July 2010 by Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia

JULY 2010

Beaches Islands

SIZZLING SEASIDE VACATION SPOTS TO VISIT NOW

SPECIAL ISSUE

Maldives

THE NEWEST FACE OF CALIFORNIA’S WINE REGIONS

T+L’s complete guide to the best spas, hotels, villas, more!

Vietnam Con Dao: Asia’s last secluded secret spot

TTop op young young ttalent, alen SURF’S UP

SYDNEY CANADA PHILIPPINES THAILAND

fresh fashion faces Tokyo’s tidal treasure TOURING SINGAPORE’S NEWEST ARTS HANGOUT Tra v e l a n d L e i s u r e A s i a . c o m

DON’T MISS: Our exclusive affordable deals across Asia

SINGAPORE SG$7.90 ● HONG KONG HK$43 THAILAND THB175 ● INDONESIA IDR50,000 MALAYSIA MYR17● VIETNAM VND85,000 MACAU MOP44 ● PHILIPPINES PHP240 BURMA MMK35 ● CAMBODIA KHR22,000 BRUNEI BND7.90 ● LAOS LAK52,000

INCREDIBLE OFFERS FROM ORIENT-EXPRESS TRAINS & CRUISES

TRAINS

DESTINATIONS COVERED

Venice Simplon-Orient-Express

Paris, Venice and Prague

Afloat in France

France

Eastern & Oriental Express

Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok

BENEFIT* A three-course fine-dining experience for 2 people (excluding wines) at the Cipriani or Fortuny restaurant in Venice A complimentary TGV return transfer from/to Paris for any Afloat in France barges A three-course fine dining experience for 2 (excluding wines) at Raffles in Singapore and Mandarin Oriental in Bangkok

(Destinations)07.10 Cowichan, British Columbia 87

Rome 58, 120

Sonoma 138 Ko Lipe 79 Maldives 126

Sydney 36, 52

World Weather This Month -40oF -20oF -40oC

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Issue Index EUROPE Istanbul 92 London 92 Positano 146 Rome 58, 120

Thailand 40 Vientiane 48 ASIA Hangzhou 37 Sanya 37 Shanghai 37 Tokyo 36, 54

THE PACIFIC Maldives 126 AMERICAS Cowichan, British Columbia 87 Lima 63 Sonoma 138 U.S. 60, 92

AUSTRALIA Sydney 36, 52

Currency Converter Singapore Hong Kong Thailand Indonesia Malaysia Vietnam Macau Philippines Burma Cambodia Brunei Laos US ($1)

(SGD)

(HKD)

(BT)

(RP)

(RM)

(VND)

1.41

7.79

32.5

9,220

3.28

18,960

(MOP)

(P)

(MMK)

(KHR)

(BND)

(LAK)

8.03

46.5

6.41

4,190

1.40

8,270

Source: www.xe.com (exchange rates at press time).

JULY 2 0 1 0 | T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A . C O M

M A P BY E T H A N CO R N E L L

SOUTHEAST ASIA Con Dao, Vietnam 98 Hanoi 44 Hong Kong 38 Ko Lipe 79 Manila 40 Penang 36 Singapore 46, 92

T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A . C O M | V O L 0 4 | I S S U E 0 7

(Contents)07.10

>110 Uncover 30 of the world’s best islands.

110 30 Secret Islands Endless sun, salty breezes, ocean as far as the eye can see: there’s nothing like an island getaway anywhere in the world. T+L has found 30 perfect places, from Australia to Mauritius and everywhere in between, where you can kick back and let yourself go. 8

120 Gardens of Rome Tucked away in the city or sprawled across hilltops outside of town, Rome’s gardens are fragrant oases with ancient statuary, cool pools and all shades of green. By CHARLES MACLEAN. Photographed by CHRISTOPHER SIMON SYKES GUIDE 125 126 Paradise Found Sprinkled across the Indian Ocean, the Maldives offers more superlatives per square kilometer—

JULY 2 0 1 0 | T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A . C O M

pristine, discreet, world’s first, luxe— than anywhere else in the world. By ELIZABETH WOODSON. 138 Return to Sonoma With rugged cliffs and rolling inland vineyards, Sonoma is ground zero for organic farmers, self-taught cheese makers, freewheeling restaurateurs and vintners. LUKE BARR explores the new face of California wine country. Photographed by CATHERINE LEDNER GUIDE AND MAP 145

FRÉDÉRIC LAGRANGE

109-138 Features

(Contents)07.10

JULY 2010

Beaches Islands

SIZZLING SEASIDE VACATION SPOTS TO VISIT NOW

SPECIAL ISSUE

Maldives

THE NEWEST FACE OF CALIFORNIA’S WINE REGIONS

T+L’s complete guide to the best spas, hotels, villas, more!

Vietnam Con Dao: Asia’s last secluded secret spot

TTop op young young talent, tUP alen SURF’S

SYDNEY CANADA PHILIPPINES THAILAND

fresh fashion faces Tokyo’s tidal treasure

Departments 12 16 18 20 25 146

Editor’s Note Contributors Letters Best Deals Strategies My Favorite Place

> 48

56 Where to Go Next Tiny Panglao is still a little-known gem. BY LARA DAY 58 See It Rome’s cutting-edge contemporary arts center. BY RAUL BARRENECHE 60 Shopping Boutique owners share their best global finds. BY INGRID ABROMOVITCH 63 Spotlight A return to Lima’s favorites. BY GABRIELLA DE FERRARI 67 Websites The lowdown on the latest hotel-review sites. BY BRUCE SCHOENFELD

TOURING SINGAPORE’S NEWEST ARTS HANGOUT Tra v e l a n d L e i s u r e A s i a . c o m

DON’T MISS: Our exclusive affordable deals across Asia

Cover Phulay Bay, A Ritz-Carlton Reserve, Thailand. Photographed by Nat Prakobsantisuk. Model: Pitsinee Tanwiboon. Styling by Araya Indra. Make-up by Kamol Chatrasen. Hair by Khanawut Ruangrot. Assistant: Ekarat Ubonsri. Printed silk top by Prada. Bikini and necklace by Chanel. Hat, stylist’s own.

> 98

73 Icon The Hermès scarf. BY GIGI GUERRA 74 Travel Uniform Packing pointers from W Hotels’ global fashion director. BY CATHERINE PRINCE

35-67 Insider

79-104 T+L Journal

36 Newsflash A sky-high dining pod, a chairless seat, Manila’s coolest new boutique, our top technology picks and more. 44 Eat Hanoi’s West Lake emerges as a culinary hot spot. BY NAOMI LINDT 46 Neighborhood Artsy chic takes over Singapore’s Bras Basah district. BY LIANG XINYI 48 T+L Guide Unearthing the energetic appeal of Vientiane. BY DUNCAN FORGAN 52 Night Out Sydney’s quirky and original watering holes. BY PAUL CHAI 54 Detour The Izu Islands: a world away from Tokyo. BY TIM HORNYAK

79 Getaway Now that Thailand’s Ko Lipe shows up on many a traveler’s radar, developers have moved in, leaving ADAM SKOLNICK to ponder what the future holds for the island’s locals.

> 73

87 Driving On Vancouver Island there’s a growing food scene that’s defiantly and deliciously local. PETER JON LINDBERG samples the region on a three-day drive. 92 Hotels With their unconventional properties around the globe, these six trailblazers are transforming the boutique hotel. BY PETER J. FRANK 98 Asian Scene A former penal colony, Con Dao is as isolated as ever and that seclusion, along with unspoilt scenery, remains its charm. BY NAOMI LINDT 104 Portfolio Artist and writer MAIRA KALMAN illustrates the many pleasures that come with the in-room hotel breakfast.

C L O C K W I S E F R O M FA R L E F T : A A R O N J O E L S A N T O S ; © K E V I N G E R M A N / L U C E O ; D O U G R O S A

73-76 Stylish Traveler

(Editor’s Note) 07.10 THE SEA IS IN MY BLOOD. LITERALLY, AS I MENTIONED IN LAST YEAR’S BEACHES & ISLANDS E DITOR’S NOTE. (I DON’T WANT TO REPEAT MYSELF, SO AVID T+L ARCHIVERS JUST NEED TO REFER BACK TO My personal picks of the issue start with the counterintuitive story on Japan’s top surfing destination, south of the capital (“Surf’s Up in Tokyo,” page 54), penned by a new writer to our stable, Tim Hornyak. I’d probably give the “pongy mackerel fermented in brine” a miss: it sounds like pungent pla raa, the fermented fish sauce popular in Thailand. You also shouldn’t miss our look at Ko Lipe, also in Thailand (“Paradise for Sale,” page 79), since the story poses the regular question of whether tourism is tainting yet another slice of paradise. Judge for yourself, and if you agree, now may be the time to go. (For me, as I have mentioned before, I daren’t return to Ko Chang in Thailand since it became “paradise lost,” studded with patches of development; I was last there nine years ago.) Still, if it’s something extra-special you have in mind, the essential feature in this issue is “30 Secret Islands” (page 110). This guide to lesser-known escapes is a must-keep, so you can plan your future island trips. Of course, if you archive the magazine, you’ll have it handily on hand... And you can check to see if I repeat myself in next year’s special.—M A T T L E P P A R D

TRAVEL + L EISURE EDITORS, WRITERS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS ARE THE INDUSTRY’S MOST RELIABLE SOURCES. WHILE ON ASSIGNMENT, THEY TRAVEL INCOGNITO WHENEVER POSSIBLE AND DO NOT TAKE PRESS TRIPS OR ACCEPT FREE TRAVEL OF ANY KIND.

JULY

2 0 1 0 | T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A . C O M

TOM HOOPS

June 2009, which, of course, feels like yesterday now that I re-read it), for my take on how we humans are inextricably linked to the sea. As for me, I lived in the depths of inland England until the age of 13. But since my dad had family connections to the vaguely exotic south coast, each year we ended up in a child’s magical paradise of sun, sea and sand. The added attraction of rock pools and fossils—those enchanting reminders of our individual mortality and genetic, evolutionary immortality—made my vacation yearning each year ever stronger. This was only reinforced by my first trip abroad aged 11, to the island of Majorca; a “transformative trip” if ever there was one. Later, after we actually moved down to the south coast, the beach became haven, heaven and hedonism central as I progressed through my youth and 20’s. But enough about me. What about you? Perhaps you can e-mail me describing your thoughts about beaches, islands, this Editor’s Note, this issue or anything at all. Now: onto this issue, which is packed to the gills with beachy content, loads of ideas and tips, insider secrets and even a guide to group travel, just to mix things up.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ART DIRECTOR DEPUTY EDITOR FEATURES EDITOR SENIOR DESIGNER DESIGNER ASSISTANT EDITOR/ILLUSTRATOR ASSISTANT EDITOR

Matt Leppard James Nvathorn Unkong Christopher Kucway Lara Day Wannapha Nawayon Sirirat Prajakthip Wasinee Chantakorn Liang Xinyi

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS / PHOTOGRAPHERS Jennifer Chen (editor-at-large), Jen Lin-Liu, Robyn Eckhardt, Naomi Lindt, Adam Skolnick, Cedric Arnold, Darren Soh, Lauryn Ishak, Nat Prakobsantisuk, Christopher Wise, Brent Madison, Tom Hoops

CHAIRMAN PRESIDENT PUBLISHING DIRECTOR

PUBLISHER DIRECTOR SINGAPORE / ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER DIGITAL MEDIA MANAGER BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGERS CONSULTANT, HONG KONG/MACAU CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER PRODUCTION MANAGER PRODUCTION GROUP CIRCULATION MANAGER CIRCULATION ASSISTANT

J.S. Uberoi Egasith Chotpakditrakul Rasina Uberoi-Bajaj

Robert Fernhout Lucas W. Krump Pichayanee Kitsanayothin Michael K. Hirsch Joey Kukielka Shea Stanley Gaurav Kumar Kanda Thanakornwongskul Supalak Krewsasaen Porames Chinwongs Yupadee Saebea

AMERICAN EXPRESS PUBLISHING CORPORATION PRESIDENT/CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT/CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT/CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT/EDITORIAL DIRECTOR VICE PRESIDENT/PUBLISHER, TRAVEL + LEISURE U.S. EXECUTIVE EDITOR, INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL ASSET MANAGER

Ed Kelly Mark V. Stanich Paul B. Francis Nancy Novogrod Jean-Paul Kyrillos Mark Orwoll Thomas D. Storms Marc Abdeldaim

TRAVEL+LEISURE SOUTHEAST ASIA VOL. 4, ISSUE 7 Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia is published monthly by Media Transasia Limited, Room 1205-06, 12/F, Hollywood Centre, 233 Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong. Tel: +852 2851-6963; Fax: +852 2851-1933; under license from American Express Publishing Corporation, 1120 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036, United States of America. 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. Printed by Comform Co., Ltd. (+66 2 368-2942â&#x20AC;&#x201C;7). Color separation by Classic Scan Co., Ltd. (+66 2 291-7575). While the editors do their utmost to verify information published, they do not accept responsibility for its absolute accuracy.

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(Contributors) 07.10

TIMOTHY HORNYAK | WRITER THE ASSIGNMENT Wrote our

report on Japan’s Izu Islands (“Surf’s Up in Tokyo,” page 54). BEST OF THE IZU ISLANDS

Lunch at the old school Nishikawa sushi shop in Habu port, Oshima Island, and having the seaside hotspring of Jinata Onsen all to myself. WHEN IN JAPAN... Forget everything else and go to an authentic mountain hot spring attached to a ryokan (traditional inn) like Hoshi Onsen Chojukan in Gunma-ken. STRANGEST THING YOU’VE SEEN IN JAPAN A shed on a country road in Matsushima full of vending machines selling pornography.

CATHERINE LEDNER | PHOTOGRAPHER THE ASSIGNMENT Shot “Return to Sonoma” (page 138).

The white wine from MacLeod Family Vineyards. It is one of the most crisp, clean whites I’ve ever tasted. STANDOUT SONOMA MEAL Definitely the dishes at Zazu Restaurant & Farm. We ate everything we photographed, and it was all delicious. A CALIFORNIA LANDSCAPE YOU ADORED Jenner and Bodega Bay. I loved watching the marine and avian life. TRIP HIGHLIGHT Pugs Leap dairy. The owners live off the farm. Their day is run by the goats!

DUNCAN FORGAN | WRITER THE ASSIGNMENT Wrote this

month’s story on Laos (“Vivid Vientiane,” page 48). A NIGHT OUT IN VIENTIANE Scattering skittles after midnight at the Lao Bowling Centre. CITY OR COUNTRY BOY City, but veering towards the country as I ease into my thirties. MUST EAT IN LAOS Ping paa (grilled salt-crusted river fish infused with lemongrass) DON’T LEAVE LAOS WITHOUT... Drinking an ice cold Beerlao as the sun sets over the Mekong River LEARN TO SAY Aow eek nae (one more please).

A B O V E , F R O M L E F T : C O U R T E S Y O F T I M O T H Y H O R N YA K ; T I M O T H Y H O R N YA K ; C AT H E R I N E L E D N E R ; C O U R T E SY O F C AT H E R I N E L E D N E R ; C O U R T E SY O F D U N C A N F O R G A N ; A A R O N J O E L S A N T O S

A WINE YOU’D FLY BACK FOR

(Letters)07.10 LETTER OF THE MONTH insider

| high and low

New Delhi. Our side-by-side comparison gives the lowdown INDIA

on two stylish getaways in India’s colorful capital—with and without the hefty price tag. By TANVI CHHEDA US$169

PER NIGHT

US$550

J U NE

■ THE MANOR Location On a tree-lined street in residential Friends Colony, this bungalow-style boutique feels kilometers away from frenetic New Delhi. First Impressions Floor-toceiling windows in the lobby make for a bright and sunny welcome into what could easily be a chic friend’s home, including the requisite coffee-table book of photographer Raghu Rai’s most compelling works. Rooms Decorated in caramel and chocolate-brown hues, the rooms, 15 in all, are contemporary and chic. Additional upgrades, like iPod docks and luxe bed linens, are underway. Pedigree Owned by New Delhi–based Old World Hospitality, The Manor is in good company, with the kitschy Hotel Broadway and its beloved Chor Bizarre restaurant also part of the brand’s portfolio. Drawbacks Some of the standard rooms are a bit compact. DON’T MISS A hearty breakfast of aloo parathas (potato-stuffed breads), dosas and toast served with housemade gooseberry jam (plus other seasonal fruit jellies from the foothills of the Himalayas) on the patio—all included in the room rate and made to order. At night, dig into cumin gnocchi and creamy tofu kofta at Indian Accent, the hotel’s award-winning modern restaurant. Up Next A twostory spa building, complete with pool, yoga studio and organic restaurant, debuts this September. Value Factor Thanks to the staff’s attention to detail, you’ll feel like you have a personal butler—without paying for one. 77 Friends Colony West; 91-11/2692-5151; themanordelhi.com; standard rooms from US$169. ✚

F RO M L E F T: CO U RT ESY O F A M A N N E W D E L H I ; CO U RT ESY O F T H E M A N O R

PER NIGHT

■ AMAN NEW DELHI Location A stone’s throw from the Lodi Gardens and Nizamuddin Shrine, this modern, stone-built hotel comprises two sleek structures, the Aman and the Lodhi, situated at opposite ends of a lush lawn with a 50-meterlong sunken pool. First Impressions Driving up the marigold-adorned porte cochère feels like you’re entering a sweeping country estate—the expansive property sits on 2.8 hectares, belying its city surroundings. The pomegranate-crushed basil juice served upon arrival is a refreshing pick-me-up. Rooms Ranging from generous to sprawling, the 67 rooms feature balconies with day beds, with all 39 Aman rooms offering private plunge pools—a deliberate blending of Amanresorts’ beach-resort legacy into a bustling cityscape. Interiors are outfitted with Khareda stone floors, traditional jaali (mosaic-style) screens and the latest from author William Dalrymple on your bedside table. Pedigree With 23 ultra-luxe properties across the globe, Amanresorts needs little introduction, but this hotel stands out as an urban entry. Drawbacks Finding your way back to your room—especially if it’s across the lawn—might require some concentration. DON’T MISS Incredible treats at turndown such as khus chikki and gulab chikki, sweet Indian brittles made with white poppy seeds and rose petals, respectively. Value Factor Easily the largest rooms among its luxury counterparts, including the nearby Oberoi—and don’t forget those plunge pools. Lodhi Rd.; 91-11/4363-3333; amanresorts.com; Aman rooms from US$550. 2 010 | T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A . C O M

Style for Less

For a magazine that often has articles stating that anything less than US$250 a night for a hotel or resort is affordable, it was refreshing to see your high and low story on stylish hotels in New Delhi [June 2010]. I think you should do more of these cost comparisons for travelers around the region, particularly in this economic climate. In fact, if you included one per issue, it would be most welcome. I want to know how to travel cheaper and I don’t think I’m the only one. An exception in the same issue is your best of the new hotels and resorts [It List 2010], a collection of properties I wish I could stay at. I can always dream. —J I M M Y O N G , K UA L A LU M P U R

✉

A Castle to Call Your Own I doubled over with laughter at the dialogue in your story about castles for rent [“The Royal Treatment,” May 2010]. It helped the story capture the mood of places I never thought I could stay at unless I married into royalty or became some high-end freeloader. And if I ever do—stay at a castle, not become a freeloader—I’m sure I’d find the owner “a narstle chup.” I was also surprised at the prices, which aren’t too off what a high-end hotel would charge—more affordable than I ever thought they would be. And at Crom Castle, I’m glad to see the price of a night’s stay includes the first supply of logs for the fireplace free of charge, though disappointed that tennis balls are not included when using the tennis court. The nerve. —NAT C H A R N W I S E T , BA N G KO K Show Me the Green Wow, a story on Singapore that didn’t make any mention of shopping or dining [“Singapore, Naturally,” June 2010]. Congratulations! It’s good to see other people recognize that Singapore has more to offer than air-conditioned interiors. Personally, I love the outdoors here and spend as much time as I can jogging, cycling or simply going for a well-deserved walk in the park despite the equatorial heat. I often feel the city’s many green spaces are overlooked by visitors and residents alike. Secretly, I prefer it that way! —K A R E N L AT I M E R , S I N G A P O R E

E-MAIL T+L SEND YOUR LETTERS TO EDITOR @ TRAVELANDLEISURESEA.COM AND LET US KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS ON RECENT STORIES OR NEW PLACES TO VISIT. LETTERS CHOSEN MAY BE EDITED FOR CLARITY AND SPACE. THE LETTER OF THE MONTH RECEIVES A FREE ONE-YEAR SUBSCRIPTION TO TRAVEL + LEISURE ( SOUTHEAST ASIA ONLY). READER OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN LETTERS DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THOSE OF TRAVEL + LEISURE SOUTHEAST ASIA, MEDIA TRANSASIA LTD., OR AMERICAN EXPRESS PUBLISHING.

WHERE JOY HAS NO EXPIRATION DATE. There is no end to the unique experiences you will enjoy and the memories you will create at The Ritz-Carlton. Delight in a specially prepared dinner for two overlooking city lights. A shopping itinerary personalized just for you. A thoughtfully customized museum tour. And whether you are exploring a new city or enjoying our resort destinations around the world, our Reconnect® packages will enhance your stay even more with hotel and resort credits that you can use for a host of activities, such as spa, dining and shopping. You may want to extend your checkout time to forever. For reservations or more ENJOY A

H OTEL OR R ESORT C REDIT

information, please contact your travel professional, call

With our Reconnect ® packages. The Ritz-Carlton or visit us at ritzcarlton.com/reconnect.

C a ll T he R it z- C a r l to n to ll -f re e f ro m : I nd o n e si a 0 01 803 6 06 277 • M a l ay si a 0 0 80 0 241 33333 Sing a p o re 011 80 0 241 33333 • Ho ng Ko ng 80 0 96 2064 • N o r t he r n Chin a 10 80 0 6 0 0 0666 S o u t he r n C hin a 10 80 0 26 0 0666 • Au s t r a li a 0 011 80 0 241 33333 • N ew Ze a l a nd 0 0 80 0 241 33333 Rates are valid per room/per night, based on single or double occupancy, exclusive of taxes, gratuities, fees and other charges; do not apply to groups; and cannot be combined with any other offer. Advanced reservations are required. Offer valid through December 31, 2010, subject to availability. Some hotels may require a weekend stay and/or a minimum length of stay. Credit may not be applied toward room rate, has no cash value and must be used during the dates of the reservation. ©2010 The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C.

(Best Deals) 07.10 DEAL OF THE MONTH

Opening Offer at the Life Wellness Resort Quy Nhon.

Westin Siray Bay Resort & Spa, Phuket (66-76/335-600; westin. com/siraybayresort). What’s Included A stay in a Superior Sea View

■ THAILAND Deluxe Suite upgrade for a two-night Deluxe stay at VIE Hotel Bangkok (66-2/3093-939; viehotelbangkok.com). What’s Included A complimentary drink at the hotel bar; free Wi-Fi in the lounge; use of the fitness club; and 50 percent off spa treatments. Cost Bt3,296 per night, two-night minimum, through July 31. Savings 35 percent.

■ CHINA Special Opening Offer package at the Eaton Luxe, Nanqiao, Shanghai (86-21/37191999; eatonhotels.com/nanqiao). What’s Included A one-night stay in a Luxe room; buffet breakfast for two; welcome drinks at T Bar; free broadband Internet; and 20 percent off dining, laundry and mini-bar items. Cost RMB680, through August 31. Savings 25 percent.

■ VIETNAM Signature Deluxe package at Caravelle Hotel (84-8/3823-4999; caravellehotel.com) in Ho Chi Minh City. What’s Included Hotel-to-airport transfer; daily buffet breakfast; free Wi-Fi; gym and pool use; private check-in and check-out; evening cocktails and canapés; daily fruit basket and newspaper; and late check-out (if available). Cost From US$195 per room per night, through September 30. Savings 45 percent.

■ LAOS Stay 3, Pay 2 package at the Ansara Hotel (856-21/213-514; ansarahotel.com) in Vientiane. What’s Included Round-trip transfers; a welcome drink; free Wi-Fi; mini-bar soft drinks; and 10 percent off à la carte dining. Cost From US$85 per night, three-night minimum, through September 30. Savings 40 percent.

Discover Life package at Life Wellness Resort Quy Nhon (84-56/3840-132; life-resorts. com). What’s Included A two-night stay in a Superior room; round-trip airport transfers; daily breakfast; a US$30 dining voucher; a 30-minute spa massage; free Internet; and free half-day bicycle hire. Cost US$199 per night, through October 15. Savings 40 percent.

JULY 2 0 1 0 | T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A . C O M

balcony; and a welcome drink of tea with organic herbs. Cost Bt2,010 per night for bookings made before September 30, staying from August 1 to October 31. Savings 80 percent.

At the Westin Siray Bay Resort & Spa, Phuket.

S PA , P H U K E T

■ CAMBODIA Summer Special package at the FCC Angkor Boutique Hotel (855-63/760-280; fcccambodia. com) in Siem Reap. What’s Included A stay in a Standard room; airport pickup; a welcome drink; free Internet; a 15-minute foot massage; 30 percent off spa treatments; 20 percent off à la carte dining; and a free room upgrade (when available). Cost From US$110 per night, through October 31. Savings 45 percent.

Room with private

F R O M T O P : C O U R T E S Y O F L I F E W E L L N E S S R E S O R T Q U Y N H O N ; C O U R T E S Y O F T H E W E S T I N S I R AY B AY R E S O R T &

Our pick of refreshing breaks to add some sparkle to your summer

(Strategies) 07.10

TRAVEL BY NUMBERS Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face it: group trips can be a headache, especially for travelers who value their independence. But they can also bring huge rewards. Here, T+L offers up ways to make group travel easier to plan, less painful to execute and even, dare we say, fun. By LILI TAN Illustrated by WASINEE CHANTAKORN

T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A

C O M

| JU LY 2010

travel

Villa Bukit Naga, in Ubud, Bali.

GOT COMPANY? Whether you’re traveling with friends or a whole other family, combining people usually means conflicting personalities. So what happens when someone strays from the herd, a couple gets into a fight or people just can’t stop themselves from behaving badly? To help you plan—and make it through—we’ve come up with the following ideas to please parties from two to 10.

TRAVEL WITH… 10 FRIENDS There are plenty of ways to travel with a group of friends without splitting up, getting lost or hurting someone’s feelings. Remember, larger numbers mean better prices and more people to share accommodation costs. The key? Choose the activity before picking the crew. In other words, if you’re heading to a music festival or a well26

being retreat, you’ll automatically attract people with the same interests and holiday objectives. So while you may not be traveling with your BFFs, there will at least be less bickering over where to go and what to do, and more time to get to know peripheral friends. Read on for surefire ways to make everyone content.

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YL Residence No. 17, on Ko Samui.

■ RENT A VILLA Private, luxe accommodation suddenly becomes affordable when you’re sharing costs with a crowd. On Bali, skip the Kuta cowboys and head inland toward cultural capital Ubud, where nearby Villa Bukit Naga (Banjar Selat, Desa Samplangan, Gianyar, Bali, Indonesia; 62-361/941-118; villabukitnaga.com; villas from US$1,100 per night) sleeps 13 and boasts three houses with two infinity pools overlooking a sacred valley. For a nominal fee, a car and driver will take you into town to gallery-hop, while 15 sweet staffers will organize balé-side yoga sessions with renowned instructor Sri Jane, or whip up authentic Balinese or macrobiotic cuisine. For somewhere über-extravagant, make a beeline for Samui’s YL Residence No. 17 (117 Moo 2 Tambon Maret, Ko Samui, Thailand; 66-84/356-2388; ylresidence.com; whole residence from US$4,000 per night). The expansive, 10-bedroom villa property spans five hectares and employs 20 full-time staff, including butlers, bartenders

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strategies | group

EMERGENCY GUIDE

• PASSPORT ISSUES If someone forgets to get a visa, or their travel document has less than six months before it expires, ﬁrst call your travel agent, in case they can rush an order. Booked the trip yourself? Contact your closest embassy or consulate; Embassiesabroad.com lets you search by country and location. • LOST DOCUMENTS In case someone loses their travel documents, make sure everyone has two copies of their passport and driver’s license or other ID. Designate one responsible person to keep a copy of everybody’s, and ask each person to keep a copy separate from their passport. If you’re traveling with two families or couples, swap a set of copies with the other party for safekeeping. Travelers without them will need to go through the hassle of proving their citizenship, which can take a few days.

Crystal Cruises welcomes groups.

