterdam is starting to steal Amsterdam’s spotlight.

Here’s how to spend three days in this dynamic Dutch city.

Start your weekend off by checking in to the Mainport (mainporthotel.com; doubles from €153), a wellness-oriented hotel where you can book a room with a Finnish sauna, or the CitizenM Hotel Rotterdam (citizenm.com; doubles from €85), which feels like your design-savvy friend’s living room.

Wander north for some shopping in Oude Noorden, a vibrant residential area with experimental fashion and homedesign boutiques. Grab a pre-dinner drink at Brouwerij Noordt (brouwerijnoordt.nl), a brewery with 20 beers on tap situated in a former firehouse.

Continue the tasting tour with a 15-minute bike ride to Roffa Streetfoodbar (roffafood.nl; entrées €8–€25), a smokehouse that serves bread, beer and cheese from some of Rotterdam’s best producers. The brisket— slow-cooked over oak for 24 hours—is a must-try.

f r i day

The lobby lounge at the CitizenM Hotel.

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Art is everywhere in this city—more than a thousand pieces adorn the public spaces. Walk along the Rijnhaven for a glimpse of Bobbing Forest, a surrealist installation of floating trees by art collective Mothership, then head to De Markthal (markthal.nl), a vast, mural-covered space where vendors sell aged Goudas and cinnamon-kissed stroopwafels. It’s also home to De Tijdtrap, an exhibition of medieval artifacts excavated from the ground on which the building now stands. Save room for dinner at Fenix Food Factory (fenixfoodfactory.nl; mains €3–€25), in buzzy Katendrecht. In the winter, a hip crowd hovers indoors over cured meats and pear cider. In warmer months, benches overlooking the canal are the setting for long, boozy evenings.

s u n day

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Ballroom’s lamb meatballs.

fr o m t o p : R i c h a r d p o w e r s ; I n g m a r S wa l u e

Stroll to the nearby Het Nieuwe Instituut (hetnieuweinstituut.nl), a museum dedicated to Dutch design and architecture.

Afterward, cruise the river in a water taxi to spot a few examples in person, like the Erasmus Bridge and De Rotterdam, a striking skyscraper

by Rem Koolhaas. This summer, cool off with a dip at RiF010 (rif010.nl), an artificial wave park in the Steigersgracht canal. Once you’ve worked up an appetite, take in the skyline while dining on dishes such as veal tartare with langoustines and pata negra at HMB Restaurant (hmbrestaurant.nl; small plates €5– €22). Cap off the evening with a bespoke G&T at Ballroom (ballroomrotterdam.nl), where your ideal elixir is crafted with one of more than a hundred gins.

s at u rday

New direct flights put central Vietnam within quick reach.

fast Track

Getting Here Just Got Easier

mo rga n o mm e r

Infrastructure and transportation updates have made travel to these three destinations a much smoother process. Go now, before the secret’s out.

Kanazawa, Japan

danang

Cambodian coast

This city on the western coast of Honshu has seen a boost in visits since a bullet-train extension shortened the trip from Tokyo to just 2½ hours.

Go for the old wooden teahouses of the Higashi Chayagai district, the beautiful samurai residence in Nagamachi, and the contemporary art museum.

Then have your pick of sushi that’s just as good as, and much cheaper than, what you’d find in Tokyo. Try it at Sentori, Kagayasuke, or Omicho market—a favorite of sushi master Masa.

New direct flights, an expansion for the international airport, and an easier e-visa application system, which is scheduled to roll out next month, are clearing the way for travelers to Danang. There are now direct flights from Bangkok (on Bangkok Airways) and Taipei (on Jetstar Airways), and the Danang Department of Tourism just launched an app to help travelers navigate the pretty port city in central Vietnam; its position makes it a perfect gateway to explore neighboring Hue and Hoi An.

Cambodia has some of Southeast Asia’s most stunning islands, but getting to them has always been arduous (a flight to Phnom Penh, a four-hour drive, then a choppy ferry ride). Luckily, there are now direct flights into the coastal Sihanoukville airport via Saigon. That means a smoother journey to the island escapes coming this year: the wellness-minded Six Senses (sixsenses.com) on Krabey Island and the Alila Villas eco-resort (kohrussey.com; doubles from US$350) on Koh Russey.

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animal quest

Sabah Safaris

C A leopard cat in Sabah.

New tours reveal a few of Borneo’s more elusive inhabitants.

ruise through the wilds of Borneo with Pandaw’s (pandaw.com; seven days all-inclusive cruise RM10,284 per person) new expedition on the upper reaches of remote Western Kalimantan, sailing between the towns of Tayan and Lanjak. This 550-kilometer-long journey is an untamed exploration of the Kapuas river system where you will experience the natural habitat of elusive Sumatran rhinoceros.

In Sabah, new tours by Sticky Rice Travel (stickyrice travel.com; two-night Danum Valley packages from RM1,400 per person) to the Danum Valley Conservation Area offer a chance to discover hundreds of different species of Bornean flora and fauna.

Scour the canopy for shy orangutans, clouded leopards and western tarsiers as you take to this 130-million-year-old rainforest on foot, and then spend the night at eco-friendly Borneo Rainforest Lodge for a real boutique jungle experience. — Marco Ferr arse

Guided Tours

Kayah Uncovered

W

After half a century of isolation, Burma’s Kayah State is opening up to select tour operators, offering travelers a glimpse of the region’s many splendors.

ith unspoilt jungle and gilded mountaintop pagodas, long-necked Kayans and floating villages, Kayah State was but a land unto itself and its inhabitants for decades, forbidden fruit for all others. Now, Burma’s tiniest region has opened its doors to tourists after more than 50 years of state-sanctioned isolation, making it one of Asia’s most promising last frontiers.

Expect an influx of new tours into the once conflict-riddled region, as some parts of Kayah State cannot be accessed unless traveling with tour groups. InsideAsia Tours runs the new 13-night Rural Burma Explorer (insideasiatours.com; £2,400 per person) where for two nights travelers explore the Kayah State’s capital, Loikaw, and visit several Padaung tribal villages.

Also riding the wave of authentic, hyper-local travel opportunities, The Flash Pack has recently added two days in Kayah State in its 12-day Myanmar Mysteries Tour (flashpack.com; £2,099 per person). Guests arrive to the mystified region via long-tail boat through the grassy, open-air expanse of Bilu Creek, and share smiles and authentic dishes such as wet au chaung, or barbecued Kayah sausage, with Pan Pet locals in their ancient mountaintop settlement. Both tours include the opportunity to interact with the storied Kayan women, known for adorning their necks with brass coils as a centuries-long symbol of beauty. — Tr avis Le vius

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A long-tail boat cuts across Bilu Creek.

City on the Rise

Big in Bolivia

F R O M LE F T: NICK BALLON ; PHILIP F R IED M AN ( 5 ) . STYLIST: BILL LAUGHLIN AT M A R K EDWA R D INC . o p p o s i t e fr o m t o p : c o u r t e s y o f S t i c k y r i c e t r av e l : c o u r t e s y o f M ya n m a r M y s t e r i e s t u o r

O

nce beleaguered by frequent strikes, roadblocks and a paucity of amenities, the backpacker haven of La Paz, Bolivia, has emerged as a true culture capital.

Infrastructure has played a key role: in 2014 the city introduced Mi Teleférico, a network of aerial trams that transport riders across the city in minutes on routes that once took an hour by bus. Travelers can glide from Zona Sur up to the windswept Altiplano in El Alto, where architect Freddy Mamani is designing whimsical, New Andean–style homes for the newly wealthy.

The first rumblings of a renaissance came in 2013, when Noma cofounder Claus Meyer opened Gustu (restaurantgustu.com; tasting menus from $b409), a fine-dining restaurant where—in classic Noma fashion—local ingredients like caiman and fermented Amazonian honey get haute-cuisine treatment. It’s the flagship of a larger culinary revitalization project that includes 10 cooking schools in low-income areas, a collective of street-food vendors, and a bar devoted to regional craft brews, Tarija wines and Bolivian spirits like singani.

Since then, the La Paz restaurant scene has exploded with surprisingly diverse ventures from Gustu alums: elevated vegan fare at Ali Pacha (alipacha.com; tasting menus from $b152), locally inspired pastas at Propiedad Pública (591-2/277-6312; mains $b62–76), and house-roasted coffee at Typica (fb.com/typica.cafe).

The city’s latest upgrade came with the arrival of its first Design Hotel, the Atix, which opened in the upscale Calacoto neighborhood last fall (atixhotel.com; doubles from $b1,116). If a stellar Bolivian restaurant and a bar featuring cocktails by award-winning mixologist David Romero aren’t enough of a draw, each of the 53 rooms doubles as a gallery, displaying works by Bolivian artists like Gastón Ugalde. It’s a microcosm of the city’s thriving contemporary art scene: galleries like Mérida Romero (fb.com/meridaromeroarte), Mamani Mamani (mamani.com), and the reopened Salar Galería de Arte (salart.org) showcase much of the country’s top talent.

Packing for La Paz

La Paz, as seen from the Atix hotel.

1. Issey Miyake mosaic coat, US$2,375 (issey miyake.com). 2. Yosuzi rabbit-felt fedora, US$460 (net-a-porter.com). 3. Fresh Vitamin Nectar Vibrancy-Boosting Face Mask, US$62 (fresh.com).

4. Jason Wu saddlebag, US$1,195 (saksfifth avenue.com). 5. Valentino ballerina shoes, US$945 (valentino.com).

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Right Time, Right Place The openings, events and festivals worth planning a trip around this year.

PATTAYA in

February The third installation of Thailand’s supergreen music, arts, food and culture festival Wonderfruit (wonderfruitfestival. com; from Bt3,800 for an adult day-pass) was postponed from last December out of respect for the passing of beloved King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Those who can make it February 16-19 instead are promised headlining acts Rudimental, Liana La Havas and Young Fathers at a 100-percent carbon neutral, four-day frolic in the fields two hours southeast of Bangkok.

Picking up steam as it goes, the fifth edition of Art Basel Hong Kong (March 23-25; artbasel.com/hongkong; tickets HK$300) promises to be a visual candy store for art-lovers, with 241 galleries from 34 countries. New this year is the Kabinett sector, in which galleries offer curated shows within their booths.

hong kong in

march 42

january 2017 / tr av el andleisure asia .com

queenStown

july in

Rwanda in

June

Travelers hoping to see East Africa’s waning population of mountain gorillas will be able to do it in style starting this summer, when Wilderness Safaris’ first Rwandan property, the upscale, six-villa Bisate Lodge (wilderness-safaris. com; villas from US$1,400 per person), opens near Volcanoes National Park Volcanoes National.

There are two new places to stay in New Zealand’s adventure capital (ski season starts in mid-June, but there’s bungee jumping and jet boating year-round). Bed down at the boutique Hulbert House (hulberthouse.co.nz; doubles from NZ$950), with six suites in an 1888 Victorian villa, or the 69-room QT Queenstown (qthotels​and​resorts. com), which is slated to land on the shores of Lake Wakatipu this year.

lake lucerne in

september The ultramodern Bürgenstock Resort (buergenstock.ch), which opens in mid 2017 with four hotels and a spa, is one of the biggest developments to come to this part of Switzerland.

Get there quicker via the 56-kilometer Gotthard Base Tunnel (the world’s longest train tunnel), which has shaved 40 minutes off the trip from Milan. And don’t miss Mount Pilatus—its popular cog railway is now included in the Swiss Travel Pass.

F ro m l e f t : c ou rt esy o f wo n d e r f ru i t; c ou rtesy o f Art Bas e l H o n g Ko ng ; Su z i Es z te rhas /Natu r e Pictu r e Li br a ry /g e tty imag es ; C o u rtesy of Q u e e nstow n Winte r F est i val ; Cou rt esy o f Bü rgenstoc k H ot els AG

happenings

Discover Switzerland

Zurich lies in the center of Switzerland and the heart of Europe. It is the perfect starting point from which to discover Switzerland’s beautiful mountain scenery, crystal-clear lakes and endless snowcovered landscape. After your day of exploring, you can return to Zurich and enjoy the comforts of this dynamic metropolis with its exceptional infrastructure, diverse nightlife, rich cultural heritage and gastronomic delights.

Zurich means variety Zurich combines creative urban life with idyllic natural landscapes, and all in the smallest of areas. Art connoisseurs and culture enthusiasts will be spoiled for choice with more than 50 museums and over 100 galleries, while curious city lovers can explore the constant juxtaposition of picturesque old town and modern neighborhoods. Nature enthusiasts looking

For more informati zuerich.c on visit om/disc over or ema info@zue il rich.com #VisitZur ich for fresh air and lush green landscapes will enjoy the lakeside location, the many forests and parks, and Zurich’s local mountain, the Uetliberg, while the liveliest nightlife in Switzerland will be sure to tempt night-owls and the young at heart.

Day-trip destinations right on the doorstep Rapperswil, the Riviera on the upper half of Lake Zurich, maintains its promise of southern charm. The small and quaint alleys of the medieval old part of town invite visitors to a charming stroll or spot of windowshopping. The Swiss Alps are an easy day trip from Zurich. Titlis in Central Switzerland, the Rigi on Lake Lucerne and the famous Jungfraujoch in the Bernese Oberland are all just an hour or two’s drive away. Even the stunning Rhine Falls, where visitors can experience the power of water as 600,000 liters per second flow into the Rhine basin, is not far away.

T+L WorLd’s BesT aWards 2017

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Spotlight

Pick Your Poison

From snazzy cabaret clubs to street vendor-dessert inspired cocktails, Mark Lean trains his beer (or margarita) goggles on Kuala Lumpur’s evolving bar scene. photogr aphed by eric chow >>

A casualty of Skullduggery speakeasy in Kuala Lumpur.

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/ beyond /s p o tl i g h t Is there any thing more tedious than mixing your own drinks? Eight years ago, when I was in the thick of my party-boy stage of life and living in Kuala Lumpur, margaritas were kind of an obsession, but to my dismay, I had to blend them myself. Those days were all about early-morning secret raves and single malt whisky slammed back with Pokka green tea, or glasses of beer swimming with ice cubes. If you wanted a well-made cocktail, you had to roll up your sleeves and make your own, and where’s the fun in that?

But on a recent weekend back, I nearly didn’t recognize the city, dazzling as it is with confidence and a newfound worldly sheen. Of course, the Changkat Bukit Bintang strip with its tourist-friendly bars still sizzles on weekends, but there are also new surprises, giving a cosmopolitan laid-back lilt to the Malaysian capital. Here are four spots that are quickly changing the personality of KL’s nightlife.

Coppersmith

The latest addition to Eddie Chew and Chris Bauer’s Troika Sky Dining empire is a glossy space showcasing Tom Dixon lighting and copper-tone finishing. Here you’ll find delicately blended drinks abound, courtesy of Cocktail Professor, a bar consultation company that has drummed up drinks menus for the likes of W Resort Koh Samui and the W Retreat & Spa, Bali. The result: a thoughtful composition of tastes like the From the Smith’s Garden, featuring healthful celery, lemon, apple juice, fresh basil, homemade kwaifeh syrup, Belvedere vodka, Sichuan foam, thyme and basil. But besides the drinks and the fashion-shoot setting, the highlight is the Instagram-worthy view of the Petronas Twin

Towers nearby. The duo is also working on Mr. Chew, an Asian-Latin bar and restaurant atop the WOLO Bukit Bintang, a boutique hotel at the heart of Bukit Bintang, scheduled to open this month. fb.com/ coppersmithattroikaskydining; drinks for two RM100.

Astor Bar

You are always guaranteed a dramatic entrance at the St. Regis Kuala Lumpur’s Astor Bar, thanks to the automatic doors that usher you in with bravado. Inside you’ll find an unmistakable old-money atmosphere, even though the hotel opening was a mere six months ago. While the bar’s

CLOCKWISE from left: Blended

drinks and stirring views, at Coppersmith; beetroot chips with sea salt at Astor Bar, in the St. Regis; Astor Bar’s spin on the Bloody Mary.

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setting is a composite of turn-of-the-century gilded furnishings featuring muted lighting, horsehair wall paneling, black-and-gold marble, and gold-leaf ceilings, the interior designers have also added useful touches like swiveling chairs and hidden hooks to keep handbags safe. In keeping with the St. Regis tradition of honoring its location with a distinct Bloody Mary creation, Astor Bar’s tangy Asam Boi Mary adds local sweet, sour and salty plums, fresh turnip, calamansi juice and Sarawak black pepper to the classic recipe. Knock back a few of those bad boys and your exit will be even more theatrical than your entrance. stregiskualalumpur.com; drinks for two RM120.

Sparrow

In the city’s suburban heartland of Kota Damansara, Shawn Chong and Karl Too, the pair behind one of KL’s first speakeasy-style bars Omakase+Appreciate, has branched out with Sparrow, a mahjong-den-like space that is equal measures fun and clever. To find it, walk into Olfactory Bulb Café and head to the restrooms.

Sparrow is through the door in the back where a tealtinged bar, made to resemble a series of mahjong tiles, awaits. Order their rum-spiked version of cendol: shaved ice with brown-sugar syrup, coconut milk and jadegreen jelly slivers. The bar also turns the tables on the popular Malaysian street-food staple ais batu campur, with black jelly and peanuts, a shot of vodka, rose syrup, palm sugar and evaporated milk. fb.com/olfactorybulb; drinks for two RM80.

o p p o s i t e , b e l o w l e f t: c o u r t e s y o f c o p p e r s m i t h

Skullduggery

from top: Bird

cages and bottles at Sparrow; copper-plated skulls lend an eerie mischief-and -mayhem vibe to Skullduggery; try a whimisical rumspiked drink at Sparrow.

Speakeasies have been the down-low debutantes in KL for a while, and this latest secret hole-in-the-wall bar has insiders whispering to their friends in hushed tones. The Damansara Heights haunt proves the hip scene is spilling beyond the confines of the city center, and locals are willing to make the trek for a taste. The cozy 80-seater space is decked out with vintage Edison light bulbs, aged leather couches and 238 tiny copper-plated skulls—very Temple of Doom-chic. Speaking of doom, all the drinks are double pours. The two standouts are Khan Artist (composed of gin, champagne, absinthe and fresh lime) and Don’t Do Shrooms, a mix of the bar’s homemade truffle-and-wormwood-infused vodka, cream and homemade cardamom-milk jam. A DJ spins here most nights, so expect a classy lounge-party vibe and a well-heeled crowd well-versed in the rules of cocktails and fashion. It is a far cry from the watered-down-beer halls of the aughts; not only will they construct a margarita for you, they’ll deconstruct one too. And I’ll raise a glass to that, just as long as I don’t have to mix it myself. fb.com/skullduggerykl; drinks for two RM100.