C O U R T E SY O F C R YS TA L C R U I S E S

and three chefs—including Reuben Kimber from Somerset’s historic Babington House—as well as an on-site masseuse and yoga teacher. ■ CRUISE TOGETHER While voyages at sea are usually thought of as family affairs, cruises allow for big groups of friends to venture out on day trips, break apart for onboard activities and then come together for mega meals. Plus, being on a ship means no one gets lost—at least, not for too long. Crystal Cruises (crystalcruises.com; twoweek cruise from US$8,665 per person), from Sydney to Bali, and Singapore to Mumbai, offers up Experience of Discovery theme cruises, including fashion-geared excursions with personal consultations from soughtafter designers and stylists, wellness-focused vacations with yoga and other fitness itineraries, and golf-centric cruises guided by PGA pros. With cruise company Costa (costacruisesasia.com), expect affordable island hopping in places like the Philippines and Indonesia.

■ ROCK OUT This month, grab your fellow music lovers and head north. Two of the biggest rock festivals in Asia take place in July. First, hit up South Korea’s fifth annual Pentaport Rock Festival (July 23–25; Incheon Dream Park, Incheon, South Korea; pentaportrock.com; one-day passes KRW50,000). At press time, the 2010 lineup was still to be confirmed, but previous years featured top-caliber acts like the Deftones in 2009, the Chemical Brothers and OK Go in 2007, and the Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in 2006. The following week, head to the Fuji Rock Festival (July 30–August 1; Naeba Ski Resort, Japan; fujirockfestival.com; one-day passes ¥16,800), the largest outdoor rock event in Japan. Though last year’s crowd-surfing campers were disappointed when headliners the Killers canceled their Asia leg, festival-goers are bound to be satisfied by this year’s 200-plus lineup of Japanese and international musicians, including groups such as the Scissor Sisters, Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem. »

• ILLNESS Even if everyone is insured, coverage may not apply outside your home country. Luckily, travel insurance is usually cheap and requires less hassle than with your regular insurance company. Compare prices at Travelinsurancereview.net, or jot down the location of the International SOS hospital (internationalsos.com) closest to your destination. The representatives there can help with most expatriate health-care scenarios, including air-lifting you home. • PICK-POCKETING Keep a copy of both sides of your credit and debit cards along with your passport copy. So if you find your wallet has been stolen, you can call immediately to cancel them. File a police report — even if the cops don’t recover your goods, it will be easier to claim insurance later. The nice thing about traveling with a group? Ample friends around to spot you until your replacement cards arrive. • FLIGHT DRAMA Group discounts can have their pitfalls: when your ticket is attached to another person’s, some airlines like Cathay Pacific require you to travel together. So if one person pulls out because of a last-minute work request or illness, it’s likely you’ll have to buy a whole new ticket. Find out if your agent can plead your case; if not, they can at least help book a flight that gets in roughly at the same time as your friends. As for lost cost, if your companion is traveling for business, their company should reimburse your original ticket, plus the cost of your new flight. • BEHIND BARS Drugs are the main reason people get arrested abroad, but drunken or disorderly behavior can get you locked up too. No matter which country you’re in, be respectful, especially if you don’t speak the local language, and remember to say you’re sorry — a lot. Authorities will be more receptive to your requests, whether you’re asking them to contact your embassy to arrange a local attorney, or inform the rest of your group about your predicament. • MISSING PERSONS Before your trip, ask everyone to make sure they have mobile-roaming capabilities, or else pick up a local SIM card on arrival and have everyone save your new number. Before a crazy night out, grab business cards from your hotel so that everyone has one handy, in case people get separated or don’t show up at a designated meeting spot. If your buddy doesn’t turn up eventually, make sure she’s not with anyone else before calling the embassy, which can check hospitals and contact local authorities in case you need to file a missing-person’s report.

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strategies | group

travel

TRAVEL WITH… TWO FAMILIES BEST WEBSITE

…TO SCORE DEALS VALUPEDIA When traveling to Hong Kong, check out Valupedia for great group deals valupedia.com on Cathay Paciﬁc travel packages, Liberty travel insurance and trendy hotels in the city. They have everything from spa discounts to exclusives with local jewelry brands, with plans to expand into the mainland China market soon. …TO FIND SOMETHING DIFFERENT HOLIDAY PAD This specially curated travel blog has a special tag for groups. The site’s editors comb the Internet and print publications, as well as review reader submissions, and then compile the holidaypad.net best ones. They promise usual, unusual and especially unique ideas for vacations at beach huts to tree houses to underwater hotels.

The InterContinental Bali has a kid’s club.

Inviting another family on a trip can help quell spats, take the pressure off an overkill of “family time” and provide extra entertainment for the kids—which means more relaxation time for adults. Choose a place that’s selfcontained, large enough for children to run around but small enough that parents don’t fret over their offspring’s whereabouts. But first, get everyone together before booking to see how both families interact and foresee any possible issues. At Cassia Cottage, in Vietnam.

…TO DO SOME GOOD WORLD EXPEDITIONS For trekking and adventure-travel holidays, World Expeditions has worldexpedition. been assisting groups in planning com their all-inclusive journeys since 1975. The company now has up to 500 creative and distinct itineraries, including cycling, walking and cultural journeys, and is famous for its responsible-tourism initiatives that have helped improve the living conditions of some of the world’s most far-ﬂung communities.

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■ PICK A THEME A theme park, that is. On Lantau, Disneyland Hong Kong (park.hongkongdisneyland. com; HK$350 for adults, HK$250 for children) offers a compact, easy-to-manage taste of the Magic Kingdom. For a cheaper alternative on Hong Kong’s south side, hop on a cable car at the recently revamped Ocean Park (852/3923-2323; oceanpark. com.hk; admission from HK$125). In Singapore, with the kids diverted by the movie-themed rides and attractions at

F R O M T O P : C O U R T E SY O F I N T E R C O N T I N E N TA L B A L I ; C O U R T E SY O F C A S S I A C O T TA G E

…TO GAIN CONSENSUS TRIPPY sites.google. The latest from Google allows friends com/site/ from near and far to collaborate and trippysite/ plan their next reunion in real time. home Everyone needs Google Wave to use it, but adding the extension is easy if you already have a Gmail account. The application utilizes content from award-winning travel guide Lonely Planet to easily ﬁnd places to stay, eat and sightsee wherever you’re planning to go. Each person can add their must-do's and mustsees to an itinerary, as well as vote and comment on everyone else’s choices. After everyone has their say, just print or share the results via e-mail. A mobile web and Android app will follow in the near future for on-location use.

Universal Studios Singapore

(65/6577-8899; rwsentosa.com; one-day passes S$66), the adults can relax at six different hotels run by the newly opened Resorts World Sentosa. For starters, enjoy lavish rooms with an edge (and a famous souvenir shop, of course) at the Hard Rock Hotel, escape for a treatment at Spa Villas or, if you’re lucky enough to receive an invite, live it up at the luxurious, Michael Graves– designed Crockfords Tower.

Tamao Wildlife Rescue

(855/1287-5413; forestry.gov. kh). More than 1,000 rescued animals—including elephants, clouded leopards and sun bears—reside in this 2,500-hectare park.

■ GO GREEN From all-inclusive resorts to boutique hotels, places are starting to cater to youngsters’ higher consciousness. The InterContinental Bali’s Planet Trekkers (62-361/ 701-888; intercontinental.com; rooms from US$210) is a miniresort that offers children a confined area to play in, while teaching them to be socially responsible travelers via green activities. Your kids may not initially appreciate the absence of televisions at the Cassia Cottage Hotel & Inn

(Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam; 844/3928-4973; cassiacottage.com; doubles from US$65), but this family-run, plantation-style villa has distractions like a private beachfront and gardens to keep the young ones busy. »

Family Friendly From top: Fun with Mickey at Disneyland Hong Kong; at the Shangri-La Rasa Ria Resort, in Kota Kinabalu.

F RO M TO P : CO U RT ESY O F D I S N EY L A N D H O N G KO N G ; CO U RT ESY O F S H A N G R I - L A RASA R I A R ES O RT

■ GO WILD Educational and fun, Sepilok Jungle Resort (Jln. Rambutan, Sepilok Mile 14, Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia; 60-89/ 533031; sepilokjungleresort.com; rooms from RM28 per person) sits in a protected forest and helps

teenage orangutans rescued from circuses and palm-tree plantations to survive in the wild. To see baby orangutans, go to the Shangri-La Rasa Ria Resort (Pentai Dalit Beach, Tuaran, Sabah, Malaysia; 6088/79-2888; shangri-la.com; doubles from RM520), where a nature reserve is incorporated into the resort compound. The Shangri-La also boasts a quiet beach and Dalit Bay Golf Club & Spa, which has an 18-hole course. For more diverse creature contact, fly into Phnom Penh, Cambodia and head south to the Phnom

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| JU LY 2010

travel Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School (11/29 Moo 1, Chiang

Mai Floraville, Doi Saket, Chiang Mai; 66-53/399-036; thaicookeryschool.com; classes from Bt990), the first cooking school in this northern city.

TRAVEL WITH… TWO COUPLES The movie Couples Retreat— starring Vince Vaughn and Kristen Davis—may have made multi-couple traveling look unappealing, but don’t worry, there won’t be any 6 A.M. relationship-building sessions on these getaways. It helps if both couples enjoy similar activities and want to spend roughly the same amount of money. Worrying about finances or spending substantially different amounts can make things awkward, so make sure everyone’s on the same page. Pair Pleasures Clockwise from top: Outdoors at 4 Rivers; high up on the Macau Tower; a dish by chef Chris Salans at Mozaic.

■ RECIPES FOR ROMANCE Teaching everything from authentic Balinese to sous-vide dishes, classes at Mozaic (Jl. Raya Sanggingan, Ubud, Bali; 62-361/975-768; mozaic-bali. com; from Rp750,000 per person) incorporate fresh Asian ingredients with traditional French techniques. Both couples can learn to chop and balance flavors in a state-ofthe-art Miele kitchen while picking up tips from worldrenowned chef Chris Salans, who earned Mozaic the only Grande Table du Monde accolade in Southeast Asia. For the secrets of Thai cuisine, head to Chiang Mai and take a 20-minute cab ride to Kaohom Thai Culinary Cooking School (180/1 Mae Rim Rd., Moo 1, Chiang Mai; 66-53/862-967; classes from Bt1,300), set in the idyllic countryside. For longer culinary experiences, try oneto three-day packages at the

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■ GO GLAMPING Luxury camping is the perfect compromise for adventurous couples who still crave comfort and amenities. Sleep in a fancy tent at night and go on wildlife adventures by day with Leopard Safaris (leopardsafaris.com; from US$325 per person), which offers mobile camping safaris in three of Sri Lanka’s national parks— Yalla, Uda Walawe, and the Wilpattu and Knuckles mountain range. Or head to the world’s first floating tent resort, on Cambodia’s Tatai River. 4 Rivers (Koh Andet Island, Tatai Village, Koh Kong, Cambodia; 855/2321-7374; ecolodges.asia; tents from US$87) sits entirely on water and is surrounded by thriving jungle. Accessible only by boat, the resort boasts 12 luxurious standalone tents, a bar, a restaurant and a library, all connected by floating walkways.

■ MILE-HIGH CLUB There are two things couples can do in the air: jump or get married (OK, some might say they’re the same thing). Take a break from gambling among Chinese mainlanders, hold your significant other’s hand and sky jump from the 223-meter-high observation deck of the famous Macau Tower (853/2893-3339; macautower.com.mo; sky jumps from M$988, maximum combined weight 120 kg). Then retreat to a secluded, all-inclusive stay like the Westin Resort, Macau (1918 Estrada de Hac Sa, Coloane, Macau; 853/28871111; starwoodhotels.com; doubles from HK$1,400) for pool time or 18 holes of golf next door at the Macau Golf & Country Club (853/2887-1188; macaugoldandcountryclub.com; golf rates from HK$1,550). In 2009, gay-friendly Nepal’s supreme court approved same-sex marriages, and a LGBT tourism agency called Pink Mountain (pinkyatra.com) is helping visitors take the next step in the country. For starters, couples can enjoy a marriage ceremony at Mount Everest’s base camp, 5,360 meters above sea level. ✚

C LO C KW I S E F RO M TO P : CO U RT ESY O F 4 R I V E R S ; CO U RT ESY O F M ACAU TOW E R ; CO U RT ESY O F M OZA I C

strategies | group

WA S I N E E C H A N TA KO R N

FRACTIONAL OWNERSHIP Ready to take group travel to the next level? Fractional ownership allows friends to split ownership of a property. If you ﬁnd a place or destination you all love and keep going back to, this asset-sharing concept lets people buy in at a lower price and offers the beneﬁts of owning a vacation home, minus the upkeep costs (maintenance is split between property holders). Buying a fraction of the property entitles owners to a designated number of days’ stay, so your group can split the place for bonding time or have it on an individual basis as well. While this has been going on for years in the yacht and privateaircraft sectors and in housing markets in the Americas, the concept for properties is picking up speed in Asia. According to a recent report by C9 Hotelworks, a

globally recognized assetmanagement and hospitality consultancy, fractional ownership is the “sleeping giant” of Phuket’s property industry, with sharedownership sales on the island hitting two billion baht in 2008 and totaling more than 22,000 customers. “The emergence of fractional ownership ... is becoming a notable component of the real-estate sector,” says managing director Bill Barnett. “[We expect] shared ownership to increase market share during the next 12 to 24 months.” However, fractional ownership “is not the same thing as a timeshare,” says Brendan McClean, business-development manager for LaTour Hotels & Resorts (latourhotelsandresorts. com), which plans to introduce the concept to Southeast Asia

with boutique properties across the region. “Timeshare implies only having a week at a resort or getting dragged in by your grandmother for a presentation. Fractional ownership is a much more upmarket product and allots for much more time at the home — a few weeks to three months each year.” While Asia’s fractional industry is still immature, McClean sees plenty of opportunity for growth. “Southeast Asia has a lot of repeat visitation. In Thailand, it’s 60 percent, and Australians have an afﬁnity for Bali,” he notes. Another attraction is ﬂexibility. “Gone are the days where you know what you’re doing a year out,” McClean says. ”Fractional ownership has a sophisticated reservation software and rotation calendar — there’s no ringing up

and ﬁnding out that someone else gets the place for Christmas.” So if your particular unit isn’t free, say, there’s the option of taking another apartment with the same layout and décor, which your belongings can be moved into. The upshot of all this? If you do decide to go the fractional route, you’ll have a place to host your friends as well as enough weeks in the year to enjoy the vacation home on your own.

Beyond Tokyo. Sake, surfing and hot springs galore on the Izu Islands <(page 54)

Undiscovered Isle. Panglao, in the Philippines, is home to pristine beaches and strange creatures (page 56) >

Far Out, Far West. Dining in Hanoi’s West Lake reaches new heights <(page 44)

• Top technology for travelers • An insider tour of bohemian Singapore • The keys to Peru’s thriving capital

(Insider) Photo credit by tktktk

C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P L E F T : R E B E C C A G R E E N F I E L D ; T I M H O R N YA K ; A A R O N J O E L S A N T O S ; J O Ã O C A N Z I A N I ; © E W A N C H E S S E R / D R E A M S T I M E . C O M

Global Finds. Store owners in the U.S. and Canada share shopping tips <(page 60)

Where to GoWhat to EatWhere to StayWhat to Buy

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insider

| newsflash VIRTUAL TRAVELER Travel and technology: what’s not to love? Below, a roundup of our favorite technological innovations that make life easier for the modern traveler

TECH

PENANG STREET FOOD

DAUNT BOOKS

LUXE CITY GUIDES

itunes.com/apps/penangstreetfood Can’t tell your char kway kak from your kway teow thing? Don’t fret. A free iPhone app, developed by Malaysian mobile-tech company Better Logic, gives the lowdown on Penang’s top 12 street-food dishes, as well as details on where and when to ﬁnd them across the city. Our tip: don’t download before planning a trip to Penang, since it’s bound to leave you feeling hungry.

www.dauntbooks.co.uk The original legendary travel bookstore may be on London’s Marylebone High Street, but now readers everywhere can browse its wonderfully curated shelves. Replicating the Edwardian shop’s layout, where books are organized by country, a recently launched online tour lets you explore the physical space and buy anything from top travel guides to rare works of locale-speciﬁc ﬁction.

luxecityguides.com We thought these pocket-size guides were already handy, but Luxe has now gone mobile — literally. Their new mobile-phone app (US$9.99) offers content for 10 destinations, including Bali, Bangkok and Singapore, which can be downloaded to handsets including the iPhone, Blackberry, Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung and HTC. Best of all, free automatic updates mean you’ll always be plugged in.

Spa from Heaven Sydney’s spa mavens have been quietly celebrating the arrival of Australia’s first Chi Spa at the Shangri-La (176 Cumberland St., The Rocks, Sydney; 61-2/9250-6000; shangri-la.com/sydney; treatments from A$95). Design-wise, the Australian architectural and interior design firm Hassell has not strayed far from the lush Orientalism for which both the hotel and spa are known. The six spa suites—each with a private change area and aromatherapy steam shower—and swimming pool are swathed in a palette of dark woods, soothingly low lighting and Asian artifacts. The treatments, too, have a distinct Asian inflection with healing stone massages, tea baths, lemon-oil body wraps, barley and Himalayan-salt body scrubs, and traditional acupressure. As a reflection of Australia’s own natural pharmacy of herbs, the spa also offers treatments scented with lemon myrtle, bush honey and eucalyptus. T+L TIP Book one of the three suites with views of Sydney harbor and infinity-edge spa tubs.—DAV E N W U 36

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Pickled-plum soda. Azuki bean. Soy sauce. Wasabi. For years, Japanese Kit Kat bars have been infused with decidedly local flavors (some 200, if you’re counting). We’re crazy about this recent arrival: cherry-blossom green tea (kitkat.com; from ¥90), a cream-filled wafer dipped in chartreuse-colored white chocolate. It’s one of Japan’s sweetest souvenirs.— KATHRYN O ’ SHEA - EVANS QUICK BITE

Japanese Kit Kats.

C LO C KW I S E F RO M TO P L E F T: CO U RT ESY O F I T U N ES ; CO U RT ESY O F DAU N T BO O KS ; CO U RT ESY O F LUX E C I T Y G U I D ES ; L A R S K LOV E ; CO U RT ESY O F S H A N G R I - L A ( 2 )

S PA

Gimme a Break (Tokyo Style)

WELLNESS

The Art of Relaxation On the move in the Middle Kingdom? Here, three Chinese wellness experiences to help you stay balanced. By L I A N G X I N Y I

F R O M T O P : C O U R T E S Y O F G R E E N M A S S A G E ; C O U R T E S Y O F B A N YA N T R E E ; C O U R T E S Y O F M A N D A R I N O R I E N TA L H O T E L S A N YA

■ SHANGHAI After a grueling day of Expo wandering, Green Massage is the perfect place to unwind; its Lujiazui branch offers a welcome sanctuary amid Shanghai’s frenetic urban bustle. Contemporary Oriental décor in natural materials (think marble panels, wooden lattice chairs and elongated metal bird cages) sets the backdrop for a range of treatments that draw from China’s medicinal traditions, from therapeutic guasha to foot massages with milk. 304, 3rd Floor, Shanghai World Financial Center, 100 Century Ave., Pudong District; 86-21/6877-8188; greenmassage.com.cn; treatments from RMB108. ■ HANGZHOU Should an afternoon of pampering not suffice, drive two hours to the Banyan Tree Hangzhou, located at the edge of Xixi National Wetland Park. Weary pleasure seekers can try the Gui Shi Hot Stones massage, said to promote the flow of qi, or luxuriate in the Oriental Bath Experience, which offers a choice of yin (cold) or yang (warm) body scrubs derived from indigenous materials such as longjing tea. Stay at least a couple of days for full effect—the resort’s soothing natural environment is a tonic in itself. 21 Zijingang Rd.; 86-571/8586-0000; treatments from RMB300.

■ SANYA For an utterly immersive escape, fly south to Hainan’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel Sanya, where the 3,200-squaremeter Spa Village offers ancient Chinese therapies like acupuncture, cupping and bone setting. If you’re really committed to fine-tuning your wu xing, consider one of the holistic TCM Wellness programs, which include healthy meals, meditation sessions, a consultation with a Chinese doctor, and private qigong or tai chi classes led by the hotel’s resident Shaolin-trained expert. 12 Yuhui Rd.; 86-898/88209999; mandarinoriental.com/sanya; programs from RMB4,815.

insider

| newsflash

MOLTO CHIC Madonna has teamed up with fashion friends Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana to design a collection of MDG sunglasses (from US$290). All six styles, in a range of different colors, have an oversize, wraparound look, but “are also very feminine, like our clothes,” says the Dolce & Gabbana duo. The result? An essential summer accessory, whether you’re at the rooftop bar of New York City’s new Strand Hotel or breezing through the marble-floored lobby of the Baur au Lac, in Zurich, Switzerland.—M I M I L O M B A R D O

Hong Kong

SHOPPING

The Kowloon neighborhood of Tsim Sha Tsui has long attracted travelers for its classic hotels. Now a clutch of boutiques and restaurants is giving the area a new twist. By J E N N I F E R C H E N

ON THE MAP

3 MIRA HONG KONG . Rd noi Ha

d. kR Par

Rd. Canton

1 HULLETT HOUSE Restaurateur David Yeo has turned the colonial-era headquarters of the marine police into a hotel with 10 individually themed suites. Each has a terrace facing Central’s iconic skyline. Downstairs are ﬁve restaurants, ranging from the stylish Cantonese Loong Toh Yuen to a down-to-earth pub. 1881 Heritage, 2A Canton Rd.; 852/3988-0000; hulletthouse. com; suites from HK$4,425.

3 Nathan Rd.

on wlo Ko

Ko loo Kowloon Park

. Peking Rd

4 1

ry Rd. Salisbu

Fresh from a HK$507 million makeover, this 492-room property has a sleek 1,670-squaremeter spa and a restaurant by star Singaporean chef Justin Quek. Each of the tech-savvy guest rooms contains a practical mobile phone for use in Hong Kong. 118 Nathan Rd.; 852/2368-1111; themirahotel.com; doubles from HK$2,650, dinner for two HK$1,110.

4 BUSY SUZIE

5 BRUUNS BAZAAR The popular Danish label’s ﬁrst boutique in Asia has ﬂoaty summer dresses as well as staples for both sexes like trenches and blazers in classic-meets-modern style. Shop 110, Level 1, iSquare; 63 Nathan Rd.; 852/3525-0565; bruunsbazaar.com.

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A team of Japanese chefs prepare robatayaki, or grilled meats and seafood, in this atmospheric, lantern-lit restaurant, located in a 19th-century lighthouse. Standouts include Yamaguchi chicken, Kagoshima pork and Australian Wagyu sirloin skewers. Shop 209, 1881 Heritage, 2A Canton Rd.; 852/2369-0077; dinner for two HK$1,170.

T O P : C O U R T E S Y O F D O L C E & G A B B A N A ( 2 ) . B O T T O M , C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P R I G H T : C O U R T E S Y O F T H E H YAT T R E G E N C Y T S I M S H A T S U I ; CO U RT ESY O F T H E M I RA ; CO U RT ESY O F B U SY S U Z I E ( 3 ) ; CO U RT ESY O F B RU U N S BA ZA A R ; CO U RT ESY O F H U L L E T T H O U S E ( 2 )

2 HUGO’S The revamped Hyatt Regency Tsim Sha Tsui houses Hugo’s, a stalwart restaurant favored by the city’s power brokers. On the menu: standards such as lobster bisque and steak tartare, prepared tableside. 18 Hanoi Rd.; 852/2311-1234; hyatt.com; dinner for two HK$1,400.

insider

| newsflash STYLE

E AT

Manila Cool Until recently, you had to venture to Quezon City to ﬁnd hip Manila design boutique Heima (the name means “at home” in Icelandic). That changed this May, when founders Rossy Anne Yabut and Bong Rojales opened Heima Makati (Suite 229 LRI Design Plaza, 210 N. Garcia St., Bel-air II, Makati City; 63-2/377-4525; heimastore. com), bang in the middle of the CBD. The new store features the brand’s trademark

retro-funky furniture, complete with candy-bright colors and bold graphic prints; the Pantone-hued Charlotte Chaise Longue and the Amy Butler–upholstered Amelie Settee will liven up any living room. If luggage allowances don’t permit — or you’re not prepared to ship — settle for smaller items like cheerful patchwork cushions, geometric wallpaper, soy-based candles or even a Pinoy indie-pop CD. – LARA DAY

SEATING SOLUTION T R AV E L GEAR

Need a seat on the go, but not a chair in sight? Vitra’s Chairless (vitra.com/chairless; €19.90) makes sitting without seating a cinch. Created by Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena, this lightweight, 85-cm textile band loops around your body while you relax, keeping your back and knees supported, and your hands free to eat, drink or play with your gadget of choice (no iPad? A book will do). Unlike its inspiration, the seating bands used by Paraguay’s nomadic Ayoreo Indians, this is made of wear-resistant polyamide and comes in four modern, highly covetable patterns; we love the dark lime with vivid fuchsia stripes. Grab one before it sells out. 40

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L E F T C O L U M N : C O U R T E S Y O F S I X S E N S E S . R I G H T C O L U M N , F R O M T O P : C O U R T E S Y O F H E I M A M A K AT I ( 2 ) ; © V I T R A ( W W W.V I T R A . C O M ) ( 3 )

The High Life We’ve eaten in the dark and underwater—now it’s time to dine in the treetops. In the Gulf of Thailand, Soneva Kiri by Six Senses (110 Moo 4, Ko Kood; 66-39/619-800; sixsenses.com; suites from US$1,970) has a new sky-high dining pod, a steel-and-rattan basket that’s hoisted eight meters off the ground in a eucalyptus tree overlooking the beach. In a Cirque du Soleil– style touch, waiters fly in via zipline to serve simple, Thai-inspired dishes such as chicken casserole with lemongrass.—J.C.

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VIETNAM

| eat

Get Fresh Clockwise from above: The artsy lounge at Restaurant Bobby Chinn; sweet carrot salad, garnished with mint and green tangerine, at Le Marrakech; staff at the entrance to the restaurant; an expertly mixed watermelon martini at Daluva.

Go West. Hanoi’s once-sleepy expat enclave of West Lake is emerging as a culinary mecca. Don’t miss these five spots. By NAOMI LINDT ■ LE MARRAKECH Hanoi’s first encounter with Moroccan cuisine doesn’t disappoint: at this year-old bistro, all the food, from the beef-and-almond tagines to the homemade bread, is a joy. Owned by a Moroccan named Abouzia Boujamaa, the family-run restaurant—Boujamaa’s daughter operates the cash register, while his wife oversees the kitchen—is a friendly, low-key respite from traffic-choked Au Co. Though the décor is limited to tangerine-toned linens, stained-glass wall sconces and photos of the owners’ homeland, the food couldn’t be more complex. The sweet carrot salad is dusted with powdered sugar, cinnamon and chopped almonds, while the Merguez sausage and steamed wedges of zucchini and taro served with “Royal” 44

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couscous arrive as a picture-perfect tent. 156 Au Co; 84-4/3710-0389; dinner for two VND350,000. ■ DALUVA Wine culture has steadily been gaining traction in Vietnam, a trend nowhere more apparent than at Daluva, whose name means “from the grape” in Italian. This bright, stylish restaurantlounge, lined with booths upholstered in striped, burgundy-hued fabric, is the sort of place where it’s easy to while away the evening sipping a bottle of Pinot Grigio or sampling the expertly mixed cocktails that emerge from behind the striking glass bar. The food is no less intoxicating, with tapas that dabble in Mediterranean and Latin flavors—think rosemary lamb kebabs, chili-garlic gambas and chicken Photographed by AARON JOEL SANTOS

Food with Passion Clockwise from top right: A sweet treat from Love Chocolate; Stacie John, the café’s owner; Hai San Ngon’s inviting interior; Bobby Chinn’s signature grilled salmon with wasabimashed potatoes.

empanadas—and mains that cover all the gastro-pub basics, from pizza to gourmet burgers and Australian steaks. 33 To Ngoc Van; 84-4/3718-5831; daluva. com; tapas for two VND500,000. ■ RESTAURANT BOBBY CHINN For years, the charming Bobby Chinn has been Hanoi’s chef-about-town, regaling diners at his eponymous restaurant with tales from his global adventures. When the lease expired on the city-center space that made him famous, Chinn decided to make things even more personal: the new Restaurant Bobby Chinn is in his West Lake home. The ground floor houses a bar and intimate seating areas separated by velvet and silk drapes, while the hushed, romantic upstairs dining room features candlelit tables, wood floors and white walls. The digs might be different, but the menu stays true to Chinn’s fusion flair, with starters like Moroccan beet salad with hazelnutcrusted goat’s cheese and seared scallops with braised edamame.

Signature dishes—salmon with wasabi-mashed potatoes and ginger demi-glace; molten chocolate cake—are as memorable as always. 77 Xuan Dieu St.; 84-4/3719-2460; bobbychinn.com; dinner for two VND1,300,000. ■ HAI SAN NGON Duong Tan Hoai famously transformed Vietnam’s restaurant scene when he opened the street-food–chic Quan An Ngon in Saigon six years ago. Now, he’s taken his concept to a new level at Hai San Ngon. At this sprawling, traditional-meets-modern eatery, towering light fixtures with lampshades fashioned from fishing baskets cast a glow on gleaming slate-tiled pools, while the culinary spotlight focuses on the country’s beloved hai san, or seafood. Seated alfresco on the terracotta-lined terrace or in the more formal, glassed-in dining rooms, groups of Vietnamese families and friends share plates like sautéed prawn in tamarind, decadently deep-fried seafood spring rolls and hunks of soft, grilled squid

served with sweet, hot chili sauce. 199A Nghi Tam; 84-4/3719-3169; dinner for two VND220,000. ■ LOVE CHOCOLATE CAFÉ For years, Americans Stacie and David John fantasized about opening a place where there was no waiting for dessert, and where the meal was dedicated to the king of decadence: chocolate. Their kitschy-cute Love Chocolate Café is exactly that: an unabashed homage to cacao. Everything in this wistful, Victorian-styled spot celebrates the sweet treat, from the quotes painted on the walls to the menu. Freshly baked chocolate cakes come smothered with cream-cheese icing or raspberry sauce, while the luscious Belgian cheesecake is topped with chocolate whipped cream. The heart-shaped chocolate-chip cookies are a crowd favorite; they come in eight creative varieties, including pepper espresso and pineapple. 26 To Ngoc Van; 84-4/3243-2120; lovechocolatecafe.com; dessert for two VND120,000. ✚

T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A

C O M | J U LY

2010

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| neighborhood EDGED BETWEEN LITTLE INDIA, ORCHARD ROAD and Civic District, Bras Basah is known mainly as a haunt for students sourcing cheap secondhand books and art materials. Lately, however, trendy boutiques and cafés have sprung up to cater to the area’s arty inhabitants, lending the neighborhood a distinct air of boho-chic. Below, T+L guides you through one of Singapore’s most unexpected corners. ✚

Creative Quarter.

Singapore’s up-and-coming Bras Basah area offers a hip young vibe and artsy chic. By LIANG XINYI

SHOP

Hidden within a monolithic complex, the whimsical 2 Cat Socrates (03–39B, Bras Basah Complex, 231 Bain St.; 65/6333-0870; catsocrates.com.sg) is an indie bookstore–café crammed with knick-knacks and novelty items, from pretty sketchbooks to nostalgic tin toys, all sourced by husband-and-wife owners Brett and Hellen Zhang on their trips around Asia. The café is bohemian hangout, and a great place to linger over a cappuccino.

Bras Basah’s newfound vitality owes much to 1 LASALLE College of the Arts (1 McNally St.; 65/6496-5000; lasalle.edu.sg), which moved to its present location three years ago. Student days long gone? Don’t fret. You can still view fresh artworks at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, explore the campus’s striking asymmetrical architecture—think crisscrossing sky bridges under an arched roof—or take in theater, dance or music performances at one of three spaces.

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A stone’s throw from the Singapore Art Museum, 6 Food For Thought (8 Queen St.; 65/6338-9887; foodforthought.com.sg; lunch for two S$40) is a box-like glass house that hosts a friendly café and shop run by four socially conscious friends, who donate a portion of profits to causes like World Vision. The sleek, monochromatic interior is offset with quirky touches like glass jars in neat rows, overturned flowerpots dangling from exposed beams and table mats emblazoned with do-good slogans. Sit down at a gray-tiled table and dig into one of the healthy but hearty dishes: try the tasty rosemary–garlic fries, sage-roasted pumpkin risotto or basil-pesto chicken, all served in generous portions.

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Colored dots along a dim stairwell lead up to 3 Actually (29A Seah St.; 65/6336-7298; actually.com. sg), a second-floor concept store stocking avant-garde labels like Song Zio and Complexgeometries. The 100-square-meter space oozes eccentric chic, from chairs suspended mid-air to vintage suitcases with open lids. Eco-conscious fashionistas, take note: this is the only place in Singapore that sells Freitag bags recycled from brightly hued truck tarpaulins. Also check out sister boutique Actually Actually on neighboring Purvis Street.

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Perched atop the WOHA-designed Odeon Towers, 5 Loof (331 North Bridge Rd., 03–07 Odeon Towers Extension Rooftop; 65/6338-8035; loof.com.sg; drinks for two S$36) draws a young, stylish crowd with its plugged-in atmosphere, dazzling city views and original house cocktails; try the deliciously fruity Gummiberry (right). A “When It Rains, We Pour” deal offers one-for-one drinks till 9 P.M. on rainy nights —just be sure to grab a covered seat.

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The origami-like façade of the steel-and-glass 4 Naumi Hotel (41 Seah St.; 65/6403-6000; naumihotel.com; doubles from S$370) stands in stark contrast to the colonial architecture of the Raffles Hotel next door. Its 40 spacious rooms feature soothing creams, ornate wallpaper patterns, hanging globular lamps and brightly colored armchairs. On the 10th-floor rooftop, sit back on a pod-like lounge chair by the infinity pool and take in the unobstructed vistas over Singapore’s ever-changing skyline.

C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P R I G H T : C O U R T E S Y O F A C T U A L LY ; C O U R T E S Y O F N A U M I H O T E L ; CO U RT ESY O F LO O F; CO U RT ESY O F FO O D FO R T H O U G H T; L I A N G X I N Y I ( 2 )

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| t+l guide

Vivid Vientiane. There’s more to the Lao capital than just laid-back appeal. DUNCAN FORGAN discovers a newfound energy that belies the city’s sleepy reputation. Photographed by AARON JOEL SANTOS

STAY The leafy avenues that spread back from the Mekong play host to Vientiane’s grande dame, the Settha Palace Hotel (6 Th. Pang Kham; 856-21/217-5812; setthapalace.com; doubles from US$140), which has been keeping guests in colonial splendor since the early 1930’s. • The brand-new Ansara Hotel (Quai Fa Ngum, Ban Vat Chan Tha, Hom No 5; ansarahotel.com; 856-21/213-5148; doubles from US$90) is a worthy addition to the city’s boutique stays. Rooms are simple yet stylish, with in-room laptops and a free (non-alcoholic) mini-bar. • We love the lush tropical garden at Lani Guesthouse (281 Th. Setthathirat, Ban Haysok; 856-21/215-639; lani-guesthouse. com; doubles from US$35), as well as the clean rooms, traditional Lao architecture and wallet-friendly rates. • Away from the city center, the Green Park Boutique Hotel (248 Th. Khouvieng; 856-21/2630623; greenparkvientiane.com; doubles from US$125) draws guests with chic, wood-floored interiors and romantic private balconies.

LAOS

Lao Contemporary Clockwise from top: The golden spires of Pha That Luang; a fresh take on salmon tartare at Chez Philippe; Noy’s Fruit Heaven serves up delicious shakes and juices all day long; poolside at the Settha Palace Hotel; a staff member at the newly opened Ansara Hotel.

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Showcasing the work of Lao Coco, an association of home-grown artists and artisans, T’Shop Laï Gallery (Th. Wat Inpeng; 856-21/223-178; laococo. com) is a great place to pick up contemporary furniture and handicrafts by an emerging generation of creatives. Don’t miss the regularly changing art and photography exhibitions. • Wine lovers will be at home in Laos, where top pours are available at reasonable prices. The ultra-chic Van Som Wine Shop (110/01 Th. Samsenthai; 856-21/212-196; vansom-wineshop. com) offers an extensive selection of bottles as well as regular tasting events. • Designers and art collectors from around the world visit American Carol Cassidy’s Lao Textiles (Ban Mixay; 856-21/212-123; laotextiles. com) for the artisan-produced wall hangings, scarves, shawls and furnishing fabrics. • For a quintessential Lao market experience, head to Talat Khua Din (Th. Khua Vieng), tucked behind the refurbished Talat Sao. This sprawling collection of stalls has food, fabrics and jewelry. »

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SHOP

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| t+l guide

DO Vientiane may not boast blockbuster attractions, but there’s still plenty to divert visitors. For an informative and sobering insight on the impact of UXO’s (unexploded ordnance) in Laos, visit the interactive exhibition at COPE

EAT The pick of Vientiane’s fine selection of French restaurants is Chez Philippe (Th. Setthatirat; 856-21/213-334; dinner for two US$40). Don’t miss the tender lamb shank in a rich red-wine jus and the decadent chocolate fondant. • Lively, colorful and overseen by friendly and charismatic owner Noy Souvanaphavong, Noy’s Fruit Heaven (60 Th. Heng Boun; 856-20/539-6898; breakfast and fruit shake US$3) is a great place to get a vitamin fix for pennies. The coconut-and-lime shake is stellar. • Lao food is no slouch in the culinary stakes, as you’ll discover at Mak Phet (Th. Setthathirat; 856-21/260-587; Living Color Clockwise from top left: A street vendor at Ban Anou Night Market serves up traditional Lao fare; a giant dinner for two US$25), where reclining Buddha at Xieng Khuan Buddha Park; Noy the owner of Noy’s Fruit Heaven; a sculpture former street kids prepare tasty Souvanaphavong, made from old war remnants greets visitors to COPE. modern Lao dishes such as daikon and carrot wrapped in tender buffalo meat, and pork, ginger and lemongrass salad GUIDE TO VIENTIANE dressed with tamarind. GETTING THERE Direct flights to Vientiane’s Wattay • Budget-conscious travelers International Airport are available from most of the major cities in the region. WHEN TO GO October through February is dry and can fill up at Ban Anou Night pleasant, while June to September is the rainy season — expect Market (Th. Chao Anou; dinner for fine weather punctuated by heavy showers. INSIDER TIP Believe two US$3), perfect for sampling it or not, bowling is the late-night pastime of choice for those looking for a taste of local life. Head to Lao Bowling Centre (Th. local classics such as ping kai Khun Bulom; 21/218-661), where skittles fall and Beer Lao flows (grilled chicken) and larb. well into the wee hours. 50

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(Th Khouvieng; 856-21/218-427; copelao.org; free entry). • Arguably the country’s most important temple, Pha That Luang (Th. That Luang), also known as the Great Stupa, rises from a hill on the eastern side of Vientiane. Legend has it that a piece of the Buddha’s breastbone is buried here. • For a quirky but memorable excursion, head to Xieng Khuan, or Buddha Park, which features more than 200 Buddhist and Hindu sculptures just 24 kilometers outside the city. Offerings include a giant concrete pumpkin and a 40-meter-long reclining image of Buddha. • Fancy a night on the town? Jazzy Brick (Th. Setthathirat; 856-20/244-9307) serves up classy cocktails in sleek surrounds; sip on a perfectly mixed whisky sour while listening to classic Tom Waits. Rooftop bar Bor Pen Nyang (Th. Fa Ngum; 856-21/261-373; borpennyang.com) offers views over the Mekong and a fun, buzzy atmosphere. ✚

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National Rehabilitation Centre

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| night out

AUSTRALIA

Bottoms Up. Thanks to an overhaul in drinking regulations, Sydney is blossoming with boutique watering holes, from chic absinthe salons to quirky cocktail dens. Here, the best new bars in town. By PAUL CHAI 2007, DRACONIAN licensing policies meant that Sydney’s drinking culture was trapped in the past. Not only did you need to order a meal to enjoy a glass of wine at a restaurant, but opening a bar was prohibitively expensive, not to mention a grueling battle against bureaucracy. Thankfully, two years ago, things changed: the new state liquor act kicked in, removing barriers to small players. The result? A flourishing of original boutique drinking spots that epitomize the best the city has to offer. Below, T+L’s favorite new entries.

■ ABSINTHE SALON Small bars are at their finest when they reflect their owner’s passions, and Gaye Valttila and Joop Van Heusden’s obsession is the green fairy. Sit down at one of the Parisian café–style tables and let staff demonstrate how to use your ornate glassware absinthe fountain; preparation of the drink is elaborate, requiring ice-cold water to drip slowly into your glass through a sugar cube. Choose from 18 types of the storied beverage, all specially imported: try the Vieux Pontarlier or Marilyn Manson’s Mansinthe. A mural of the fairy herself watches benignly as the pale green tipple works its magic; squint in the soft light 52

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of the replica street lanterns and you’ll think you’ve traveled back in time. 87 Albion St., Surry Hills; 61-2/9211-6632; absinthesalon.com.au; drinks for two A$40. ■ SHADY PINES SALOON Close to Sydney’s bustling Oxford Street, this newly minted saloon is where animated drinkers vie for space with taxidermied wildlife—a nod to the bar’s Old West inspiration. Don’t let the sepia-toned portraits of stern-looking publicans and cigar-store Indians fool you: this is no place for a warm Bud as you practice your spittoon skills. It’s owned by two of the city’s sharpest barkeeps, Anton Forte and Jason Scott, so the cocktails are first rate; try the julep, a southern U.S. staple, or chase a top-shelf whiskey with a Sam Adams beer and some shell-’em-yourself peanuts. 256 Crown St., Darlinghurst; no telephone; drinks for two A$34. ■ POCKET Across the road from Shady Pines, this funky-but-casual all-day venue serves up a panoply of crêpes both savory (aged prosciutto, bocconcini, cherry tomato and basil) and sweet (dark-chocolate ganache with toasted hazelnut flambéed in Frangelico). With Warholesque Pop Art splattered along the walls and plenty of ’tude behind the bar,

ELIEVE IT OR NOT, UP UNTIL

After Hours From far left: Sydney’s discerning drinkers enjoy cocktails with a view; LL Wine & Dine, hidden away in Potts Point; the bar’s Asian-inspired snacks pack plenty of punch.

Pocket prides itself on its anti-establishment stance; it even gives people a 20 percent discount if they can produce a recent parking fine. 13 Burton St., Darlinghurst; 61-2/93807002; pocketsydney.com.au; drinks for two A$30.

CAROLINE MCCREDIE (2)

■ DOCTOR PONG This pared-back Berlin import keeps it simple with a centrally located ping-pong table, beer served in red plastic cups and a commitment to great DJ’s manning the decks mounted on recycled wooden tables. The frat-party feel extends to the cartoon-laden walls, a collection of communal board games, grungy mismatched chesterfields (fast becoming the chair of choice in these new joints) and, well, student types. The crowd may trend younger here, but this is an egalitarian and welcoming space. 1a Burton St., Darlinghurst; no telephone; drinks for two A$24. ■ GRASSHOPPER The team behind Sydney’s newest small bar, down the bin-strewn and ironically named Temperance Lane, comes fresh from summer pop-up bar Seven Metre—locals will recall how urban flotsam, from street signs to an abandoned car, hung over drinkers’ heads to signify rising sea levels due to global warming. This space, called Grasshopper, is a more permanent and less political fixture, offering a mix of pre-loved couches and retro martial-arts wallpaper. In keeping with a growing trend among Sydney’s new drinking spots, there is no drinks list, so know what you want or trust the bartender. We recommend the sake gimlet. Temperance Lane; 61-2/9947-9025; thegrasshopper.com.au; drinks for two A$36.

■ LL WINE & DINE Just off the neon-drenched “Golden Mile” of infamous Kings Cross, this Hong Kong–style bar embraces its history as a former gambling den and adult bookshop with photos of scantily clad women (found during the bar’s renovation). Don’t be alarmed—the wall décor is surprisingly tasteful. Meanwhile, the small black-tiled front bar twists down a graffiti-strewn hall into a split-level diner. Start with a lip-tingling chili-and-coconut martini (A$16) teamed with prawn-and-pork wontons in chili oil and black vinegar (A$16). 42 Llankelly Place, Potts Point; 61-2/9356-8393; llwineanddine.com.au; drinks for two A$38. ✚

DRINK IT IN: FIVE MORE NEW ENTRIES THE CORNER HOUSE Three distinct venues in an emerging boutique-bar hub. 281 Bondi Rd., Bondi; 61-2/80206698; drinks for two A$30. EAU DE VIE Darkly lit, grown-up lounge behind the Kirketon Hotel. 229 Darlinghurst Rd., Darlinghurst; 61-2/9357-2470; eaudevie.com.au; drinks for two A$38. LOW 302 Exposed brick and classics with a twist, like the plum and pisco sour.

302 Crown St., Darlinghurst; 61-2/9368-1548; low302.com.au; drinks for two A$28. THE WINERY BY GAZEBO A whimsical take on a wine bar, formerly a Sydney Water workshop. 285a Crown St., Surry Hills; 61-2/ 9331-0833; thegazebos.com.au; drinks for two A$32. CHING-A-LINGS Industrial-chic space that turns clubby late into the night. Upstairs, 133 Oxford St., Darlinghurst; no telephone; drinks for two A$20.

T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E

C O M| J U LY

2010

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| detour

Surf’s Up in Tokyo. Due south from Japan’s capital, the Izu Islands are also a world away from city life. By TIM HORNYAK Tokyo

JAPAN

Oshima

Toshima Niijima Shikinejima Kozushima

Niijima’s Yunohama hot spring. Top right: A traditional poster on Oshima. Bottom right: The Shikinijema coastline.

of white sand on the west coast, has waves of over 2 meters, plus a free campground; rent a surfboard at Kye Surf (kyesurf.seesaa. net; 81/50-3449-7016; from ¥6,500 per day). If winds aren’t cooperating, admire the exquisite glasswork crafted from local sandstone at the Niijima Contemporary Glass Art Museum (Mamashita 121, Nijima-mura; 81/4992-5-1540; niijimaglass. com; admission ¥300) on the east coast, then watch the sunset from outdoor hot spring Yunohama (no phone; free entry), an eccentric group of pools on a rocky outcrop topped with Greek columns. Close by at Mamashita Onsen (81/4992-5-0240), the staff will bury you in sand for ¥700. If springs are your thing, Niijima’s neighbor is a must-dip. A 20-minute ferry ride away, tiny Shikinejima’s Tomari and Nakanoura beaches are set in quiet crystal bays made for snorkeling. Its best bathing, though, is brackish Jinata Onsen (no phone; free entry), south of the island at the end of a narrow ravine. As the waves pound the outer rocks and seawater mixes with the sulfurous hot spring from below, you won’t believe you’re still in Tokyo. ✚

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WHERE TO STAY Oshima Hotel Shiraiwa Retro Japanese and Western rooms with funky rotary dial phones, and elegant indoor and outdoor baths. 3-3-3 Motomachi; 81/4992-2-2571; h-shiraiwa.com; doubles from ¥20,000, including two meals. Niijima Niijima Grand Hotel Tatami mats and a large communal bath to soak in. 371 Niijimamura; 81/4992-5-1661; 15.ocn.ne. jp/~nghotel/; doubles from ¥23,000, including two meals. Shikinejima La Mer Shikine Cottage-style accommodation nestled in a tropical garden close to Oura beach. 127-2 Shikinejima; 81/4992-7-0240; hikine.com; doubles from ¥23,000. GETTING THERE From Tokyo’s Takeshiba pier, it’s two hours by jet ferry to Oshima with Tokai Kisen (81-3/54729999; tokaikisen.co.jp; fares from ¥4,270); the boat goes on to Toshima, Niijima, Shikinejima and Kozushima. Oshima is also a half-hour ﬂight on All Nippon Airways (ana.co.jp), departing from Haneda Airport.

T I M H O R N YA K ( 3 )

F YOU’RE IN TOKYO THIS SUMMER, there’s no need to sweat it out like yakitori on a grill. Not only are Pacific beaches within easy reach, but some are within city limits. Take the Izu Islands: this volcanic archipelago extending south from Honshu’s Izu Peninsula is bubbling with hot springs and local sake—not bad given that the nearest island, Oshima, is under two hours by boat from Takeshiba pier. Oshima is a gateway to less developed southern islands, but it’s also worth a visit in its own right. Don’t miss Motomachi Hamanoyu (882 Aza Tonchi-Batake, Motomachi, Oshima-machi; 81/4992-2-1446; admission ¥400), an open-air hot spring overlooking the sea, perfect for relaxing after a hike up the black-lava flanks of Mt. Mihara. Once refreshed, hop on Oshima’s southbound ferry and in an hour you’ll reach the high, silvery cliffs of Niijima. Formerly a colony for exiles during the Edo era, Niijima is nowadays known for its kusaya (pongy mackerel fermented in brine) as well as some of Japan’s best surfing. Habushiura beach, a 6.5-kilometer stretch

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| where to go next Wild Card Below: A Philippine tarsier; beachy bliss on Panglao’s coast.

PHILIPPINES

Pristine Panglao. Touted as the Philippines’ next Boracay, this

HANCES ARE, YOU HAVEN’T

yet heard of the tiny Philippine island of Panglao. Indeed, it tends to be eclipsed by its larger Central Visayan cousins. Cebu, to the west, lures visitors with five-star resorts and direct international flights. Bohol, to the north, tempts travelers with the so-called Chocolate Hills and one of the world’s smallest primates. But if you’re in search of a magical island idyll—think coconut palm–fringed sweeps of powdery white beach that melt into clear turquoise waters, world-class marine life including dolphins and giant sea turtles, and Bohol’s manifold attractions accessible via a short, easily drivable causeway— then Panglao is the perfect escape. For now, the island has yet to acquire the luster of Boracay, to which it’s often compared. Frankly, though, that’s a good thing. Bypass Alona Beach—a 1.5-kilometer truss of mid-range resorts and open-air restaurants—and you’ll find pristine, unspoiled beaches such as

Doljo (pronounced “Dolho”) on the northwestern shore. There’s also plenty of charm inland, where brightly painted wooden houses line the main roads, and the lush countryside bursts with yellow-flowering acacias and hot pink bougainvilleas. Of course, that may change soon, as developers start to recognize Panglao’s natural beauty—so be sure to get there before them.

and 168 clean, comfortable rooms. • For total seclusion, the small, highly personalized Ananyana Beach Resort & Spa (Doljo Beach; 63-38/502-8101; ananyana.com; doubles from US$148) exudes chic simplicity with just 12 rooms, a relaxing spa and sleek communal areas outfitted with furniture pieces by renowned Cebuano designer Kenneth Cobonpue.

WHERE TO STAY Perched cliffside above Alona, Amorita Resort (Easter A. Lim Drive; 63-38/ 502-9001; amoritaresort.com; doubles from P6,500) is nothing short of lovable. Come here for the luxuriously appointed lodgings—including 14 villas with private plunge pools, sun decks and outdoor bathrooms with rainfall showers—and the infinity pool with its 180-degree view of the Bohol Sea. • If your toes demand nothing less than perfect white sand, Bohol Beach Club (Bo. Bolod; 63-38/502-9222; boholbeachclub.com.ph; doubles from US$82) boasts Panglao’s best stretch of beach

WHAT TO DO Panglao has access to some of the world’s best diving, reportedly hosting more diverse marine life than both the Mediterranean and the Japan Sea combined. Most resorts can arrange dives and excursions for you, otherwise try Genesis Divers (63-38/502-9056; genesisdivers.com) on Alona Beach. • The reefs just north and west of Panglao are perfect for snorkeling, with all manner of colorful, disarmingly curious reef fish. At the edge of a coral atoll, nearby Cabilao offers a deep wall for divers to explore, as well plenty of underwater action in the shallows: expect vivid,

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F R O M L E F T : L A R A D AY ; © E W A N C H E S S E R / D R E A M S T I M E . C O M

laid-back isle on the southwest tip of Bohol offers white-sand beaches, world-class diving and its share of strange primates. By LARA DAY

diversely hued corals, polychrome nudibranchs, shimmering clouds of barracuda and giant, slow-gliding sea turtles. • Dolphin watching on the open sea requires an early (think pre–5 A.M.) start, but it’s worth it to see enormous schools of them swimming playfully alongside your boat; they love to jump and show off, so be ready with your camera. • History buffs can head to Bohol, where the Sandugo (Blood Compact) Monument stands as a memorial to the 1565 pact made in blood between Spanish conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi and Bohol’s Rajah Datu Sikatuna. Close by is the charming coral-stone Baclayon Church, originally established by the Jesuits in 1602; a small adjacent museum holds religious artifacts. • Cute, compact and alarmingly wide-eyed, Philippine tarsiers are nocturnal primates endemic to the Visayas region. They may be reminiscent of Mogwai from the movie Gremlins, but resist the urge to take one home: these creatures are on the brink of extinction and should be viewed— and not touched—at the Philippine

Tarsier & Wildlife Sanctuary

(tarsierfoundation.org). • The Chocolate Hills are a stunning geological anomaly, comprising 1,268 cone-shaped mounds stretching across 50 square kilometers. These grass-covered limestone karsts turn brown—that is, chocolatecolored—during drier months. WHERE TO EAT AND DRINK No trip to Panglao is complete without a visit to the excellent Bohol Bee Farm (Dao, Dauis; 63-38/502-2288; boholbeefarm.com; lunch for two P1,700), a resort and organic farm whose sea-facing, open-air restaurant uses ingredients grown on-site: try the spicy edible-flower salad, the cabcab (cassava) crackers with pesto, the savory-sweet squash muffins and the honey-glazed ribs served with organic red rice. Finish with a scoop of house-made mango, coconut or ube ice cream, which you can work off with a tour of the

grounds. • Alona Beach has a range of alfresco dining options, but quality varies and service can be woefully slow. Your safest bet is to try a place with an outdoor grill; Pyramid (63-38/5029168; alona-pyramid.com; dinner for two P1,000) does fresh barbecued seafood in the evenings. Point to your pick of the day’s catch, or go for the grilled lapu-lapu, or grouper. • Tucked behind Alona, Swiss-run L’Elephant Bleu (63-38/502-8328; lelephantbleu.com; wine and tapas for two P2,200) offers a decent 30-plus-strong wine list, tapas like carabao cheese and olive tapenade on house-made German bread, and French-inspired mains like gambas sautéed with whiskey or pastis. ✚

WHEN TO GO July to October is the low season and ideal if you don’t mind the odd shower and are looking to avoid the crowds. July and August are also ﬁesta time in Panglao Town.

C L O C K W I S E F R O M B O T T O M R I G H T : L A R A D AY ; T I M K E N T I S H ; L A R A D AY ; T I M K E N T I S H

GETTING THERE

Picture Perfect Clockwise from left: Dolphin watching, close to Panglao; viewing nature up close at Bohol Bee Farm; the Chocolate Hills, on Bohol; the Sandugo monument, created by Boholano National Artist Napoleon Abueva.

Fly from Manila to Tagbilaran City, Bohol’s capital, in an hour; Zest Air (zestair.com.ph), Cebu Pacific (cebupacificair. com) and Philippine Airlines (philippineairlines. com) all run daily flights. From there, Panglao is a quick 20-minute drive. Otherwise, take a two-hour ferry from Cebu on Oceanjet (oceanjet.net).

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| see it

Rome to the MAXXI. ITALY

The Eternal City opens a vanguard center for contemporary art and architecture. RAUL BARRENECHE steps inside

The lobby staircase leading to the first-floor exhibition galleries of Rome’s National Museum of XXI Century Arts, left. The window of Suite 5, a temporary exhibit space, reflects the Flaminio neighborhood, above.

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Photographed by IWAN BAAN

I WA N BA A N ( 2 )

HE ANCIENT ROMANS MAY HAVE invented the use of concrete for buildings—the Pantheon is still standing—but architect Zaha Hadid has perfected it. The fluid pale gray concrete curves of her boldly designed National Museum of XXI Century Arts, known by its Italian acronym, MAXXI, wind gracefully around a complex of restored military barracks in Rome’s Flaminio neighborhood. Inside, those sinuous surfaces create dramatic light-filled galleries, and multilevel atriums crisscrossed by painted-steel-enclosed stairs and cantilevered ramps lead visitors to two museums, one devoted to art, the other to architecture. The column-free spaces, capped by skylights atop ribbons of steel, maximize curatorial flexibility. (One of the museum’s temporary exhibition galleries is even contained in a renovated factory.) Concrete has never been as permeable. Rome has never seemed so modern. MAXXI has opened with five inaugural shows that focus on Italian contemporary artists, including a multimedia installation by Studio Azzuro titled “Geografie Italiane.” 4A Via Guido Reni; fondazionemaxxi.it. ✚

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| shopping

U.S.A.

Design Intervention. Five trailblazing decorators stock their shops with one-of-a-kind treasures from around the globe. And if you need a little advice, all you have to do is ask. By INGRID ABRAMOVITCH

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NEW YORK CITY Haus Interior Head to the back of this cozy Nolita boutique and you’ll spot German designer Nina Freudenberger creating eclectic interiors for stylish Manhattanites. The shop’s vibe— streamlined Scandinavian chalet meets European hunting lodge—was inspired by Freudenberger’s memories from Denmark and Bavaria. Throughout her showroom (where almost everything costs less than US$300, and most items less than US$50), there are unique curios for the home from up-and-coming artists. FAVORITE FINDS Faux-aged trophies (like the one you took home after your third-grade spelling bee) that Haus engraves with the superlative of your choice (from US$35) and illustrator Christopher Jagmin’s graphic dinner sets featuring oversize numerals (US$129 for four plates). 250 Elizabeth St.; 1-212/7410455; hausinterior.com.