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Cape Crusaders On an eight-day, two-wheeled odyssey from Cairns to the northernmost point in Australia, battles bull dust, plays chicken with cassowaries, jumps Gunshot Pass and duels the Old Telegraph Road, pushing his limits, and his motorcycle, into overdrive.

Ian Lloyd Neubauer

a motorcycle here needs psychological help,” says Gary Conners of Lotusbird Lodge, an outpost in Cape York, one of the world’s largest wilderness areas.

Conners does make a good point.

As his other guests pass the sizzling hot afternoon sipping chilled white wine and birdwatching under a veranda, our group of a dozen men and two women stand around sucking lukewarm water out of bottles and flasks while a farmhand pumps fuel into our burly dirt bikes.

“Anyone who rides

Covered in grime and sweat, we are at the halfway mark of an eightday, 1,400-kilometer ride that, once complete, will give us the ultimate off-road bragging rights: we’ve ridden to the northernmost point of mainland Australia.

DAYS 1 & 2 OUT OF THE FRYING PAN The first day is deceptively easy: a leisurely ride north out of Cairns along The Captain Cook Highway.

Named after the first British

navigator to reach Australia, the Cook is regarded as the country’s primo motorcycling road—a riot of curves and switchbacks that winds above towering sea cliffs with stellar views of the Great Barrier Reef.

After passing Port Douglas we stop for the night at Cape Tribulation for dinner and drinks at a local pub, followed by some shuteye at a hostel.

Early the next morning, reality sets in as we leap headfirst into the Bloomfield Track, a rough-as-guts logging trail that cuts through the >>

Stirring up dust on the road north.

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sanket odisha tourism 2016

Astaranga BeachA perfect destination for a perfect sunset experience

Website: odishatourism.gov.in/www.visitodisha.org• E-mail: oritour@gmail.com • Toll Free : 1800 208 1414, OTDC Central Reservation Counter (10 am - 6 pm): Tel. : +91674 2430764

If you’re looking for an extraordinary beach holiday, Odisha is a sun, sand and surf paradise like none other.

Dotted with some of the world’s finest pristine beaches such as Puri, Astarang, Chandipur, Bhitarkanika, Gopalpur and Talasari, Odisha promises to be a one-in-a-million holidays.

Chandipur – Come to see the sea playing hide and seek.

PLAY WITH THE WAVES & RELAX YOURSELF ON THE PRISTINE BEACHES OF ODISHA

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heart of World Heritage-listed Daintree National Park, the oldest surviving rainforest in the world.

The Daintree is also the only place on the planet where two World Heritage List sites—mystical lowland rainforest and the fringing reefs of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park—exist side-by-side.

The views, when they appear, are preposterously beautiful: jungle, beach, reef and sky in a single glance. But they come at a steep price, literally. There are 35-degree inclines, creek crossings, muddy bogs and ruts as well as cassowaries to contend with. Large, flightless emu-like birds with dagger-like talons, cassowaries sprint across the road in a mad-capped game of chicken that’s bound to end in tears for any biker who hits ones. Many lose traction and go down on the mud—though they all get back up again thanks to the encouragement of our guide Roy Kunda.

Originally from Victoria, Kunda fell in love with Cape York while circumnavigating Australia solo on a motorcycle in the mid-1980s, moved

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to Cairns and set up the now-famous Cape York Motorcycle Tours. “When I began doing this 25 years ago, it was mostly goat tracks through here,” he says. “Now we’ve got all these wide comfortable roads.”

DAYS 3 - 6 INTO THE FIRE Wide, maybe, but only a dirt-demon like Kunda could describe Cape York’s road as comfortable. After veering into a mountain range north of Cooktown where the thick blue smoke of controlled forests burnings lingers in the air, we reach the

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Peninsula Development Road. A long strip cutting through bone-red Outback, it goes on for days without a single turn.

Easy riding? Well, no. The Peninsula Development Road is riddled with millions of corrugations —horrible little speed-bumps created by the slipping tires of fourwheel vehicles that make life for those of us on two-wheels a living, shaking hell. Over the next three days, I feel every bit of the road, a constant rattling of the bones that, like this journey, never seems to end.

But the toil isn’t without its rewards. Twilight is my favorite part of the day, when the group huddles around a campfire to swap war stories over steak dinners and icecold beer. I grow fond of my fellow riders, who, with the exception of a father-and-son team that ride like the wind, have little to no off-road riding experience. Yet what they lack in skills they make up for with dogged determination. “I would recommend any woman to do this trip,” says American Harriet Jones, one of the female riders in our group. “So long as you know the basics, Roy will teach you the rest.”

DAYS 6 - 8 THE TELE’ Brave words, for they are said prior to our duel with the Old Telegraph Road. Constructed in the 1880s to

patches of bull dust run a meter deep in parts from opposite left: A forest of

license plates; grilled eggs; cooling off after a ride up north; a precarious short cut; at the top, Down Under.

support a telegraph line that was the only lines of communication in Cape York until World War II, “the Tele” is 100 kilometers of dusty fun.

Patches of bull dust—superfine chalk-like sand that is as slippery as mud—run a meter deep in parts.

There are countless fjords and rivers to cross, some which are infested with man-eating saltwater crocodiles and one that’s so deep we have to wheel our motorcycles across on a log bridge.

The highlight of day six, and perhaps the trip, is a lunch stop at Eliot Falls. A 100-meter wide natural limestone pool edged in tiered waterfalls with little fish swimming around is like a scene from Blue Lagoon. A swim in the mineral-rich water soothes our aching muscles and bones.

Later in the day, when we reach the infamous Gunshot Pass, the group comes to a halt at a threemeter vertical drop in the road. Ten out of 14 riders don’t even attempt it, handing their bikes over to Kunda.

Of the four who do give it a go, three riders, myself included, make it. But the last guy flips over his

handlebars. When the dust clears, he has three broken ribs.

Even for those who don’t break any bones, riding Cape York hurts.

It’s exhausting, it can be frustrating and it takes me weeks to get the grime out of my clothes. But when after eight hot, punishing days we reach a signpost on a rocky crag overlooking the sea that marks the northernmost tip of Australia, we know we’ve achieved something real. A shared satisfaction hangs in the air as we take in the hard-won tableau. Along with a coat of bull dust, there’s a smile plastered to every face. Riding with this gang of instant-friends (just add mud) has been a hoot—one of those rare holiday experiences that go the distance in the memory files, probably because so many interesting things happen in the space of each day. “You don’t need psychological help if you want to ride to Cape York,” Kunda says with a glint in his eye. “Riding up here is psychological help.” capeyorkmotorcycles.com.au; eightday Cape York adventure, A$5,500 per person.

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Land of Fire

c o u r t e s y o f Y o g i S e t yawa n

In the shadow of an ancient Javanese temple and some of the most destructive volcanoes on Earth, Diana Hubbell uncovers a thriving artistic movement.

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clings to my skin like a damp down blanket. As the sky softens to milky, opaque white, monsters and myths begin to emerge from the fog—the yawning maw of a mad-eyed giant whose jaw was blown to smithereens in the quest for immortality looms over my head and a chimera with the features of a lion, dragon and bull crouches at my feet.

Although I’m far from alone, the crowd is silent, due to both the early hour and a certain uneasy awe that this massive edifice inspires.

Borobudur, a miracle of Mahayana Buddhism in Central Java formed of interlocking volcanic stones, has a way of making one feel small. We’ve all come for that token shot of the sunrise, a daily spectacle akin to the one at Angkor Wat, but it never comes.

Instead we wait, breathing in the syrupy perfume of ylang-ylang and jasmine that hangs in the thick morning air. A few disappointed visitors drop their selfie sticks and disperse, but I can’t seem to look away.

courtesy of amanjiwo (3)

It’s 5 a.m. and a mist

“This temple is not like your temples. There is no way to go inside to worship. It is an open Holy Book,” my guide Dator whispers to me. As the gloom lifts, I see what he means. One thousand four hundred and twenty intricately carved panels depicting scenes from the life of Buddha encircle the tiered structure in a wordless psalm. “Do you notice how everything here is cyclical? That’s because this sect believes that we keep reincarnating forever.

Even after we reach Enlightenment, we come back to help others find their way.”

That emphasis on a never-ending cycle of destruction and rebirth seems fitting on an island that is one of Earth’s most naturally volatile. Precariously resting near the Sunda Trench, an oceanic gash where the IndoAustralian and Eurasian plates collide, this is a place born of spectacular tectonic violence.

Forty-five active volcanoes still smolder here, more than on any other isle in the archipelago.

“Java is a land of fire,” Dator tells me with a certain sadness. He’s lived in the shadow of these slumbering giants his whole life and has witnessed the tragedy they invoke firsthand.

Mount Merapi, a stratovolcano that spews toxic pyroclastic flows roughly every four years, claimed 353 lives in its last major outburst.

After all the insults Borobudur has weathered over the centuries—including the theft of dozens of reliefs by Dutch colonists in 1896 and a garish yellow paintjob by a bumbling archeologist in 1911—rains of corrosive ash from that devastating 2010 eruption

from top:

Amanjiwo, tucked in a fold of rice paddies and grassy hills; a traditional Javanese masked dancer; the requisite and resplendent shot of Borobudur at sunrise. opposite: Ritual Bulan Purnama, by Yogi Setyawan.

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palatial Dalem Jiwo suite at Amanjiwo; artist Yogi Setyawan works on a portrait in his studio. opposite, from left: The artist’s

part-method, part-madness studio; a depiction of Mount Bromo, in east Java; a self-potrait.

in the distance. Framed by the greenest, wildest jungle imaginable and the distant silhouettes of volcanoes, Amanjiwo feels less like a resort and more like a grand monument in its own right. Its soaring limestone colonnades and domed roofs pay architectural homage to its ninth-century neighbor. Long before the arts community began to organize, it served as a platform for introducing the rest of the world to Javanese culture. For the past two decades, the resort has hosted dozens of exhibitions in its gallery and lifted more than a few talents from relative obscurity to the global spotlight. In January, to mark the beginning of its year-long 20th-anniversary celebrations, the resort launches a special retrospective with John van der Sterren, one of Java’s best-known painters and Amanjiwo’s resident artist for the past 19 years.

“There’s definitely a new wave of enthusiasm for Indonesian art,” general manager Ian White tells me over breakfast, a spread that includes a fruit salad elaborate enough to put most Flemish still lifes to shame.

Over the years, he’s had the chance to get to know many of the island’s artists on a personal basis and he offers the best of them a chance to showcase their pieces. “John [van der Sterren]

fr o m l e f t: c o u r t e s y o f a m a n j i w o ; c o u r t e s y o f Y o g i S e t yawa n

from left: The

threatened to destroy it entirely. Yet, he adds, “As a result, it is also the most fertile.

Everything grows in Java and our fruits are the sweetest.”

More than crops flourish in this culturally fertile region, the soul of which is tethered both to the awesome power of Merapi and the mysticism of this once-lost temple. Situated less than 40 kilometers from both, Yogyakarta and the surrounding lands are home to a vibrant art scene that deconstructs and reforges traditional Javanese tropes. The city’s creative side has grown organically in erratic bursts, cropping up in small shophouse galleries and studios scattered throughout the nearby villages. Much of it centers around the Indonesian Institute of the Arts, Yogyakarta, and the Biennale Jogja, but the source runs deeper and older than either of these institutions. The enduring presence of one of the ancient world’s greatest masterpieces in the face of death, upheaval and chaos continues to embolden new generations. In contrast to the more formulaic crafts for sale in Bali, Java has given rise to artists who flirt freely with the avant-garde. Here, you’ll find everything from classical painters to the politically dissident to eccentric types like Wawan Geni, whose naturalistic works are composed entirely of cigarette burns. It takes him 20 to 30 packs and a month and a half to finish a piece, all of which are snapped up by international collectors before the last singe mark cools.

Standing on Borobudur on a clear day, you can spy a pale, palatial reflection of the temple

fr o m t o p l e f t: D i a n a H u b b e l l ; c o u r t e s y o f J o h n va n d e r S t e rr e n ( 2 )

has spent whole afternoons with kids in the rice fields sketching or even showing them how to draw a horse. Wawan Geni was brilliant.

Last year, he would sit in the rotunda to do his work so people could watch the image evolve day by day.”

During my visit, Yogi Setyawan, a painter whose satirical works have captivated audiences abroad, is wrapping up his show at the resort. I’m due to meet him at his studio in a few hours, which gives me just enough time unkink my sore back muscles from all that time crammed in economy class. I check into my suite, a plush cocoon of warm neutrals and coral-colored marble stocked with all sorts of thoughtful extras, including a set of watercolors in case inspiration strikes. With a clear view of Borobudur framed by my garden terrace, it’s a tempting option, but I decide to put my dubious talent on hold and make a beeline for the spa. An hour and one pijat massage later, I emerge utterly blissed-out, ache-free, and with what feels like an entirely new set of vertebrae.

Before I meet Yogi in person, I see him through his own eyes in the sly self-portraits hidden in almost every one of his works.

Though his subject matter tends to focus on the mundane, there’s a subversive quality to his cartoon world with its leering caricatures and squiggly line work that owes a debt to a young Rembrandt van Rijn. In dozens of depictions of Javanese life, I spot a man with a rockstar’s flowing mane and a grin that threatens to split his face in two. He shimmies at the end of a traditional Jathilan dance, gambles with manic glee, struts in leather with a punk biker gang, and joins a throng of leering tourists, all tangled limbs and cameras and cleavage, thrusting their arms into one of Borobudur’s stupas in an attempt to rub the Buddha within for luck.

Unlike his Hitchcockian cameos, the real Yogi has swapped the unruly curls of his youth for a more subdued trim and a newsboy cap, though the glint of mischief in his eye is the same. “For me, painting is all about finding the humor in daily life,” he tells me as Dator interprets. His English is minimal and my Bahasa nonexistent, but for some reason that doesn’t seem to hamper our talk. After a few Lost in Translation-style exchanges, Yogi charges ahead with pantomime, exaggerated facial expressions and jokes. Somehow, it works and before long we’re both close to tears of laughter, language barrier be damned.

Of all the faces rendered in textured layers of oil and acrylic, it’s the crinkled, gap-toothed guffaw of Singodimedjo, Yogi’s 90-plus-yearold grandfather who passed away last year, that holds my attention. Even after his death, Yogi continued to paint his wizened features over and over, smoking a cigarette, posing in his old military clothes or generally goofing off.

“I chose my grandfather, because he had a powerful sense of optimism for the future. He had a hard life, but it was always a happy one.”

Yogi smiles and the expression is a deadringer for the one on the canvas.

A homicidal monkey screeches from behind bars and a half-dozen cats dart between my ankles as I wander through a treasure trove of oil canvases. “My house was not actually intended to be a showcase for art,” Umar Chusaeni tells me, shooing away a few felines.

“But the community needed a place. The spirit of Borobudur is the center of culture in Java and all artists gather instinctively towards it.”

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from top : Brush-wielding Umar Chusaeni by one of his paintings; Masih Kuat / Still Strong, a work made entirely of cigarette burns on canvas, created by Wawan Geni.

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While both he and his wife are painters, he’s most proud of his work as a community organizer, arranging exhibitions and publishing a quarterly magazine on the local cultural scene.

As he leads me through the gallery, he pauses to point out some of his favorite pieces.

“Fifteen years ago, almost everyone focused on realistic works. Today, young artists are starting to explore different styles,” he explains. The temple’s capacity to evoke wonder inspires different people in different ways. “For instance, this one grew up right here in this village and every week he would go to the temple, so he could learn the color and character of the stones by heart. Now he specializes in painting statues from Borobudur, but in his own contemporary way.”

Like many here, Umar has ties to Amanjiwo. When he was struggling to make ends meet, he worked as a chauffeur for the resort. Years later, they hosted one of his first major exhibitions. No one, though, has more authority on the subject of art at Amanjiwo than its resident artist, van der Sterren. A dignified, snowy-haired gentleman who remains remarkably prolific even his late seventies, he was born in West Java and has called the island home for most of his life. Over the years, he’s invited guests to parties at his home, sketching trips in the fields and visits of his studio. While his shows at the resort’s

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gallery are all very calm and orderly, when I meet him at his home, the scene is a little more… artistic.

“You’ll have to forgive the mess. Artists are messy people,” van der Sterren says cheerfully.

Though he came to art as a second career later in life, he estimates that he’s created more than 3,500 oil paintings, most either brilliantly hued Indonesian landscapes or evocative portraits.

Friends, relatives and passing strangers have often been asked to sit, and their facial expressions remain frozen in broad brushstrokes. “I guess you could say I did my first painting when I was 11, but I didn’t paint for a very long time after that,” he says. “I moved to New Zealand and in those days, you had the most fantastic artists who were stuck eating dog food. I didn’t want that.”

It took decades, but Java drew him back, as did art, which went from a hobby to a career when a French gallerist saw his work and offered him a solo exhibition on the spot. He remains modest about his considerable success and just as eager to praise the works of others as his own. He proudly shows me a piece by Nanang, his assistant for the past 20 years and a skilled painter in his own right, and a palm tree by his then-12-year-old daughter. After it got mixed up in the trash, a gardener salvaged it and sold it to a gallery in Jakarta. “Just goes to show that she should be the painter in the family, not me,” he adds with a wink.

We come across two particularly striking works, one a stylized depiction of Borobudur and the other what appears to be a postapocalyptic ruinscape. “After Merapi’s 2010 eruption, 350,000 people came down off the mountain into Yogyakarta and crowded into stadiums and church halls,” van der Sterren remembers. He gestures to an adjacent portrait of an elderly woman who stares at me in proud defiance. Her eyes a tell story of survival, and the quiet strength it takes to live and create in a place where time is short and life is fragile. “We employed her just to give her some work. All of her coffee plants had withered, all the animals had died— everything was gone. The palm trees looked like broken umbrellas, there was so much ash.”

In the undulating swirls of crimson, cobalt and vermillion, there’s a sense of fearsome beauty and loss, of a place forever poised on the brink of destruction and something new.

Amanjiwo aman.com; doubles from US$847.

Private tours and studio visits can be arranged through the resort.

fr o m t o p : D i a n a H u b b e l l ; c o u r t e s y o f g o b o r o b u d u r . c o m

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/ beyond /d i s p a tc h Rows of bamboo lockers for shoes line the entryway of the Hoshinoya Tokyo ryokan.