C LO C KW I S E F RO M L E F T: R E B ECCA G R E E N F I E L D ; CO U RT ESY O F M I N I M A ; B U F F ST R I C K L A N D

Global Outlook Clockwise from top right: The second ﬂoor at Minima, in Philadelphia; the shop’s Old City exterior; Nina Freudenberger at Haus Interior, her Manhattan boutique.

JOE SCHMELZER (3)

LOS ANGELES Hollywood at Home British transplant Peter Dunham is the go-to expert for celebrities who gravitate toward his clubby English spin on Old Hollywood style. At his West Hollywood showroom, one large space is set up like a boudoir: for winter, it was dressed in Carolina Irving Textiles’ blue-and-white stripes and florals; the same space is now redecorated in eye-catching harem prints by pattern fanatic (and fellow British expat) Martyn Lawrence-Bullard. FAVORITE FINDS The store’s best-selling How to Marry a Millionaire side chair (US$1,650) is a reproduction of the oak-and-rush-seated classic seen in the 1950’s film of the same name. Don’t miss the collection of vintage books, including a first edition of Zsa Zsa Gabor’s 1970’s advice manual, How to Catch a Man, How to Keep a Man, How to Get Rid of a Man (US$80). 724 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood; 1-310/273-6200; hollywoodathome.com. PHILADELPHIA Minima Istanbul native Eugenie Perret, the owner of this contemporary three-story gallery situated in the heart of Old City, and her partner, Michael Schmick, have capitalized on Philadelphia’s recent design renaissance and turned their shop into a meeting space for the city’s creative set. Philadelphians come as much to check out furnishings by international design stars Hella Jongerius and BarberOsgerby as to support homegrown talents such as furniture maker John Bolle and sculptor Todd Noe. FAVORITE FINDS Top collectibles, including pieces such as Ben van Berkel’s sinuous Circle sofa (price available upon request). For more portable souvenirs, check out Hiref glass vases (US$465) with crescentshaped stoppers (Perret discovered them in Turkey) and gilded hand-cast bone china skulls by Philadelphia-based artist Candy Depew (US$1,450). 118 N. Third St.; 1-215/922-2002; minima.us.

SAVANNAH Arcanum Antiques Interiors “Eighteenth century meets eighteen minutes ago” is the mantra of this gas station turned showroom in Savannah, Georgia’s historic district. Here, Southern standbys—silver mint-julep cups are a hot seller—stand beside oil paintings by local artists, including Samuel J. Ward and Daniel E. Smith, a former monk who creates colordrenched abstractions based on lowcountry landscapes and architecture. FAVORITE FINDS As befits its name, Arcanum specializes in decorative arcana. Look for crystal balls ( from US$57), Neoclassical-styled urns with brass snake handles (US$88) and carved-bone lobsters and crayfish ( from US$290). Also popular: semiprecious gemstone strands from local designer Alexandra Trujillo’s HRH The Duchess of State jewelry line (from US$200). 346 Whitaker St.; 1-912/2366000; arcanumsavannah.com. MONTREAL Celadon Collection In Montreal, where interior shops tend to cater to either traditionalists or cutting-edge Modernists, Celadon Collection bridges the gap between stodgy and avant-garde perfectly. This 465-square-meter home emporium, located in a former garage on the western edge of Old Montreal, is the brainchild of one of Canada’s top decorators, Scott Yetman. He and his business partner, Roy Caro, traverse the globe in search of antiques and well-made furnishings, so that Celadon—like Montreal itself—is a crossroads of European and North American influences. FAVORITE FINDS Come here for Parisian imports including Objet de Curiosité’s eggshaped volcanic rocks mounted on bronze bases (C$630) and Hervé Gambs’s hypoallergenic scented candles in subtle fragrances such as Waterflower and Cashmere Wood (C$66). 186 Peel St.; 1-514/932-3306; celadoncollection.com. ✚

Taste of L.A. From top: Owner and textile designer Peter Dunham and his fabric samples at Hollywood at Home; the entrance, in the city’s design quarter; inside the West Hollywood showroom.

For more ideas on shopping, visit www.TravelandLeisureAsia.com

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PERU

Capital Classics Clockwise from top left: The colonial-style Country Club Lima Hotel; bartenders at La Mar Cebichería, in Lima’s Miraﬂores neighborhood; the lobby at Country Club Lima Hotel; ceviche clásico de corvina in tiger milk at La Mar Cebichería.

Focus on Lima. Peru-born GABRIELLA DE FERRARI shares her little black book on where to stay, eat and sleep in this vibrant city

HEN I VISITED LIMA AS A CHILD FROM MY hometown of Tacna, located just to the south, it was my first encounter with a true metropolis—an energetic cityscape whose rich history could be felt on almost every corner. I’m a New Yorker now, but every year I make the 10-hour flight back to the city where I spent most of my youth. And each time I return, I’m surprised by how this urban landscape continues to change, while at the same time remaining committed to its past. There are classic centuries-old hotels still standing and

Photographed by JOÃN CANZIANI

new ones sprouting up in stately buildings, innovative restaurants with cutting-edge chefs, and jewelry and clothing boutiques merging traditional materials with modern techniques. I keep a list of my favorite spots in the city, which you’ll find on the following pages—they’ll lead you from the posh San Isidro neighborhood to bohemian Barranco. My father used to take me to the 1927 Country Club, where France’s former president Charles de Gaulle once spent the night. The colonial-style building has been converted into the 83-room Country Club Lima Hotel (590 Calle Los » T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A

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| cityscape

City of Change Clockwise from top: Casa Andina Private Collection Miraﬂores hotel; hanging out on Malecón Cisneros; an ice cream vendor oceanside; the 1900 Faro de la Marina lighthouse; a display at Ara Joyas.

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Eucaliptos, San Isidro; 51-1/611-9000; hotelcountry.com; doubles from US$440, including breakfast), filled with Peruvian art from Lima’s Museo Pedro de Osma, brocade-covered chairs, gilt mirrors and mahogany armoires. Along the nearby malecón, or boardwalk, the oceanside Miraﬂores Park Hotel (1035 Malecón de la Reserva, Miraflores; 51-1/610-4000; orient-express. com; doubles from US$544 ) has one of the city’s best rooftop infinity pools and panoramic views of the Pacific from the private in-room balconies. The 33-year-old Miraflores Cesar’s Hotel was the place to stay in its heyday, but a muchneeded makeover transformed it into the more modern Casa Andina Private Collection Miraﬂores (63 Avda. La Paz, Miraflores; 51-1/213-4300; casa-andina.com; doubles from US$219). Despite its new look—bold artwork; a palm-fringed indoor pool—the hotel hasn’t completely done away with tradition: wood-beam ceilings and Peruvian ceramics decorate the rooms, and you can still hear boleros in the lobby lounge. Over the years I’ve had my most memorable meals at the intimate, 15-table Rafael Restaurant (300 Calle San Martín, Miraflores; 51-1/242-4149; dinner for two US$55), housed in a 1940’s mansion. Don’t let the traditional atmosphere here fool you: the Asian- and Mediterranean-inflected Peruvian dishes, such as lomo saltado made with rice vinegar and pisco, are exquisitely prepared by the chef-owner Rafael Osterling Letts. When I want to taste Lima’s most daring culinary offerings, I head to Astrid y Gastón (175 Calle Cantuarias, Miraflores; 51-1/242-5387; dinner for two US$75), in a rambling villa in Miraflores. Lima-born chef Gastón Acurio’s menu is full of surprises: a “shot” of sea urchin emulsion mixed with cappuccino; spicy rabbit

spring rolls. Plus, it has the city’s best selection of Latin American wines (try the Uruguayan Pisano Tannat). You can’t come to Lima without sampling Peru’s most famous dish—ceviche. And La Mar Cebichería (770 Avda. La Mar, Miraflores; 51-1/421-3365; dinner for two US$35) is the best place to try it. The bamboo-roof restaurant is a hot spot for Lima’s beautiful people and doesn’t take reservations. But it’s worth the wait for the house specialties, such as tuna, sesame and tamarind, or sea bass and octopus with chile. When I’m in town, I always swing by All Alpaca (375 Schell, Miraflores; 51-1/446-0565; allalpacaweb.com) to stock up on colorful and reasonably priced sweaters, knee-length coats and scarves, all made from downy-soft Peruvian alpaca wool sourced in the Andes. One of my favorite new jewelry designers is Anna Dannon, who creates the imaginative silver baubles sold at Ara Joyas (130 Calle Álvarez Calderon, No. 2, San Isidro; 51-1/421-2039; arajoya.com), on the lively Álvarez Calderón. You’ll find everything from sculptural cubeshaped necklaces to thick, gold-dipped arm cuffs. Mario Testino’s sister, Giuliana, is one of the most talked-about designers in town. I love her hand-crocheted clothes at Giuliana Testino (Fashion Center Larcomar, 610 Malecón de la Reserva, Miraflores; 51-1/264-5619; giulianatestino.com). If you don’t like your dress hems short (and these are short), there are also plenty of delicate cardigans, shawls and capes. In southern Lima’s up-and-coming Barranco neighborhood, Las Pallas (212 Calle Cajamarca, Barranco; 51-1/477-4629) carries traditional Peruvian crafts collected by British-born owner Mari Solari. The intricately designed Ayacucho pottery and Andean retablos are the perfect gifts to bring back home for friends. ✚

Lima Selects Clockwise from top left: A view of the Paciﬁc coastline; the dining room at Rafael; Peruvian crafts at Las Pallas; the author.

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Special Promotion

Mu Ko Ang Thong Ko Nang Yuan

Ko Samui

SUN, SEA, SAND YOUR IDEAL GETAWAY

ew destinations in Asia rival the charm of Thailand’s beaches. After all, where else can you encounter friendly people and delicious cuisine alongside powdery sands, turquoise seas and plentiful sunshine? This alluring blend of breathtaking landscapes and exotic culture can be experienced when you visit the Gulf of Thailand, a lengthy coastline with hundreds of picture-perfect islands and beaches. Covering an area of 247 square kilometers, Ko Samui is one of Thailand’s best-known islands and still retains an idyllic appeal. Cascading waterfalls and verdant forests characterize the hilly interior while lush coconut groves intersperse among the rustic fishing villages and elegant beach resorts. Among the beaches, Chaweng and Lamai stand out for their buzzing vibes

and vibrant nightlife; further north, Big Buddha and Bophut offer equally sweeping beaches without the hustle and bustle. Ko Pha-ngan, to Samui’s north, possesses a more laidback atmosphere. The relatively undeveloped beaches, fringed by soft sands and azure waters, are ideal for swimming and relaxing. Once a month, however, the tranquility is broken when Hat Rin comes alive with the renowned Full Moon Party. Ko Tao—meaning Turtle Island in Thai—earned its names for its distinctive turtle-like shape. With an abundance of offshore dive sites and exceptional underwater visibility, it’s hardly surprising why this unspoiled oasis is widely rated as one of Thailand’s finest diving spots. Don’t miss the opportunity to seek out the brilliant underwater scenery, varying

For more information, visit www.tourismthailand.org

from majestic whale sharks to tiny nudibranchs to brightly-hued anemones. To Ko Tao’s northwest sits Ko Nang Yuan, a small island comprising of three rocky outcrops linked by a three-pronged powdery beach. Home to a myriad of fascinating coral formations and marine life, this island is also an ideal diving and snorkeling spot. The Gulf of Thailand’s crown jewel is Mu Ko Ang Thong Marine National Park, a 250-square-kilometer archipelago made up of bizarre karst formations, luxuriant rainforest, mangrove-lined beaches and hidden coves. Nature lovers will be thrilled to explore the Thale Nai, an emerald saltwater lake hemmed in by towering limestone cliffs, and Ko Sam Sao, a beautiful island encircled by extensive coral reefs. To access these outlying islands, the best way is to use Lomprayah High Speed Ferries, which provides safe, fast and frequent services from Chumphon. With such a diverse range of beaches and islands, the only difficulty is deciding where to start your seaside vacation in the Gulf of Thailand!

websites | insider

The Ratings Game. In an age when everyone’s a critic— and hotels thrive or fail by online chatter—how are new review sites planning to top TripAdvisor? By BRUCE SCHOENFELD

Illustrated by LEIGH WELLS

OU’VE JUST ARRIVED AT THE JW

Marriott when your phone starts to shimmy. The GPS has tracked your location, and now this message appears: “You’ll like the Marriott, especially if you get a city view. Ask for an odd-numbered room above the seventh floor. Cindy at the concierge desk will have the latest info on restaurants. But make sure your rate is under US$200. For US$209, you can get in at the Westin, which is seven blocks closer to tomorrow’s meeting.” That’s a text message from the near future, according to the two ex-Microsofties who own and run Seattle-based Raveable, a hotel-rating website. Highly personalized yet composed by a computer, it will arrive on your PDA automatically and free of charge. Sound fanciful? Understand that »

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| websites

Raveable, which launched a year ago, is already doing the hard part. As you read this, its computers are tirelessly quantifying reviews that consumers have posted on TripAdvisor and elsewhere around the Internet, pulling out keywords and phrases from the unwieldy—and often barely readable— commentary and weighing them by date and site reliability. The result is a snapshot of opinion, without the need to slog through entry after entry. It’s just the latest tool for helping travelers solve the conundrum: Where to sleep? “Imagine if hotel chains had to turn over their guest satisfaction surveys to the world,” says CEO Philip Vaughn. “That’s essentially what we’re doing.” Coming later this year is increased personalization and enhanced writing that will enable users to get a feel for a hotel, not just a value judgment. “Soon you won’t be able to tell the difference,” Vaughn adds, “between our computer and a human.” It all starts with a human, though. And most likely, the human starts on TripAdvisor. The site, which Internet conglomerate IAC bought in 2004 and spun off as part of Expedia, gets more than 32 million visits a month—six times the number of hotel rooms in the U.S.—and generates annual revenue of US$350 million. TripAdvisor relies on the volunteer efforts of travelers who relate their experiences at various hotels, much as restaurant diners do for Zagat or music listeners do for Amazon. The company launched in 2000 as an Internet search engine that pulled travel information from existing sources, including message boards, guidebooks and magazines. At first, users added comments about hotels as a means to emote, not with any idea that they were contributing to the construction of a database. “We were actually a little nervous about whether the site would just turn into a gripe site,” says cofounder and CEO Stephen Kaufer. 68

As it turned out, most contributors offered praise, not pans. And as in Olympic figure skating, extremist opinions tended to cancel out. Reading through the accumulated mass of impressions, perhaps giving additional credence to posters who tended to spell correctly, a user could piece together a composite portrait of a property, then reserve a room there with just a few clicks of a mouse. It helped that TripAdvisor tapped into a philosophical battle that had just started to play out on the Internet and continues today. At issue is which carries greater validity, a single expert—film’s Roger Ebert, wine’s Robert Parker—or the aggregated rantings of the hordes. Experts can’t offer ongoing updates, for how often can someone eat at a particular restaurant, let alone revisit the same hotel? On the other hand, they do provide a professional perspective untainted (one would hope) by hidden agendas. And since opinions can be posted anonymously on TripAdvisor, fraudulence remains an issue. Kaufer believes the site has become adept at spotting reviews written by employees, ex-employees, competitors or anyone with an ax to grind: a team of “quality assurance specialists” schooled in spotting credit-card swindles, identity theft and other malfeasance reviews each posting, aided by “proprietary automated tools.” Still, suspicions remain. Earlier this year, the CEO of the British Hospitality Association announced

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that European hotels would seek governmental regulation of rating sites, which have the power to damage business with unwarranted criticism (as well as enhance it with effusive praise). “I am in favor of all these methods of modern communication,” Bob Cotton told the Independent. “But we need a fair crack at the whip.” It’s clear that Raveable’s scores can’t transcend the raw material it gets from TripAdvisor, TravelPost (800,000 monthly hits) and the other consumerdriven sites. But it does mitigate a particularly devastating review with a preponderance of data. “If the first review you see on TripAdvisor is a bad one, you’ll need to read about fifteen good ones to make up for it,” Vaughn says. “That’s not a problem with us.” Users’ first impressions of a property will be its score and ranking, not a vivid accounting of a hair ball discovered in the sink. An earnest Texan, Vaughn, 33, learned to interpret consumer preferences while working for Gallup. A year on, his site gets 50,000 visits a month. That’s a drop of rain in the ocean compared with TripAdvisor, but the business is sustainable, Vaughn maintains, because he and cofounder (and head techie) Rafik Robeal have scant overhead. They own little equipment beyond laptops, have no full-time employees, do their programming themselves and lease computer time for pennies an hour from Amazon’s data center. “We can run the website from a coffee shop,” »

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| websites

Vaughn says. “The whole thing costs less than a thousand dollars a month. It costs us more to print business cards.” Raveable’s vision of the future is compelling, but it isn’t the only one. In New York, Elie Seidman’s Oyster is a website that resembles an online, realtime version of Fodor’s and Frommer’s guidebooks, but with high-resolution photography. Unlike Raveable, Oyster has paid professional reviewers who travel the country staying in hotels. So far, the site—which launched last June—covers only select U.S. cities and Caribbean resorts, but its presentation is striking. And though a single trip by an Oyster reporter can cost more than Raveable spends in a month, its funding is exponentially higher, too. Since March 2008, venture capitalists have invested some US$10 million. Seidman’s plan is to hang on until the future bends back to resemble the past, just with a different delivery system. Consumer feedback is an engaging novelty, he believes, but ultimately travelers value expertise. “That’s how people have planned their journeys for the past fifty years—by consulting experts,” he says. He argues that the reviews crunched by Raveable are written by consumers who have no basis for comparison—if they’ve stayed at Miami’s Fontainebleau, they probably haven’t been to the Eden Roc—and no trained eye through which to filter their experience. TripAdvisor is “garbage in, garbage out,” he says. “Every hotel, no matter how good or how bad, gets a bunch of twos and a bunch of fives.” So far, the market has validated TripAdvisor’s approach. But because 70

of its very heft, it may not be able to act nimbly as the Internet evolves. And if there’s one thing we’ve learned about the Internet, it’s that it doesn’t stay still for long. “TripAdvisor is the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the category,” says Greg Slyngstad, who serves on the board of Kayak, which owns TravelPost. “But it’s not going to react as quickly as a Raveable or a start-up can.” Having identified two emerging trends—websites’ interaction with GPS systems and social networking— Slyngstad is partnering with Rich Barton, who founded Expedia, to buy TravelPost. Their plan is to modify it into a hotel-rating tool that taps into social media, effectively splitting the difference between TripAdvisor and Oyster. The information you get won’t be from anonymous users, but it won’t be from trained experts, either. Instead, you’ll be matched up with friends and acquaintances—or perhaps even friends of friends or celebrities, as on Twitter—who’ve visited your destination. “Better than one hundred strangers or one expert,” Slyngstad says, “are three or four people you know and trust.” Vaughn and Robeal also appreciate the power of social media. Raveable started offering its users content from travel bloggers whom it judges to be reliable. It sorts them by category and lists them by the number of posts and the hits each generates, which keeps new content flowing in as bloggers battle to move up in the rankings. This only works if Raveable can get the posts for free, but that’s the beauty of it: these bloggers are writing for free.

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Raveable provides a bigger platform, rewarding them with a modicum of fame. The same recompense motivates contributions to TripAdvisor. “It’s amazing how many people are spending vast time and effort writing on TripAdvisor and getting nothing in return,” Slyngstad says. That’s now, of course. Tomorrow may be very different. Slyngstad believes TripAdvisor may soon need to pay frequent contributors in order to keep its information proprietary. That would blur the philosophical lines, for if TripAdvisor’s best-known writers go professional, how different are they from Oyster’s? Not very, even Seidman admits. “You don’t have to work for the New York Times to be an expert anymore,” he says. “You can be a tweeter or blogger with ten thousand followers.” Whether that makes you more capable of rendering judgment on a hotel than the guy mowing his lawn down the block is an open question, and one that each of the hotel-rating websites would answer differently. “It will all come down to what consumers value,” Seidman says. For the moment, they seem to value having it all. ✚ RATING SITES AT A GLANCE TRIPADVISOR Ideal for those who want the full picture — in all its occasionally gory detail — of what other travelers have experienced. Drawback One bad apple can spoil the bunch. RAVEABLE If you’re numerically minded and want the range of opinions crunched into irrefutable stats, this is the site for you. Drawback You’ll get a snapshot of public opinion, but no feel for the property. OYSTER Use this if you ﬁnd the masses untrustworthy and want expert (or at least professional) guidance. Drawback Only a limited number of popular destinations are covered. TRAVELPOST An alternative to TripAdvisor with innovations involving social media in the works. Drawback Lacks TripAdvisor’s critical mass.

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T R A V E L

U N I F O R M

. . . 7 4

B E A U T Y

. . . 7 6

StylishTraveler THE HERMÈS SCARF Looking to add a bit of je ne sais quoi to your travel wardrobe? Try one of these printed silk squares. Photographed by DOUG ROSA

F INSETS FROM LEFT: NICK WELSH, COLLECTION CARTIER © CARTIER; AFP

EW THINGS CAN TELEGRAPH

a sense of European flair like an Hermès scarf. Introduced in 1937, the 91-by-91-centimeter silk-screened squares—or carrés, as they’re called by the French luxury goods house— have the ability to transform an outfit and elevate even the simplest jeans and tee while providing onthe-go style solutions. Just look at Jackie O., who used hers to tether a windswept updo, or the impossibly elegant Princess Grace of Monaco—after breaking her arm, she fashioned the equestrian-print scarf into an impromptu sling. Plus, whether embellished with antique matryoshka dolls from Moscow’s Zabavushka museum or a patchwork of pages from a 1950’s French atlas, each Hermès carré carries the allure of distant lands. —G I G I G U E R R A

Silk-twill scarves by Hermès.

T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A

C O M | J U LY

2010

| travel uniform

TRAVEL UNIFORM W Hotels’ resident tastemaker AMANDA ROSS demonstrates how to travel stylishly. Styled by MIMI LOMBARDO Photographed by DAN HALLMAN

ROM SOURCING ARTISANAL

trinkets for W’s the Store to collaborating with designers around the world on the look of staff uniforms and guest rooms, W Hotels’ newly appointed global fashion director, Amanda Ross, is constantly on the go. In the coming months alone, she’s headed to Hong Kong; Paris; Vieques, Puerto Rico; and St. Petersburg, Russia. Ross has honed a strategic on-the-go dressing formula. “It’s timeless pieces that transition from one destination to the next,” she says. Jacket “I always fly in cashmere,” such as an I Pezzi Dipinti jacket. Top A J.Crew short-sleeve crewneck T-shirt goes wherever Ross does. Jeans “I’m partial to skinny jeans with a little stretch, like J Brand’s low-rise style.” Jewelry “I always wear accessories and don’t mind that I have to take them off at security.” Her go-tos: Ten Thousand Things Annette Ferdinandsen turquoise and 18-karat-gold earrings; I Pezzi Dipinti pearls; Pippa Small motherof-pearl pendant. Shoes “Always ballet flats on the plane.” This Repetto pair is a favorite. Luggage “I never travel without my T. Anthony bag.” Carry-on This roomy yet sleek VBH leather tote is Ross’s command center at 10,000 meters: “My entire office fits in it.” —C AT H E R I N E P R I N C E

JULY 2 0 1 0 | T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A . C O M

HER PACKING POINTERS HAVE A GAME PLAN

“I lay everything out on my bed and plan day by day. It takes time, but it’s worth it later.” LEARN TO EDIT SHOES

She recommends slimming down your selection and opting for just a few pairs that go with everything. STORE VALUABLES

“I always stash the jewelry I’m not wearing in a drawstring pouch in my carry-on.” IDENTIFY YOURSELF

To make her bag easy to spot, Ross tapes a business card on her luggage tag.

A S S O C I A T E F A S H I O N E D I T O R : C A T H E R I N E C R A T E ; H A I R B Y A N D R E G U N N / T H E W A L L G R O U P ; M A K E U P B Y K A T E Y D E N N O / T H E W A L L G R O U P. R O S S ’ S O W N C A R T I E R W A T C H , C A T H E R I N E M . Z A D E H P Y R A M I D B R A C E L E T , K I M B E R LY M C D O N A L D B A N G L E , V E R D U R A L I N K B R A C E L E T , L F R A N K B R A C E L E T W O R N A S A C H O K E R , T O M F O R D S U N G L A S S E S , A N D I P E Z Z I D I P I N T I S H A W L

stylish traveler

| beauty

FROM THE SOURCE These five new products are inspired by some of Europe’s oldest beauty secrets, from lotions and potions to bathing rituals. By CHRISTINE AJUDUA

ICELAND SECRET: THERMAL WATERS Icelanders are among the healthiest people in the world—and, yes, it’s in the water. The country is covered with mineral-rich geothermal hot springs. Detox on the go with

Fresh Creme Ancienne eye cream

is based on the Western world’s first skin cream, originally developed in second-century Rome to heal gladiator wounds. Key ingredients: soothing meadowfoam-seed oil and emulsifying beeswax to fight inflammation. The new formula also includes sugar apple–seed extract, which helps stimulate collagen production and is said to reduce wrinkles.

FINLAND SECRET: SWEATING IT OUT Yael Alkalay’s holistic skin-care line takes its cue from the 1,400-year-old sauna tradition, sourcing all-natural ingredients from Finland. The Red Flower Essential Omega Fresh Berry-Oil serum, rich in antioxidants and fatty acids, restores elasticity; massage it into your pulse points for an aromatic boost that’s the next best thing to an afternoon of shvitzing.

Skyn Iceland Glacial Cleansing Cloths, infused with healing

glacial-river water, plus butterfly bush and thyme extracts.

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ENGLAND SECRET: BESPOKE FORMULAS In the 1920’s, Londonbased homeopath Madame Lubatti started developing face products and treatments for London socialites such as Vivien Leigh ( pictured). Thanks to celebrity facialist Tracey Malone (whose mother trained with her in the 60’s), Lubatti’s secret recipes— including the Lubatti Gorgeous Day moisturizer with honey and almond oil—live on.

M A I N I M A G E : J O H N L A W T O N . I N S E T S , C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P L E F T : © A L E X .T R E F I L O V / D R E A M S T I M E . C O M ; © WILL IREDALE / DREAMSTIME.COM; © FELINDA / DREAMSTIME.COM; AFP; © SUGARFREE.SK / DREAMSTIME.COM

GREECE SECRET: THE EVERLASTING FLOWER As legend has it, Greek goddess–queen Hera (wife of Zeus, king of gods; mother of Hebe, goddess of youth) coveted immortelle (above), grown in the ancient port city of Corinth. She believed it contained the elixir of youth, and she was on to something: its oil has strong anti-aging properties. Immortelle is now the active ingredient in Diptyque Art of Body Care Velvet hand lotion.

ITALY SECRET: ANCIENT SALVE Hand-mixed by monks,

~ T R E N D S ,

C U L T U R E ,

F O O D

N D

M O R E ~

T+L Journal Coral-encrusted boulders around Ko Lipe. DRIVING 87 HOTELS 92 ASIAN SCENE 98 PORTFOLIO 104

THAILAND

Paradise for Sale

Now that Thailand’s Ko Lipe shows up on many a traveler’s radar, developers have moved in, leaving ADAM SKOLNICK to ponder what the future holds for the locals on this southern island T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A

C O M | J U LY

2010

t+l journal

| adventure

DIDN’T EXPECT STROLLERS. YET THERE I WAS EYEING an army of young moms wheeling pushchairs along Hat Pattaya, a crescent of white sand that rolls into Ko Lipe’s main long-tail harbor. This is Lipe’s gateway, and I’d landed here only moments before, thinking of the whispers shared with me by a gorgeous French-Thai hippie chick on Ko Phayam. Barefooted, bra-less and slightly unwashed—as true hippies tend to be—she had a beauty deep and riveting. Factor in that she grew up on the sweetest island in the North Andaman, and she’d recently earned a degree in international relations from the Sorbonne, and you get the kind of lady who can convince a guy like me of practically anything. “Go to Lipe,” she told me that afternoon. “It’s amazing!” Then she blew me a kiss. So, naturally, I went to Lipe. Although I’d made a reservation in one of Castaway Resort’s stylish all-wood split-level bungalows on the east coast, I’d arrived a day early, and decided to nest on Hat

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Pattaya for a night. As I made my rounds I realized that this beach had two personalities. There was the old—signified by bamboo and wood shacks that recall the colorful blast of Ken Kesey ramshackle that once dominated the beach—and the new, sprawling, four-star, mostly concrete resorts that have everything from air-con to Wi-Fi to sunken pool bars. Just as the sun was setting I found Paradise, a humble set of bamboo bungalows on the north end of the beach within 100 meters of a boulder-strewn headland. I dropped my bags and popped next door to Daya, a local restaurant serving some of the freshest and sweetest grilled seafood I’ve ever had. In the end, I preferred ramshackle, but for now the king mackerel was especially exquisite. All in all it was a damn fine evening, even if a sun-scorched Scandinavian family of four was sharing plates of mushy pasta in cream sauce and boiled hot dogs two tables over. Before we go any further, let’s make one thing clear. I like children and I have no problem with young families. It’s just

A largely deserted beach on Lipe.