Changing of the Guard

Emboldened by shifting cultural and artistic norms, Tokyo is playing with tradition like never before. by R achel Tepper Paley.

Photogr aphed by Tetsuya Miur a

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is a clash of extremes. On one end, traditionalists guard centuries-old convention, wary of losing or diluting their cultural heritage in globalization’s wake. That devotion to authenticity applies even to imported products and practices: take the adoption of American heritage styles by Tokyo’s fashion set, or even the wave of Japanese chefs besting Parisians at their own cuisine.

Yet one need only glance around the capital to see the opposite camp at work. The center of the world’s largest metropolitan area, Tokyo has long been a hypermodern hub for technological and cultural innovation. This is, after all, the birthplace of bullet trains and the cosplay phenomenon.

Until recently, Tokyo’s two sides had remained distinct: ryokans and teahouses in one corner, capsule hotels and robot cafés in the other, and never the twain shall meet. But that’s starting to change, as some of the city’s forward-thinking creatives bring their quest for originality to the realms of traditional art, food, fashion and hospitality. “Tokyoites are always looking for something different,” says city tourism representative Aki Hirai. “More people today are willing to break with tradition in order to explore new territory.” As the city prepares to host the Summer Olympics—and an influx of international visitors—in 2020, the transformation has shot into overdrive, with many shops and restaurants angling to show foreigners the modern interpretation of refined Japanese culture.

While long-established customs remain steadfastly in place, there’s also an air of evolution about the town.

That’s clear at the Hoshinoya Tokyo (hoshinoyatokyo. com; doubles from US$780), the city’s first luxury highrise ryokan. The swank 84-room property, which opened last summer near the Imperial Palace, is a cross between a Japanese inn and a contemporary Western boutique hotel. Hoshinoya observes traditional ryokan customs,

From top: A guest room at Hoshinoya Tokyo; a kimono on display in Jotaro Saito’s boutique.

Today’s Tok yo

with guests treading barefoot on tatami mats in breezy yukata, or cotton robes. But rather than the typical floor cushions, guests lounge several centimeters higher on (remarkably comfortable) bamboo sofas. The beds are still low and Easterninspired, but with plush Western mattresses in lieu of futons. At the hotel’s restaurant, Japanese and French flavors come together in chef Noriyuki Hamada’s East-meets-West cuisine, a rare moment of high-end fusion in a city where culinary purism still reigns.

As the city prepares to host the Summer

Olympics, many shops and restaurants are

angling to show a modern interpretation

of refined Japanese culture

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Few cultures approach food and drink

with the solemnity of the Japanese, for whom even modest adaptations of culinary standards feel seismic The style world has embraced the shift with remarkable flair. Avant-garde designer Jotaro Saito (jotaro.net) sells chic kimonos with color-streaked prints and embellished obis in his posh Roppongi Hills boutique.

Though kimonos are typically reserved for special occasions, Saito’s designs—often made with nontraditional fabrics like jersey and denim—have everyday appeal. The 117-year-old glassmaking company Hirota (hirota-glass.co.jp), in the Sumida ward, uses oldworld techniques to create unusual renditions of classic glassware, like sake bottles in the shape of kokeshi, Japanese dolls. And in the antiques-store-filled NishiOgikubo district, Rozan (ro-zan.com) gives experimental ceramics—silvery sake cups, and fantastically shaped vases, bowls and small plates—equal billing with traditional pottery.

Few cultures approach food and drink with the solemnity of the Japanese, for whom even modest adaptations of culinary standards feel seismic. Popular mini-chain Afuri (afuri.com; mains ¥850–1,350), long praised for its delicate yuzu-spiked broth of chicken and dashi, made waves when it debuted vegan ramen—a rarity in Japan, where stocks are almost universally meat- or fishbased. The “farm-to-counter” bowl, anchored by umami-rich vegetable broth, is piled high with produce.

Hearty noodles enriched with lotus root impart a heft akin to wholegrain pasta.

The change is even more apparent at Sakurai Japanese Tea Experience (sakurai-tea.jp), which revamps Japan’s ancient tea ceremony from its glass-enclosed perch in the Omotesando neighborhood. At the bar, owner Shinya Sakurai and his team brew traditional and esoteric blends while taking their chosen medium to boozy new heights. The green-tea gin and tonic, infused with two kinds of sencha leaves, is a refreshing revelation—the tannic bitterness of the tea balances the

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From top: Shinya Sakurai brews tea in his shop; tea accoutrements available for purchase at Sakurai Japanese Tea Experience.

gin’s floral notes. Splendid, too, is the theatrically poured matcha beer, a crisp Yebisu lager made extraordinary with a swirl of freshly steeped matcha, which lends an earthy note and a spectral hue to an otherwise standard drink.

Though Sakurai’s work with tea is itself part of Tokyo’s changing landscape, even he is surprised at the popularity of his approach.

“Sometimes I am too close to understand or know the value of what we do,” he says. “But we are making a new interpretation, and I think that appeals to Tokyoites.”

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Turtle Power

Hotelier and conservationist Eric Goode at the Turtle Conservancy in Ojai, California.

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c o u r t e s y o f t u r t l e c o n s e r va n c y

After building his New York City hospitality empire, Eric Goode turned to the pursuit he is most passionate about: traveling the globe to protect endangered chelonians. By Lil a Battis

c o u r t e s y o f t u r t l e c o n s e r va n c y

At the Bowery and the jane , two of the Manhattan hotels co-owned by Eric Goode, guests sleep on 400-thread-count Egyptian-cotton sheets and bathe in rainfall showers.

Meanwhile, the man himself might be thousands of kilometers away, setting camera traps in the Sinaloan backcountry, bushwhacking through scrub in Madagascar, or meeting with wildlife biologists in Burma as part of his mission to save the world’s turtles.

When Goode was growing up in California, his mother cultivated his interest in nature. “She encouraged me to like snakes and spiders and lizards and all things creepycrawly,” he says. At six, he was given a pet Greek tortoise, a land dweller that subsists on a diet of weeds and wildflowers, thus clinching his love for chelonians.

For years, Goode kept his passion a secret. He moved to New York in 1977, and cofounded the legendary Manhattan nightclub Area six years later. It didn’t take him long to realize that his herpetology habit was an awkward fit with his job as a nightlife impresario. “You’d talk about art and fashion and what kind of high heels someone was wearing,” Goode says. “Turtles weren’t even on the menu of conversation topics.”

Over the next two decades, Goode focused on hospitality ventures, often with his partner, Sean Macpherson. But on the side he was getting to know New York’s community of reptile aficionados.

One was John Behler, the curator of herpetology at the Bronx Zoo. When the zoo closed its 60-hectare wildlife-research center in Georgia, Behler needed someone with the resources and knowledge to care for 250 rare tortoises. “His call led to me coming out of the closet,” Goode says. “The responsibility made it a lot more serious.”

On a property he owns in Ojai, a mountain town northwest of Los Angeles, Goode founded the Turtle Conservancy, a nonprofit that protects turtles in the wild while

maintaining a captive breeding program on its grounds. Since it launched in 2005, the Turtle Conservancy has purchased thousands of hectares of wilderness across the globe to prevent habitat loss. Its Ojai headquarters are now home to an accredited breeding facility, the Behler Chelonian Center, named for the herpetologist, who died in 2006.

Goode’s two worlds have merged surprisingly well. His hospitality career has given him clout with

celebrities and entrepreneurs who are well-positioned to help promote the cause. Ted Turner was on the cover of The Tortoise magazine, which Goode coedits. Richard Branson offered up Necker Island, his private estate in the Virgin Islands, as a home for critically endangered tortoises. The conservancy’s annual Turtle Ball in New York has attracted boldfaced names like Leonardo DiCaprio, Jenna Lyons, Graydon Carter and Robert Kennedy Jr.

Tortoises at the Ojai Turtle Conservancy.

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/ beyond /c o n s e r v a t i o n At six, Goode was given a pet

Greek tortoise, thus clinching his love for chelonians

help a hatchling

Three resorts that don’t mind shelling out to keep our flippered friends afloat. + Le Meridien Bora Bora The Bora Bora Turtle Center, located in the heart of Le Meridien resort, came into existence after a guest brought in an injured sea turtle from the surrounding lagoon and left it for hotel staff to take care of. Since then, more than 500 turtles have been reintroduced to the ocean, and thanks to their artificial incubation system, these waters teem with baby turtles. As a guest of Adopt a turtle the resort, you’ll have the opportunity to learn about sea turtles from the at Anantara resident scientists and get a first-hand look (and feel) up close and personal at Layan Phuket the touch pool. lemeridien-borabora.com; doubles from US$471. . + Gaya Island Resort Tucked within the Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park amid protected mangroves, coral reefs and the coast of Malohom Bay, Gaya Island Resort serves as an idyllic safe haven for all sorts of endemic wildlife. One of the resort’s marquee eco-friendly initiatives is their turtle rescue program, which seeks to rehabilitate and release injured and endangered sea turtles. They even run a turtle hotline that you can call to notify the marine center when an at-risk turtle is found along the shoreline. Guests are encouraged to get involved in conservation efforts, whether that means taking a nature walk with the resident naturalist or volunteering at the marine park. gayaislandresort. com; doubles from RM860. + Anantara Layan Phuket The Mai Marine Turtle Foundation in Phuket, founded by the Anantara, is making headway in its mission to rejuvenate the turtle population along the Thai coast. For the past two years, Anantara Layan Phuket has hosted a marine turtle release on its own Layan Beach, where more than 40 endangered marine turtles are released into the ocean annually. Guests are invited to attend the event and have the opportunity to donate to the foundation to adopt a turtle and release it back into the ocean. anantara.com; doubles from Bt12,200.— V eronica In v een

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fr o m t o p : c o u r t e s y o f g aya i s l a n d r e s o r t; c o u r t e s y o f a n a n ta r a l aya n p h u k e t

The turtle rescue marine center at Gaya Island Resort.

Conservation work means lots of time on the road, putting up with extreme conditions and surviving run-ins with poachers. “Traveling in this way is often much more interesting,” Goode says. “You see parts of a country you’d never experience otherwise.” He flies every two weeks: to New Orleans for a turtle conference, to Southeast Asia to film a documentary about the wildlife trade, to South Africa to visit some newly acquired hectarage.

One of his most recent trips was to Mexico, where the conservancy had purchased a parcel of land in Sonora to protect a recently identified species, Gopherus evgoodei, now commonly known as Goode’s thornscrub tortoise. The journey had involved massive thunderstorms, a flooded tent, chigger bites and stomach trouble, but Goode had no complaints. “It’s incredibly exciting and rewarding to travel with a mission and be able to do something positive for these countries. I feel very privileged.”

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History on a Hill

A mosaic floor at Volubilis, a partially excavated Berber and Roman city in Morocco that dates back to the third century B.C.

ALESSAND R O VANNINI / g e t t y i m a g e s

The holy village of Moulay Idriss only recently opened to non-Muslim visitors, which is why it is one of Morocco’s most authentic and untrammeled outposts. Anna Heyward goes exploring. Photogr aphed by CEline Cl anet

In the early spring, when I visited

Moulay Idriss, the climate was at its most Mediterranean. The four-hour drive from Casablanca took me through forests of cork oaks, their bark stripped up to arm’s reach in order to make corks for wine bottles. The greens of the countryside were muted and slightly dusty, the air was soft, and there were olive trees everywhere.

Approaching the town from the west, I saw a cluster of colorful boxes framed by bare mountain peaks. Reachable by just a pair of roads, Moulay Idriss spreads across two foothills of Mount Zerhoun, at the base of the Atlas Mountains. Edith Wharton came here in 1919, taking the same route I did. In her travel book, In Morocco, she described the “piled up terraces and towns of the Sacred City growing golden in the afternoon light across the valley.”

Moulay Idriss was, until recently, off-limits to non-Muslims between 3 p.m. and sunrise— Wharton had to continue on to nearby Meknes to spend the night. This was because of the town’s holiness: it is a pilgrimage site, the burial place of Moulay Idris Al Akbar, a greatgrandson of the Prophet Muhammad. In 2005, Muhammed VI, the current king of Morocco, issued a decree to open the town to non-Muslim visitors as part of his plan of Western-oriented reform. Despite the lifting of restrictions, the tourism infrastructure that is so ubiquitous

throughout the rest of the country has been slow to arrive here, and the place feels suspended in time.

Centuries before Moulay Idriss became sacred to Muslims, Romans occupied the region. To reach the town from Rabat or Casablanca, you must navigate around Volubilis, the ruin of an ancient Roman city about five kilometers away whose unesco listing describes architectural influences that “testify to Mediterranean, Libyan and Moor, Punic, Roman and Arab-Islamic cultures as well as African and Christian cultures.” The farmers in the area tell stories about turning up bits of antiquity—broken relics and Roman stones—when tilling the earth. The logic of Moulay Idriss, when seen from Volubilis, becomes clear: it’s a raised, defensible outpost, surrounded by arable land, which allows occupants to see intruders approaching. The town’s history has imbued it with its own patchwork quality. After the Romans left, it became the seat of an Islamic dynasty. Then, following the French conquest of Morocco, it was remade as a weekend destination for the ruling class.

One reason the Romans chose Moulay Idriss was for its potential for making olive oil, which is today the town’s primary product. Once a week, a member of each family takes a bushel of olives and a jug to the local press, watches the machine churn, then collects the oil to bring home.

With just under 12,000 residents, Moulay Idriss is by no means a large town, but it feels even smaller than it is.

When I arrived, I went to Dar Zerhoune, a fivebedroom inn that opened in 2009 with a multistory interior divided up by wooden beams and balconies. Its owner is Rose Button, a British expat who was one of the

from top: A donkey in one of Moulay Idriss’s many narrow

painted alleyways; a guest room at Scorpion House.

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/ beyond /p i l g r i m a g e Moulay Idriss was built for donkey traffic. It is threaded with arteries that are less streets than openings from left: Dinner

on the terrace at Scorpion House; a young friend of the owners of Walila Farm on the property’s terrace.

first non-Muslims to buy property here. As you look out onto the mountainside from the rooftop terrace, it’s easy to think of Wharton again: “The light had the preternatural purity which gives a foretaste of mirage: it was the light in which magic becomes real, and which helps to understand how, to people living in such an atmosphere, the boundary between fact and dream perpetually fluctuates.”

The only other Westerner in town is Mike Richardson, who left the London food scene to set up Café Clock in Fez, then bought a weekend home in Moulay Idriss. After renovating it to emphasize its open fireplaces, terraces and picture windows, he opened it to guests as Scorpion House—or Dar Akrab, in Arabic—in late 2015. It hangs on a cliff just below the city’s lookout spot. The terrace where cocktail hour takes place at sunset is an excellent place from which to study the panorama of the adjacent hill and discover that various sections of town are each painted their own pastel shade. It’s also a good vantage point for observing the “promenade hour,” which in Moulay Idriss begins at about 4 p.m. and continues until nightfall. As the streets fill up, so do the windows. “People here love to sit and watch,” one local told me. When darkness arrived, Richardson and I stayed out on the terrace under a single light, eating rabbit that he had stuffed with merguez sausage and dates.

Moulay Idriss was built for donkey traffic. It is threaded with arteries that are less streets than openings just wide enough for a pack animal loaded with goods. One afternoon, lost in the maze of streets, I had to ask two young engineering students for directions. As they walked me home, they explained that development in Morocco follows a particular process that has remained unchanged for decades. The king arrives in a region, the people make their requests and he allocates a budget.

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Several months later, he comes back in disguise to see whether what he commissioned is actually being carried out. I asked what sort of disguise. “In glasses, or with his trousers torn,” one said, in a manner that suggested the answer should have been obvious to me.

I went the following day to the town’s hammam. It is heated with burning olive wood, the scent of which floats into the street. Inside, though, the atmosphere is less like a spa than a communal bath full of screaming women. They brew afternoon coffee there while holding what could be called the town congress. I got so caught up in their interaction that I found it hard to leave.

One of the area’s best-kept secrets is Walila Farm, positioned between Volubilis and the two hills of Moulay Idriss. Built in 1920, it was once the weekend home of Michel Jobert, the French foreign minister under Georges Pompidou and François Mitterrand, who wrote a novel about the house. It had fallen into disrepair when Azzedine Zayr, a Moroccan who had spent many years working as a chef in Belgium, bought it in 2000. His renovation turned it into one of the most tranquil guesthouses I have ever visited. The Jobert family remains present in every detail, from the original tile work and furniture to the books in the library. Gardens

and a copse of pine trees surround the house, with fields beyond where Zayr grows ingredients for the Europeaninflected traditional Moroccan dishes he serves to guests. Wild orange blossoms were flowering between the organic, hand-farmed crops when I visited. Zayr crushed a fragrant handful and held it up to my face to inhale, releasing a delicate perfume.

Later that afternoon, he put the blossoms in a tea for me. As we sat in the garden eating a veal tagine, quinces and dates from the trees that shaded us, a lamb grazed near a chunk of Roman stone that had rolled down the hill from one of Volubilis’s crumbling columns. If you walk to the top of Zayr’s land, you can look down on the valley and the slip of a river and see the same sweep of muted greens and patches farmed by hand and donkey that the Romans would have seen. This is a place where time unfolds and history passes, changing nothing.

the details GETTING THERE The closest airports to Moulay Idriss are Fez (a 1½-hour drive) and Casablanca (3½ hours).

from top: Pumpkin and vegetable soup at Walila Farm;

remnants of the ancient city of Volubilis.

HOTELS & HOMESTAYS Dar Zerhoune A five-room B&B inside a traditional Moroccan home with a dining terrace and some of the finest views in town. darzerhoune.com; doubles from Dh662.

Scorpion House Mike Richardson, the former maître d’ at the Ivy and the Wolseley, in London, has opened his weekend retreat as a guesthouse with meals he prepares himself. scorpionhouse.com; house rentals from Dh3,270.

Walila Farm A historic home in the countryside that offers accommodations as well as meals prepared from ingredients grown on the property. 212-6/ 520-96-373; doubles from Dh502.

ACTIVITIES Roman Baths Ask your host to point the way to the path leading to these ancient thermal baths, said to have curative properties.

Volubilis Once the capital of a remote corner of the Roman Empire, this partially excavated city just outside Moulay Idriss dates back to the third century B.C. and is a fascinating detour.

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/ beyond /g r e a t o u t d o o r s The hills of Mad River Glen, in northern Vermont.

Let It Snow

In the natural wonderland of northern Vermont,

a snowshoe novice finds a whole new reason to love winter in New England. By Adam Leith Gollner

hollered at me from the bottom of the hill, pointing at her hips and waving her ski poles around. How had she gotten down there so quickly? We were deep in Vermont’s snowbound woods, on a mountain at Mad River Glen. Everything was white and icy, all slumbering trees and prehistoric boulders. The only sound consisted of a rusty leaf rattling between two branches—and our voices echoing through the frosty air.

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caleb kenna

“You have to strut!” my girlfriend, Michelle,

christopher churchill

“Strut?” I yelled back, still trying to get the hang of going downhill on the tech-y, lightweight aluminum snowshoes we’d rented. “Like a model on a catwalk,” she said, shimmying encouragingly. Easy for her to say, radiating glamour in her Jackie O. sunglasses. The only way I could figure out how to descend the hillside was to let the tail end of the frame touch down first, then slide forward until the crampons—the fanged grip on the snowshoes’ bottom—kicked in and provided some traction. This lurching method meant I had to lean back while executing high, wide knee lifts, resulting in a form that wasn’t so much Gigi Hadid as Robert Crumb’s Keep on Truckin’ character— wearing snow pants.

Natural though I wasn’t, I still loved my first grown-up snowshoeing hike. As soon as we set off on the Mad River Glen trail, we were ensconced in the Vermont wilderness. To snowshoe is to experience the landscape from within in a way you never can when you’re zooming down groomed slopes, or even bushwhacking offtrail. A snowshoer is one with the elements, tramping in a state of calm exhilaration.

You can’t really hear over the crunching of the snow, so unless you stop to communicate, you are essentially alone with your thoughts.

Within a few minutes, all your senses start collapsing into one another, into a single, trilling sensation of tranquillity. Pretty soon, you find yourself wondering whether there is any greater sense of peace than that found perambulating over hills and meadows blanketed in snow.

This mellowness only applies when the terrain is flat, however.

Once you get into hill country, it becomes an actual workout: like being on an elliptical machine, but a great deal more inspiring.

Snowshoeing up an incline isn’t too different from walking on tiptoe, Michelle said, an insight that helped me immediately. But when we hit

that first steep gradient, and my ineptitude became laughably apparent, I started to doubt whether I had what it takes to become a real uphill-downhill snowshoe kind of person.

It doesn’t matter that I grew up skiing with my family, or that I used to love snowboarding as a teenager. My participation in winter sports has gradually dwindled to a token game of ice hockey on an outdoor rink every year or two. My long-standing strategy for dealing with the frigid months in Montreal, where I live, can be summed up in a single word: avoidance.

I’m not alone: most of my friends also consider winter an icecloaked evil from which to escape. Unfortunately, it snows for half the year in French Canada. Some consider Quebec the Siberia of North America: a permafrost-encrusted realm of primordial cold and darkness epitomized by a classic folk song declaring “Mon pays, ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver”—my country isn’t a country, it’s winter. Ideal for Under Armour–wearing winter-activity nuts, but not really for anyone else. Certainly not for people like Michelle and me, whose idea of embracing the cold involves gluing ourselves to

Inside the Pitcher Inn, in Warren.

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To cross through the depths of this snow-coated wilderness is to find inspiration all around you A backcountry farm in the Mad River Valley.

look and asked, “Why are we doing this again?”

“Because,” I explained, scrambling up a two-meter snowbank to cross the street, “not being able to go for a walk feels like surrender. We can’t keep letting winter win. We walk to the restaurant in the summer, don’t we?

A little windchill shouldn’t change that.” She ignored my outstretched hand and requested an Uber.

“Nobody goes for a city walk in winter,” she retorted. “Can’t we just go snowshoeing?”

I hadn’t been snowshoeing since I

was a child. In fact, I had no idea that people actually went on snowshoeing expeditions, let alone that snowshoe technology had evolved from the wooden, tennis-racket-like, beavertailed objects of my childhood. But I learned all that a few days later, when my younger brother posted some photos of himself and his wife wearing futuristic aluminum contraptions over their winter boots somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.

“We all spend too much of winter freezing because it’s so cold outside,” he enthused, when I called him to discuss. “Snowshoeing is a way to go out there and breathe fresh air and be active in the cold.” Then again, my brother is the sort of titanium-sporkowning outdoor enthusiast who goes on three-week hikes from Yosemite to Mount Whitney, so I wasn’t fully convinced. “Start easy,” he advised.

“Beginner trails are really fun. You won’t even need gaiters for that.”

My lack of awareness about the existence of gaiters (leg covers that help protect your pants when wading through knee-deep snow), Yaktrax (devices for footwear that help you gain traction on slippery terrain), and “high-performance toe socks” (that prevent moisture and blisters) made me doubt my ability to tackle even a beginner trail. “Anyone can snowshoe,” my brother insisted, laughing. “It’s just about heading out there and having some quiet time, enjoying nature.”

corey hendrickson

the fireplace, cooking French food, and deepening our expertise in the wines of Burgundy. Every winter, I remind myself that the Canadian dream isn’t about becoming rich or successful; it’s about finding a way to be in the tropics in February.

Or so I thought, until last year’s holiday season came around and I decided that Michelle and I should walk to dinner one night. It was one of those 30-degrees-below-zero evenings, the kind where your eyes immediately tear up and your eyelashes freeze together and then, when you try to pry them apart, fall to the ground like tiny broken icicles. The restaurant was only 15 blocks away, but about 30 seconds in, Michelle gave me a reproachful, frozen-over-eyelashes

SnowShoe primer START EASY If you’ve never gone snowshoeing before, try a beginner trail at one of Vermont’s ski resorts. Stowe, Sugarbush and Jay Peak all cater to snowshoers, but our favorite is the downhome Mad River Glen (mad​river​glen.com).

All you need is warm outerwear and comfortable winter boots—rental shops will set you up with snowshoes and ski poles.

corey hendrickson

GET A GUIDE To venture deeper into the wilderness, or to go on a nighttime hike, hire an expert guide from Umiak Outdoor Outfitters (umiak. com), in Stowe, or Ole’s Cross-Country Center (olesxc.com), in Warren.

Snowshoeing through fresh powder in the Mad River Valley.

STAY SOMEWHERE COZY The Pitcher Inn is a Civil War–era Relais & Châteaux property in the town of Warren. Everything here is excellent, from the restaurant’s wine list to the handcut, Vermont-made Stave puzzles in the library. Try to book the Mountain Room, which has a lovely fireplace, as well as a steam shower and heirloom snowshoes on the wall (pitcher​ inn.com; doubles from US$375).

END YOUR DAY WITH PIZZA AND BEER Vermont produces some outstanding beer (names to look for include Heady Topper and Hill Farmstead) and pizza, and American Flatbread at Lareau Farm highlights the best of both (americanflatbread. com/lareau-farm).

To prepare, I checked out snowshoemag.com, which covers everything you could possibly want to know before getting started, including a list of snowshoeing clubs across the country. An article on the site, “First-Timer’s Guide to Snowshoeing,” provided a list of the best places to experience “the world’s fastest-growing winter sport,” and the first destination it mentioned was Vermont, a twohour drive away. I go there often to visit family and friends, to enjoy the leaves changing color in autumn, and to explore swimming holes on summertime day trips.

As fun as those experiences always are, I soon learned that there’s something incomparably rewarding about snowshoeing— not just finding the holy grail of deep, unscathed powder, but also something as basic as climbing over the limbs of a fallen tree and coming across secret pockets of sphagnum moss poking out from under their veils of snow. On snowshoes in the woods, you are simply “surrounded by the raw material of life,” as Thoreau once put it. He loved walking in the winter, to such an extent that he often marched “eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.”

After I finally slid-walked to the bottom of the mountain, Michelle and I brought our rented snowshoes back to the Mad River Glen pro shop.

Noticing our post-hike bliss, the employee there offered to let us keep them overnight at no extra cost, so that we could go on a late-night trek.

Snowshoeing through the darkness of Wiessner Woods ended up being even more transformative than our daylight hike. At an outdoor outfitting company in Stowe called Umiak we hired a nighttime guide, who taught us how to handle the ski poles correctly and use the snowshoes’ risers to walk up hills more effectively. (He also gave me a lesson in how to go downhill without looking like a dubstep dancer.)

Midway through the tour, we stopped in at an old sugarhouse for hot cider and local Cabot cheddar cheese with pepperoni. Aboriginal deer-hide snowshoes were mounted on the wall, a rustic reminder that this tradition dates back to long before Europeans arrived in the New World. In earlier times, snowshoes weren’t for recreation—they were a vital means of transportation in an era when there were no roads. Using them today not only connects us to the land but to a sense of its past, as well.

Having warmed our insides, we headed back out into the cold night.

It was a strange, new feeling to be out there at such an unlikely hour and time of year: a combination of runner’s-high-like elation, magnified by the sedentary urbanite’s sense of accomplishment at having participated in the natural world during wintertime. The wind picked up, causing the shadows cast by the spindly, creaking trees to take on an otherworldly quality. Michelle gazed up at the starry firmament and marveled at the extent of its brightness, so far from the reach of light pollution and civilization. An infinite universe of stars above us lit up the path as we made our way slowly, happily, through the snowy winter night. t r a v e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a . c o m / j a n u a r y 2 0 1 7

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s o u r c e p h o t o s : c o u r t e s y o f s a m s o n i t e ( b a g ) ; c o u r t e s y o f p i x e l . c o m ( w o m a n ) ; c o u r t e s y o f fr e e p i k . c o m ( b a c k g r o u n d )

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Fit on the Fly No need to check out of healthy habits when you hit the road. Here, our wellness experts share their tips on how to keep a balance between healthful living and having fun. Plus, what hotels, airlines and cruises are doing to help you maintain optimum fitness throughout your journeys.

By Monsicha Hoonsuwan Illustr ated by Autchar a Panphai

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our healthy habits often take off when we fly. For tunately, the travel industr y is conspiring to change that. We used to have to retire to wellness retreats, but the concept is becoming integral to all t ypes of hotels and resor ts, promising travel experiences that transform one’s mind, body and soul. Meanwhile, airlines and even cruises— those infamous kilo-raising culprits—are rolling out options for the healthy-minded. In fact, according to a recent study by the Global Wellness Institute, the wellness tourism industr y accounted for US$563 billion in 2015, an increase of 14 percent from 2013, and it’s forecasted to reach US$680 billion in 2017. If your resolution this year is to be more health-conscious even on the road, this guide provides the map.

30% The decrease in your sweet and salty senses caused by a plane’s engine noise.

Low humidity on planes presents no severe health risks, but it’s a source of discomfort, and leaves you more prone to contracting germs and diseases. Starting last year, Qantas has partnered with Sydney-based Botanica to bring nutrient-dense, immune-systemboosting cold-pressed juice on select flights. Turkish Airlines is also ahead of the game with its herbal teas developed by Dr. Ender Saraç, a famous Turkish doctor.

H e a lt h i e r b i t e s

Enjoy macronutrient-rich meals from the Deliciously Wholesome menus launched last April on some Singapore Airlines flights.

These dishes—sous vide misosimmered beef Yamato-style with nimono vegetables; quinoa with ratatouille and chickpeas—are meant to restore and rejuvenate, especially on long-hauls.

W i d e r s e at s

AIRLINES Living a high-flying lifestyle comes with a cost: jet lag upsets your circadian rhythm, a biological clock that regulates your sleep cycle, causing a whole host of other issues including gastrointestinal problems, mood changes and difficulty concentrating—that’s why you can’t seem to function right after a transcontinental flight. Frequent flyers also age faster, have weaker immune systems and are more at risk for obesity (on-board bubbles and salt- and sugar-laden meals certainly don’t help). Clearly, it’s no longer enough for planes to be fast and fuel-efficient. Passenger wellness is paramount, and to the right are examples of what some airlines in our region are doing to help.

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Just an inch increase in seat width can improve your sleep quality by 53 percent, according to a recent study by The London Sleep Centre.

Airbus is a proponent of a minimum seat-width of 18 inches on long-haul flights, armed with data that it leads to deeper, longer uninterrupted sleep than the 17 inches prevalent in the industry.

Luckily, airlines in Asia feature some of the widest seats: Asiana holds the crown with 21 inches on its A330s; Singapore Airlines, budget Scoot, Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific and ANA follow close behind at 18 to 19 inches.

s o u r c e p h o t o s : c o u r t e s y o f s i n g a p o r e a i r l i n e . o p p o s i t e , s o u r c e p h o t o s : c o u r t e s y o f M a n d a r i n Or i e n ta l

Better beverages

HOTELS

Smooth Landing

Our abs and souls appreciate that so many hotels are sprucing up their gyms and trying to improve our sleep. These are just three of our favorite new ideas going above and beyond in their wellness innovations.

China Airlines, Thai Airways and Vietnam Airlines are among the fleets who have launched flights with Airbus A350 XWB. Here’s why you’ll love flying in this new jet.

1. The Light

D i g i ta l D e t o x Mandarin Oriental A remote island isn’t the only place to disconnect. Since last September, guests who book treatments at Mandarin Oriental spas worldwide are encouraged to give up their phones on arrival and spend time afterwards coloring or meditating. You’ll also have access to tips created by Mayo Clinic experts to help you establish a healthy relationship with technology and live a digitally balanced lifestyle. If you crave a more serious session, book an 80-minute Digital Detox Retreat: an aromatic bath and a massage focusing on relieving your head, eyes, neck, shoulders, hands and feet from the stress of daily, repetitive movements. mandarinoriental.com.

F o o d Th e r a p y

s tay i n g A c t i v e

Well Hotel, Bangkok The concept of food as medicine is taken literally at the hotel’s signature restaurant Eat Well Café, where Thai and Asian-fusion dishes are prepared with wholesome local ingredients.

Don’t just pick an appetizer, main and dessert: go for one of eight set meals designed to ease common ailments afflicting urbanites including Computer Vision Syndrome, Office Syndrome, stress and anxiety, jet lag, and PMS. If, like most of us, you spend a lot of time looking at mobile and computer screens, the CVS set, with beef steak and goji berry soup, will supply you with plenty of vitamin A, Beta Carotene and vitamin C to reenergize your tired eyes. wellhotelbangkok.com.

16,000

Even Hotels Finding ways to fit a sweat sesh into your packed schedule is about to get much easier with the first outside-of-America launches of Even Hotels in the Australia–New Zealand region. Exact dates are still in the works, but expect a dedicated cork-floored workout area in your room, complete with a stability ball, a yoga mat, strength bands and fitness videos.

Head to the Athletic Studio to join one of their group classes or ask the staff for fitness advice. If you are traveling to the States, New York City and D.C. are among the places you can find these hotels—also well known for their in-room standing desks. ihg.com/evenhotels.

spas were added to the industry between 2013 and 2015.

The LED system can create 16.7 million light–color combinations to simulate natural shifts of color temperatures from sunrise to sunset, helping your body clock adjust to timezone changes.

2. The Air

An efficient air filtration system refreshes the air inside the cabin every two to three minutes throughout the flight. The plane is also able to keep cabin temperatures stable so you can go to sleep a lot more soundly than ever.

3. The Pressure There’s less earpopping, because the plane’s cabin can be pressurized to 1,800 meters, 25 percent closer to ground level than the 2,400 meters on most planes.

4. The Humidity With 53 percent of its frame made of carbon fiberreinforced plastic, as opposed to aluminum, the plane can safely raise the humidity level higher in the cabin to prevent dryness of your skin, throat, mouth and eyes.

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CRUISES Sandwiched between the endless expanse of the sea and the sky full of stars, you’d be forgiven for being glued to a deck lounger, or whiling away time at the banquet table, the starlit jacuzzi—anywhere but the boring old gym. Luckily, cruises these days are jazzing up their wellness offerings so we don’t pack those extra kilos back home.

Jojo Struys Westin’s Well-Being expert Multitalented Struys (jojostruys. com) packs a whole lot of action in her life, from hosting TV and radio shows to tap dancing and yoga in peculiar places—trainstation downward dog, anyone?

Here’s how the author of Jojo Struys’s Guide to Wellness makes working out happen wherever.

Must-pack items JS: Incense and comfortable clothes for morning meditation.

Buffet breakfast picks JS: Fruits, smoothies, muesli, nuts and egg-white omelettes.

Gym alternatives JS: I feel strange if I wake up and don’t meditate at all. A few minutes can really center and calm the mind.

Magic move JS: A 15-minute breathing exercise can be equivalent to two hours of sleep, so I do a lot when I’m on the go. It energizes the body and relaxes the mind, and is antiaging.

Mind & Body Wellness Program, Seabourn Beginning with the inaugural voyage, from Singapore to Bali, of Seabourn Encore this month, integrative medicine practitioner Andrew Weil will sail on a different Seabourn ship each year as the cruise line’s first Wellness Guide. He will lecture on various topics from meditation to healthy aging, anti-inflammatory foods to happiness. Smaller group chats and one-on-one sessions will also be available for those interested in deepening the mind-and-body connection. seabourn.com; 10-day Inaugural Gems of the Java Sea, January 7–17, from US$8,699 per person.

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Wellness Expedition Voyages, Silversea Sometimes discovery starts from within. That’s why Silver Discover partners with Technogym to offer a sailing sanctuary of expert-led yoga and fitness.

As you traverse Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, exploring foreign cultures, wildlife and terrains, you’ll also be looking inward to find inner balance through personalized gym sessions, nutrition counseling and exercise classes from water aerobics to Pilates. Seven voyages ranging from seven to 14 days are available this year and will take you anywhere from Phuket to Palau. silversea.com; 13-day Phuket to Bali, March 13–26, from US$8,950 per person.

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Traditional Dance Classes, Paul Gauguin If you ever find yourself in need of a compelling reason to get a workout instead of reveling in the turquoise seas of the French Polynesia and the South Pacific, Paul Gauguin has the perfect one. This small-ship brand offers traditional Polynesian dance classes and sunrise Polynesian-inspired Zumba classes taught by Les Gauguines, the cruise line’s crew of local staff, entertainers and storytellers. So bust out your floral headdress and burn off those buffet calories. pgcruises.com; various voyages from seven to 17 nights, from US$3,995, including airfare.

Food to avoid JS: Processed food. It’s not always easy to be healthy when traveling so try to eat in moderation. Sample local cuisine cooked from fresh ingredients. Be flexible.

Snooze strategies JS: Try not to check e-mails before bedtime. Think of something relaxing so that you will go to bed in a calmer mood.

Then try to wake up with a positive thought.

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million wellness trips were made around the globe in 2015.