Lipe became the nomad’s waking dream. Blessed with wide white-sand beaches kissed by SAPPHIRE waters

that when young families (read: package tourists) have landed on a supposedly under-the-radar and idyllic destination, that place is about to change. In Lipe’s case, it already has. In the distant past, Lipe was a dreadlocked pirate hideaway, a place to bury treasure and wait out howling storms. Less than a decade ago, it became the nomad’s waking dream. Blessed with two wide white-sand beaches kissed by sapphire waters, separated by lush, jungled hills and within snorkeling distance of protected coral reefs and massive islands thick with wildlife, this was where the backpacker trail led if you were lucky enough to hear the

whispers. Unfortunately, whispers, when multiplied, become a buzz then a roar—you know, the kind generally associated with bulldozers. The next day I saw the bulldozers flattening a recently cleared hill above Hat Pattaya. I’d been trying to head east to Hat Sunrise, Lipe’s somewhat less developed east coast. So I made my way along the maze of narrow concrete streets, past Kafair, a hipster café blowing jazz through its doorway, past the tattoo parlors, bakeries and restaurants—some of which were franchises of well-established businesses on Ko Phi Phi and Railay—both once glorious, pedestrian-only destinations that are drowning in over-development. Long story short, I got lost and wound up here, watching belching machinery steamroll and pave Lipe. I kept exploring the hills and found the island’s power plant. It was built and is operated by Phi Phi Electric. From there I followed the trail along the ridge then downhill and noticed a large plot of stilted huts standing shoulder to shoulder and fenced off with barbed wire. It didn’t look all that different than refugee camps I’d seen in Eastern Burma, except this wasn’t a camp at all. It was more like a reservation. Living here, crammed together, were an »

Ko Lipe’s simple Castaway Resort.

T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A

C O M | J U LY

2010

| adventure

Andaman Idyll Clockwise from top left: Holiday snaps, under the sea; making a grand entrance; plenty of space to relax.

overwhelming majority of Lipe’s original descendants, the chao leh, or sea gypsies. “The local people sell to Ko Tong maybe 10 years ago,” said Uddhi, a dreadlocked, inked-up Ko Tao native who now rents kayaks on Hat Pattaya. The more I asked locals like Uddhi about Lipe’s development boom, the more I heard the name Ko Pi Tong. A Satun native, Tong made his money on the ecologically dubious and lucrative enterprise of collecting swift’s nests, which he’d export to China where they’d be stewed into bird’s-nest soup. In Thailand armed men always closely guard these collection points. Tong consolidated Lipe’s land after he bought out a Phuket developer named Go Kyiet. Kyiet was an early investor on Phi Phi and had marked Lipe as Phi Phi 2.0, but he ran out of cash before he could pay the local people who’d already agreed to sell. Tong went back to the chao leh families, most of whom didn’t have proper documentation for their land. He offered them lump 82

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sums of cash. They accepted, which means that, technically, this was all legal. So they participated in their own demise, but it isn’t quite that simple. See, the game was rigged. “Here, when Ko Tong wants something, you cannot say no to him,” Uddhi told me. An elder, I’ll call him Pan for his own safety, who lives in the cordoned off chao leh village explained the situation with a story. “Before, we had the whole island, we all lived on the beach,” said Pan, a silver-haired fishermen with deep lines worn into his leathery brow. “Ko Tong came and give us very small money. My brother and I, we not want to sell. The police come and take us to Satun. They said we had no land rights. They made us sell.” Still, they did get paid. In some cases, Tong bought land for Bt500,000 per rai (about 1,600 square meters), which he’s now selling for six million baht. And there was more confusion. Tong let the people live on the land he bought from them for years. Most folks moved only recently. »

F R O M T O P R I G H T : © L I E N S / D R E A M S T I M E . C O M ; © P I E R R E / K O H L I P E . C A S TA W AY- R E S O R T S . C O M ( 2 )

t+l journal

| adventure

“Twenty years ago, it was only backpackers who came to enjoy the nature,” said Pan. “It was good. There were no guesthouses. Three years ago, everything changed.” Yet, there is plenty to love about Lipe, which remains a far cry from Phi Phi—for now. Windswept Sunrise Beach is spectacular with a stretch of sugar sand that juts triangular in the north with scenic views of Ko Adang. With brooding, densely forested hills, white-sand beaches and healthy coral reefs, Adang is Lipe’s wild playground. Divers drift along its reefs and soar over fields of giant clams. Inland are jungle trails and weeping waterfalls, including the creek bed scramble up to Pirate’s Falls, which is rumored to have been a freshwater source for pirates. Long-tails are no longer allowed to beach on Adang, so I had to swim to shore. There, I hiked the steep, three-tiered Chado Cliff trail and came face to face with a barking deer before standing on an outcrop overlooking the Lipe-Adang archipelago. From this distance everything looked peaceful. Lipe was still ringed with turquoise shallows and blanketed in jungle green. Long-tails and speedboats still buzzed and bumped their way between untouched islands within Lipe’s orbit and families or no, I would soon learn that there remains plenty of silky sugar-white sand space for travelers of any ilk on Lipe. But with another looming four-star face-lift slated for the off-season, it isn’t the present most long-time locals and Lipe-lovers are worried about. It’s the future. ✚

Windswept Sunrise Beach is spectacular with a long stretch of sugar sand that JUTS to the north

Another day ends in paradise.

GUIDE TO KO LIPE

WHERE TO STAY Castaway Resort Hat Sunrise; 66-83/138-7472; castaway-resorts.com; bungalows from Bt3,000. Blue Tribes Hat Pattaya; 66-86/285-2153; bluetribeslipe. com; bungalows from Bt1,500. WHEN TO GO Most travel to Ko Lipe during the late-November–March dry season, but with more resorts remaining open throughout the year, it’s actually becoming a terriﬁc year-round destination. Crowds are much thinner on the ground, and under the sea during the wet season, when the sun still shines quite often.

GETTING THERE Several speedboat companies make the 90-minute run from Pak Bara harbor in Satun province to Ko Lipe (US$20). Pak Bara is linked by frequent minibus transfers to Trang and Hat Yai, both of which have airports that offer daily ﬂights to Bangkok. The Satun-Pak Bara Speedboat Club

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Idyllic Hat Sunrise; 66-81/ 802-5453; idyllicresort.com; bungalows Bt5,950. WHERE TO EAT & DRINK Daya Resort Hat Pattaya; 66-74/728-030; lunch or dinner for two Bt500. Nong Bank Restaurant Hat Pattaya; lunch or dinner for two Bt500.

Beachside Bar Hat Pattaya; drinks for two Bt200. Pooh’s Bar Lipe Village; 66-74/728-019; poohlipe.com; drinks for two Bt200. WHAT TO DO The best way to see the archipelago, including Ko Adang, is to hire a local chao leh captain. Try Mr. Rim (Hat Sunrise; 66-89/464-5289; half-day tours from Bt1,500), based just south of Idyllic; he’s a warm, welcoming and unrepentant seadog. Or dive the local reefs with Castaway Divers (66-87/4781516; kohlipedivers.com) or Sabaye Divers (66-89/4645884; sabaye-sports.com). Popular sites are Eight Mile Rock, an amphitheater of coralcrusted boulders that attracts mantas and whale sharks; and Stonehenge, popular because of its beautiful soft corals, resident seahorses and leopard sharks.

CO U RT ESY O F I DY L L I C

(tarutaolipeisland.com) links Ko Lipe with Ko Lanta (US$60, three hours) stopping at Ko Bulon Leh, Ko Muk and Ko Ngai along the way. They also offer two daily trips to Pulau Langkawi (Bt1,200, one hour).

driving | t+l journal

Sooke Harbour House’s lemon verbena panna cotta with blackberry gelée, above. Picking white turnips and lettuce at Fairburn Farm on Vancouver Island, right.

CANADA

Valley Highs In Vancouver Island’s Cowichan Valley there’s a growing food scene that’s defiantly and deliciously local. PETER JON LINDBERG samples the region on a three-day drive. Photographed by TARA DONNE T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A

C O M | J U LY

2010

t+l journal | driving

Vintage Cowichan From left: German pretzels from True Grain Bread & Mill, in Cowichan Bay; an old farm truck in the Cowichan Valley; the kitchen garden at Sooke Harbour House, on the island’s west coast.

F YOU LIVE ANYWHERE SOUTH OR EAST OF, SAY, Vancouver, you’ve probably not heard of the Cowichan Valley. This bucolic corner of Vancouver Island keeps a low profile, even by Canadian standards, which hold humility next to godliness. Residents prefer to let the valley’s food and wine do the talking. The Cowichan’s Mediterranean-like microclimate (with more sunny days than anywhere else in Canada) sustains an impressive range of small farms, vineyards and artisanal producers, whose bounty is increasingly sought after by B.C. chefs. Comparisons to Napa and Provence miss the point: the Cowichan is far more rustic and homespun than either, not to mention more affordable. What the region lacks in high-end hotels—there are only a handful of inns and B&B’s—it makes up for with simpler delights: communal farm suppers, roadside honey stands, craft cider and microbrews, and the tastiest buffalo

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mozzarella this side of the Atlantic. But the valley is just the highlight of Vancouver Island’s culinary circuit, which includes the nearby city of Victoria, with its own farm-totable tradition, and the southwestern coast, the setting for the island’s finest restaurant. To experience all the region has to offer, we’ve mapped out the perfect three-day drive.

DAY VICTORIA TO DUNCAN 1 Start in Victoria, a 25-minute flight or 1½-hour ferry ride from Vancouver. With its prim flower gardens, Victorian follies, and mahogany-trimmed pubs, B.C.’s capital feels like a prosperous English city circa 1950, save for the floatplanes buzzing across the harbor and the occasional stuffed grizzly bear. Your first stop: the waterfront gastropub Spinnakers for creamy Fanny Bay oysters, rich seafood chowder and the pub’s own ESB cask ale, served on a deck overlooking the harbor. After renting a car, make your way out of town heading north. A 42-kilometer drive quickly leads into the thickly forested Malahat range, where a 352-meter pass takes you over the mountains then down, down into the Cowichan Valley proper. Highway 1, running north–south through the valley, is a remarkably dull stretch of road. It’s along the quiet back roads and gravel lanes jutting off of it that the Cowichan’s riches fully reveal themselves. At the end of one especially rutted drive is Fairburn Farm Culinary Retreat & Guesthouse, the crown jewel of the Cowichan food scene, thanks to proprietor and chef Mara Jernigan, who also leads a terrific Saturday cooking class. Five guest rooms are

Island Bounty From above left: Cowichan Bay’s low-key harbor; harvesting honey at Tugwell Creek Honey Farm & Meadery in normally sleepy Sooke; a salad of just-picked greens at the alfresco Sunday lunch at Fairburn Farm Culinary Retreat & Guesthouse.

upstairs in the 1896 farmhouse, with interiors that are just the right side of twee: patchwork quilts; tulip sconces; flatiron doorstops. Wander Fairburn Farm’s 53 hectares and visit the resident herd of water buffalo, source of Fairburn’s decadently creamy and tangy mozzarella. After a sound night’s sleep, you’ll wake to their distant lowing and the aroma of a hearty farm breakfast.

DAY DUNCAN TO COWICHAN BAY 2 If you’re not taking Jernigan’s cooking class, spend the day touring the valley. Get the lay of the land and sample local products at the Duncan Farmers’ Market, held every Saturday in Duncan, the valley’s workaday hub. Stop in for a pint at the convivial Craig Street Brew Pub, whose Shawnigan Irish Ale is the best of several house-made beers. Then follow the clanging of ships’ bells and the squawking of gulls to Cowichan Bay, the first town in North America to be recognized by Cittaslow, the Italy-based Slow Food organization. Seemingly every resident makes a daily pilgrimage to True Grain Bread & Mill, whose organic loaves you’ll smell from blocks away. You can assemble a great picnic lunch here and at Hilary’s Cheese & Deli, where the young, mushroomy goat’s-milk blue is the standout among nearly a dozen local varieties. Take it all down to a pier on the marina, where sleek yachts and rusty fishing vessels occupy neighboring berths. For dessert: a black-cherry cone at the Udder Guy’s Ice Cream Company. The hazy, golden light of late afternoon is the ideal backdrop for a hike through the orchards of Merridale

Ciderworks, 11 kilometers south of Cowichan Bay. Rick Pipes and Janet Docherty make their cider from English and French heirloom apples and distill a fine Calvados-style brandy using a traditional copper still. Before sundown, head back to Cowichan Bay for dinner at the Masthead, a maritime-style tavern filled with hectares of worn wood, flickering oil lamps and a winningly retro vibe (tableside Caesar salad service; a pianist playing “Theme from St. Elsewhere”). Find some seats out on the deck above the marina and order Whaletown oysters from Cortes Island and seared scallops from Qualicum Beach, just 96 kilometers to the north. Alternatively, if Bill Jones is hosting one of his monthly themed dinners, book ahead at Deerholme Farm. Jones, a supremely talented chef, is also a passionate forager and the area’s wild mushrooms are often the highlight of his tasting menus, served in his cozy farmhouse. Working with a single sous-chef, Jones puts both a French and Asian spin on farmto-table cooking: a recent meal included a Chinese-style duck with hoisin sauce made from Deerholme’s own squash, and a hen-and-egg dumpling soup infused with fresh ginseng and wasabi from the garden.

DAY DUNCAN TO SOOKE 3 Anyone in the valley on a Sunday should make a reservation for Mara Jernigan’s epic Italian-inspired lunch at Fairburn Farm, served on communal tables on the porch. (It’s open both to guests and to people who aren’t staying at the inn.) The six courses might include a stellar salad of just-picked baby greens, a lasagna of chanterelles, braised » T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A

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t+l journal | driving

All Natural From far left: Fairburn Farm’s resident sheep herd; chef Sam Benedetto at Sooke Harbour House; heirloom tomatoes at Fairburn Farm.

lamb shanks with featherlight gnocchi and a plate of Cowichan cheeses with figs and housemade mostarda (a spicy candied-fruit condiment). After lunch, cross back over the Malahat range on Highway 1, then follow Route 14 along the southwestern coast. Here, as the shoreline grows more rugged and the winds more blustery, habitations are fewer and farther between. In the sleepy hamlet of Sooke, stop in at Tugwell Creek Honey Farm & Meadery to sample the excellent honey and strong mead. Then check into the 28-room Sooke Harbour House, tucked away on a semiprivate peninsula. The inn is best known—and deservedly so—for its restaurant, where chef Sam Benedetto works wonders using almost exclusively island ingredients: that means no olive oil, no citrus, no produce that can’t be grown in the inn’s expansive garden. Thankfully, what can be grown here is remarkable: sweet Asian pears; four varieties of kiwi; nasturtiums whose buds can substitute for capers; orange begonias that emit a tart, citrusy juice; and dozens of distinctly flavored geraniums, which taste uncannily of garlic or apple or dill or lime. The daily-changing menu is especially strong on seafood, be it a Dungeness crab soup or sweet Weathervane scallops served with sea asparagus and sorrel. The 15,000-bottle wine list is overseen by the inn’s charismatic owner, Sinclair Philip— who, along with Jernigan, helped start Vancouver Island’s Slow Food movement. Toast them both with a glass of smoky-sweet Brandenburg No. 3, an amber dessert wine from Cowichan’s own Venturi-Schulze. Then it’s off to bed with nothing but the sound of waves lapping on the rocky shore below. ✚ 90

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GUIDE TO COWICHAN VALLEY WHEN TO GO The Cowichan Valley’s mild climate makes it a year-round destination, but produce and farm stands are best sampled in spring, summer or early fall. GETTING THERE Most major Asian centers offer flights to Vancouver, from where you can take a ferry (bcferries. com) or floatplane (harbour-air. com or vancouverislandair.com) to Victoria Harbour, or fly into Victoria International Airport. You can rent a car from one of several locations downtown. WHERE TO STAY Fairburn Farm Culinary Retreat & Guesthouse 3310 Jackson Rd., Duncan; 1-250/746-4637; fairburnfarm. bc.ca; doubles from C$165; Sunday lunch for two C$187. Sooke Harbour House 1528 Whiffen Spit Rd., Sooke; 1-250/642-3421; sookeharbourhouse.com; doubles from C$399; dinner for two C$92. GREAT VALUE

WHERE TO EAT Craig Street Brew Pub 25 Craig St., Duncan; 1-250/737-2337; dinner for two C$63.

Deerholme Farm For a calendar of upcoming events and farm dinners, visit magnorth.bc.ca/ events.htm online. 4830 Stelfox Rd., Duncan; 1-250/748-7450; dinner for two C$189. Hilary’s Cheese & Deli 1737 Cowichan Bay Rd., Cowichan Bay; 1-250/748-5992; lunch for two C$23. The Masthead 1705 Cowichan Bay Rd., Cowichan Bay; 1-250/748-3741; dinner for two C$94. Spinnakers Gastro Brewpub 308 Catherine St., Victoria; 1-250/386-2739; lunch for two C$37. True Grain Bread & Mill 1725 Cowichan Bay Rd., Cowichan Bay; 1-250/746-7664; loaf of bread C$4.70. WHAT TO SEE AND DO Duncan Farmers’ Market City Square, Duncan; 1-250/732-1723; on Saturdays, from 9 A.M.–2 P.M. Merridale Ciderworks 1230 Merridale Rd., Cobble Hill; 1-250/743-4293. Tugwell Creek Honey Farm & Meadery 8750 West Coast Rd., Sooke; 1-250/642-1956; from Wednesday to Sunday between 12 P.M.–5 P.M.

t+l journal | hotels

The New Hoteliers With their intimate, unconventional properties around the globe, these six trailblazers are transforming the boutique hotel. By PETER J. FRANK

Kirk Lazarus The Perfectionist Hotel Vibe Luxe Retreat

➻ MOLORI SAFARI LODGE Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa

➻ MOLORI MIRAGE Port Douglas, Australia

➻ MOLORI CLIFTON Cape Town, South Africa

➻ MOLORI BEACH HOUSE Santa Monica, California

18 YEARS AS A HIGHFLIER IN THE ENERGY AND commodities business, Kirk Lazarus stayed in countless luxury hotels. “But I was always looking for more,” says the South Africa native. So he took matters into his own hands and in 2002 built a lodge in South Africa’s Madikwe Game Reserve, an hour by plane from Johannesburg. Friends were impressed by the five ultraprivate suites and plunge pools and persuaded him to open his property to the public as Molori Safari Lodge (molori.com) six years later. Since then, Lazarus has launched Molori Mirage, a villa on the Great Barrier Reef. Upcoming projects include Molori Clifton, an oceanside house in Cape

N HIS

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Town (this winter), and Molori Beach House, in Santa Monica, California (next spring). The rates are steep— starting at US$2,700 a night for a suite at the lodge—but Lazarus insists the experience is worth it and that his VIP clients (including Kate Moss and Mischa Barton) happily pay the price. What’s the trick? Trusting your own instincts and preferences. A fearless adventurer (he recently toured Iceland and Greenland by foot, boat, horseback and quad bike), Lazarus devises once-in-a-lifetime experiences for guests, such as a helicopter ride to a picnic spot on the edge of a cliff in Queensland, Australia.

C AT H E R I N E L E D N E R

Kirk Lazarus at his Molori Beach House, in Santa Monica, California.

ASIAN ECONOMIC CRISIS OF THE late 1990’s, Loh Lik Peng was working as a bankruptcy lawyer. “I came across a property in Singapore’s Chinatown that the bank was trying to sell, but nobody would touch.” He took a chance, bought it “for a song,” and redid it from head to toe in 2003. The result: Hotel 1929 (hotel1929.com), the city’s first boutique property. He’s since opened the nearby New Majestic (newmajestichotel.com), and a third Singapore property, Wanderlust (wanderlusthotel.com), is on the way next month. Loh treats each building as an uncommon treasure, using local architects to keep the space true to its past. At the New Majestic, for instance, he hired emerging Singaporean artists to create the fanciful suites, with larger-than life murals and beds suspended from the ceiling. And in Shanghai, Loh turned a derelict factory into the Waterhouse at South Bund (waterhouseshanghai.com) with polished concrete, steel, and patinated wood to reflect its industrial roots. His latest project is a renovated Edwardian structure in London’s Bethnal Green, the Town Hall Hotel & Apartments (designhotels.com). Loh is drawn to Loh Lik Peng these historic spaces: “People Treasure Hunter always ask why I choose a certain Hotel Vibe Urban Chic area, but for me, it’s always about the buildings. ➻ HOTEL 1929, NEW URING THE

MAJESTIC HOTEL and WANDERLUST Singapore

➻ WATERHOUSE AT SOUTH BUND Shanghai

➻ TOWN HALL HOTEL

F R O M R I G H T : C O U R T E S Y O F D E S I G N H O T E L S ; A L L I S O N V. S M I T H

& APARTMENTS London

Loh Lik Peng in a tuk-tuk in the lobby of his New Majestic Hotel.

Liz Lambert The Texas Dreamer Hotel Vibe Vintage Motel

➻ HOTEL SAN JOSÉ and HOTEL SAINT CECILIA Austin, Texas

➻ EL COSMICO Marfa, Texas

➻

HOTEL HAVANA San Antonio, Texas

Liz Lambert at El Cosmico, her hotel in Marfa, Texas.

OU’VE GOT TO BE FEARLESS TO TAKE ON

street criminals in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. To turn a run-down motor court in Austin, Texas, into a boutique hotel—spearheading an entire neighborhood’s renaissance—you’ve got to be both fearless and visionary. That’s Liz Lambert, who ditched her career as prosecutor to create the Hotel San José (sanjosehotel.com), which opened a decade ago. The 1936 motel in the South Congress area of Austin “happened to be across the street from my favorite pub,” Lambert recalls. “When I was in town, I would think, Someone really ought to redo that place.” Then she spent the next three years transforming it into what it is today—a wildly popular retreat. Last year, Lambert opened the Hotel Saint Cecilia (hotelsaintcecilia.com), a Victorian manse nearby, with an eclectic look based on two imaginary muses: a decadent, velvet-draped glam rocker in the Mick Jagger vein and a globe-trotting gay uncle whose house is stuffed with artifacts from his travels. The result: everything from chesterfields and old photographs to handmade Swedish mattresses. Even more eccentric is El Cosmico (elcosmico.com), in Marfa, Texas, which is made up of vintage trailers, yurts and a teepee. This past April, she finished her latest project: restoring the historic Hotel Havana (havanasanantonio.com), in San Antonio, Texas. “We reused all the original furniture, and it was the world’s quickest turnaround—one hundred and twenty days.” » T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A

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t+l journal | hotels

Wilbert Das The Natural Hotel Vibe Barefoot Luxury

➻ UXUA Trancoso, Brazil

WILBERT Das, the former creative director of Diesel. “Once one collection is out, you need to have done the next one. I wanted to make something that was long-lasting and sort of slow-feeling.” Das is referring to Uxua (uxua.com), the unconventional hotel that he opened in June 2009 in the Brazilian town of Trancoso. Uxua—nine detached casas spread around the Bahian town’s village green—was never meant to be a hotel. The Dutch-born designer bought the first structure, an old fisherman’s house, to use as a second residence, then ended up acquiring two more buildings and constructing six others. The result is a hybrid of hotel and private villa: “The feeling we wanted to create was that of visiting friends. You never

ASHION IS A FAST-PACED BUSINESS,” SAYS

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pass a reception area and there are no signs, no logos on the towels. You’re given a key and shown around your house.” The common areas include a pool lined with shimmering green quartz and an open kitchen where guests can cook; there’s also a beach club and spa. In a deliberate departure from the urban style of his work at Diesel, Uxua’s interiors are organic, rustic and sensual; Das used native materials— reclaimed wood, canvas from old trucks and ceramics made by the local Pataxó Indians—to decorate each house. Service, too, is designed to be casual rather than fawning. “The typical if-I-drop-something-somebody-comes-topick-it-up type of service—that’s too much,” he says. “Everything here is done with a smile. And I make sure that people are happy to work here.” »

FERNANDO LOMBARDI

Wilbert Das in the gardens at his Uxua hotel, in Trancoso, Brazil.

t+l journal | hotels The Imperfectionist Hotel Vibe Postindustrial Posh

➻ ROUGH LUXE HOTEL London

➻

ROUGH LUXE COLLECTION Worldwide

Rabih Hage at his Rough Luxe Hotel, in London.

HAGE WANTS TO TURN THE DEFINITION of luxury on its head. The Lebanon-born, London-based architect and interior designer thinks the concept has become homogenized: “It’s now a word just used to sell more of something, with a higher premium.” Rough Luxe (roughluxe.com), the London hotel Hage created in 2008, operates by a different principle. “Luxury can be sitting in a small, well-lit room with a book and beautiful artwork on the walls.” At the nine-room Rough Luxe, in a Georgian building in the King’s Cross neighborhood, Hage left historical details as they were: some chipped paint here, a bare floorboard there. It’s an exercise in urban archaeology, and Hage cites wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic that values impermanence over perfection, as an influence. “I was searching for beauty in imperfection,” he says. With its shared baths and lack of telephones, the hotel certainly isn’t for everyone. But its success among a discerning group of travelers has convinced Hage to establish the Rough Luxe Collection, a worldwide network of hotels, restaurants, and shops—from Paris’s Shakespeare & Co. bookstore to the Cape Heritage Hotel, in South Africa—all stamped with the brand’s name. “It’s about an authentic experience. I hate it when I walk into a hotel and the concierge looks at his computer screen and calls me by name. That is fake. That’s not authentic,” Hage says.

ABIH

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LTHOUGH HE STUDIED ECONOMICS AT

Rutgers and worked for two years as an investment banker, Istanbul native Tuncel Toprak approaches hotels with more art than science. “I wanted everything to be natural,” he says of his two-year-old Witt Istanbul Suites. “If the staff members are happy and love the place, they’ll treat guests nicely. And we’ll get good word of mouth.” Despite having no marketing budget or sales team, Toprak has managed to keep his 17 rooms in Istanbul’s up-and-coming neighborhood of Cihangir booked. What’s his secret? Besides that friendly staff, it’s the refreshing design by Istanbul firm Autobahn. The look avoids Orientalist clichés and stays simple, almost Scandinavian, but with a futurist twist: curved wooden headboards; mirrored subway tiles; Hans Wegner–meets–Mark Newsom chairs. The overall idea is to be the type of place where locals themselves would stay and to help visitors, in turn, feel like locals. “The same comfortable bed I have at home, we put in the hotel,” he says. “We use the same satellite TV provider, because it has the channels I like to watch.” Though the Witt epitomizes the Tuncel Toprak city’s forward-looking creative class, The Innkeeper Toprak is an old-fashioned innkeeper at Hotel Vibe Live Like heart, with no plans to expand. “I want the a Local Witt to be artisanship in a hotel.” ✚

➻

WITT ISTANBUL SUITES Istanbul

Tuncel Toprak, owner of Witt Istanbul Suites.

F RO M L E F T: A N D R E AS B L EC K M A N N ; CO U RT ESY O F T U N C E L TO P RA K

Rabih Hage

t+l journal | asian

scene

VIETNAM

A former penal colony, Con Dao is as isolated as ever and that seclusion, along with unspoilt scenery, remains its charm, writes NAOMI LINDT

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Vietnam’s Secret

HEN A LARGE, WILD BLACK PIG lumbers down the runway— the welcoming committee, it turns out—my husband Dustin and I know we’re in for something entirely different. We’ve just arrived on Con Dao Island off the southeast coast of Vietnam when the porker appears. Boarding a shuttle bus reconfirms this sentiment. Besides a film crew who have come to shoot an upcoming season of the French version of Survivor—which really makes me wonder exactly what I’m getting myself into—all the other passengers on board are Vietnamese, many of them retirees who stare blankly at the foreigners. When was the last time in Vietnam I wasn’t surrounded

Quiet Isles Clockwise from far left: Snorkeling Con Dao; the South China Sea’s catch of the day; above the remote archipelago; inside Six Senses Hideaway.

by vacationers nose deep in their Lonely Planets, conical hats strapped to their backs? Cultural observations aside, my attention soon switches to the scenery. Like something out of The Lord of the Rings, jagged peaks soar into the bright blue sky before plunging into turquoise water dozens of meters below. Goats clamor along rocky cliffs, hot pink bougainvilleas and orange-red flame trees dotting the landscape. And though this is Vietnam in 2010, we pass no more than a handful of motorbikes. In town, the island’s sleepy beauty doesn’t dissipate: narrow streets are virtually traffic-free and lined with single-story, red-roofed buildings built by the French more than a century ago. After a somewhat awkward check-in (the Saigon Con Dao is recommended for the comfort of its new rooms, not the ambience or service), Dustin and I stroll along the seafront promenade, which overlooks a beach of clean, white sand and is bookended by lush hills, rather than the obnoxious high-rises common in many of the country’s seaside towns. We stop for a café sua da (iced coffee with sweet milk) at the Con Son Café, Con Dao’s only café– bar, a breezy place housed in a French colonial mansion and shaded by huge trees. Like she does every afternoon, a vendor of banh mi cha ca (fish-cake sandwiches) parks her stall in front of the café. She’s

It’s difficult to believe that places like this—full of smiling locals, empty beaches—still EXIST

more than patient with us as we grapple with our order. As the sun drops behind the hills to the west, the sky turns a brilliant shade of peach. It’s utter bliss, and we can’t believe our good fortune in discovering this gem.