L e f t, s o u r c e p h o t o s : c o u r t e s y o f ta h i t i d a n c e . c o m ( d a n c e r ) .TOP : c o u r t e s y o f J o j o S t r u y s

Immediate stress reliever JS: Forceful breathing technique, which I teach, is a loud exhalation that’s great for stress relief and anger issues.

Meditation also helps.

FIT-TECH Running out of wellness options?

Get help from these start-up services.

Gym Bunny GuavaPass (guavapass.com; prices vary by country) offers access to boutique fitness studios in 10 cities in Asia and the Middle East, from Taipei to Dubai. Meanwhile, KFit (kfit. com; prices vary by country) is all for feeling good, be it a facial, a massage or even muay Thai classes, in Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Singapore and Manila.

L e f t, s o u r c e p h o t o s : c o u r t e s y o f p i x e l . TOP : c o u r t e s y o f K e n R o s e n

Clean Eater Order healthy meals and cold-pressed juices from more than 45 independent vendors in Bangkok via Indie Dish (indiedish.co). In Klang Valley, Malaysia, Dah Makan (dahmakan.com) offers diverse daily menus—Baja fish tacos; Korean spicy-squid stir-fry—and free delivery of

its gourmet lunch and dinner boxes. Nosh (nosh.hk), in Hong Kong, prepares dishes that are light on calories (550 or fewer per meal) but heavy on flavors, like Moroccan-spiced chicken with couscous, and can be ordered through Foodpanda.

Massage Lover Book a Swedish or Shiatsu massage on Zennya (zennya. com; P400 for 60 minutes), in Manila, and a licensed therapist will come knocking at your door within 30 minutes. Other massages and scrubs are in the works.

Similarly, Diandao (diandao. org; treatments from RMB128) has certified massage professionals standing by in Chinese cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Chengdu.

Ken Rosen, traditional Chinese medicine practitioner Bangkok-based Rosen (spatcm.com) brings holistic health programs rooted in the 5,000-year-old Chinese medicinal system to world-class wellness facilities like Chiva-Som, One&Only and Six Senses all over Asia. For example, he’s developed facial acupressure and Taoist exercise schemes.

Here’s how he fights off jet lag, eats clean, stays Zen and feels at home anywhere.

Must-pack item KR: Huo Xiang Zheng Qi Pian, a kitchen-sink Chinese medicine used for diarrhea, fever with chills, headache, chest oppression, nausea, possibly vomiting. Good for hangovers also. Available at Chinese-medicine stores.

Preflight procedures KR: Travel in the jet age is very un-grounding. It weakens the body’s earth element that represents healthy digestion. I like to eat earthy root vegetables, like yams, potatoes or carrots, before flying. Also, load up on magnesium; it relaxes muscles.

Heading off jet-lag KR: On a long-haul flight I only drink water, then I have a normal, scheduled meal after landing and click into the time zone instantly.

Layover rule KR: Try to walk during your layover as a way of grounding and moving the blood. I find it funny that people tend to get frustrated with long-haul flights or waiting for a connecting flight only to finally arrive at a beach to sit in a chair.

Resort dining KR: Indulge but don’t overdo.

The lure of the bacon tray gets me, I’ll be honest, but when your body feels congested, lighten up. You can have a big lunch followed by a small, clean dinner.

Mineral-rich foods such as root and sea veggies, and whole grains offer grounding effects as well as simple nourishment.

Quick de-stress technique KR: Try a few deep abdominal breaths after sending your next important e-mail before tackling the next one.

Favorite spa treatment KR: I’m still a rabid fan of traditional Thai massage, with its slow, rhythmic nature that works on energy lines or meridians of the body, helping connect the body with the mind. A true healing experience.

Creating home away from home KR: Bring a little bit of your sense of home with you. It could be your favorite mug or a picture of your dog to be next to your hotel bed. The feeling of home/earth is essential to cultivate.

In-room Exercise

Three moves JoJo Struys promises will refresh you in 10 minutes.

Hamstring stretch.

Place your hands on a desk or ledge.

Bend forward with your back flat and feel the stretch at the back of your hamstrings. Take a few long breaths.

Benefit: Promotes healthy circulation, and alleviates tension and fatigue.

Spinal t wist.

Stomach breathing.

Sit on a chair; turn right; place your right hand at the rim of the chair behind you while your left hand holds your knee. Stay for a few breaths, then repeat on the other side.

What it does: Relieves tired back muscles; stimulates digestion; detoxifies.

Sit with your back straight, take a deep breath in your nose and allow the belly to extend outward with the air. Hold for four counts then silently, gently exhale, noticing the stomach settle.

What it does: Calms and quiets the mind.

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Feel a bit out of balance? Get your chakras realigned at these scenic wellness retreats around the region.

Ocean Soul Retreat This women-only getaway offers one-week, healthyhabit-forming programs that are tailored to your interests, including yoga, Pilates, surfing and holistic healing. You’ll soon be accustomed to a healthier lifestyle when your every meal is delicious, wholesome and prepared by a Balinese chef, you stay hydrated with natural, refreshing beverages like herbal teas and coconut water. oceansoulretreat.com; April– October; from US$2,795 per person.

THAILAND

Aleenta Phuket, and Akyra Beach Club Phuket Patricia Thielemann, the founder of Spirit Yoga, will help you restore that sense of purpose that might be evading you in the banality of everyday work. At the end of the eight-day program consisting of twice-daily yoga, a self-development workshop and daily meditations, you’ll be supercharged with positive energy, ready to meet all of life’s challenges head on. aleenta.com; January 7–14, March 1–8, April 1–8; from Bt57,700 per person.

VIETNAM

Banyan Tree Lang Co Two itineraries are available for the three-day mini Sense of Rejuvenation retreat: detox or destress. For the first, you’ll be served healthy detox juices as well as three fresh, healthy meals daily. Or, indulge in various soothing massages and spa treatments to knead away stress and cap off each night with a calming, aromatic bath. Complement each journey with a bit of yoga, tai chi and body stretches and you’re fully renewed. banyan tree.com; through March 31; doubles from US$688.

the MASSAGE MATRIX

All massages are not created equal. Peruse this guide, created by Sally Halsted, COMO Shambhala Estate’s Spa & Programme Manager, to find the right one for you.

Sports Chinese Ayurvedic Lanna

t h e r a p eu t i c Maya

Thai Swedish Aromatherapy

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Eating on a long-haul TC: Request no main course or a very light version, as our digestive system works slower in the air than when we’re on the ground. I usually just eat salad, yogurt and some fruit.

Buffet breakfast picks TC: Start with something light such as granola with fruit, cold cuts with whole wheat bread, or salad. If I still want more, I’ll eat omelette or pancake. But keep away from concentrated fruit juice, fried eggs, and sausages.

Local food vs. the usual diet TC: I will try famous local foods first, but I will eat one meal and then keep the next light if I can arrange my schedule. If not, I try a bite of everything, then come back and work off extra calories.

Quick recharge TC: Drink a cup of water and take a 10-minute nap to relax.

For the soundest sleep TC: If you know you will have late dinner during a work trip, keep several packs of digestiveenzyme powder in your pocket.

Firmer

relaxing

Must-pack items TC: Basic multivitamins, antioxidants and dietary fiber.

Shirodhara softer

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Cranial Sacral

61%

more money is spent by international wellness tourists than the average international traveler.

fr o m t o p l e f t: c o u r t e s y o f O c e a n S o u l R e t r e at; c o u r t e s y o f A l e e n ta P h u k e t R e s o r t & S pa ; c o u r t e s y o f B a n ya n Tr e e L a n g C o ; c o u r t e s y o f T e l l a C h e n

BALI

Tella Chen, nutritionist at The Living Room by Octave Chen, a member of the American Association of Nutrition Consultants, was a runner-up on China’s first cooking reality show, The Taste. The low-calrecipe cookbook author creates artisanal juices for her clients at The Living Room. Here are her tips on maintaining nutritional balance and healthy guts, even on hard-core foodie trips.

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DEALS | t+l reader specials

CULTURE CHIANG MAI

Start the new year off on a high note, whether from the shores of Vietnam’s Son Tra Peninsula, or the streets of teeming Beijing.

The world is your playground with these deals.

DusitD2 In a city with as much to offer as Chiang Mai, from towering temples to quaint handicraft villages, you’ll appreciate the eight-hour use of a private car and driver that comes with this package. After a long day of adventuring, return to your centrally located hotel for a complimentary round of cocktails and a dinner of Northern Thai delicacies. To make your trip smoother, enjoy round-trip airport transfers and a later checkout time. The Deal Chiang Mai Explorer: a night in a Premier room, from Bt4,448 for two, through February 28. Save 20%. dusit.com.

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BALI

Lotus flowers in transit at Anantara Angkor Resort.

SUPERSAVER NUO Hotel Beijing , China This personalized package lets you choose the type of staycation that best suits your fancy. Choose from three options: a room upgrade, a lavish full body massage or a special dining credit. The Deal NUO Staycation offer: a night in a Deluxe room, from RMB1,400 for two, through February 28. Save 57%. nuohotel.com

Mandapa, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve Indulge in a sumptuous breakfast on an outdoor terrace overlooking lush rice paddies and the tropical forest of Ubud, and dinner in a private bamboo cocoon alongside the Ayung River. Enjoy Mandapa’s many luxuries with this package, which includes a US$50 dining credit, and a 24-hour personal butler.And don’t forget to make time to explore Balinese traditions with one of the cultural activities the resort has to offer. The Deal Reconnect package: a night in a Reserve suite, from US$436 for two, through July 31. Save 20%. mandapareserve.com.

SIEM REAP and Bangkok

Anantara Angkor Resort & Anantara Siam Bangkok Enjoy uncomplicated luxury in two of the region’s most important locations. From the bustling sois of Bangkok, to the looming temples of Siem Reap, Anantara has you covered for the ultimate Southeast Asian vacation. Be welcomed to both the Anantara Angkor and Anantara Siam Bangkok with complimentary spa

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/ upgrade / treatments; take a private tuk-tuk around Siem Reap; and stay connected in Bangkok with the use of a smart phone equipped with unlimited data, local calling and a built-in city guide. To top it off, you’ll get to come back to a sumptuous suite each night. The Deal The Suite Life Collection offer: three nights in a suite at Anantara Angkor, and three nights in a One Bedroom suite at Anantara Siam Bangkok, from US$2,410 for two, through December 23. Save 25%. anantara.com.

BURMA

FlyMya With this deal, book both hotel accommodation and a flight through FlyMya and get 20 percent off your total. You’ll be able to take Burma by storm, from traditional tea in Naypyitaw to sightseeing in Rangoon. Enjoy the extra time you’ll have to uncover ancient temples and sample Burmese specialties, like tea-leaf salad.

The Deal Travel in Style package: one night accommodation and flight, through January 31. Enter code “T+L” when booking. Save 20%. flymya.com.

BEACH VIETNAM

InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula In the heart of Vietnam’s culturally vibrant central coast region, tucked away on a hill along a private bay of the Son Tra Peninsula, a room with unrivaled views of the South China Sea awaits your arrival.

With a complimentary fourth night here, there’s more time to explore nearby destinations like Hoi An, or the 1,000-yearold Champa ruins of My Son. But with the benefits of Club InterContinental, we understand why you’d want to stay in. The Deal Fourth Night Free offer: a Club room, from US$700 for two, through March 31. Enter code “T+L” when booking. Save 25%. intercontinental.com.

PHUKET

Amari Phuket Nestled away from buzzing Patong on a stretch of pristine beach overlooking the Andaman, this idyllic spot is perfect for families and couples looking to experience the best of Phuket. With this package, you get a lower rate the longer you stay, so why not

Cozy quarters at Aloft Taipei Beitou.

take your time enjoying what the hotel has to offer? Great options include getting your diving certification, taking a family snorkeling trip or having a relaxing session at the seaside Breeze Spa. The Deal Stay Longer, Pay Less offer: a night in a Superior OceanFacing room, from Bt5,780 for two, through January 24. Save 15%. amari.com.

CITY INDIA

JW Marriott Kolkata There’s a new landmark for luxury in Kolkata, and it includes 40-square-meter rooms and a sumptuous infinity pool. Join the new haven’s welcome party with special-priced accommodations and Rs2,000 per night in hotel credit, redeemable on everything from spa therapies, to room upgrades, to cocktails at the bar. The Deal Grand Opening offer: a night in a Deluxe room, from Rs10,000 for two, through January 31. Save 15%. marriott.com.

TAIWAN

Aloft Taipei Beitou Perfectly situated halfway

between Taiwan’s most famous hot spring and downtown Taipei, the newly opened Aloft Taipei Beitou allows you to take in all the dynamic region has to offer.

With this deal, on top of discounted accommodations, you’ll get NT$1,000 to spend at the hotel’s self-serve gourmet pantry, whether you’re fiending for a late night snack, or are grabbing a cappuccino on your way to explore the city. The Deal Snackaholic Room package: a night in an Aloft room, from NT$4,500 for two, through March 31. Save 30%. starwoodhotels.com.

HONG KONG

Dorsett Wanchai To celebrate newly renovated rooms and rebranding, the Worldhotels-affiliated Dorsett Wanchai is granting guests three wishes and a generous discount on accommodations.

Choose from perks like a meal at Michelin-starred dim sum restaurant Tim Ho Wan, unlimited laundry service, two tickets to Ocean Park marine theme park or time in the airport lounge. The Deal 3 Wishes package: a night in a Premier room, from HK$1125 for two, through March 31.

Save 30%. dorsetthotels.com.

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CHINA

Meixi Lake Hotel, A Luxury Collection Hotel In Hunan’s capital, Changsha, sitting high above the Xiang River, this new oasis of modern hospitality awaits your arrival.

Celebrate the hotel’s grand debut at a discounted price and take in views of Meixi Lake and Yuelu Mountain from your room, feast on local delicacies at their farm-to-table restaurant and end the day with a dip in the city-view pool.

The Deal Opening offer: a night in an Explorer Deluxe room, from RMB700 for two, through March 31. Save 36%. starwoodhotels.com.

— VERONICA INVEEN

J Ian Lloyd neubauer

Sailing through sunset on Amandira in Komodo National Park.

/ january 2017 / Cheju Island boasts real-life mermaids, and other

myths-come-true | Phinisis from bow to stern, start to finish | A retro cafÊ in Dalat | Swimming with whales, Tonga’s national treasures | Georgia, a feast for the senses

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Mermaid Island On verdant, volcanic Cheju, farmers raise tasty black pigs, grandpa statues boost fertility, and lady divers pry abalone from the icy depths of the sea. Duncan Forgan reports from this legendary treasure chest in the Korean Strait.

Photographed by Yousun Moon

Grandpa statues protect against demons in Cheju Stone Park.

Opposite: Mermaid accountrements include: fins; a hoe to dig out urchin, octopus and other goodies; a tewak float to rest in the waves; nets to collect their catch; and stones to help them sink.

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women is getting down to gossiping.

Outside, a nasty squall is whipping the Korean Strait into a frenzy of foam-flecked waves. Rain is lashing down upon the roof of the refuge in Seongsan, but the ladies have no problem communicating above the noise of the storm.

“My husband went into Cheju City this morning to get some things for the house,” says Ji Su Kim, removing her old-school dive mask and pouring a warming cup of green tea from a pot on the stove. “He’s probably already drinking soju with his friends.”

In Korea, just like in the rest of the world, a single-sex gathering would not be complete without some gentle ribbing of the opposite gender.

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And if anyone has earned the right to give their menfolk something of a roasting it is these haenyeo women divers, who have spent the last three hours plumbing the frigid depths without the aid of any air tanks to harvest the ocean’s fruits.

They build their women tough on Cheju, a unique province that lies apart from the Korean peninsula both geographically and culturally.

Legend has it that a giant grandmother named Seolmundae shoveled mounds of earth to shape the volcano-studded topography. The fable is just one of several creation myths that does the rounds here, but even the tallest folk tale can’t mask the strong roles that females have assumed throughout Cheju’s history.

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I’ve come to the place Koreans call “the island of the Gods” to explore its awe-inspiring volcanic landscapes, gorge on barbecue blackpig pork, seafood and kimchi and luxuriate in five-star finery at its top resorts. Most of all I am drawn to the destination by the real-life mermaids who defy age and the elements to eke out a precarious living from the ocean.

The haenyeo—literally, “women of the sea”—are a symbol of Cheju and are celebrated in museums and in pictorial tributes in seafood joints around the island. In November, they were inscribed on the unesco Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

Such veneration is richly merited from what I witness on my visit.

tents: courtesy of The Shilla Jeju

In a small, concrete building on the remote eastern coast of Cheju, a group of elderly

CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT: A tributary of

Cheonjeyeon waterfall; volcanic matter on display at the Stone Park; skipping pebbles at the waterfall; grilling black-pig pork at Donsadon Korean barbecue; at Antracite, a new coffee shop on the island; The Shilla's glamping set-up includes a vintage record player and a six-course meal in your luxe tent.

Which is no faint praise, for this is an island rife with national treasures. In fact, a quirky matching bookend to Cheju’s grandmother mermaids might be its grandfather stones, or dol hareubang, the amiable-looking stone figurines that have served as village guardians around Cheju since ancient times.

Our photogr apher

Yousun, a Seoul-ite to her bones, tells me that Cheju is her favorite destination in Korea. She and her husband love hiking the island’s extensive network of olle longdistance footpaths, visiting its cultural sites and refueling at hip coffee stops such as Anthracite, a Seoul chain that set up shop in a converted flour mill on

Cheju’s northwestern coast. Many city-based Koreans flee to this cherished escape and head directly to the Jungmun resort area in the south, home to a stellar cast of luxury boltholes including the opulent Shilla and the Hyatt Regency.

A long-established fixture, the Hyatt enjoys an incredible location on a promontory overlooking Jungmun Beach—where I observe local surfers doing their thing on the impressive breaks rolling into shore from my balcony. A giant central atrium hosts an indoor tropical garden, a water feature, and a couple of glass elevators whizzing up and down. The hotel is invitingly oldschool; its courteous service, comfortable rooms and mighty

breakfast spread smack of a wealth of experience.

From this base, I strike out by car to explore the island. A stroll through the forests at the foot of Hallasan makes for a bracing excursion, while the Cheju Stone Cultural Park offers an enlightening insight to the island’s culture, rituals and icons—especially of the dol hareubang. Beloved by islanders, the volcanic rock statues are considered to be gods of protection and fertility and were traditionally placed outside gates to guard against demons traveling beyond realities. It is believed that touching the noses of the statues can aid conception.

Indeed, many of the dol hareubang I see in the cultural park are somewhat deformed, their nostrils reshaped by hopeful contact from successive generations of prospective mothers.

My personal highlight, apart from visiting the haenyeo, is a late afternoon ascent of Mount Songaksan on the island’s south coast. At the summit the clouds part again to let the sun cast shards of light over the ocean and the distant rump of Marado, the southernmost boundary of Korea.

Another day, I take a shorter walk, this time from the Hyatt to the Shilla, to sample the latter’s glamping experience. I’m escorted to my pimped out tent on the lawn, which is kitted out with an oversized

lounger, dining table and a vintage record deck along with a selection of classical music vinyl. Outdoorloving Koreans are fueling a massive camping trend nationwide, and especially in nature-rich Cheju. Tent sales have gone through the roof.

This, in turn, has prompted resorts like the Shilla to promote their own high-end camping packages— complete with expensive seafood and champagne. It’s not exactly the real deal, but for a guy whose camping memories are scarred by chilly Cub Scout outings in the Highlands of Scotland, I’m not complaining.

For the opening salvo of a sixcourse barbecue extravaganza that will also take in wagyu and black-pig pork, my personal chef serves up a seafood platter.

As I reach greedily for an abalone, I feel a pang of guilt as I think about the haenyeo. What is so easy for me to consume now might have been harvested through painstaking work in the unforgiving ocean. When I

think of the love that the women display for their proud profession, though, the food tastes sweeter.

Diving for prizes such as

abalone, sea urchin, snails and other maritime morsels in the seas that encircle the island of Cheju used to be considered a man’s work. But by the 18th century female divers outnumbered their male counterparts.

Several explanations exist for the shift. One is that a significant number of men died at sea due to war or fishing accidents in the 17th century. Another theory—the one subscribed to by the ladies I meet— is that women are just better equipped physiologically for diving: an extra portion of subcutaneous fat and a higher shivering threshold giving them the edge over the blokes.

Whatever the reason, the haenyeo have become a potent icon of girl power in a country where patriarchal Confucian traditions tend to be the order of the day.

FROM ABOVE LEFT: The terrain of Gotjawal (literally, "forest, rock and bush") Forest in central Cheju was formed by viscous lava hardening into bumpy stones; haenyeo Ae-Soon Kim emerges from the sea after freediving; Mount Songaksan on the south coast.

Times were toughest for the divers during the era of the Choson dynasty—the empire that ruled Korea for almost five centuries until 1910. At that time, divers were forced to hand over most of their harvest as tribute. When the Japanese colonized the country, however, they were allowed to sell their catch at market and make a profit.

These glory days lasted long after the Japanese left, with haenyeo playing a prominent place in Cheju’s economy and women taking on an unfamiliar role as the main breadwinners in many households on the island. Yet, as South Korea made its journey from impoverished third-world nation to Asian powerhouse, Cheju’s defining maritime tradition faded.

A diver’s life could hardly be described as an easy one. During tide times, haenyeo spend up to six hours a day immersed in the oftenchilly waters picking at crevices on the sea floor with a sharp, scalpel-

like tool. Although sharks are rare, jellyfish can be a pest. Stormy weather too can cause a potentially fatal loss of orientation underwater.

In their rambunctious refuge, the ladies in Seongsan tell me of the joy they get from diving and the sense of camaraderie they derive from the profession. Nevertheless, it is easy to see why younger Cheju women prefer to swap the rubber wet suit and headlight-shaped scuba masks for other professional garb.

There are now just approximately 2,500 haenyeo left on the island (compared to more than 20,000 in the 1960s) and the vast majority are over the age of 60—making them something of an endangered species.

The atmosphere in the refuge may be bubbling with verve when I visit, but it seems clear that this proud custom is destined for extinction in the not too distant future.

“Diving has given me and my family a very good life,” says Aesoon Kim, a haenyeo whose

sparkling eyes and youthful demeanor belie her 67 years. “But I understand why my daughters don’t want to follow my path. When I was young, it seemed a natural choice.”

Many of Kim’s relatives were haenyeo, she says, “and in those days there were not a lot of options—especially here in Cheju where the soil is volcanic and there’s very little agriculture. I spent four years learning how to dive before I could make any money from it.

Korea is a modern economy these days and there are many different paths for young people to follow.”

Despite her sagacity, Kim admits to feeling sorrow at the probable passing of the tradition. “It makes me feel very sad,” she says. “When I think about the good life I’ve enjoyed and the fun we’ve had, I can hardly believe that we will soon be part of history rather than the future.”

With Kim’s downbeat soliloquy ringing in my mind, I leave the ladies to their tea break. Such is its

remarkable natural beauty it is hard to stay melancholic in Cheju for too long. As the sky shakes off its blackened hue to reveal a grandstand postcard of Hallasan—at 1,950 meters, the highest mountain in South Korea—my spirits soon start to lift with the view.

The details Getting there Around the region, nonstop flights to Cheju International Airport depart from Bangkok, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Hotel s Hyatt Regency Jeju With a prime perch overlooking Jungmun beach—a favorite with international and local surfers—this venerable hotel matured with the times. A spacious central atrium is home to a lush indoor tropical garden while rooms offer choice toiletries and plush beds. regency.hyatt. com; from W180,000 per night.

The Shilla Jeju Probably the swankiest hotel on Jeju, The Shilla has something for everyone. Kids will love its pools, playroom and onsite video game arcade while couples and older visitors will appreciate its array of dining options (hint: the top-pick is a barbecue glamping experience), casino and luxurious spa. shilla.net; from W320,000 per night; glamping experience from W290,000 for lunch for two.

Restaur ants Donsadon You might expect seafood to dominate the culinary landscape on an island. But locals swing more towards

the pork from the local black pigs—said to be the tastiest in Korea. Sample it at this outstanding venue for Korean barbecue. 82-64/7468989; meal for two from W80,000.

Magpie Brewing Company One of Korea’s most cherished eating and drinking rituals, chimaek (beer and fried chicken) can be enjoyed lots of places.

For a top quality tipple to wash down the crispy-skinned meat, there’s no better place than this venue, which brews its own line of beers. magpiebrewing.com; meal for two from W47,000.

Soul Kitchen In the resort enclave of Jungmun, Soul Kitchen is famed for its reasonably priced American offerings.

Try the chili-tinged volcano burger for a spicy fusion of Korean and Western culinary sensibilities. 82-64/ 739-8765; meal for two from W70,000.

Anthracite A hip, rustic-chic Seoultransplant coffee shop. 82-64/7967991; espresso W3,500.

Activities Jeju Olle Hiking jejuolle.org.

Jeju Stone Park jejustonepark.com; admission W5,000.

Jeju Tourism Organization ijto.or.kr.

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Wood and

Water

The graceful Indonesian sailing vessels known as phinisis are not defined solely by their twin masts and many sails. They ’re hand-hewn labors of love infused with 500 years of romance, tradition and tricker y.

Even with only five of her seven sails raised, Amandira is the Ferrari of phinisis.

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Aboard the forward deck of the Amandira. left: The cruise director of Amandira points out the proposed course through Komodo National Park.

Below: A phinisishaped bed in the honeymoon suite of Amatoa Resort, in Bira, Sulawesi.

S

ometime in the early 1930s, British explorer G.E.P. Collins sailed to the legend-rich Indonesian island of Sulawesi on a phinisi, a traditional twin-mast seven-sail schooner used for transport, cargo, fishing and raiding around the archipelago since the 16th century. It was slow, cumbersome and riddled with rats, but Collins become so enamored with the grace and beauty of the high-sterned local vessel—itself a design cribbed from Portuguese or Dutch ships that had been colonizing these islands— that he decided to build a phinisi of his own.

So, Collins sailed on to Bira, an isolated village on the tip of South Sulawesi where the seafaring Bugis people have built phinisis on the beach using primitive construction techniques unchanged for hundreds of years.

Collins’s layover in Bira was anything but smooth sailing: he caught a volley of tropical diseases, was swindled at every turn and faced extraordinary delays taking possession of his boat. The Bugis originally told him the build would take two months, but it took nearly a year-and-a-half.

The exasperated Englishman wrote about his exploits along with detailed descriptions of the proto-Islamic magic rites, piratic tendencies and quixotic boatbuilding techniques of the Bugis in Makassar Sailing, a book published upon his return to London in 1937. “I had been in Bira about nine months, which seemed an absurdly long time to build a boat,” reads a typical entry. And again: “To record all the tricks my boatbuilders and their gang of rascals tried would fill half this book.”

the tale of g.e.p. collins bears striking resemblance to that of another Englishman: Erik Barreto, a

Singapore-based fund manager for alternative assets I met last year at a dinner party in Bali.

At one stage during the evening, I found myself in the villa’s kitchen admiring the rich dark woodwork and smooth curved edges of the cupboard doors. “That’s ironwood,” said my host, Ciarán Caulfied, a mariner-turnedproperty developer from Ireland. “It’s like steel.” One of the strongest woods on the planet, he explained, ironwood is more bountiful in Indonesia than anywhere else in the world, but has been over-harvested, leading to strict restrictions on its use now.

“We got this ironwood from an old phinisi that was getting broken up for scrap at a shipyard in Surabaya, where all old phinisis go to die.”

“Phinisi?” interjected Barreto, overhearing our conversation. “I’m building a phinisi right now in Sulawesi. It’s called Rascal.”

But Rascal, Barreto said, was no ordinary phinisi. Not only did it lack a mast and sails, but the cabins and saloon, usually found in the hull, were set in a superstructure above deck.

by the name of Raul Boscarino, and suggested I accompany Boscarino on his next trip to Bira to see how phinisis are built.

Fast-forward three months. I’m in Sulawesi, in the back of a taxi driving from the provincial capital Makassar to Bira, a grueling seven-hour odyssey along 200 kilometers of typically dilapidated and screamingly busy Indonesian country roads. It seems ironic that I can’t make this journey by boat.

Boscarino is seated next to me. Limber and leather-skinned in his early 50s, the boatbuilder from Rome combines the easygoing demeanor of a Sicilian with the industrial savvy of a Milanese. “When I first saw phinisis I was skeptical because of the way they are made,” he tells me. “In Europe, we build yachts in climate-controlled factories, but in Bira they build them right on the beach.

It’s one of the few places left in the world apart from Madagascar and Turkey where they still build boats this way.”

The difference in the finished product is huge, Boscarino explains, because dry wood is stronger, lighter, easier to work, easier to paint and shrinks less than wet wood—and the only way to dry wood is to store it, and work on it, indoors. “The boatbuilders for British Royal Family only use wood that’s been drying for at least a generation,” he says.

The ergonomically spacious and rule-breaking vessel would be outfitted with the highest possible grade of marine engines, navigation equipment and bespoke furnishings and fittings designed by Charles Orchard, the interior designer whose resume includes work for the Four Seasons hotel chain and The VeniceSimpleton Orient Express. On completion, Rascal would work as a luxury private charter ploughing the island-studded waters of Komodo National Park and Raja Amput in eastern Indonesia.

Barreto appeared to be trying to tap into the same vein that’s made the most recent incarnation of The Orient Express, with its vintage cabins and opulent attention to detail, a runaway success.

But unlike The Orient with its plush fabrics and polished woods, Rascal would marry the façade of a traditional Indonesian schooner with the interior of a modern boutique hotel. Would the two things go together, like bacon and eggs, or would they slowly grind against each other like metal and rock? It was a question I knew I’d like to answer myself, which led to two new questions: when was Rascal scheduled to start sailing, and would Baretto be so kind as to grant me passage on the maiden voyage?

“Three months from now,” he said. “And yes, you’re more than welcome to join us.”

We shook hands and agreed to meet back in Bali later in the year. Barreto also put me in touch with his boatbuilder, an Italian t r a v e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a . c o m / j a n u a r y 2 0 1 7

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But back to phinisis. The design, Boscarino continues, remained virtually unchanged until the mid-1970s when owners began adding engines and removing sails. At around the same time, Westerners began showing up in Bira commissioning phinisis for diving charters. Demand for wooden charter boats has increased exponentially, driving up prices, naturally. “Back then you could build a phinisi for US$10,000,” he says. “Now it can cost up to a million.”

“It’s really hard for people who aren’t in this business to understand exactly why it costs so much to build a wooden boat,” Boscarino says.

“The woodwork is only a third of the cost because today charters are outfitted with things like air conditioners, desalination tanks and chef’s kitchens. They’re basically floating five-star hotels.

“When I met the owners of Rascal, the first thing they asked was if I could put a hot tub on the roof. I told them they were crazy. They also asked for the windows to have curved edges like an iPhone. I said I could do it—it’s a beautiful detail—but it added three months to the build because every window had to be cut from a solid piece of wood.”

It took two-and-a-half years just to construct the hull.

I ask Boscarino if Rascal, which was being outfitted in Bali, would be ready to sail the next week as per my schedule.

He burst out laughing: “Next week? No chance. Next year? Maybe.”

It’s late in the afternoon when we pull into Jalan Phinisi in Bira, where Boscarino is building another vessel similar to Rascal.

Only the keel, a 30-meter-long slab of ironwood lies on the sand where a dozen-odd Bugis boatbuilders with hangdog features betraying years of wear and tear are engaged in various kinds of labor. One trio of workmen is making fasteners or “tree nails” by inserting thick wooden splinters into a cylindrical metal hole built into a vice and pounding each splinter through the hole with big wooden mallets plucked straight out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon. For a boat the size of Rascal, 15,000 fasteners need to be made.

After checking on his men’s progress, Boscarino takes me for a walk along the beach.

Scattered along the sand between herds of wandering goats and piles of plastic rubbish are 50-odd phinisis: old boats being repaired, new boats being built and others that appear half-built and tilted to one side.

“That one,” says Boscarino, pointing to a half-submerged phinisi askew on a reef, “was

Erik Barreto mulls the course ahead on Rascal.

Below: Dusk on the Flores Sea. right: A sink in Lataliana Villa, made from reclaimed phinisi wood.

'to recall all the tricks my boatbuilders and their gang of rascals used would fill half this book' —g.e.p. collins

built by a Dutchman. He sold everything he owned and came here with big dreams of building a phinisi and sailing around Indonesia.

But he ran out of money and went home with nothing. And he wasn’t the first one. The sign may say jalan phinisi, but we call it the “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”

“If not for tourism,” he continues, “the phinisi design and art would have died a long time ago. But it’s not easy working here. You have to have a good connection with the local people and you have to respect their timing. If it’s Ramadan, they won’t work for a month and that is that. You can’t just apply Western boat-building techniques here.”

I ask Boscarino if he’s read Collins’s memoir, Makassar Sailing.

“Many times,” he replies. “It makes me laugh because the same tricks the Bugis used back then, they still use now. When his phinisi was finished, Collins said, ‘please put it in the water for me.’

The Bugis told him that would take 100 men a month using ropes and pulleys and blocks the same way the Egyptians moved stones for the pyramids, and it would cost you so-many dollars. That’s what happened to the Dutchman who built that phinisi,” he says pointing to the abandoned ship. “He got it built but had no money to launch it. I think his dream drove him crazy at the end.”

I’m hoping the same fate won’t await Baretto, because I learn when I return to Bali that Rascal is still at least a month or two away from completion.

Unable to board his new take on an old boat, I start sniffing around for another phinisi owner who may indulge me with a cruise. My investigations lead to Aman Resorts, which operates five top-shelf resorts and two luxury phinisis in Indonesia. As luck would have it, one of Aman’s ships, the Amandira, a stately 52-meter vessel with a Western rig that allows for faster sailing and therefore is known as the Ferrari of phinisis, will soon put ashore a group of guests at Labuan Bajo on the island of Flores, gateway to Komodo National Park. If I can get myself to Labuan Bajo within 24 hours, I can hitch a ride on Amandira as she sails back to her home base at Amanwana, a luxury tent camp on Moyo Island roughly halfway between Bali and Flores.

When I first visited Labuan Bajo five years ago, there were maybe half a dozen phinisi charters bobbing up and down in the harbor. Now there are 10 times as many, from small motor-driven runabouts for snorkeling trips, to beautifully restored schooners with towering masts. But they are all dwarfed in size and statue by Amandira and her team of 15 polo shirt-wearing staff who stand on the starboard side waving as a tender ferries me in from the dock.

With a jet black hull, eccentrically curved deck and elongated bowsprit that reaches far over her prow, Amandira has a Captain Jack Sparrow, pirate-ship feel that screams romance and adventure on the high seas. Above deck is a king-size cabin with a twin vanity bathroom twice as large as the bathroom of my apartment in Sydney, and a lavish saloon with sofas, a dining table and A/V equipment. Below deck are two more king-bed cabins, two bunkbed cabins and staff quarters.

Yet Amandira’s prize real estate lies on her expansive foredeck, where I spend the next few days lounging on daybeds, taking in the turquoise waters, volcanic islands and dreamy sunsets of Komodo National Park. On occasion my serenity is disturbed by Amandira’s butler and his incessant desire to pour me glasses of BillecartSalmon Brut Rosé, and a spa therapist who pummels knots out of my back on a massage table in a semi-private nook on the aft deck. t r a v e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a . c o m / j a n u a r y 2 0 1 7

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There are also distractions of the more active kind: snorkeling, scuba diving, kayaking and seafood barbecues on deserted beaches.

“On some days when I wake up sailing around these islands,” says cruise director Glenn Wappett, a Londoner who spent the past decade serving with the Royal Marines in places like Afghanistan and Libya before being poached by Aman, “I have to pinch myself to know this is real.”

Late one afternoon, I climb onto the prow at the front of the boat.

There I lie for hours as Amandira ebbs and flows through an open sea that seems to absorb all my cares and worries. As I rub my fingers along the smooth stained wood, massaging the grain and its omnipresent imperfections, I think of the thousands of hours of work that went into building this ship, the sweat, the sawdust, the cuts and bruises on fingers. I think of Collins, Baretto and all the characters I’ve gotten to know on this trip, and how building a boat using using obsolete materials and techniques in a far-flung corner of the world would have been a cathartic experience for them. If a meal can taste better simply by cooking it yourself, what would it feel like sailing a boat you took years to create?

My return to Bali a week later coincides with Barreto’s, who’s flown in from Singapore to sign off on Rascal’s interior woodwork before Charles Orchard and his crack team of couturiers are let loose to bring the project to fruition.

Moored in the placid waters of Serangan Harbour and surrounded by a dozen other phinisis, Rascal is still a construction site where dozens of workmen buzz around the deck chipping, sanding and varnishing surfaces covered in sawdust. Yet as I follow Baretto around his ship, Rascal’s soon-to-be resplendent rulebreaking interior becomes manifest.