DAO, A 16-ISLAND ARCHIPELAGO, IS undoubtedly one of the country’s best-kept secrets. Given Vietnam’s unstoppable growth over the last decade, it’s difficult to believe that places like this—full of smiling locals, empty beaches and quiet primordial forests—still exist. There are a handful of hotels and restaurants scattered about town and along the beach. I soon learn that the archipelago’s pristine beauty and lack of development is no coincidence. In 1862, due to Con Dao’s remote location 180 kilometers off of Vietnam’s coast in the South China Sea, the French colonialists established a » ON

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penal colony for political dissidents here, turning it into one of the country’s most feared prisons. Their brutal tiger cages and forced labor would endure until the mid-1950s, when the South Vietnamese and American forces took over. With North Vietnam’s victory in 1975, the jails were finally closed and became a symbol of the hardship endured in the long war for independence. State-sponsored tour groups, largely government and military officials, have been Con Dao’s key source of income in recent years. The prisons have been converted into museums, the cemetery, which contains nearly 2,000 graves, a reminder of Vietnam’s struggles. A must-visit tomb contains Vo Thi Sau’s remains, a brave young woman who joined the fight against the French at the age of 14 and was the first female to be sent to Con Dao. She was executed five years later. Evidence of the brutality is scattered throughout Con Dao. For starters, we check our e-mail in Internet cafés housed in former prison guards’ homes. But the island is so gorgeous and peaceful that any anxiety about the past is quickly swept away by sheer awe. Seven years ago, the best route to Con Dao was by helicopter from Vung Tau. That’s when Rick Mayo Smith, a developer, first visited. “I was immediately struck by the immense beauty of the island and the pristine environment. It’s just so rare these days,” he says. “I fell in love with the pure natural beauty of the place, the charming French architecture and the unique history. But more than anything, it was the peaceful and relaxing feeling that you succumb to when you get off the plane that does not leave until you head home.” For the past three years, Mayo Smith has been working on the island’s first luxury resort, the Six Senses Hideaway Con Dao, which is slated to open in December. In Southeast Asia, there’s really no better guarantee of a place’s untouched charms than the presence of an eco-friendly resort. The property, which will feature 49 villas all with private pools and built largely from local materials, is the first hotel in Asia to get the Green Glove for environmentally friendly construction. This environmental ethos is key in a place that is home to some 1,000 plant varieties, 1,300 marine species and 160 types of animals. In fact, more than four-fifths of the archipelago is protected by the Con Dao National Park, encompassing some 6,000 forested hectares and 14,000 hectares of marine areas, making it one of the country’s strongest conservation programs. Over the past decade,

Sleepy Beauty Above: Bai An Beach, on the southern tip of Con Son Island. Left: Some local greenery.

We encounter stunning beaches where the only footprints in the glassy white sand are OURS

organizations like the WWF and the United National Development Program have stepped in to provide additional support toward environmental preservation and education. “The National Park is generally well protected, and works to keep the park land out of new development plans,” says Julianne Becker, a WWF spokesperson in Vietnam, which completed its three-year, US$500,000 conservation program on Con Dao last December. “The forest and mangrove systems on the islands of the archipelago are very well intact and still harbor endemic species such as the black giant squirrel. The reefs around Con » T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A

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Dao are often referred to as the best preserved in Vietnam. The rangers on Con Dao take a sense of pride in being a part of the conservation program and there has been little evidence of poaching in recent years.” I witness these efforts across the island. One day, I hire a guide from the park for a trek to Dam Tre Bay, where Dustin and I take a languorous, hour-long swim after a sweaty hike through the forest. The only other person we encounter along the way is a young forest ranger hiking to meet his girlfriend at the airport. Other guided hikes lead visitors to century-old fruit plantations, sheltered coves and remote snorkeling spots. After hopping on rented scooters and cruising the island’s quiet roads, we encounter stunning beaches with crystal clear aquamarine water like Bai Nhat, where the only footprints in the glassy white sand are ours. Further down the road, on Con Dao’s western edge, we find the main harbor of Ben Dam, whose colorful wooden fishing boats bring in the daily catch—grouper, snapper, crab, squid, prawn— that we feast on every evening. While checking out the wooden beach bungalows at the newly opened Con Dao Seatravel Resort, we meet a 46-year-old American, Eric McHenry, who’s been on the road the past eight months. Though McHenry has seen much of Southeast Asia, he’s found something totally different on this island. “Con Dao is a place where you can sit with a cup of coffee, good conversation, and enjoy the pace and the way of life,” he says. “Where else in Vietnam can you sit on a retaining wall, drink a beer and watch the locals gather at the same time every day for a game of football on the beach? This place affords you the opportunity to see how the people really live and play. And it’s more beautiful than I imagined. I know it won’t look this way in the next five or 10 years.” That night, McHenry and his travel buddy, Nick, coax the hotel staff into building a fire on the sand so they can grill their freshly caught grouper on the beach. We spend the evening eating the delicate fish, sipping chilled white wine from Dalat beneath a sky so thick with stars it’s difficult to believe it’s real. I realize that I, too, have completely succumbed to the island’s intoxicating solitude. The next day, we board the flight back to Ho Chi Minh City and brace ourselves for the real world. And I’m honored to be sent off by a bevy of goats and pigs. ✚

Fishing boats dot Con Dao’s harbor.

GUIDE TO CON DAO GETTING THERE It’s a 45-minute ﬂight from Ho Chi Minh City to Con Dao. Vietnam Airlines (vietnamairlines.com.vn) operates three departures daily, with one-way tickets from US$45.

Try Ky Similar to Thu Ba but even more popular. Nguyen Duc Thuan St.; 84-64/383-0294; lunch or dinner for two VND200,000.

WHERE TO STAY Saigon Con Dao Resort Ask for one of the new superior rooms, which cover the basics. 18–24 Ton Duc Thang St.; 84-64/383-0155; saigoncondao.com; rooms from US$60.

Try Con Son Market Best in the early morning or late afternoon for noodles, bahn mi and other tasty street snacks. Lunch or dinner for two VND30,000.

Con Dea Seatravel The 12 beachfront bungalows feature basic furniture and terraces. 6 Nguyen Duc Thuan St.; 84-64/363- 0768; condaoseatravel. com; rooms from US$60.

Café Con Son Sea-facing outdoor café. 2 Ton Duc Thang St.; 84-64/363-0670; drinks for two VND50,000.

WHAT TO DO Tour the island by motorbike, which rent for US$8 per day. Head northeast to reach Dam Trau beach. On the west coast are more spectacular beaches.

Six Senses Hideaway Con Dao The resort is slated to open by year-end, with eco-chic villas with private plunge pools along a two-kilometer stretch of private beach. 66-2/631-9777; sixsenses.com.

Con Dao National Park Book guided treks and boat trips to the islands at the park ofﬁce. Helpful ofﬁce staff speak English, guides Vietnamese only. 29 Vo Thi Sau; 84-64/383-0669; condaopark.com.vn; treks from VND150,000 per person; boats about VND1.2 million per day.

WHERE TO EAT Thu Ba Offers an abundance of fresh seafood. Expect metal tables, plastic chairs and bright lighting. Duong Pham Van Dong; 84-64/383-0255; lunch or dinner for two VND200,000.

Rainbow Divers Vietnam’s largest dive operator plans to reopen its Con Dao ofﬁce in November and offers a range of outings throughout the archipelago. 84-908/781-756; divevietnam.com; dives from US$90.

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t+l journal | portfolio

Breakfast in Bed Artist and writer MAIRA KALMAN illustrates the many pleasures of the in-room hotel breakfast

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CATHERINE LEDNER

30 of the world’s BEST secret islands EXPLORING Rome’s fragrant oases In SEARCH of the superlative Maldives Organic and freewheeling SONOMA 109

F R É D É R I C L AG R A N G E . O P P O S I T E PAG E : M O RG A N & OW E N S

Chichijima, the largest island in Japan’s remote Ogasawara archipelago. Opposite: Flamenco Beach, on Culebra east of Puerto Rico.

ENDLESS E NDLES SUN, SUN, SALTY SALT BREEZES, OCEAN AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE: THERE’S NOTHING LIKE AN ISLAND GETAWAY. T+L HAS FOUND 30 PERFECT PLACES, FROM AUSTRALIA TO MAURITIUS, WHERE YOU CAN KICK BACK AND LET YOURSELF GO

Edited by Sarah Kantrowitz and Stirling Kelso. Reported by Tom Austin, Anya von Bremzen, Alysha Brown, Karen Burshtein, Irin Carmon, Jennifer Chen, Lisa Cheng, Jennifer Cole, Jennifer Coogan, Robyn Eckhardt, Irene Edwards, Kristina Ensminger, Jaime Gross, Catesby Holmes, Tina Isaac, Mark Orwoll, Kathryn O’Shea-Evans, Ryan Poynter, Katerina Roberts, Ramsey Qubein, Jessica Schwartzberg, Meeghan Truelove, Jeff Wise and John Wogan.

LAKSHWADWEEP ISLANDS INDIA

Beachgoers seeking a simple paradise in India will find it in Lakshadweep, a chain of coral atolls where tourism is carefully limited by government decree. Take a 75-minute flight from the mainland city of Kochi to Agatti, an oar-shaped isle surrounded by shallow turquoise lagoons. Agatti Island Beach Resort (91484/236-2232; agattiislandresorts.com; doubles from Rs9,300) serves as a base for travelers who want to spend time in the village and on coconut farms. Ferry to Bangaram Island Beach Resort (91-484/301-1711; cghearth.com; doubles from Rs19,000) and practice yoga amid the palms. T+L TIP Take an evening boat excursion to tiny Tinnakara Island, 45 minutes from Bangaram, where phosphorescent plankton bathe the shore in a bluish glow. $

CUBADAK ISLAND INDONESIA

On this jungle-covered island in West Sumatra, you’ll find monkeys, monitor liz ards, pangolins and—most surprisingly—a taste of Italian culture at Paradiso Village (62-812/6603766; cubadak-paradisovillage.com; doubles from US$240, all-inclusive). The hotel, run by a couple from Turin, has 15 thatched-roof bungalows with loft bedrooms and a restaurant where multicourse meals include heaping plates of prawn-and-tomato pasta, jackfruit drizzled with palm oil, and coconut flan. The wine list features bottles from Emiglia Romana, and, as is the way in Tuscany, all meals end with a frothy espresso. T+L TIP Ask the hoteliers for a tour in their speedboat; you’ll snorkel in nearby lagoons before visiting the fishing village of Kapo-Kapo. OGASAWARA ISLANDS JAPAN

More than 900 kilometers off the coast of Tokyo are the remote Ogasawara Islands. Reached via the once-weekly overnight ferry from Takeshiba, the 30 mostly uninhabited islands are a mecca for scuba divers—the clear waters are dotted with World War II shipwrecks (Iwo Jima is located within Ogasawara). 112

Make your base on Chichijima, the main island, at Sakaiura Family Inn (Sakaiura, Chichijima; 81-4/9982-2530; d2.dion.ne.jp/~families; doubles from ¥16,000, including breakfast and dinner), a secluded house with three rooms, or take the local bus to Tetuya (ChichijimaKominato; 81-4/9982-7725; tetuyabonin. com; doubles from ¥24,000, including breakfast and dinner), a five-room inn owned by a sushi chef. T+L TIP Feed sea turtles at the Ogasawara Marine Center (Byobu-dani, Chichijima; 81-4/9982-2830; bonin-ocean.net). From July through October, get up close to the just-hatched babies in the breeding tank. $

REDANG ISLAND MALAYSIA

Dedicated divers, snorkelers and beach bums make pilgrimages to this island just an hour by air from Kuala Lumpur. Most visitors book all-inclusive packages at the hotels since there aren’t many restaurants here, but what Redang lacks in culinary options it makes up for in tropical bliss. Lodging ranges from luxe—the Berjaya Redang Beach Resort (60-9/630-8866; berjayahotel. com; doubles from RM920), with minimalist rooms and an ayurvedic spa—to simple: the Redang Holiday Beach Villa (60-9/624-5500; redangholiday.com; doubles from RM379, all-inclusive) has 26 wooden chalets on Pasir Panjang, the island’s longest stretch of sand. T+L TIP Avoid trips from November to February, when most of the island’s hotels close for monsoon season. $

SIARGAO ISLAND PHILIPPINES

Siargao, a teardrop-shaped, 438-squarekilometer getaway an hour’s flight from Cebu, was discovered by the world’s surfers for its right-breaking wave known as Cloud 9. But surf shacks are giving way to hotels. Kalinaw Resort (63-921/320-0442; kalinawresort.com; doubles from P7,000) has five cottages on Cloud 9 beach. Surfing is still a draw, and most resorts arrange lessons; or rent mountain bikes from Island Bike (63-920/287-2126; islandbike.org) and pedal through rice paddies. T+L TIP Visit Pansukian’s shell museum to see the hotel owners’ collection. $

KO PHRA THONG THAILAND

Travelers who make the four-hour boat journey from Phuket are rewarded with a solitude that’s difficult to find these days in Thailand. On Ko Phra Thong, a congenial resident known simply as Mr. Chuoi rents eight palm-leaf huts on the sand, but the best place to stay is Golden Buddha Beach Resort (66818/952-242; goldenbuddharesort.com; doubles from Bt2,900), a group of houses ranging from unfussy bungalows on stilts to family-size villas with shaded porches. Your only interruption, a pleasant one, will be the sound of birds since over 100 species call this island home. T+L TIP Start the morning with yoga in the resort’s open-air pavilion, then take a 10-minute stroll to the island’s interior grasslands, where you’re likely to spot hornbills and sea eagles.

AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND & THE SOUTH PACIFIC $

ROTTNEST ISLAND AUSTRALIA

When Dutch mariners arrived on this antipodean island, they encountered the rare quokka, a marsupial that they mistook for a rodent (hence the name Rat Nest, or Rottnest). Since that unfortunate beginning, the sundrenched reserve and its friendly, kangaroo-like inhabitants have welcomed Western Australians who take day trips via a 90-minute ferry from Perth (or 25 minutes from Fremantle) to surf and lounge on the sand. No private cars are allowed, and the residents will happily tell you that plans for a luxury resort are progressing slowly. For now, the best place to stay is Hotel Rottnest (61-8/9292-5011; hotelrottnest.com.au; doubles from A$230), set in the former governor’s mansion overlooking Thomson Bay. T+L TIP Buy your ferry ticket in advance, especially during the Aussie summer months. Once there, the spit is easily navigable on foot. »

Great Value icons denote a hotel with a rack rate of US$250 or less.

C LO C KW I S E F RO M TO P L E F T: CO U RT ESY O F G O L D E N B U D D H A R ES O RT; J ESS I CA S C H WA RTZ B E RG ; F R É D É R I C L A G R A N G E ; C O U R T E S Y O F B E R J AYA R E D A N G B E A C H R E S O R T ; F R É D É R I C L A G R A N G E

ASIA

Island Hopping Clockwise from top left: Ko Phra Thong, Thailand; Town Dock, on Maine’s Little Cranberry Island, close to Acadia National Park; cruising the Paciﬁc Ocean around Japan’s Ogasawara Islands; Malaysia's Berjaya Redang Beach Resort; in the Lakshadweep islands, the Bangaram Island Resort.

Siargao, Philippines attracts the surf set.

LAUCALA ISLAND FIJI

Austrian entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz—CEO of Red Bull—is the force behind the new Laucala Island (679/888-0077; laucala.com; doubles from US$3,800, all-inclusive), a 1,200-hectare private getaway that was previously owned by business tycoon Malcolm Forbes. The resort’s staff greets guests at a tiny airstrip and delivers them to one of 25 villas set in a coconut plantation. The 300-square-meter villas, made of mahogany and Fijian vesi woods, are outfitted with outdoor showers, private pools and spa pavilions. The mainly organic, Fijian restaurant dishes up yuca ravioli and Pacific king prawn kokoda (the local take on ceviche). T+L TIP Bring hiking gear and comfortable clothes. There are more than five kilometers of trails for outdoorsmen to explore by foot or on one of the island’s seven trained horses. $

VAVA’U ISLANDS TONGA

DREAMSTIME.COM

In July some 12,000 humpback whales finish their migration in the aquamarine waters of the 50 beach idylls that make up Tonga’s northernmost state. Book a tour with Mounu Island Resort (676/754-331; mounuisland.com; tours from US$150 per person; doubles from US$250) to watch the seafaring giants, then overnight in one of four traditional fales—round, thatched-roof huts decorated with woven mats. The ’Ene’io Botanical Garden & Visitor Center (vavaueneiobeach.com; admission US$18, including guided tour), in the village of Tu’anekivale, serves a traditional feast of roast suckling pig and beef wrapped in taro leaves on Fridays—and staffers perform a Polynesian dance show. T+L TIP Dolphin Pacific Diving (Vavau; dolphinpacificdiving.com; day trips from US$95, including lunch) takes groups to Mariner’s Cave, an hour away by speedboat.

U.S. & CANADA EAST BROTHER ISLAND CALIFORNIA

On this half-hectare islet, East Brother Light Station (1-510/233-2385; ebls. org; doubles from US$295), a restored

Victorian lighthouse that once guided ships from the San Pablo Strait to the San Francisco stockyards, has been transformed into an all-inclusive fiveroom inn—it’s the only place to stay on the island. After arriving via a 10-minute motorboat ride from Point San Pablo, guests are welcomed with a flute of Domaine Chandon champagne. Climb to the third-story platform, which looks out over Mount Tamalpais State Park. In the morning, innkeepers Ed and Anne Witts (experts on harbor lore) serve a hearty breakfast: pain au chocolat, herbed eggs and fresh-roasted coffee. T+L TIP Ask for either the West Brother room (with a four-poster bed and views of Marin County) or Two Sisters, for a private fireplace. $

SAUVIE ISLAND OREGON

Sauvie Island is the perfect destination for foodies looking for a day trip from Portland. Set between the Willamette and Columbia rivers, this 9,700-hectare stretch of farmland is known among insiders as the epicenter of the Northwest’s locavore movement—and it’s just a 15-minute drive from Stumptown. In summer, stop at Sauvie Island Farms (1-503/621-3988; sauvieislandfarms.com) to pick plumcolored marion berries; on Thursdays in July and August, Kruger’s Farm Market (1-503/ 621-3484; krugersfarm market.com) hosts live outdoor music festivals. The single overnight option is a campsite booked through Island Cove Park (1-503/621-9701; islandcovepark. com; from US$17 per tent per night). T+L TIP For Sauvie Island–grown produce and bottles from Oregon’s Willamette Valley, try Wild-wood Restaurant & Bar (1221 NW 21st Ave.; 1-503/2489663; dinner for two US$90), in Portland. $ LITTLE CRANBERRY ISLAND MAINE

Little Cranberry Island has only 80 year-round residents—mostly lobstermen and artists—a post office, one restaurant and a small museum. Otherwise, the less than one-square-kilometer expanse is uninhabited—and ideal for cyclists. The main road, lined with wild-

flowers, takes you from the port to a rocky beach well situated for launching your kayak. Lobster rolls are a specialty at the wood-paneled Islesford Dock Restaurant (1-207/244-7494; lunch for two US$45). Rent a private cottage (islesford.com) or return to the mainland and stay at the eight-room Kingsleigh Inn (373 Main St., Southwest Harbor; 1-207/244-5302; kingsleighinn.com; doubles from US$150), which overlooks the water. T+L TIP Pick up colorful glass jewelry at Island Girl Seaglass (Old Cross Rd.; 1-207/460-0301). PIGEON KEY, SEABIRD KEY AND EAST SISTER ROCK FLORIDA

For the ultimate dropout Keys experience, board the ferry to a cluster of unassuming islands off Marathon, including Pigeon Key (1-305/7435999; pigeonkey.net), a 1.2-hectare green that housed the railroad builders who constructed the Seven Mile Bridge to Key West in 1912. Today it’s a charming museum complex surrounded by grassy fields and shady palm trees. Take refuge on a nearby private island. The fourhectare Seabird Key (1-305/6690044; seabirdkey.com; US$5,595 a week for four) is set up with a canoe, bikes and a sailboat. Nearby, East Sister Rock (1-305/446-7377; floridaisland.com; US$5,000 a week) has a three-bedroom house with a wraparound veranda and a small dock. T+L TIP In Marathon, lunch at the Keys Fisheries Market & Marina (1-305/743-4353; keysfisheries. com; lunch for two US$31). Regulars order stone crab claws and Key lime pie. LANGARA ISLAND BRITISH COLUMBIA

On 3,237-hectare Langara, the northernmost spot in the Haida Gwaii— formerly Queen Charlotte—archipelago (reachable via a two-hour flight from Vancouver), sea lions crowd rocky inlets, ravens soar over moss-covered cedars, and orcas and humpback whales migrate within the Pacific. Get close to the wildlife with the West Coast Fishing Club (1-604/233-9232; westcoastfishing club.com; four days from C$5,880 per person, all-inclusive), an outfitter that arranges » 115

NORTH AND SOUTH PENDER ISLANDS BRITISH COLUMBIA

All eyes were on Vancouver this past winter, but the cold kept visitors from opting for the two-hour ferry ride south to British Columbia’s Southern Gulf Islands. On North and South Pender— actually two islets united by a one-lane bridge—temperate rain forest abuts a scalloped coastline that was once the stomping ground of rumrunners during Prohibition. For panoramas of the rocky shore and snowcapped mountains, reserve one of the three rooms at Sahhali Luxury Oceanfront Bed & Breakfast (1-250/629-3756; sahhalibandb.com; doubles from C$235, including breakfast), set atop a 122-meter bluff. On the less populated south island, there’s Poet’s Cove Resort & Spa (1-250/629-2100; poetscove.com; doubles from C$299), a 46-guest-room resort with en suite soaking tubs and fireplaces and a 110-slip marina. T+L TIP Join up-atdawn locals at the Sunday farmers’ market for cinnamon buns and focaccia. $

ÎLES DE LA MADELEINE QUEBEC

Were it not for the gusty winds that sweep along the beaches of Îles de la Madeleine, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 209 kilometers by plane from mainland Quebec, the dozen-island atoll may have remained isolated forever. But now a growing sailing and windsurfing community books far in advance for one of the 10 renovated rooms at the convent turned hotel Domaine du Vieux Couvent (Havre-aux-Maisons; 1-418/ 969-2233; domaineduvieuxcouvent.com; doubles from C$175, including breakfast). For an experience that’s even farther off the beaten path, take a 50-minute ferry ride 116

to L’Île-d’Entrée, a favorite fishing spot. T+L TIP Adventure seekers should arrange an afternoon of windsurfing through Aerosport (1-418/986-6677; aerosport.ca; C$250), the most experienced local outfitter.

EUROPE $

ÎLE D’OUESSANT FRANCE

Also known as “L’Île des Femmes” after the women who lived here while their fishermen husbands were at sea, this island is Europe’s westernmost outpost and one of the Continent’s most overlooked hideaways. Rent a bike or hop a shuttle to the town of Lampaul, where you’ll find crafts shops and crêpes, a specialty in Brittany. Ti Jan Ar C’hafé guesthouse (33-2/98-48-8264; doubles from €87), less than a kilometer inland, has eight spare rooms. Open the windows to hear the sounds of the Siberian birds that nest nearby each spring. T+L TIP Tour two of the island’s five lighthouses, all located near the port of Stiff, then return to France’s mainland on a ferry to Brest or Le Conquet. FAVIGNANA ITALY

On this butterfly-shaped island eight kilometers off Sicily’s western coast, the breeze is scented with jasmine, and locals still catch bluefin tuna with large nets and spears. The 46-room Hotel Tempo di Mare (6 Via Frascia; 390923/922-474; hoteltempodimare.it; doubles from €254), a tidy property with private balconies, overlooks nearby Levanzo Island. Trattoria Due Colonne (76 Piazza Madrice; 39-0923/922-291; dinner for two E49) doubles as the town hall and serves caponata, a Sicilian staple of eggplant, olives, capers and tomatoes. T+L TIP Stock up on picnic supplies including cured tuna bresaola at La Casa del Tonno (12 Via Roma; 39-0923/922-227), then head out to Cala Rossa, a secluded cove framed by white, craggy cliffs. $

ALÓNNISOS GREECE

Twenty-two-kilometer-long Alónnisos, in Greece’s Northern Sporades, is the setting of one of the country’s two

marine parks (established to protect the area’s biodiversity), which is home to the endangered Mediterranean monk seal. The island is awash with color: fields of ruby-red flowers, pale yellow cliffs and green olive groves. There are also ancient villages, pebble beaches and walking trails to explore. Five minutes by car from the harbor, the Atrium Hotel (30-242/406-5750; atriumalonnis sos.gr; doubles from €168) has 29 rooms recently updated with mosaic tiling and cheery curtains, chairs and bedspreads. Dine at Tassia Taverna (Fiskardo Harbor; 30-267/404-1205; dinner for two €100), in Steni-Vala, for chef-owner Tassia Dendrinou’s lobster spaghetti. T+L TIP Alónnisos is home to more than 25 churches, some dating back to the 16th century. Take a tour, available through the Alónnisos Walking Club (alonnisoswalks.co.uk). $

OAXEN SWEDEN

Not only is this isle south of Stockholm impossibly picturesque (imagine bright cottages planted among birch and elm trees); it’s also an up-and-coming culinary destination, thanks to chef Magnus Elk. At his minimalist restaurant Oaxen Krog (46-855/153-105; four-course prix fixe dinner for two €441), Elk prepares regional dishes like wild salmon and cockle tartare. Spend the night at Prince van Orangiën (46-855/153105; princen.se; doubles from €194), the restaurant’s seven-cabin 1930’s Dutch riverboat-hotel docked steps from the restaurant. T+L TIP In nearby Södertälje, check out the Swedish royal family’s Tullgarn palace (46-855/572-011; www.royalcourt.se), famous for its Rococo interiors and English gardens. BOZCAADA ISLAND TURKEY

With its Ottoman-Greek whitewashed houses clustered around the harbor and its lack of tourism, Bozcaada, one of Turkey’s two Aegean islands, is an insider’s secret. The other attraction? Its 2,000-year-old wine-making tradition, currently experiencing a renaissance. At the Corvus winery (90-286/6978181; corvus.com.tr), former architect Resit Soley is producing the country’s most »

C LO C KW I S E F RO M TO P L E F T: CO U RT E SY O F PA R A D I S O V I L L AG E ; CO U RT E SY O F P O S A D A D E L A S F L O R E S ; D AV I D C I C C O N I ; F R É D É R I C L A G R A N G E ; D AV I D C I C C O N I

four-day guided tours with stays in a hilltop timber lodge. The best dinner option is the hotel’s cliff-top Solarium, where chef Ryan Stone cooks with a decidedly Pacific Northwest flair; prawns with anise-liqueur espuma are a specialty. T+L TIP For a lesson in Canadian history, head over to the Haida Indian cultural center—with dugout canoes and burial caves on display—on neighboring Graham Island.

Waterfront Retreats Clockwise from top left: Paradiso Village on Cubadak Island, Indonesia; poolside at Posada de las Flores, in La Paz, Mexico; the church in Piazza Sant’anna, in Sicily; looking toward Tinnakara from Bangaram, in India’s Lakshadweep archipelago; a traditional wooden ﬁshing boat in Favignana, Italy.

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sought-after bottles. Where to stay? Try Kaikias (Kale Arkasi Mevkii; 90-286/6970250; kaikias.com; doubles from TL220), with 22 rustic-chic rooms in the shadow of a Byzantine fortress. Don’t miss the red mullet and smoked octopus at the 110-year-old Lodos (Çinar Çari Cad.; 90-286/697-0545; dinner for two TL47). T+L TIP Bring home a jar of housemade poppy jam, sold at Salto (90286/697-8465), the town market.