The captain’s chair in the bridge will be covered in blue leather and accented with brass studs. The saloon will feature a parquetry bar. The ship has five double bedrooms, each with its own personality and a host of creature comforts: minibars, media hubs, flatscreens, writing desks, gooseneck lamps, rattan wallpaper and mirrors made of petrified wood inlaid with mother of pearl. Yet the pièce de résistance lies on superstructure’s roof: an under-the-stars cinema with a retractable projection screen fashioned from an antique sail.

“The cabins on traditional phinisis are quite small, confined and mostly wood-toned, whereas Rascal’s are spacious with windows on either side for cross ventilation,” Baretto says. “And they will be

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i think of the thousands of hours of work that went into this ship, the sweat, the sawdust, the cuts and bruises

Taking a whack at making fasteners, or wooden nails, in a Bira boatyard. left: Clowning around in the Flores Sea. right: Jalan Phinisi, named for Bira’s famous native boats.

painted white to create a nautical Ralph Lauren or Hamptons beach house feel.” He adds: “Basically what we’re building is a luxury villa on the sea—a boat for people aren’t into boating.”

“Why go to all this trouble?” I can’t help but ask. “From an investor’s viewpoint, wouldn’t it have made more sense just to buy a superyacht?”

“Probably, but it wouldn’t have been as much fun,” he replies, wiping sweat and sawdust off his brow. “I’m really sorry we couldn’t take you for a sail this time,” he continues. “Originally we thought this project would take two years; it’s now been three-anda-half years. It’s been a long journey, it hasn’t been easy, but fingers crossed, three weeks from now we’re going to be out at sea toasting to our success.”

I can only compare Barreto’s dogged determination to that of Collins when he finally launched his phinisi from the port at Bira.

“Sixteen months before, I had made a voyage in a Bugis phinisi,” he wrote on the final page of his book. “After the voyage I had wanted a high-pooped ship of my own. Now I had her. She was not the ship I had hoped for but she was clean and there was a dry cabin, all painted white, where I could stand up and turn round with my arms outstretched.”

Two men with two boats made in the same place 80 years apart.

Both spent more far time and money than they had originally planned. Both had to make compromises on the road of romance.

Yet both were unbending in their vision for a modern and spacious interior—painted in clean, fresh, space-maximizing white.

Standing inside the salon in its half-built state, I now see Rascal as less of a rule-breaker and more of a rule-bender. Like the steam used to curve the ribs in her hull, the villa-like interior and absence of sails seem a logical progression of a design stolen by pirates 500 years ago and reimagined every time a scraggly group of boatbuilders begins shaping ironwood on the beach in Bira into a phinisi.

The details GETTING THERE Garuda (garuda-indonesia. com) and Lion Air (lionair. co.id) offer direct connections from Jakarta and Bali to Labuan Bajo and Makassar. From Makassar airport, a taxi to Bira costs US$50 to US$75.

HOTELS Lataliana Villa A short stroll from Bali’s Seminyak Beach, this palatial complex with furnishings made from recycled phinisis is available in oneto eight-bedroom configurations. onebedroom villa from US$370; latalianavillas.com.

Amatoa Resort Boutique resort on a stellar clifftop location in Bira where

guests can dive directly into crystal-blue seas. bungalows from US$112; amatoaresort.com.

CRUISES Amandira Private charter five-night Komodo sailing including full board, alcohol, national park entry fees and up to four dives daily. above-deck double-occupancy cabin US$7,730 per night; book all five double-occupancy cabins for US$10,840 per night; aman.com.

Rascal Available as private charter for multiday expeditions in the Indonesian archipelago from this month.

US$8,500 per night; info@rascal-charters.com; rascal-charters.com.

Coffee and a Slice of History A R ET RO CA F E I N the heart of the CIT Y IS J UST ON E R E A SON verdant DA L AT evokes the romance of old vietnam. story a nd photogr a ph by morga n ommer

he fast and furious development of Vietnam makes it ever more difficult to step back into the country’s past.

Café Tung in Dalat is one fine exception. Back in 1912, the French established the fertile city as their favored hill station, a cool-climate retreat from Saigon, and this legacy has endured in grand boulevards, 2,000 colonial villas, and a culture of vineyards and cafés such as this one.

Formerly a hot bed for artists, intellectuals, poets and other bohemian types, the café is a remarkable snapshot in time. With its retro pleather upholstery and vintage pop-star posters, it looks more like a 1960s Parisian cellar than a coffee shop in Vietnam.

It sounds more like it too—the playlist regurlarly features hits by the Ronettes, The Rolling Stones and Khanh Ly, Vietnam’s most famous entertainer of that era.

Nowadays the artists, young and old, are still there in the morning perusing the local newspapers. Join them over a ca phe sua nong (drip coffee with condensed milk) at this intersection of past and present.

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A humpback whale passes right in front of the photographer during an expedition off one of the islands of Tonga.

In the waters of the South Pacific, MAGGIE SHIPSTEAD enters the domain of some of the world’s largest creatures and discovers that, sometimes, beauty can conquer fear.

Photographed by SEAN FENNESSY

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confession: i’ve always been afraid of deep water. Like most phobias,

mine isn’t entirely rational. It’s not about drowning, exactly, or being eaten by a sharp-toothed creature, although that wouldn’t be ideal. It’s more about not knowing what’s below me, about darkness and emptiness and my own insignificance.

And yet there I was, floating in the open ocean, peering down through a snorkel mask into water hundreds of meters deep. Above the surface there was wind and swell, blowing spray, gray sky. In the distance were the limestone cliffs and tousled coconut palms of Vava’u, an archipelago of 61 islands within the Kingdom of Tonga, itself a collection of 176 islands scattered across approximately 675,000 square kilometers of the South Pacific. Beneath the surface, there was stillness, vastness, silence. There was the saturated cobalt blueness of the Tongan waters, and there was a mother humpback whale 15 meters below, resting with her calf tucked under her.

The sight was both familiar and alien. I’d seen countless humpbacks on television and IMAX screens, gazed up at life-size replicas hanging from the ceilings of natural-history museums, even

Humpback whales’ ventral pleats let their throats expand to accommodate water during filter-feeding.

caught glimpses of flukes and fins from whale-watching boats. But now I was floating above a 40-tonne, 15-meter-long animal with a beating heart and a mind full of unfathomable instincts and impulses. The white edges of her pectoral fins and fluke glowed bright aqua. The rest of her was a massive charcoal shadow, suspended in space.

Nisi Tongia, a local guide who works for New Zealand–based WhaleSwim Adventures, gripped my wet-suited upper arm, anchoring me against the with three other swimmers— five of us in all, the maximum number legally allowed in the water so as to avoid crowding the whale. Because scuba diving with the whales is not permitted, we had only snorkels and fins.

This was our first of seven days in the water with WhaleSwim Adventures, a tour operator that has recently expanded to Tahiti (humpbacks) and Sri Lanka (blue and sperm whales). The company offers only multiday trips, a policy intended to give swimmers time to get used to the whales and to avoid pressuring guides into forcing encounters.

Sometimes, though, while sitting on the boat’s swim platform, my fins dipping in and out of the wake as I craned around to see columns of vapor sent up by exhaling whales, I did find myself caught up in a certain hectic energy, an Ahab-like thrill of pursuit. The challenge of finding whales is part of what makes encountering them meaningful, but because the quest can be so unpredictable (big ocean, swift wild animals), swimming with these creatures is an activity I can’t recommend for control freaks.

On this drop, everything was going according to plan. A pale face, small by whale standards and studded with the wartlike tubercles characteristic of humpbacks, peeked out from under the cow’s chin. We floated, waiting. After a moment the calf emerged and glided upward, nose to the light, eye trained on us, inspecting. A clutch of remoras, or suckerfish, clung to his underside, and his white belly was grooved with expandable ventral pleats that would, in adulthood, help him filter up to one and a half tonnes of krill a day. For now, he was consuming only milk, while his mother ate nothing. The warm, protected Tongan waters provide safety during the whales’ birthing and breeding season, but no sustenance. In a few weeks, this pair would turn south, toward their Antarctic feeding grounds.

The calf took a breath, rolled languidly onto his side, and started wiggle-swimming up in our direction.

This was what I’d come for. This was an experience I’d wanted so badly that I’d put aside my trepidation about Big Blue and embarked on

an 8,000-kilometer pilgrimage across the planet that could well have ended up becoming an exercise in terror management.

Just a meter from me, the calf rolled onto his back, opening his knobby pectoral fins wide. We made eye contact: a six-week-old, six-meterlong marine mammal and a woman from California. What could he have made of me? His beauty thrilled me almost to the point of pain.

His mother ascended, surfacing to breathe.

At such close range, her size was overwhelming, a moving wall of whale, her skin encrusted here and there with barnacles. Her body language was relaxed, tail and flippers low, but she kept her eye fixed on the gaggle of snorkeled paparazzi extending GoPros toward her hammy, curious baby, who was now turning a backward somersault. In the water, whales’ conversation is often audible, and after a few whistles passed between the pair, they swam away, unhurried, their oscillating flukes vanishing into the blue.

“Okay,” Nisi said, smiling broadly below his mask as we all popped up among the waves, five pinheads atop a dark and choppy sea. “We go back to the boat, yeah?”

t

onga is not one of the south

Pacific’s most storied destinations, but the upside to its obscurity is that it is relatively unspoiled. On the island of Vava’u, the largest in the archipelago, the cows, pigs, dogs, chickens and children are all free-range. Walk more than five meters and someone will offer you a ride. Island time is strictly observed.

“It’s raw and authentic,” said Annah Evington, our other guide. A New Zealand native, she has returned often to Vava’u since a transformative humpback encounter in 2001.

“There’s no major tourism here. There’s no huge hotels, and there’s no whitecoated waiters and cocktails by the pool. The boats are still small, and the experiences are still very personal.”

In the harbor of the main town, Neiafu, white yachts float at their moorings while small fiberglass boats put-put among them, people from outlying islands crowding the bows and perched on the roofs on their way to shop or pick up their kids from school. Storefronts offer day trips to go reef diving and sportfishing.

Waterfront cafés like the Mango and Aquarium have pleasant decks for afternoon beers and hearty pork or seafood dinners. In the evenings, hymns waft from the churches, only to be drowned out, at sunset, by a roaring chorus of cicadas. Every Wednesday night at Bounty Bar, above the harbor, a wry and regal matriarch in a mesh dress and sensible shoes presides over a

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rowdy drag show and dance party. Her name, both in life and onstage, is Brian.

“Here people are nice to you because they want to be nice to you, not because they have to be,” said Ben Newton, a former Bay Area entrepreneur. He and his wife, Lisa, arrived on a sailboat in 2004 and, to their mutual surprise, never left. “It’s hard for Tonga as a developing nation, because people want the Disneyland experience. But I appreciate its raw beauty. It’s out here on the edge of the planet.”

After settling in Vava’u, the Newtons started several small businesses, including a restaurant and a dinghy-rental shop, before a twist of fate brought them to Fetoko Island, a round, sandy blip surrounded by reef in a tranquil bay. The couple had helped a Tongan family with a house loan; in gratitude, the family offered first their unborn baby, then the rights to Fetoko. The Newtons passed on the baby, but they eventually accepted the island, with the stipulation that the family remain shareholders in the eco-resort they’d dreamed up, to be called Mandala. After four years of construction, which they did mostly by themselves, the Newtons opened in 2013 with just a restaurant and a tree house.

Since then they have added four bungalows and a yoga porch overlooking the water. “The island already had its own vibe,” Ben said. “We just had to figure out what to do with it.”

Though Fetoko Island is only about 65 meters in diameter, the Newtons found space for some big ideas. Ben’s swooping design for the open-air restaurant was inspired by, among other things, manta rays and fractal geometry.

Upon arrival by boat, guests are greeted by the couple’s two dogs, Higgs and Boson, named after the Higgs boson, a theoretical subatomic particle. All electricity is supplied by solar panels and all water by the clouds. The toilets operate on a composting system, and plans are afoot for an aquaponics garden, which will allow them to grow more of the resort’s (excellent) food on site. There’s talk of keeping chickens and dairy cows on a nearby island, since there isn’t space on Fetoko.

These green measures feel especially urgent in Tonga. Like other Pacific island nations, the kingdom is especially vulnerable to climate change, as rising sea levels and increasing water temperatures have begun to cause inundation of lowlying coasts, reef degradation, and saltwater infiltration of soil and freshwater reservoirs. “Be the change and whatnot,” Ben said. “We’re not real focused on it as a business.

It’s been more about the project, building it and enjoying it as we do it.”

One of Ben’s businesses back in San Francisco involved arranging personalized

A humpback whale, seen during an excursion with WhaleSwim Adventures, descends into the ocean.

I WAS FLOATING above a 40-tonne, 15-meter-long animal with A BEATING HEART and A MIND FULL of unfathomable instincts and impulses t r a v e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a . c o m / j a n u a r y 2 0 1 7

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experiences designed to help people confront and conquer their fears—for example, skydiving for those afraid of heights. “I got addicted to it,” he said, “but I realized I hadn’t faced my own biggest fear.” Which was?

“Running out of money.”

To that end, he and Lisa traded the rat race for the boat. “We sailed through the Golden Gate and turned left,” he said. Three years later, they arrived in Tonga. Money ran out a few times while they were building Mandala, but the rewards have been rich. “How do you beat the tropical island lifestyle?” Lisa asked.

As I sipped a rum cocktail in a hammock on Mandala’s beach at sunset, I wasn’t sure you could.

a

s undiscovered as tonga

remains to most people, whale swimming is drawing a growing number of visitors—from a few hundred annually in the early 1990s to more than 3,000 a year in the past decade. That might not sound like a lot, but as with any other tourism enterprise built around encounters with wildlife, whale-swimming companies must balance a desire to spread the gospel of conservation with the risk of intruding on the animals and disturbing their habitats. Australia, the Dominican Republic and Tahiti are among the few countries besides Tonga that allow operators to put customers in the water with humpbacks. To its credit, Tonga has regulations in place to protect the whales— limits on lengths of swims, mandatory breaks between encounters, prohibitions on harassing the whales, and caps on the number of swimmers allowed and boat licenses issued— though these are largely self-enforced.

By 1966, when the International Whaling Commission instituted a worldwide moratorium on killing humpbacks, only about 250 remained in the area around Tonga, down from an estimated original population of 10,000. Nevertheless, subsistence whaling persisted until the king ended it by decree in 1978. By 2010, the local whale population had rebounded to between 1,500 and 2,000, prompting some Tongans to argue that the ban should be lifted. At the moment, however, a reversal seems unlikely, given the economic boon of whale swimming and the public outreach the whales have been doing on their own behalf. “I always hope people are going to get the experience of looking into the eye of a whale and understanding that they’re ancient creatures,” Annah said. “I’ve seen it so many times, people being touched or moved in so many ways.”

Every Saturday, the Tongan whaleswim boat captains get together to share a meal and talk shop, as part of a conscious commitment to maintaining a cooperative bond. “It’s good for us if every swimmer sees a whale,” Po’uli Tongia, our skipper and a first cousin of Nisi, told me. “We try to help each other.” The skippers keep in radio contact throughout the day, pooling intel about whales’ locations and behaviors. If one boat isn’t having any luck and another has found a whale amenable to encounters, the two boats might take turns dropping swimmers.

On an afternoon when the whales were giving us the cold shoulder, a small boat of day-trippers offered to share a mother-and-calf pair with us. The other swimmers wore blocky orange life vests and held on to a float while their guide towed them. Such arrangements weren’t uncommon, Annah said, as some touristswho couldn’t swim still wanted to see whales. This elicited a few derisive snickers on our boat, but Annah said she admired the day-trippers’ bravery. Then Po’uli learned over the radio that the group was a Japanese ambassador and his family. Japan, we all knew, is one of the few nations that has persisted in commercial whaling despite international censure. We fell silent, watching the orange dots on the water. “Let’s hope they have a wonderful, awe-inspiring experience,” Annah said.

In my seven days on the water, we found whales every day, but every day—and every encounter—was different. We floated for 45 minutes above a male as he sang to attract a mate, the water coming alive with whistles, chirps, trills, moans and groans that rattled my ribs. We dropped into a group of five males on a heat run, all chasing a female, and found ourselves immersed in whale chaos. The boys, unafraid, spiraled around us, grunting. As one slid by just under my fins, another passed within arm’s reach to my left, and a third came up from the deep. Gliding and gigantic, they seemed always to be watching us, always careful to arc their flippers over or under us and not to whack us with their tails.

We drifted on glassy, calm water above a placid mother and calf, their bodies dappled by sunbeams slanting down into the indigo water like light in the nave of a cathedral. We rocked and rolled on two-meter swells as a different, feistier calf shot up from below and fully out of the water, breaching just yards away. Its mother followed, rocketing up like a missile, water streaming off her as she arced against the sky, fins outspread. As the splash rained down on us, we all cheered, exhilarated by her magnificent exuberance.

If there was time after lunch, we might go for a non-whale-related snorkel. Near the end of our trip, one such excursion brought us to Mariner’s Cave, on the island of Nuapapu, where we dove down alongside a sheer, coral-encrusted drop-off and through an underwater tunnel into a black hole of rock, a humid air bubble encased in limestone. Such a place was once the stuff of my nightmares, but I finned into the darkness without hesitation. I wish I could say that my swims in Tonga were acts of courage, but my fear of the deep, which had seemed like a part of me, had turned out to be nothing at all—a coward that turned tail as soon as I looked right at it. I hadn’t been afraid, not since my very first drop, when I found myself surrounded by a blue so intense that the sensation was not of dangling above an abyssal depth but of being suspended in light, cradled by color. Wonders are waiting on the other side of our fears: singing whales and hidden caves, the bluest of blues.

Divers explore Swallows Cave, a popular spot in the Vava’u archipelago.

The details GETTING THERE Fly from Sydney or Auckland to the Tongan island of Tongatapu. From there, Real Tonga Airlines flies to Vava’u twice daily, except Sunday. Fiji Airways also offers a direct flight to Vava’u from Nadi, Fiji, twice weekly.

HOTEL Mandala Island Resort A boat transfer is required to get to this small private island, where you’ll find eco-friendly accommodations, excellent food and tropical serenity. mandalaisland.com; bungalows from US$320.

ACTIVITIES Nai’a Live aboard this 18- passenger boat, which takes you from Nuku’alofa to the Ha’apai island group for snorkeling with whales and scuba diving on coral reefs. You’ll have to book way ahead, as the next available slot isn’t until 2019. naia.com.fj; US$6,186 for nine days.

WhaleSwim Adventures An experienced and conscientious outfitter offering a variety of multiday whale-swimming trips in Vava’u and elsewhere. whaleswim. com; from US$4,375 for eight nights with six days of water activities.

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Such Bountiful Land

There is beauty and drama at every turn in Georgia, in its rugged landscapes, at its feast-laden tables, in its complex history. J o s h u a L e v i n e goes to the heart of the Eden of the Caucasus. P h o t o g r a p h e d b y F R E D E R I C L A G R AN G E

On the road through the Caucasus Mountains from Tbilisi to Kazbegi.

Opposite: A plate of khinkali, traditional Georgian soup dumplings.

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The Georgian people have a trove of stories that explain their good fortune to be living in this fertile corner of the Caucasus. My favorite is this one: When God made the world, he asked all the peoples of the earth where they wanted to live, and distributed their homelands accordingly. From the Georgians he heard nothing; they were too busy feasting. He paused to rebuke them on his way home, but the tamada—the toastmaster at a traditional

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Georgian feast—told God to calm down, that the Georgians had spent the whole time praising his handiwork, and that they really didn’t mind if they wound up homeless anyway.

God found this answer so pleasing, not to mention adroit, that he gave the Georgians the little plot of land he had been saving for himself.

I’ve been visiting Georgia off and on for years, and much about this story feels right.

There’s no denying that this beautiful country enjoys the kind of Old Testament abundance that bespeaks God’s favor. Plant a seed here and it grows, rich and healthy: tea, tobacco, walnuts, grapes, everything. Crunch a Georgian cucumber (Georgian meals regularly start with bowls of fresh tomatoes and cucumbers on the table) and that most anemic of vegetables whacks you with flavor.

The creation myth carries other grains of truth as well. Yes, Georgians do like to sit around feasting more than most people. And no, they’re not shy about admitting it, even if there’s something they might be better off doing—like, say, petitioning God for a land of their own. Problematic as this quality might be when it comes to nation-building (something Georgia has been striving unevenly to do since it declared independence from the Soviet Union, in 1991), it also places Georgians among the world’s most congenial and hospitable dinner companions. Georgia must surely rank as the toughest place on earth to pick up a check.

I was ruminating on all this from the broad wooden deck of Rooms Hotel Kazbegi, at the foot of snow-tipped Mount Kazbek, at 5,033 meters tall, the third-highest peak in Georgia.

It’s not hard to see why you’d want to put a hotel here, or why so many of the guests were lounging in wicker chairs, wrapped in throws against the mountain chill, just staring up in the direction of Kazbek and smoking.

Across the valley stood ranks of jagged volcanic peaks, and perched on a treeless hill directly in front of the hotel, across the River Chkeri, the lonely 14th-century Gergeti Trinity Church. Georgia has been a deeply religious nation since it adopted orthodox Christianity in the fourth century, and you can see its

absorbing Georgia in 1801, opening up a savage Eden that has gripped the Russian imagination ever since. Georgia was Russia’s Wild West, inspiring a mixture of wonder, fear, awe and desire. Tolstoy, Pushkin and Lermontov all fell under the country’s spell. “I have survived the Georgian Military Highway,” wrote Chekhov in a letter. “It isn’t a highway, but poetry.”

The food at Rooms is good, and features a dish named “Soviet cake”—part of a widespread nostalgic revival of GOST cuisine (a Russian acronym for the state standards that regulated every aspect of daily life in the Soviet Union, including cake). It brought on a hankering for real country cooking, so my wife, our young son, and I headed down the road to the nearby village of Arsha, the taxi radio blasting out Russian pop songs.

distinctive churches, with their conical domes and layered roofs, everywhere.

Rooms Hotel Kazbegi used to be a Soviet tourist dormitory, so the building is squat and blocky—perfect for accommodating large groups of workers from a far-off tractor factory.

Viewed from our century, the big glass-andsteel rectangle now looks quite chic, and some very good Georgian designers have given the inside a cozy feel with the help of rough wood, worn leather and red-brown kilims.

The Russians who come to Rooms today (the border is a 10-minute drive away) arrive in flashy 4 x 4s via the great Georgian Military Highway, which connects Vladikavkaz, in Russia, to Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital (where there’s a second outpost of Rooms), through the Darial Pass. Russia built the highway after

Lopota Lake Resort. from far left: A dancer at the Georgian National Ballet; Tsinandali estate.

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Tsarneti, the restaurant where we ended up, is a vast and shabby establishment, divided, like so many Georgian restaurants, into separate little rooms for private dining. We were ushered into a cell-like box, and there were treated to some of the wonders of one of the world’s least-known great cuisines.

Georgian cooking has benefited from the country’s location on the Silk Road and from its history of having been overrun by hostile neighbors again and again (between the sixth and the early 19th centuries, when it came under Russia’s wing, Tbilisi was sacked many times). All the invaders—Arabs, Turks, Persians, Mongols—left something of themselves embedded in Georgia’s stones, and in its kitchens.

“Georgian cooking is the original fusion cuisine,” the inventive young chef Tekuna Gachechiladze told me. She was spending the weekend at Rooms Hotel Kazbegi on a break from Café Littera, her restaurant in Tbilisi.

“We took what we wanted from Persia, from India, from Turkey. The soup dumplings we call khinkali came from the Mongols in the thirteenth century.”

You find these addictive dumplings everywhere in Georgia; we ordered a platter of them to start the meal. They are plumper than your average dumpling, with a twisty hat of dough at the top and a filling of meat, herbs and fragrant broth. The trick is to nip a hole in the dough and suck out the broth without spritzing yourself, then eat the rest (except for the hat— never eat the hat!).

Tsarneti’s khinkali were superb, pungent with caraway and we dispatched an even dozen without taking into proper account what was to follow: chicken chmerkuli, fried and topped with a sauce of sour cream, garlic and walnuts (walnuts show up often in Georgian cooking).

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With the chicken came bread stuffed with melted cheese called khachapuri, which is also ubiquitous here. The variety we ordered was packed around a stick and baked over an open fire. We washed it all down with bottles of Tarkhuna, a bright green soda made with tarragon. After all that, it felt like a minor miracle when we were able to get up from the table and walk away.

If the mountains to Georgia’s north are its Swiss Alps, those along its eastern border are its Massachusetts Berkshires: greener, gentler and equally magical in their own way. Tucked in the foothills is the cluster of lovely lodges that make up the Lopota Lake Resort & Spa. Over lunch there, we marveled at the dramatic changes in landscape visible in a country only slightly bigger than West Virginia. Tbilisi was 97 kilometers to the west, and Kazbegi about 160 kilometers up from there, and yet we had traversed alpine passes, humid lowlands and lush rolling hills as we traveled between them.

“Georgia has fifty-three microclimates—I have that somewhere in the back of my head,” said our lunch companion in a crisp English accent. She turned out to be the British ambassador to Georgia, Alexandra Hall Hall, who tries to grab a weekend in Lopota with her family whenever she can. Hall Hall was just coming to the end of her two-year tour, but she was pushing to stay on another year. “It’s just so beautiful here,” she sighed.

The microclimate that surrounded us there in the Kakheti region is one of Georgia’s kindliest, which explains why the wide plain stretching out from the hills is lined with row upon row of grapevines. Georgians have been making wine all over the country for some 7,000 years, but Kakheti is deemed the best place for it. Many households still make their own wine the old-fashioned way, fermenting the juice with its seeds and skins, then filtering it and burying it to age in large clay amphorae called kvevri. Traditional Georgian wine often has a fresh, raisiny flavor, and the natives knock it back by the pitcher.

The man who transformed Georgia from a nation of casual tipplers into a formidable wine exporter, Alexander Chavchavadze, introduced modern European wine-making methods to the country in the early 19th century. But that wasn’t the half of it: he translated Voltaire and Victor Hugo into Georgian; he brought Georgia its first grand piano and its first billiard table; he fought Napoleon as a Russian officer, and later championed Georgian nationalism against Russia. In short, Chavchavadze spun

Tbilisi’s Old Town, seen from the Mtkvari River.

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the whole country around so that it faced west instead of east.

This patriotic polymath is regarded today as a kind of Georgian Thomas Jefferson, and Tsinandali, his estate built in 1818, is his Monticello. The two-story structure mixes Italianate stonework with a wooden, Ottomanstyle loggia in an elegant multicultural mashup. The garden, much celebrated in its day, reminded contemporaries of Richmond or Kew in England, but with a wilder soul. Dumas père called it, simply, the Garden of Eden. The spirit of Georgia lives here.

Paintings along the walls inside chronicle the great man’s life and melodramatic death.

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We see Chavchavadze in his horse-drawn carriage just as his scarf is caught in the spokes—ironically, he had brought the horsedrawn carriage to Georgia, too. Moments later, he was pitched headfirst onto the pavement, dying a few days afterward.

What happened to Chavchavadze’s home in the aftermath of his death echoes strikingly today. In 1854, the Muslim insurgent Imam Shamil swept across the mountains from neighboring Dagestan and raided Tsinandali, a reprisal for Russian expansion in the Caucasus. Shamil’s men burned parts of Tsinandali and took Chavchavadze’s daughterin-law Anna hostage, along with 23 others.

Shamil held his prisoners for nine months while Alexander’s son David scraped and borrowed the money to ransom his wife (it bankrupted him). A painting at Tsinandali records the eventual hostage exchange, which took place on a river raft.

Georgia’s past is never far away—its people refuse to let it go. In Tbilisi, which lies under the ancient gaze of the ruined Narikala fortress, this past is particularly present. I love the city for its smoky evocation of bygone centuries and cultures. Tbilisi is poor and rundown in many places, but its magnetic pull is somehow stronger for all that. Indeed, Georgia’s ongoing culture wars have left Tbilisi with a handful of sleek Modernist monuments that, while forward-looking, can appear jarring in a city so comfortable in its old skin (the locals wickedly dubbed a recent wavyroofed footbridge the “Always Ultra” for its resemblance to a maxi pad).

The Rooms Hotel Tbilisi has managed to strike a nice balance. Like its Kazbegi cousin, it has taken a hulking Soviet shell—it used to be a printing plant for the newspaper Pravda—and made it funky inside. In the lobby hangs a large self-portrait by the flamboyant Georgian painter Eteri Chkadua—in this one she’s riding backward on a zebra. The hotel’s courtyard attracts Tbilisi’s smart set, who come to drink mojitos and nibble surprisingly good fish tacos.

You’ll find the same kind of cosmopolitan crowd in the spacious garden behind Tbilisi’s Writers’ House, a handsome Art Nouveau mansion built in 1903 by the man who brought brandy to Georgia (after his death, Georgia’s Writers’ Union took it over). Chef Gachechiladze now leases it for her restaurant.

It’s one of the loveliest spots in town, surrounded by high walls hung with black-andwhite photographs and lined with clusters of pretty people on wooden benches set around

low tables. We dined there on a balmy August night under a full moon that shone through the branches of a towering pine tree.

As soon as she opened, in May 2015, Gachechiladze started taking heavy flak from the guardians of classic Georgian cooking. She puts mussels instead of meat in her chakapuli, a stew made with sour plums, tarragon and white wine. She just happens to like mussels. In Minghrelia, Georgian cooking’s heartland, they eat a heavy porridge called elarji made of cornmeal and cheese. Gachechiladze lightens it and fries it up in croquettes. It all tasted mighty good to me, but tweaking traditional recipes is not something Georgians applaud.

“When it comes to religion and food, Georgians are very conservative,” Gachechiladze told me when she stopped by our table. “We put walnuts in everything, so I said, ‘Why not almonds? They are lighter and healthier.’ That’s why the Georgians don’t like me. Three-quarters of the people in this restaurant are foreigners.”

The tussle between the traditionalists and the modernizers goes far beyond Gachechiladze’s restaurant, and lately it has grown fiercer. Like Chavchavadze, Mikheil Saakashvili staked Georgia’s future on a race toward the west when he became president, during Georgia’s so-called Rose Revolution in 2004. Saakashvili and his forward-thinking crew got kicked out in 2013, and the party that took over slammed on the brakes, edging closer to Putin again. I could feel the loss of momentum on this past trip.

Recent developments have dismayed my worldly Georgian friends. Gachechiladze learned to cook professionally in New York, but she returned to Georgia in 2005, when many people felt that Georgia was finally emerging from the shadows of primitivism and corruption. She’s since lost much of her optimism. “I could leave again,” she said, “but somebody’s got to stay and build the country.”

Ambassador Hall Hall had been more, well, diplomatic, when we discussed politics earlier, back in Kakheti. The Russian bear loomed close to us, just over the mountains that we could see from where we sat. “Georgia doesn’t have an easy hand to play,” Hall Hall said. “It would be easier if the whole country were a thousand miles away.”

To get a vivid sense of Georgia’s cultural ambivalence, you have only to drive 45 minutes west from Tbilisi to Gori. Gori is the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, Georgia’s most notorious native son, and not much else. He was born in a

miserable two-room hovel that once stood among scores of similar hovels. All those other shacks have been razed, and Stalin’s now stands alone in a small park, somewhat absurdly covered by a massive marble portico that’s now part of the Stalin museum.

The museum’s large main building is across the street. We joined a tour as it raced through the rooms, where paintings and posters show Stalin gazing up resolutely, or gazing down benevolently. Hidden under the stairs is one last little room, which we came to at the end of the tour. This is the so-called Room of Repression: little more than a few tattered garments that apparently belonged to people deported to the gulag, and a replica cell looking considerably more pleasant than the original probably did.

Rooms Hotel Tbilisi.

Opposite: A vineyard in Georgia’s fertile wine region, Kakheti.

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Wine has a fresh flavor, and natives drink it by the pitcher History tells us that Stalin treated his fellow Georgians particularly cruelly, but he remains the only Georgian the rest of the world has heard of, and that still counts for a lot around here. “Gori has always been very proud of Stalin, but the young people detest him,” explained our pretty young tour guide. Her personal opinion? “That’s my secret.”

I wanted to look back as far as I could into Georgia’s past, so I arranged to drive out to the archaeological site at Dmanisi, about 95 kilometers southwest of Tbilisi. It was pelting rain that day, however, so I met David Lordkipanidze at the nearby Georgian National

Museum, where he is general director.

Lordkipanidze showed me resin replicas of the five hominid skulls, dating back 1.8 million years, that he and his teams have unearthed since starting work at Dmanisi in 1991. These five people—they’re officially designated Homo erectus georgicus, which makes them people— are history’s first tourists, in the sense that they represent the first-known hominid group excursion outside Africa. It’s been an enormously important scientific discovery, and researchers have only scratched the surface.

Before Dmanisi, the consensus had been that humans left Africa “only” a million years ago.

“These discoveries have been an incredible chance for Georgia. People all over the world want to come see Dmanisi—we even have private-jet tours,” Lordkipanidze crowed. What we don’t know, he added, is why Homo erectus left home—home being Africa—and how they ended up here. Lordkipanidze told me he doubts the humans had a fixed itinerary when they departed, but I have a different theory. I think they were sitting around in Africa one day when one said to another, “I hear God has created this terrific country called Georgia.

Wanna go?”

The details Getting there Flying from Southeast Asia to Tbilisi, there are connecting flights via Doha, Dubai and Almaty. hotel s Lopota Lake Resort & Spa A lakeside resort in the Kakheti region, known as the Napa Valley of Georgia. Telavi; lopota.ge; doubles from US$100.

Rooms This old Soviet printing plant in the capital has been turned into a high-design hotel where le tout Tbilisi goes to hang out. The property’s second location in Kazbegi offers breathtaking views of one of the highest peaks in the Caucasus Mountains. design​hotels.com; doubles from US$115. restaur ants Café Littera The beautiful garden setting is as enticing as chef Tekuna Gachechiladze’s light-handed takes on Georgia’s classic comfort food. You can also learn to whip up your own khachapuri at Gachechiladze’s cooking school, Culinarium. Tbilisi; culinarium.ge; mains US$10–$14.

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O, Moda, Moda This mash-up of café, art gallery and vintage clothing store feels like a little bit of Brooklyn in Tbilisi. fb.com/omodamoda; mains US$4–$12. shops & activities Dmanisi Museum-Reserve Located about 85 kilometers southwest of Tbilisi is this early archaeological site, where paleontologists discovered human fossils dating back 1.8 million years. Visitors can walk the grounds Tuesdays through Sundays from late spring to early autumn. Dmanisi; museum.ge.

Prospero’s Books & Caliban’s Coffee House This bookstore and café is a great place for a rest stop.

Pick a book, grab a coffee and sit back at one of the tables lining the courtyard outside. Tbilisi; prosperos​ bookshop.com.

Rezo Gabriadze Theater You won’t want to miss the extraordinary puppet version of the battle of Stalingrad at this quirky home of a true Georgian master. The theater’s restaurant is also excellent. Tbilisi; gabriadze.com.

You’ll find hundreds of historic churches, like the Gergeti Trinity Church, dotting the Georgian countryside. The majority of the nation’s people practice orthodox Christianity, which came to Georgia in the fourth century.

Tour Oper ator Wild Frontiers This operator offers a signature tour of the Caucasus that includes Tbilisi, Kazbegi and Kakheti, along with Yerevan, Armenia, and Baku, Azerbaijan. wildfrontiers​ travel.com.

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wish you were here

John Barton / Mentawai Islands / indonesia To get an inkling of what awaits visitors around the Mentawai Islands, resorts here offer, in addition to the more usual information about their facilities, updated critiques of the waves and daily surf reports. For this chain of islets off the west coast of Sumatra is, particularly between February and November, a surfer’s playground.

It’s got great waves, no crowds, palm trees and clear waters.

Talk centers around local legends like 4 Bobs... Malibu Right... Rifles.

The last of these is known as one of the most awe-inspiring waves in the world—pros recommend the fastest board you have for the series of barrels that line up along what can be a 500-meter wall of water. It certainly isn’t a ride for newbies. Unpredictable currents, strong winds and razor-sharp reefs kept these waters isolated until the 19th century.

No doubt, those factors help attract the global surf set today.

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january 2017 / t r av el andleisure asia .com

Thousands of families are healthier thanks to skilled professionals like Dr. Seuss.

Reading makes us feel good. It makes us smile. Think. Question. You could say it empowers us to be healthier human beings. Room to Read has published millions of original children’s books in more than 20 languages.

Local authors and illustrators are providing kids throughout Asia and Africa with reading material that’s relevant to their lives. Imagine a world where every child learns to read. Then imagine yourself helping us get there.

Because when books are in the picture, anyone can turn the page. Read more at roomtoread.org/asiapacific.

FIND YOUR #NEXTSUNRISE