British governor Hesketh Bell. Play castaway on deserted beaches, go for a ride in the crewed speedboat, ask the 24-hour butler for a poolside lobster lunch or tandoori chicken and grilled marlin served in the marble dining room. Be sure to make time for a soak in the hot tub. T+L TIP Arrange with a staffer for a trio of musicians to perform a traditional serenade during dinner.

AFRICA

Though this spot is often overlooked by island-hoppers, it may seem familiar because in-the-know photographers and Hollywood location scouts love La Digue and its jagged, towering granite boulders that jut into the sea at Anse Source d’Argent. Explore the rugged landscape before a night at La Digue Island Lodge (248/292-525; ladigue.sc; doubles from €160), either in a thatchedroof bungalow or in one of 69 rooms set in the Yellow House (a 19th-century

ILE DES DEUX COCOS MAURITIUS

If you’re headed to the far reaches of the Indian Ocean, bypass such popular destinations as Grand Baie and Port Louis in favor of Ile des Deux Cocos, a 5-hectare isle covered in filaos and palm trees. The only place to stay is Petite Folie (230/433-1752; naiade.com; doubles from €2,100), a Moorish-style twobedroom villa built a century ago by 118

LA DIGUE SEYCHELLES

colonial building that’s now a national monument). T+L TIP The best sunset views are at Veuve Restaurant (248/292-525; dinner for two €71), which serves local Creole dishes, including saffron-dusted tuna.

MEXICO & SOUTH AMERICA $

ESPÍRITU SANTO MEXICO

It’s not easy to find an undiscovered Mexican beach getaway, but a collection of islotes off Baja California Sur’s eastern shore remain pristine desert-island paradises. Instead of kilometers of resorts, you’ll find white-sand coasts and crimson peaks filled with UNESCOprotected wildlife. The most inviting is Espíritu Santo, a volcanic speck with shallow inlets that lies 24 kilometers from La Paz. To get there, sign up for a

C LO C KW I S E F RO M L E F T: M O RG A N & OW E N S ( 2 ) ; CO U RT E SY O F PA R A D I S O V I L L AG E

Endless Sun Clockwise from left: A deluxe villa at Culebra’s Club Seabourne; coconut shrimp at Club Seabourne, in Culebra, Puerto Rico; above the coast on Indonesia’s Cubadak Island.

one- to five-day cruise with eco-minded Baja Expeditions (1-858/581-3311; bajaex.com; from US$260 per person per night). There are no hotels, but travelers can sleep in the small vessel’s eight tents or opt for a night back in La Paz at Posada de las Flores (44 Álvaro Obregon; 52612/125-5871; posadadelasflores.com; doubles from US$180). T+L TIP Round out the Baja Expeditions trip with a Mexican cooking class on the beach. Chef Antonio Orozco teaches you to make carne asada on a charcoal grill. $

SOUTH WATER CAYE BELIZE

Unlike the busy beach scene on Ambergris, South Water Caye is still an unknown escape. The island—just 22 kilometers east of the town of Dangriga—is the ideal place to explore the Western Hemisphere’s longest living barrier reefs. Swim right off the south end’s beach and snorkel or dive amid spotted eagle rays, rainbow parrot fish, moray eels and dolphins. The Blue Marlin Lodge (011-501/522-2243; bluemarlinlodge.com; from US$1,295 per person, all-inclusive, three-nights) has its own dive shop, while Pelican Pouch (011501/522- 2044; southwatercaye.com; doubles from US$295), with eight cottages, is set on the prettiest stretch of sand on the island. Entertainment here is of your own making—bring a book and settle back with a cold Belikin beer. T+L TIP Avoid July and August, when sand flies are fierce. SAN ANDRÉS COLOMBIA

This English-speaking island 225 kilometers east of Nicaragua is rightfully on our radar for its adventurous diving and protected wildlife and coral reefs. Book one of the five rooms at Casa Harb (37-8/512-6348; casaharb.com; doubles from US$400) for its custom-made bamboo and teak South Asian furniture and impressive collection of art (including two pieces by Keith Haring). The local dish rondón, a coconut, yuca and fish stew, is especially good at Miss Celia Taste (57-8/513-1062; dinner for two US$47). Hop on a puddle jumper or catamaran to the UNESCO-designated Seaflower Biosphere Reserve for a

glimpse of barracudas and sea snails. T+L TIP Take the obligatory ride around the island—private boats are available for rent (hoteldeepblue.com; from US$175)—before a dinner of grilled fish speared by your guide and served on Santa Catalina island. ISABELA ISLAND GALÁPAGOS, ECUADOR

Don’t tell the thousands of visitors that descend upon Santa Cruz each year, but rocky Isabela (known for its five active volcanic calderas) is the best place to see the giant tortoise and marine iguana. The sheer size of Isabela—it’s bigger than all the other Galápagos Islands combined—and its hard-to-traverse volcanes have contributed to the continued evolution of more than 2,546 species (for example, there are five types of endemic tortoise here). Check out Isabela Island’s wildlife aboard Lindblad Expedition’s National Geographic Islander (expeditions.com; 10-day cruise from US$5,380 per person, double), a 48-guest, eco-friendly twin-hulled ship that navigates the island’s western coast. T+L TIP Scale the active Sierra Nevada volcano with onboard naturalist Carlos Romero Franco.

CARIBBEAN & THE BAHAMAS $

ELEUTHERA THE BAHAMAS

Regulars rejoice in the fact that this 177-kilometer-long island, with its peaceful pink-sand beaches, has played second fiddle to its smaller celebrityfilled neighbor, Harbour Island, for decades. On the island’s northern end, all 26 rooms at Cove Eleuthera (Queens Hwy., Gregorytown; 1-242/3355142; thecoveeleuthera.com; doubles from US$205) open onto expansive porches; to the south, the 32-room Pineapple Fields (Governor’s Harbour; 1-242/3322221; pineapplefields.com; doubles from US$160) has a restaurant and lounge called Tippy’s (it’s one of the best in the Bahamas). The fast ferry from Nassau takes 2½ hours. T+L TIP Catch the hourly boat from Jean’s Bay

dock to Spanish Wells, an island for diehard fisher man, for a lesson in crawfish hunting and a stroll past harbor-front houses that are covered in blooming bougainvillea. $ ANEGADA BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS

The only coral island in the volcanic BVI chain, Anegada is also one of the largest—16 by 4 kilometers—and, unexpectedly, one of the most sparsely populated. An 80-minute ferry ride from Tortola (via Virgin Gorda), it is known for powdery beaches and a large flamingo population. Accommodations are simple: the Anegada Reef Hotel (1-284/495-8002; anegadareef.com; doubles from US$175) is a modest 17-room property that often schedules soca music during cocktail hour. Cow Wreck Beach Resort (1-284/495-8047; cow wreckbeach.com; doubles from US$250) has three waterfront cottages; head to the outdoor bar for Wreck punch, made with rum—and bartender Alex Warren won’t tell you what else. T+L TIP While snorkeling Horseshoe Reef, the largest continuous barrier and patch reef in the Caribbean, look out for remnants of the 1859 cargo ship Parramatta. CULEBRA PUERTO RICO

Sleepy Culebra—32 kilometers east of Puerto Rico—makes Vieques, its sister island, seem downright rowdy by comparison. The hilly landscape and abundance of wildlife preserves mean that development is minimal and the tiny airport will never see much more than an 18-seat twin-prop plane. Ten beaches ring the shore; discerning travelers claim that crescent-shaped Playa Flamenco is the Caribbean’s most perfect swath of sand. The one town, Dewey, is dotted with lagoon-side cafés framed in strings of lights. Stay at Club Seabourne (State Rd. 252; 1-787/7423169; clubseabourne.com; doubles from US$199), where the lemon-yellow cottages have verandas on a slope facing Fulladoza Bay. T+L TIP Butiki (74 Calle Romero; 1-708/935-2542) sells landscape paintings by local artist Evan Schwarze and sought-after bracelets. ✚ 119

GARDENS OF

Secreted away in the heart of the city or sprawled across hilltops outside of town, Rome’s gardens are fragrant oases with ancient statuary, cool pools and fountains, and all shades of green. BY CH AR LES M ACLEAN PHOTOGR APHED BY CHR ISTOPHER SIMON SYK ES

IGH ABOVE THE SPANISH Steps in the wooded, statue-filled pleasure grounds of the Villa Medici, I find myself puffing heavenward up Pincio Hill, whose mini belvedere offers a 360-degree panorama of the Eternal City. Lost in the astonishing view, I’m only half listening when our guide remarks that in the first century B.C. this same seven-hectare site was covered by the »

The gardens of Ninfa, with the hilltop town of Norma in the distance, left. Opposite: A satyr glares out from dense shrubbery in the garden at Villa Lante, just outside Rome.

In Italian Villas and Their Gardens (1904), Edith Wharton Gardens of Lucullus. What she says next gets my full attention. The fabled gardens, created by a retired Roman points out that villa in Italian refers both to the house and its general around his villa—somewhere under our feet—would garden or pleasure grounds. At the Villa Lante, built for become a model for other gardens in the city and later be Cardinal Gambara in the 1560’s on a hillside above the recognized as one of the first attempts in the West to tame medieval town of Bagnaia and considered by many to be the finest Renaissance garden in Italy, the twin pavilions, or nature through landscape gardening. palazzine, play such a minor part in architect Giacomo This is where it all began. Right here. In the company of friends who have come to look at villas Vignola’s overall design they might as well be garden ornaand gardens in and around the city, I set off each day from ments. In contrast to the fanciful exuberance of Bomarzo, only a few kilometers away, Villa the Hotel d’Inghilterra on sorties of Lante is all about order and proporenlightenment and varied delight. It’s tion, if not restraint. early May, the ideal time to be in Its main terraces are subdivided by Rome (fewer people; less traffic; the paths and box hedges into geomettemperature in the balmy mid rical patterns; they’re linked by steps twenties) and to make excursions into and a stream that falls from a grotto its newly greened-up countryside. at the top of the garden through a Fields of scarlet poppy and yellow sequence of magnificent fountains mustard plants line the road to and cascades (adorned with shrimp Bomarzo, a good hour north of the tails, dolphins and river gods) to the city by car and the first and most great water parterre that overhangs extraordinary of the gardens we visit. the ocher-roofed town below. As you More sculpture park than garden, look down on the garden, the beauty Bomarzo’s Sacro Bosco occupies a of these symmetrical arrangements lush area on the grounds of the Villa becomes apparent—the sparkling Orsini. A web of looping trails leads play of sunlight on water; the inviting through open glades, past rocky cool of ilex-shaded bowers—adding outcrops and down steep ravines A web of looping trails leads to the harmonious effect of the whole. inhabited by giant, often grotesque statues of gods, mythical beasts and through open glades, past Flowers, rarely a key feature of Italian would be a distraction. other marvels. At every turn there’s an rocky outcrops and down gardens, However remote from the modern encounter with some unexpected and ravines inhabited by giant, concept of a garden—nothing much eccentric work of art. An elephant with a tower on its back; a huge turtle often grotesque statues of has changed since the French essayist Montaigne, strolling the paths here in bearing the statue of a goddess; a gods, mythical beasts and 1581, admired the fountains for their leaning stone fun house. Some of the moss-covered figures are badly worn other marvels. At every turn beauty and grace and saw rainbow effects in the misty spray—you can and their symbolism long lost, but there’s no mistaking the ogre whose there’s an encounter with an still appreciate how Villa Lante achieves through its inspired design a gaping cave of a mouth (big enough to eccentric work of art bucolic sense of peace, which goes walk into without stooping) represents back to the classical ideal of balancing the entrance to the underworld. art and nature in country living. If there’s something melancholy about nature having reclaimed much of the “Parco dei Monstri,” as it’s known locally, it fits the FTER A SIMPLE YET DELICIOUS LUNCH AT IL BORGO, spirit of the place and the story of its creator. In 1552, Prince a café-restaurant with tables on the main square Vicino Orsini started work on a Villa of Wonders for his in Bagnaia (the local mozzarella and housebeloved wife, who died tragically young, which caused the made licorice-dark chocolate ice cream are project to be shelved; it was later completed as a monument memorable), we set off on a 20-minute drive to the last to her memory. On the morning of our visit, though, the garden of the day, in Caprarola. The only way to see what woods are loud with birdsong and the sound of delighted gardening authority Penelope Hobhouse called “one of the laughter as groups of schoolchildren race around this Renais- great masterpieces of Italian garden art” is by first taking the sance Disneyland, clambering over the monsters and being official tour of the Villa Farnese, a formidable pentagonal yelled at by exasperated teachers. fortress that sits above the town looking out toward Rome. »

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A lush landscape at Ninfa. Clockwise from top left: An elephant statue at Sacro Bosco, in Bomarzo; looking down on the quadrato with the Fountain of the Moors, at Villa Lante; the ruins of Ninfa; a fountain and cascade at Villa Lante. Opposite: An ogre at Bomarzo.

Stone pillars in the terraced garden at Villa Farnese, in Caprarola.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a relief to emerge into the sunlit grounds behind the palace and wander uphill through mature woods of ilex, chestnut and pine to Casino del Piacere, or the House of Pleasure

We troop through one magnificent empty salon after another (including a map-of-the-world room painted around 1570), and get a feel for how uncomfortable life must have been in those days, even for the rich and powerful. It’s a relief to emerge into the sunlit grounds behind the palace and wander uphill through mature woods of ilex, chestnut and pine to the Casino del Piacere (House of Pleasure), a perfectly proportioned lodge also built by Vignola. The final approach to the casino is by way of a dramatic arrangement of steps and fountains leading to a terraced garden of stone pillars, 28 male and female busts on tall pedestals that seem to have sprung from the ground along with the sentinel cypresses. The grandeur may be a little daunting, but Caprarola illustrates the importance the late-Renaissance builders and their masters set on the relationship between villa, garden (with all its sculptural forms) and the surrounding landscape.

HE NEXT MORNING, TAKING THE OLD A PPIAN WAY out of Rome, we drive south for an hour toward Naples and stop, as travelers have been doing since Roman times, at Ninfa—a lush oasis in the desolate, once brigand-haunted Pontine Marshes. Here, tucked under the arid Lepini Hills, the ruins of a medieval town (razed by civil war in 1382) were gradually transformed over the course of the 20th century by the aristocratic, now died-out Caetani family into what some consider the most beautiful garden on earth. There was never a formal plan. Three generations of Caetani wives helped Ninfa grow back over the skeleton of the abandoned town, its streets and buildings (consisting of a tower, town hall and several churches) providing the framework for the garden. It still has a feeling of being inhabited not by ghosts but by the flora and fauna that have taken over the place, creating a dreamlike world of color, fragrance and serenity.

You walk along a cypress avenue (once the main street), then follow grass paths (originally cobblestoned alleys) bordered with lavender and rosemary hedges that meander between the ruins. The crumbling stonework supports a profusion of climbing roses, clematis, honeysuckle and jasmine. Vacant gateways and windows frame views of wildflower meadows, flowering shrubs, rare magnolias, pomegranate groves and a cluster of giant timber bamboos. In the midday heat, the silence is broken only by the song of a nightingale and the sound of rushing water from the crystal-clear stream that runs through the middle of Ninfa. It has the romantic appeal of an island, out of time and place. The sense of a natural equilibrium restored is as satisfying as it is humbling, but it’s a reminder too of the vision and hard work behind the scenes that made and now preserve this heavenly spot. One of its chief creators, Princess Marguerite Caetani, was American and a distant cousin of T. S. Eliot. Besides importing and nurturing many exotic plant species, she founded the international literary magazine Botteghe Oscure, which flourished in the 1940’s and 50’s, and brought a succession of writers and artists to Ninfa. Her contributors make up a roll call of the giants—Lampedusa, Moravia, Calvino, Bertolt Brecht, Truman Capote, Carson McCullers, Tennessee Williams, Camus and Malraux, to name a few who have passed this way. In my wanderings, I find the corner by the river where Giorgio Bassani wrote parts of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, which he maintained was inspired by Ninfa and the Caetani family. Leaving paradise, we drive up to the hilltop Caetani village of Sermoneta. Its great castle, once the seat of the Borgias, dominates the countryside. You can see clearly the oasis of Ninfa, an uneven patch of brilliant green among the browns and ochers of the surrounding fields, and the Pontine Marshes stretching to the hazy shores of the Mediterranean on one side and Rome on the other. ✚

GUIDE TO THE GARDENS OF ROME Garden tours led by experts are arranged by numerous travel companies, including London’s Fine Art Travel (44-207/4378553; finearttravel.co.uk; prices vary). Highlighted in this story: Gardens of Ninfa 68 Via Ninfina, Latina; 39-0773/632-231. Sacro Bosco Villa Orsini, Bomarzo; 39-0761/924-029. Villa Farnese Caprarola, near Viterbo; 39-0761/646-052. Villa Lante Via Jacopo Barozzi, Bagnaia; 39-0761/288-008.

SEVEN MORE ROMAN GARDENS Botanical Garden Pope Nicholas III established this garden as a main source of medicinal plants in the 13th century. 24 Largo Cristina di Svezia. Garden of Orange Trees This garden, commonly known as Parco Savello, opened in 1932 and commemorates the Spanish orange tree planted here by Saint Dominic in the 13th century. Parco Savello, Piazza Pietro d’Illaria.

Gardens at Villa Aurelia Centuries-old gardens bequeathed to the American Academy in Rome in 1911; the classical design encompasses laurel hedges, tropical flora and a collection of lemon trees. Tours by appointment. 1 Largo di Porta San Pancrazio; aarome.org.

Rose Garden Once a cemetery for Rome’s Jewish community, the rose garden on the Aventino has a central path in the form of a menorah. Via di Valle Murcia; 39-06/574-6810.

Janiculum Park With views of the city from a sloping hillside, these gardens honor Giuseppe Garibaldi. Via Garibaldi, Janiculum Hill.

Villa Sciarra Gardens with many rare plants, plus sculptural decoration taken from several Lombard villas. Via Dandolo; 39-06/488-991.

Villa Doria Pamphili This is Rome’s largest park and includes arches of an ancient aqueduct. Via di San Pancrazio.

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C O U R T E S Y O F H U VA F E N F U S H I

Sprinkled across the Indian Ocean, the Maldives offers more superlatives per square kilometer—pristine, discreet, world’s first, sustainable, luxe—than anywhere else in the world. By ELIZABETH WOODSON

Headed for the sand, sea and sun.

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N SEARCH OF THE TROPICAL TRIFECTA OF SAND, SEA AND SUN? THE 1,190 Indian Ocean islands known as the Maldives are the archetype of paradise, a tropical fantasy whose beaches are a vaunted playground for sybarites, and where resorts are known for piling on headline-grabbing luxuries. Underwater restaurants! Overwater bungalows! The world’s best spas! But how do you separate the true players from the hype? That arduous, someone-has-to-do-it assignment takes me the better part of a month combing the country that is sprinkled across the Indian Ocean, from its northern tip 820 kilometers down to its southernmost atoll. Of course, it also depends upon what you’re looking for. The perfect spa break, a romantic escape, underwater thrills, a great family getaway or—believe it or not—a value-packed vacation. Here, some of the best choices for any holiday in the Maldives.

SPAS ● SONEVA FUSHI

Robinson Crusoe wishes he had these island digs. When Sonu and Eva Shivdasani decided to build their rustic-luxe retreat on the uninhabited island of Kunfunadhoo, a 45-minute sea-plane ride from the Maldivian capital of Male, there wasn’t much by way of luxury in the Maldives. A decade later, the field has grown considerably more crowded. But Soneva Fushi continues to define barefoot chic in the islands right down to the resort’s “No News, No Shoes” policy that sees guests (voluntarily) surrender their footwear at check-in. So what’s got Crusoe salivating? Try 65 sustainably built, thatched-roof villas, each tucked into beachfront patches of plumeria trees and outfitted with private pools that put those of the plunge variety to shame. Inside, it’s just as plush, from the cozy, canopied bed to the elaborate garden bathroom, complete with a rambling stone walkway that leads to an outdoor shower and one of the most comfortable day beds we’ve lounged on anywhere. But for our money, it’s the spa that will put travelers—sybaritic minded or not—in a state of pure relaxation: the already extensive menu of services (one of the most comprehensive found in the islands) is supplemented by a changing roster of visiting therapists, from acupuncturists and Reiki specialists to naturopathic doctors. And there’s even an onstaff ayurvedic doctor who administers a full course of traditional Indian therapies customized for your dosha (body type) from his “office,” an open-air palapa that sits on the sand. INSIDER’S TIP For all of its indulgences, Soneva Fushi has one of the most progressive sustainability programs found in the Maldives. Ask your personal thakuru (butler) to set up a behind-the-scenes tour of the facilities, including the wasterecycling plant and organic gardens, for a real lesson in green living. six-senses.com; doubles from US$535.

F R O M T O P : T H O M A S P I C K A R D ; C O U R T E S Y O F W M A L D I V E S ; C O U R T E S Y O F S O N E VA F U S H I

● HUVAFEN FUSHI

Nowadays, spas seem to pile on the gimmicks with very little substance. Which is why we approached the underwater spa at Huvafen Fushi (the world’s first and only!) a bit dubiously. After all, when you’re face down on the massage table, does it really matter what’s swimming by above you? Turns out it does: Huvafen ingeniously places mirrors under the tables in the two treatment rooms two meters below the surface, so you can take in every fish flitting about the adjacent coral gardens—though you’ll be hard pressed to identify your angelfish from your jackfish when you’re being rubbed during one of the multi-hour rituals that take place down below. Above the surface, treatments, like facials that use Anne Seomin’s line of essential oil–based products, and rubs and scrubs with ayurvedic roots, come shorter, though no less indulgent, at the resort’s overwater spa. It’s all in keeping with this property, located a 45-minute speedboat ride from Male, that might as well have stepped out of a James Bond movie. Case in point: the 45 overwater and beachfront bungalows are plenty sleek and decked out with the latest gadgets (including one of the most technologically advanced phones we’ve ever seen). The underground wine cellar has the largest collection of labels found in the islands. A customized soundtrack of music mixed by DJ Ravin (of Paris’ Buddha Bar) plays in public spaces. And there are plenty of toys, from jet skis to Seabobs (underwater propulsion scooters that propel you through the water at speeds up to 32 kilometers per hour), to keep Bond—and his ladies— occupied. INSIDER’S TIP The resort is home to an impressive fleet of boats, including several traditional Maldivian dhonis and (naturally) a sleek, platinum-colored yacht. They’re all available for guests’ use, whether for a quick sunset cruise or a multi-day jaunt around the atolls. huvafenfushi.peraguum.com; doubles from US$850. »

Tropical Trio From top: Outside the Per Aquum Spa at Huvafen Fushi; a plunge pool at W; an in-room massage at Soneva Fushi. Opposite: Pedal power at the Shangri-La Villingili.

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● COCOA ISLAND

Savvy hotelier Christina Ong’s hotels, which includes Bali’s Como Shambala Estate, are known for two things: stylish simplicity and a strong wellness vein. Both are evident at her Maldivian property, Cocoa Island, where the 33 villas—some built in the shape of traditional dhonis and all lofted on stilts over a placid lagoon—feature interiors that balance natural woods and varying shades of white with sudden bursts of color (a pillow here, a throw rug there), and Como Shambala, the diminutive jewel box of a spa, offers Asian-inspired treatments (ayurvedic, Indonesian and Thai services are all on tap) in tiny stone huts right at the water’s edge. Even the restaurant Ufaa, “happy” in the local tongue, Dhivehi, promotes a holistic lifestyle with its menu of low-caloric, regionally inspired dishes that rely on organic produce and locally caught fish. A total sense of calm pervades the tiny, private island resort. It’s a vibe that encourages introspection, whether you’re listening to the waves gently lapping against your villa’s pylons while lounging on your deck, swinging on one of the hand-carved swings that dot the main island, or engaged in one of the daily yoga classes at the resort’s yoga pavilion. INSIDER’S TIP The resort’s boutique elevates the concept of a hotel shop. Make sure to spend some time browsing through its well-curated collection of stylish yoga wear, lovely tunics, jewelry, beauty products and essential oils. cocoaisland.como.bz; doubles from US$680.

VILLA AS COME WITH H BUTLERS, OR VGC’S RY GOOD (VER CHAP PS), WHO ARE MORE THAN N HAPPY TO BR RING YOU AKFAST — BREA AND LUNCH AND DINNER, FOR THAT TER MATT

ROMANCE Sure, the Maldives may not exactly be a party destination, but Naladhu, which is owned by the Bangkok-based Anantara chain, manages to achieve a level of intimacy that’s remarkable even by the privacy-loving isles’ standards. In fact, most guests stay ensconced in their stylish villas. Can’t blame them: the 19 houses epitomize tropical chic with their lofted ceilings, woven cane beds and cosmopolitan collection of objéts d’art (Moroccan screens, Sri Lankan fabrics). Bedroom walls open out onto private infinity-edge pools and decks with swinging daybeds and easels for painting the surrounding ocean setting. If that weren’t enough, open-air bathrooms overlook the ocean and are complete with outdoor garden showers, steam rooms and even soaking tubs that appear, at first glance, connected to the pool but actually are separated by a plexiglass screen. Villas come with butlers, or VGC’s (Very Good Chaps), who are more than happy to bring you breakfast—and lunch and dinner, for that matter—in bed or arrange spa treatments on your patio. But, for those couples who do eventually venture out, there’s still plenty to keep them busy, from yoga lessons to Thai cooking classes. And should you still need more to do, the resort connects to Anantara’s two other Maldivian properties via walkway or boat. Naladhu guests have access to facilities at all three resorts, though guests from other properties are not allowed on Naladhu. Just call it the best of both worlds. INSIDER’S TIP All the houses are identical in size and décor, but they either sit on the sand, fronting the resort’s lagoon, or are slightly elevated on Naladhu’s rocky ocean side. For added value, book the less expensive Ocean category. Not only will you save money, but you’ll also have access to your own private beach palapa. Plus, you’ll be afforded extra privacy since you’re away from the often-busy lagoon. The waves crashing against the rocks provide the perfect soundtrack for your trip. naladhu. com; doubles from US$2,200. »

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C LO C KW I S E F RO M TO P R I G H T: CO U RT ESY O F N A L A D H U ; CO U RT ESY O F CO COA I S L A N D ; C O U R T E S Y O F S H A N G R I - L A V I L L I N G I L I ; C O U R T E S Y O F B A N YA N T R E E M A D I VA R U

● NALADHU

One of the 19 tropical chic houses at Naladhu, left. Below: Cocoa Island’s restaurant promotes a holistic lifestyle, emphasizing organic ingredients.

The Banyan Tree’s spa, above. Right: A Tree House Villa deck and infinity pool at the Shangri-La’s Villingili.

The yoga pavillion, Cocoa Island.

●W The W Maldives is for those couples who take their beach vacations with a shot of adrenaline. You’ve still got your picture-perfect setting—in fact, the W is located in the Ari Atoll, one of the Maldives’ most pristine archipelagos—but you’ve also got a party vibe à la St.-Tropez’s Nikki Beach, courtesy of funky features, like the resort’s underground nightclub (of course, the only one found in the islands). The tone is immediately set at the Male airport, where guests lounge on daybeds and enjoy a chill soundtrack while waiting for the seaplane to take them to the resort. Upon arrival, they decamp to one of the 78 villas. The beat still discreetly follows them thanks to speakers hidden along the resort’s jetties and in the sand. Rooms are done up in W’s typical sleek fashion: white-on-white color schemes, plasma-screen TV’s, plush beds, and decks boasting plunge pools and circular daybeds (the perfect place to while away a morning, afternoon or evening). And the resort is full of playful, welcome touches, from the freezers filled with sodas, cold towels and ice cream that dot the entire property (Häagen-Dazs just might be the perfect cure to a sweltering equatorial day), to the library, with its pool table and card games. Even the overwater spa manages to exude cool, thanks to its angular design (white canvas is tented above the wooden treatment rooms, so that from a distance the spa resembles a set of sails) and services from the cult Italian beauty line Comfort Zone. What else would you expect from the chain that brought cool into the hospitality big-brand vernacular? INSIDER’S TIP The W’s six restaurants and bars would be just as at home in New York or London as at the funky resort in the middle of the ocean. Don’t miss sampling one of the inventive cocktails at Sip (our favorite: the Samurai, pearinfused sake shaken with vodka, apple juice and a splash of lime), before heading to Fish to indulge in some of the best sushi and sashimi this side of Tokyo. starwoodhotels. com; doubles from US$760.

THE RESORT ULL OF IS FU YFUL PLAY TOUC CHES, M THE FROM EZERS FREE ED WITH FILLE SODA AS, COLD TOWE ELS AND ICE CREAM TO THE POOL TABLLE AND CARD D GAMES

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● BANYAN TREE MADIVARU

It’s pretty difficult to up the luxury factor in a place like the Maldives, where rooms come over water, restaurants are underwater and spas are on every level including in between. So when the Banyan Tree Madivaru opened on a teensy island in the North Ari Atoll with such an exorbitant price tag, we had to wonder why. Now, after having visited the property, the answer is clear: with only six “rooms,” Madivaru offers a level of privacy and discretion that was previously unmatched in the islands. It’s also the only tented hotel in the country, which means it’s perfect for those in search of a Castaway fantasy with all the bells and whistles. Case in point, instead of one tent, guests here get three elaborately outfitted canvas structures. Living tents feature a safari-chic scheme—think steamer trunks and leather director’s chairs— while bedrooms embrace a more Asian-inspired aesthetic, thanks to the abundance of teak furniture and rich gold fabrics. Bath tents come with raised egg-shaped tubs and even two treatment beds for in-tent spa services. Camping in the wild was never like this, but it should have been. Outside, pandanus tree–shaded decks are outfitted comfortably with rattan loungers and blue-tiled pools. Personal butlers are on hand to arrange anything you might desire, from whale-shark expeditions on the resort’s boat to a full-on romantic dinner on the beach. In other words, the sky really is the limit here—though at this price tag, it should be. INSIDER’S TIP Thanks to its sheer drop-offs and diverse coral life, Madivaru’s house reef is one of the best anywhere in the Maldives. The resort’s dive pro is more than happy to take guests out to learn about the diversity of the underwater creatures in the surrounding seas. banyantree. com; doubles from US$760. »

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DIVING ● ALILA VILLAS

Don’t be distracted by the sleek design of the just-opened Alila Villas Hadahaa. It might be all angular buildings with clean lines and minimal interiors, courtesy of the Singapore-based SCDA Architects. But the property also has major diving cred. Located far south in the North Huvadhoo Atoll, Alila’s remote nature—you have to catch an hour-long flight, and then hop on a speedboat for a 45-minute ocean trip just to get to the hotel—means the whole area has an incredibly pristine and untouched quality. Plus, since the hotel is so close to the equator, the water temperature is naturally warmer and the coral this far south wasn’t bleached as badly when El Niño caused water temperatures to spike 12 years ago. The coral in the southern atolls has also been able to recover better than its brethren further north. Take a swim along Alila’s house reef—easily one of the best in the Maldives—and you’ll be amazed by the diversity, quality and color of the coral. On land, the property has plenty to keep guests busy, including one of the most impressive cultural preservation programs in the country. This series of so-called journeys includes visits to local islands where guests can interact with families or meet traditional artisans. INSIDER’S TIP Alila is the first property in the Maldives to be built from the ground up according to standards set forth by Green Globe, one of the world’s most respected ecotourism watchdogs. The resort conducted numerous environmental impact studies before constructing its 50 sustainable wood bungalows, which come in both overwater and on-land forms. It even went as far as to delay the opening several times in order to wait for the lowest tides in which to drop pylons for the overwater villas. alilahotels.com; doubles from US$740.

TAKE E A SWIM ALON NG ALILA’S SE REEF HOUS AND YOU’LL BE AMAZ ZED BY THE DIVERSITY, QUALLITY AND COLO OR OF THE CORA AL. ON D, THERE’S LAND NTY TO PLEN P GUESTS KEEP Y TOO BUSY

There may be no house reef at the 102-villa Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru, the second Maldivian resort from the brand known for its posh properties and exacting service. But there’s still plenty to keep divers here happy. For starters, Landaa’s dive center is one of the few managed by the hosting resort. Which means it’s held to the same rigorous standards as the rest of the property. It’s also home to a full-fledged marine research facility (much better than the stack of books found at most other Maldivian resorts) that works on a number of conservation projects, including programs that help protect area sea turtle and manta ray populations, and an artificial reef project just off shore. The center runs daily lectures on marine life given by marine biologists; guests can learn about the underwater life they will view before hopping on one of the resort’s dhonis and taking off for any one of the spectacular reefs and dive sites that populate the Baa Atoll, where the hotel is located. And, in the (unlikely) event that divers tire of the Baa Atoll, they need only book one of the 11 cabins on the Four Seasons Explorer, the resort’s 39-meter catamaran, for a multi-day jaunt around the Maldives to rarely visited dive sites. INSIDER’S TIP The Four Seasons is also home to one of the better spas in the Maldives. Both overwater and on land, the spa offers a comprehensive range of traditional ayurvedic treatments, along with several not so traditional, ayurvedic-inspired services. Our favorite: the Devi Bhavani, part of the resort’s tantric ayurvedic offerings, is a two-and-a-half-hour procession of chanting, praying, breathing, massage and bathing performed by two angelic therapists. The spa also runs multi-day ayurvedic retreats for those who want to delve deeper into the ancient Indian science. fourseasons.com; doubles from US$800. »

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Idyllic Ocean Clockwise from top: Comfort and style at Velassaru; there are few places better for diving lessons; a bedroom at the Banyan Tree Madivaru.

C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P : C O U R T E S Y O F V E L A S S A R U ; T H O M A S P I C K A R D ; C O U R T E S Y O F B A N YA N T R E E M A D I VA R U

● FOUR SEASONS LANDAA GIRAVAARU

A villa entrance at the Shangri-La Villingili.

FAMILIES ● CONRAD

We usually roll our eyes when a resort says it has something for everyone. But, in the case of the Conrad Rangali Island, the cliché might actually be true. The property comprises not one, but two islands in the Ari Atoll, so families can spread out in the cavernous beach villas on the main island, while couples will love the romantic, overwater villas on the smaller, more intimate island (the isles are connected by a traditional dhoni, which traverses the lagoon). Holistic travelers will be in their element, thanks to the 21 overwater bungalows connected to the main spa. And, if that weren’t enough, the resort also has two additional spas: a smaller overwater retreat on the second island and a kids’ spa on the main island, where young ones can indulge in ice cream manis and pedis. It’s certainly an upgrade from a traditional kid’s club. INSIDER’S TIP The atoll here is one of the best places in the world to spot whale sharks. And the resort capitalizes on this with a program that allows scientists to stay free of charge to study them. During whale-watching season, the scientists lead expeditions several times a week. conradhotels1.hilton.com; doubles from US$380. ● SHANGRI LA VILLINGILI

WHER RE MOST HOTE ELS HERE OURAGE ENCO SOLIT TUDE, VELA ASSARU WAS MADE FOR SOCIA ALIZING. THE IN NFINITY POOLL HAS VIEW WS THAT E YOU MAKE WANT T TO ER LINGE

On Gan, the southernmost island in the Maldives, the Shangri-La Villingili brings a strong dose of Asian glamour to its tropical setting. The 142 overwater, beachfront and treetop (they’re not actually in the trees, but are above the ground) villas are outfitted with items sourced from across the continent—rattan and woven settees from Thai brand Yothaka, Arabic-style lights from Dubai, terrazzo bathtubs from Indonesia—and the food at the property’s three dining outlets pulls heavily from the cuisines of China, India, Thailand, Vietnam and the Middle East. The resort’s larger size means there’s plenty to keep visitors busy, from jungle walks through the island’s lush interior, to an extensive roster of water sports. INSIDER’S TIP The resort’s Chi Spa offers one of the most locally inspired treatments in the islands with the Kandu Boli Ritual, which uses indigenous cowrie shells and locally produced coconut oil during the 90-minute massage. shangrila.com; doubles from US$860.

VALUE

CO U RT ESY O F S H A N G R I - L A V I L L I N G I L I

● VELASSARU

One of the latest hotels to open in the Maldives also happens to be one of its most affordable—though you wouldn’t know by looking at it. The 128 rooms, which either sit above the sea or on land a few steps from it, are plenty stylish, thanks to their teak or stone floors, plush beds, lofted ceilings and earth-tone color palette. In fact, the whole resort was built with a close eye to design, from the lobby, with its sand floor and large stone sculptures, to the hotel bar Chill, whose daybeds are as comfortable as they are chic. Where most Maldivian hotels encourage solitude, Velassaru was made for socializing. To wit: the infinity pool, where the loungers and Indian Ocean views make you want to linger all day. INSIDER’S TIP Velassaru happens to be one of the more convenient hotels to Male: it’s located a short, 15-minute speedboat ride from the airport. So not only will you save money on your room, you’ll also cut costs on your hotel transfer. velassaru.com; doubles from US$314. ✚

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The Sonoma coast just north of Bodega Bay.

SONOMA With its rugged coastline cliffs and rolling inland vineyards, Sonoma County is a kind of ground zero for idealistic organic farmers, self-taught cheese makers, freewheeling restaurateurs, bakers and vintners. Luke Barr explores the new face of California wine country—and his family roots in this food lover’s paradise. Photographed by Catherine Ledner

very clear on this point. Organic hay is not easy to find, apparently, and the stuff is steep, forested hill expensive, too, but it improves the flavor looking down of the milk, he maintained. Destandau is across a field at a French, and he makes the cheese—he herd of goats learned how at a farm in the Roya Valley a gathered in the shade of a large oak tree. They were happy- few years back, near where he grew up. Eric Smith, his partner, milks the goats. He milks looking goats. It was a warm afternoon in them by hand: 27 of them, twice a day. He Dry Creek Valley; the sky was pale blue said he’d tried using a milking machine but it overhead, the landscape both wildly fertile seemed stressful for the animals, so he and haphazardly domesticated, and most stopped. Each goat’s name is written on a of all beautiful. We were in the heart whiteboard hanging on the wall, with round of wine country, just outside Healdsburg, magnets to keep track of who’s been milked: California—grapevines visible all around— Trixie, Zazie, Zi Zhen, Vulpina.... but this was Pugs Leap, a two-man goatAs I listened to the two of them talk, cheese operation. Behind us were a couple of Destandau in thickly accented English, about ramshackle buildings—one of them containing the cheese-making equipment and how they’d left San Francisco and their corporate jobs, about the trial and error of a temperature-controlled room full of ripening cheese, the other the milking parlor. learning a new business, about the chefs who My daughter, age five, had wrinkled her nose buy Pugs Leap at local farmers’ markets, I couldn’t help thinking that they were living theatrically at the pungent smells as I my ultimate escapist fantasy: to quit the city admired the tender white cubes and ovoids and shack up on a hill in Sonoma County lined up in neat rows, but now we were and make cheese. It’s not just the physical outside, and a goat ambled over and began beauty of the place, the air, the light, the land chewing on my pants. and the ocean, nor is it simply nostalgia for “We feed them organic hay,” Pascal my childhood visits here. It’s a sense that » Destandau said. “Only organic.” He was E STOOD ON A

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here in Sonoma, life is being lived the way it was meant to be lived. In tune with nature. Outside in the sunlight. Eating fresh tomatoes and handmade cheeses. There’s an easygoing bohemianism about this place and careless, unpolished glamour too. Smith and Destandau wore the farmer’s de rigueur denim and boots, but they also both wore horn-rimmed glasses that seemed far too fashionable for the rustic surroundings. It was a good look, I thought.... And yet, as idyllic as the life of impeccably stylish gentleman farmers in Sonoma County may be, the economics of cheese are not easy. In fact, they make no sense at all. That organic hay, for example, costs US$23 a bale, Destandau explained, and goats, well, they eat remarkable quantities of hay. Running the numbers, he said: “We sell the cheese for about US$30 a pound. And I calculate it costs about US$22 a pound to make—without any salary for us.” Needless to say, Pugs Leap is a labor of love. Smith and Destandau are committed to making the best goat cheese imaginable—the most uncompromisingly humane, organic and delicious goat cheese ever conceived. They are cheese idealists. And Sonoma is full of idealists—winemakers and restaurateurs, farmers and bakers, all living off the land, helping to create a kind of DIY gourmet paradise. I planned to meet some of them, to seek out the roots of classic Sonoma, and at the same time recapture a bit of my own family history.

SONOMA: MY GRANDMOTHER lived in Jenner, a tiny town overlooking the mouth of the Russian River. My family lived in the Bay Area, and we drove up for weekends and holidays all the time. I remember the drive seemed endless back then, sitting in the backseat of our VW Bug with my kid brother, making our way through wine and orchard and dairy-farm country and then winding up out on the coast. The meals in Jenner were epic. We’d sit at my grandmother’s long antique Provençal table (which she’d bought in France and shipped over in the late 1950’s) overlooking the garden, eating crab and roasted lamb and ratatouille, artichokes, salads and apple pie with whipped cream. My grandmother made the pie, I whipped the cream. We were a family of cooks and eaters, and Sonoma was where we did a lot of cooking and eating. My great-aunt M. F. K. Fisher, the author, lived nearby in Glen Ellen, writing and cooking, and we’d visit there too, and eat and cook some more. She was always done cooking when we arrived, actually—it was just a question of taking dishes out of the cooling oven and tossing the salad. Lunches with M. F. had a certain leisurely formality about them. We’d sit outside on the terrace and the adults would drink wine. She would regard me with an expression of

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The MacLeod Family Vineyard, in Kenwood.

veiled amusement at my generally solemn 12-year-old demeanor. Her house was full of books and paintings; it had tall ceilings and the most enormous, luxurious bathroom I’d ever seen. I never failed to wonder at that bathroom, and also at the round, mysteriously beautiful dark-blue tiled pool up at the main ranch house, where we’d swim after lunch.

E RENTED A RENOVATED FARMHOUSE IN

Kenwood, just a few kilometers down Highway 12 from M. F.’s former house on the Bouverie Ranch. (The ranch, including her house since her death in 1992, is now a wildlife preserve). Highway 12 is the road that runs from the town of Sonoma to Santa Rosa, through the so-called Valley of the Moon, past a series of wineries and beneath stands of towering oak trees. It is one of the prettiest highways anywhere, and all the more so when you find yourself on vacation, filled with surging optimism at the prospect of shifting gears, and a slower pace, and lots of cooking: tooling around with the windows rolled down, stopping in for supplies at the local groceries and farmers’ markets, eating outside, jumping in the pool. My grandmother was coming to stay with us in Kenwood, as was my dad; and so along with my wife, Yumi, and daughter, and visiting friends and relatives from the Bay Area and New York, we had a full house and then some. When we were there, we spent most of our time outside on the shady wraparound porch. There were Gravenstein »

Fresh Dungeness crab for sale in Bodega Bay.

apple trees along one side of the garden and a wild tangle of blackberry bushes all along another. At the center of the house was a state-of-the-art country kitchen, with envy-inducing appliances. (One of these days, I’m going to buy one of those monster ranges with double gas rings and an oven door that swings open like a bank safe....) We made vast bowls of guacamole and sprawling tomato salads; we barbecued lamb chops and sweet Italian sausages. At the farmers’ market in Sebastopol, we bought cheese, peaches, leeks and mushrooms. At the mushroom stand, the proprietor scratched his cell phone number on the edge of a Farm Trails map, showing me more or less where the farm was located (most of the purveyors welcome visitors). “Come anytime,” he said, “we’ll be there.” I got the impression of a small community of shaggy-haired farmers, tending their mushrooms along with their shaggyhaired kids....

7:15, THE PHONE RANG. IT WAS George MacLeod, a local winemaker. “You’ve got to come right now—they’re here!” It was the first of a few harvest days for the Sauvignon Blanc grapes at MacLeod’s vineyard, which happened to be just next door. The harvesters had arrived—a group of Mexican workers who’d been picking his grapes for the past 30 years. They’d come before dawn and would be done within hours—20 tons of grapes later. MacLeod and I had been introduced by the owner of the house we’d rented, and he’d invited me to the harvest. His is a relatively tiny vineyard: most of his grapes go to larger producers, though he also bottles his own (very delicious) wine. It was a beautiful morning—cool but with the promise of warmth soon to come, and heat not long after that. There was mist hanging over the vines, and disembodied, otherworldly voices calling out now and then in Spanish. We’d met at the barn and now MacLeod was walking me through the property stopping to chat with various foremen and workers, handing me grapes to taste, and generally talking without pause, like the born raconteur that he is. About the grapes, the wine and the soil, and about the rocks in the soil (there were many of them when he bought the land, dug up and removed with backbreaking effort). He was wearing an old Monsanto Roundup–branded windbreaker—he retired from the agribusiness giant in 1979; the vineyard was his dream, a “retirement project” that became the family business. He explained, all irony aside, how the vineyard was now going organic. A few days later, we returned for an open-air wine tasting. My wife, father, daughter and I sat at a picnic table in the shade of a huge old oak tree in the middle of the hilly

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vineyard with MacLeod and his daughter-in-law Marjorie. We picked some grapes and compared the taste of the sweet juice with the wines they eventually produced, taking measure of the winemaker’s alchemy. It tasted like magic.

SONOMA COUNTY, EVERYONE will tell you, is called Cyrus. It’s in Healdsburg, just off the town’s glossy, picture-perfect central square—a small park surrounded by well-tended boutiques, gourmet food shops, bookstores and Charlie Palmer’s Hotel Healdsburg. It was one of those late-summer evenings when the sun seems to be setting for an inordinately long time, and everyone seems inordinately happy—even the local protesters. They were a public-radio type of group, in this case, with cheerful signs urging the passage of America’s health-care reform plan. They were preaching to the converted, and didn’t seem to mind. At Cyrus, my wife and I ordered champagne and three varieties of caviar to start off—it’s that kind of restaurant. In fact it’s an extravagantly over-the-top, eight-course-tastingmenu-or-bust kind of place, and thoroughly enjoyable to HE BEST RESTAURANT IN

Land Lovers From far left: French Garden Restaurant owner Dan Smith on his Sebastopol farm; owners Eric Smith and Pascal Destandau with some of their goats at Pugs Leap dairy, in Dry Creek Valley; menus at Wild Flour Bread, in Freestone.

boot. The food is fresh, local and very elaborate. We had seared hamachi with tomatoes, melon and cucumber; we had foie gras with plums and cashews; we had madai with corn and scallions in a ginger-shiso sauce. And so on. Everything dazzled. Each course also came with a different wine, presented with a flourish by the sommelier. “I want to give you something you can’t have at home,” said Douglas Keane, the chef, when I interviewed him later. “You’re not paying me to slice a tomato—people are coming for the experience.” His wife’s parents have a small farm outside of town where they grow about half of the restaurant’s fruits and vegetables and raise chickens. Keane and his business partner Nick Peyton make a point of emphasizing their connection to the land, through the farm but also through the many local purveyors they use— including Pugs Leap, as it turns out. And so no, despite the caviar cart, Cyrus does not represent what I half-jokingly call the “Napification” of Sonoma. “Napa is the land of trophy wineries, Parker Points and lots of money,” Peyton said. Sonoma, on the other hand, is low-key. Keane smiled: “Sonoma is home.”

YRUS ISN’T THE ONLY RESTAURANT IN

SONOMA THAT has its own farm—after a while it starts to seem like they all do. We had lunch one day at French Garden Restaurant, in Sebastopol, where the food was simple and fresh, much of it grown on the owner Dan Smith’s farm down the road. He operates a produce market at the restaurant on Sundays. Smith grew up on a farm in Petaluma, a few kilometers south, and he’s a staunch proponent of the idea that west Sonoma is the real Sonoma: “We’re way more laid-back— not as glitzy. But we have all the beauty out here—we’ve got the coastline and the redwoods.” He’s right: western Sonoma is stunning, and a touch scruffier than the manicured luxury you can find in Healdsburg, say. But the truth is that the whole county is more agriculturally oriented than Napa, where the land values dictate that you grow grapes and only grapes. Another night, we had dinner at Zazu Restaurant & Farm, a casual and self-consciously funky place in Santa Rosa. The narrow room is lively, with coppertop tables and a long bar. The staff is young, tattooed and coolly » 143

Sonoma Tastes Left: Blue oak trees at the Bouverie Preserve. Right: White sturgeon caviar at Cyrus, in Healdsburg.

professional, a combination that caught me off guard at first; I asked the waitress to describe the “mushroom raviolo” and she told me in a rather firm voice that if I’d just wait for her to finish going through the specials, she’d explain. And so it went: she was no-nonsense from beginning to end—and by then, I’d decided I quite liked the tough-girl style of this place. The food was remarkable—proudly local (Zazu, as advertised, also has its own farm), with strong flavors and interesting, unfussy preparations. We had three different kinds of house-made salumi with a dry sheep’s-milk cheese and some olives, a large salad with tomatoes and pole beans, a rack of lamb with quino tabbouleh and coriander chutney, and sesame-crusted tuna.

SONOMA IS WILD. AS YOU DRIVE down Highway 1, dipping and swooping and then skimming along on tops of cliffs, the ocean roaring and gleaming below, you realize there’s a reason they film sports-car commercials here. At Goat Rock Beach, in Jenner, the waves crash into large rock formations looming offshore and then race up the sand, retreating with salt foam and seaweed in their wake. This is not the sort of water you 144

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swim in, unless you’re a dog, or wearing a wet suit. It’s the sort of water you look at, trying to spot seals or maybe the odd otter. I showed my daughter the massive Arched Rock, through which the waves have punched a natural tunnel. She politely took note but soon went back to collecting rocks and sea shells, an activity she can apparently do for hours and hours. This is the beach of my childhood. At Jenner, the routine was always the same: sometime in the late afternoon, around four or five, there’d be an expedition to the beach. There were different dogs over the years, but they all loved the beach, and we’d pile into the car and drive over to Goat Rock. We’d amble up the beach and back again, throwing a stick for the dog. Back at the house, meanwhile, there’d be a bridge game in progress and dinner cooking, and we’d return just in time for cocktail hour. I remember eventually being old enough for the famous “1-2-3,” which was M. F.’s drink—gin, Campari and vermouth, on the rocks. After a brisk, windswept walk on the beach, the perfect thing. This time, we drove down the coast to Bodega Bay, a slightly kitschy fishing town with lots of small hotels and vacation rentals. This is where Hitchcock filmed The Birds, and it’s a good place to buy fresh crab. We stopped for a late

lunch at a restaurant called Terrapin Creek, which opened in 2008. It was a real discovery: a tiny little place, nondescript really, with an open kitchen and café tables. The menu was eclectic, with crab cakes and a pulled pork sandwich and a cassoulet. There were also oysters, local sardines and osso buco. We ordered glasses of white wine and the most amazing fish stew, with salmon, rock cod and potatoes in a light tomato-and-fennel broth. The restaurant is run by Andrew Truong and Liya Lin Truong, a young couple who bring an Asian influence and a light touch to their high-end comfort food. On our way back to the house, we stopped at Wild Flour Bread, just outside Bodega Bay in Freestone. The place is a local institution, and my grandmother recalled how Jed Wallach, the owner, had installed the enormous brick woodfired oven years ago. “Now we’re going to see some real west-county hippies!” my dad said, in the sardonic manner of a former Berkeley hippie, as we pulled up. The bakery was bustling, with kids underfoot, and sweet smells, and we walked out with dense and crusty sourdough loaves.

GLEN ELLEN IN 1971; her friend David Bouverie, a dashing and aristocratic Englishman, had agreed to let her build Last House, as it was called, on his ranch. The tworoom palazzo (which Bouverie designed—he was also an Y GREAT AUNT MOVED TO

architect) was hers for life; after that it reverted to his estate, which he had donated to the Audubon Canyon Ranch, a nature conservancy. Today, the 216-hectare preserve is open to visitors who can take guided nature walks and attend seminars on Saturdays during the spring by appointment. The old barn houses maps and exhibits about the local birds and flowers. Last House is not normally open to the public, but the man who lives there, John Martin, was kind enough to show us around. He was Bouverie’s maintenance man for years, and now works for Audubon Canyon. As we walked in, it was for me one of those ineffable moments when you return to a place years and years later, and it’s totally different, and yet it’s exactly the same, and then again you’re totally different, too (and yet also exactly the same, in some way). Anyway, it’s complicated. We wandered through the house like ghosts, and I wound up on the terrace, looking out at the familiar view. The landscape here is stunning, wild and dry. The long driveway is flanked by rows of gnarled old oak trees covered in lichen—they looked magic-realist somehow, ancient and alive. The sun was bright; hawks were wheeling in the sky above. In Sonoma, I thought, it all comes back to the land, the source of inspiration and sustenance. For cheese makers, chefs, farmers and idealists of all kinds, and for travelers, too, Sonoma is a place for growth and creation, for cooking and eating, for life’s essential pleasures. ✚

GUIDE TO SONOMA Sonoma County is about an hour’s drive north of San Francisco. There are numerous hotels in the area, and, for longer stays, houses for rent, including Brambleberry (Lawndale Rd, Kenwood; 1-415/819-0167; winecountryhouse.com), described in this story.

WHERE TO STAY Great Value Beltane Ranch An 1892 ranch house with ﬁve spacious rooms and one cottage, family antiques and local art. 11775 Sonoma Hwy., Glen Ellen; 1-707/996-6501; beltaneranch. com; doubles from US$150. Farmhouse Inn & Restaurant Located in the Russian River Valley, and newly renovated. 7871 River Rd., Forestville; 800/4646642; farmhouseinn.com; doubles from US$295. Hotel Healdsburg Modern Luxury on the town square, with

Charlie Palmer’s excellent Dry Creek Kitchen. 25 Matheson St., Healdsburg; 1-707/431-2800; hotelhealdsburg.com; doubles from US$450. Kenwood Inn & Spa Tuscan-style villa hotel, set in the vineyards. 10400 Sonoma Hwy., Kenwood; 1-707/833-1293; kenwoodinn.com; doubles from US$450.

WHERE TO EAT Cyrus 29 North St., Healdsburg; 1-707/433-3311; an eight-course dinner for two US$260. French Garden Restaurant 8050 Bodega Ave., Sebastopol; 1-707/824-2030; dinner for two US$70. Terrapin Creek 1580 Eastshore Rd., Bodega Bay; 1-707/875-2700; dinner for two US$90. Wild Flour Bread 140 Bohemian Hwy., Freestone; 1-707/874-2938; drinks for two US$8.

Zazu Restaurant & Farm 3535 Guerneville Rd., Santa Rosa; 1-707/523-4814; dinner for two US$85.

WHAT TO SEE AND DO Bouverie Preserve of Audubon Canyon 13935 Sonoma Hwy., Glen Ellen; 1-707/938-4554; egret.org.

Goat Rock Beach Located near the coastal town of Jenner on Hwy. 1; 1-707/875-3483; parks. ca.gov. MacLeod Family Vineyard 740 Lawndale Rd.; 1-707/833-4312; macleodfamilyvineyard.com. Sonoma County Farm Trails A guide to visiting local farms. farmtrails.org.

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(My Favorite Place) Overlooking Positano, left. Below: Danny DeVito.

ITALY

DE VITO’S TRAVEL TIPS POSITANO WITH A VIEW “Le Sirenuse [30 Via C. Colombo; 39-089/87-50-66; sirenuse.it; doubles from ¤525] may well be the most beautiful place on earth.” A FEAST FOR THE SENSES “Order the linguine alle vongole at Chez Black [Via del Brigantino; 39-089/875036; dinner for two ¤93].” FOODIE INSPIRATION “Michael Pollan makes American apples intriguing in The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World [Random House; ¤13].”

Y FAMILY COMES FROM SAN Fele, in southern Italy, and growing up in Asbury Park, New Jersey, my house was always filled with relatives from the old country—sleeping in chairs, eating and drinking my uncle’s homemade red wine. My mother made regional Italian dishes with lots of vegetables—fennel, broccoli, dandelion greens. From the time my kids were born, I couldn’t wait to bring them to Italy and expose them to their culture. In 1993, my wife, Rhea [Perlman], and I flew with them to Rome, then we took the train to Naples. We were scared to death of the winding roads of the Amalfi Coast, so we chartered a speedboat to take us to Positano. We blasted Pavarotti on the boom box and rode past Naples, Sorrento, Capri off in the distance—and oh, my God, it was exhilarating. That incredible blue sea, that coast, those

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islands. We ate the leftover salumi and cheeses we had packed for our picnic lunch on the train. We stayed at Le Sirenuse, on a cliff overlooking the water. The first night, Rhea and the kids and I went down to the beachfront restaurant Chez Black, and of course I wanted to eat every item on the menu. I ate like I was going to the chair. The next thing I know, a server brings out the limoncello. That got me, right there. I wasn’t a crème de menthe or crème de cacao kind of guy. Suddenly—in that tiny town, lemons growing on vines right up the walls—it was like I had discovered something. Ever since then, I’ve wanted all the limoncello I could drink. And now I make my own. ✚ Danny DeVito’s Premium Limoncello (dannyslimoncello.com) is bottled at a 270-hectare lemon cooperative in Sorrento, Italy.

Danny DeVito loves to raise a glass on the Amalfi Coast. DANI SHAPIRO gets the scoop on his Italian history

COCKTAIL OF CHOICE “Take a champagne ﬂute. Fill it a third of the way with limoncello, and then add a good Prosecco. It’s the most delicious summer drink.”