October 2011 by Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia

SOUTHEAST ASIA

KAOHSIUNG TAIWAN’S SECOND CITY GOES GREEN

ASIA’S NEW WAVE

THREE CUTTING-EDGE ECO INNOVATORS

Paris FALLS FOR FAR EAST STYLE

WORLD’S Best SPAS

OCTOBER 2011

DOWN UNDER WONDERS

AUSTRALIAN ECO-LODGES WORTH A LOOK

UBUD UNCOOKED

Bali’s organic food scene

FINDING NEW LIFE IN JAPAN’S OLD GROWTH

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

Tra ve l a n d L e i s u re A s i a . c o m

contents october 2011 volume 05 : issue 10

features 118 Strangers in the Park Taman Negara, Malaysia’s largest national park, is just the place for non-outdoorsy urbanites to get acquainted with jungle wilderness. by melanie lee. photographed by darren soh. guide 125

darren soh

126 Renaissance City Some 500 years after the Medici left their mark here, a new generation of tastemakers and power brokers is breathing fresh life into Florence’s old soul. maria shollenbarger reports on the welcome dose of contemporary culture that’s reinvigorating this Tuscan city. photographed by oberto gili. guide 133 134 Green Dreams If you think Kaohsiung isn’t an obvious choice when it comes to green urban settings, then you need to visit Taiwan’s new and revamped second city. by robyn eckhardt. photographed by david hagerman. guide 142

118

Venturing upriver into the heart of Taman Negara.

travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 7

contents

october 2011 volume 05 : issue 10

T+L SOUTHEAST ASIA THE GREEN ISSUE / ASIA’S ECO PIONEERS / FLORENCE / ORGANIC BALI / WORLD’S BEST SPAS / YAKUSHIMA / ASIAN PARIS

SOUTHEAST ASIA

OCTOBER 2011

KAOHSIUNG

DOWN UNDER WONDERS

TAIWAN’S SECOND CITY GOES GREEN

AUSTRALIAN ECO-LODGES WORTH A LOOK

ASIA’S NEW WAVE

UBUD UNCOOKED

Bali’s organic food scene

THREE CUTTING-EDGE ECO INNOVATORS

Paris FALLS FOR

FINDING NEW LIFE IN JAPAN’S OLD GROWTH

FAR EAST STYLE

OCTOB ER 2 011

WORLD’S Best SPAS

10 GREEN Cover FINAL.indd 1

Tra ve l a n d L e i s u re A s i a . c o m

08/09/2011 16:39

On the cover

Photographer: Brent T. Madison. Model: Anuwan Boontham. Stylist: Albert Schippers. Local fabrics and Indian bangles. Sirinath National Park near Nai Yang beach, Phuket.

newsflash 31 A Bangkok treehouse, Asia’s natural beauty products, farm-to fork eating in three cities, Mekong travel experiences and more.

insider

44 Eat Packed with flavor and nutrients, raw food is on the rise in Bali’s Ubud. by lili tan 49 Asian Scene Young, inspired and entrepreneurial: three of the region’s eco pioneers. by lara day 54

Detour Thailand’s Kanchanaburi province offers history, nature and a new boutique hotel. by emma-kate symons

58 Adventure For your next getaway, why not choose to pedal your way through a scenic part of Asia as the backdrop? by christopher kucway

58 8 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

64 Markets Scoping out the best finds in three renowned markets, plus where to eat and rest.

f r o m t o p : c o u r t e s y o f t a n o n ya ; J ASON M I CHAE L L AN G ; l a r s k l o v e

39 Eco-Lodges T+L uncovers five stunning stays across Australia. by benjamin law

contents

october 2011 volume 05 : issue 10

70 Bring it Back In Hong Kong, a sweet treat with a local twist. by christopher dewolf

stylish traveler

109 American Scene New York City’s bohemian enclave for close to a century, Greenwich Village is thriving. reggie nadelson explores all that’s new in her old stomping grounds, from Washington Sqaure to the Waverly Inn.

75 Design A retro wooden clock from Indonesia just might be the future of sustainable design. by sara schonhardt

Spotlight Asian designers turn to an unlikely source for some creative inspiration. by liang xinyi

Destinations Four sharp new looks inspired by the latest modes of travel. styled by mimi lombardo

85 Readers’ Poll A look at this year’s best spas as voted by our readers.

journals 91

Outdoors Slogging through the wettest and most mysterious island of Japan, tim hornyak explores a forest of trees thousands of years old.

98 Food In Singapore, every bite opens a window on an endlessly colorful culture. adam sachs digs in. 104 Getaway Lush limestone keys above water, coral walls popping with color below, adam skolnick 10 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

104 searches out a remote corner of Indonesia and comes up, well, hugging.

113

Trends From hotels to highend dining, Paris is awash in the styles of the Far East. by heather smith macisaac

departments 12 In this issue 14 Editor’s note 18 Contributors 20 Mail 22 Best Deals 24 Ask T+L 28 Digital Traveler 144 Last Look

c l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p l e f t : t o r k il g u d n a s o n ; S c o t t y G r a h a m ; c o u r t e s y o f c h o o y ili n ; c o u r t e s y o f a n a n t a r a g o l d e n t r i a n gl e r e s o r t & s p a

in this issue

Florence 126 Greenwich Village 109

Yakushima 91 Kaohsiung 134 Singapore 76, 85, 98 Taman Negara 118 Raja Ampat 104

Southeast Asia Bali 44 Bangkok 22, 34, 36, 64, 85 Boracay 85 Cambodia 32, 34 Chiang Mai 22, 85 Chiang Rai 85 Hong Kong 34, 70, 76 Indonesia 34, 75 Kanchanaburi 54 Kota Kinabalu 22 Laos 32, 34 Macau 22 Philippines 34, 49 Raja Ampat 104 Singapore 76, 85, 98 Taman Negara 118 Thailand 31, 34 Vietnam 32, 58

travel tip

Asia Bhutan 58 India 31 Kaohsiung 134

China 22, 32 Seoul 32 South Korea 76 Sri Lanka 24 Taiwan 49, 58 Tibet 49 Yakushima 91

Adventure

58, 91, 104, 118

Arts and Culture

54, 109, 126

Beauty

34, 85

City

134

Environment

Australia, New Zealand and The Pacific Australia 39 Franklin River, Tasmania 144

Fashion

80, 113

Food

32, 34, 44, 98

Hotels + Resorts

31, 32, 36, 39

Photography

144

Europe Florence 126 Italy 31 Paris 113 Portugal 31 The Americas Buenos Aires 64 Greenwich Village 109 New York City 64

Shopping

32, 64, 70, 75, 76

Travel Tips

22, 24, 28

Featured Destination

Kaohsiung

Taiwan’s southern port city has a storied past, one best seen in the Cijin district. In addition to the Tianhou Temple, dedicated to the Goddess of the Sea—a giveaway that fishermen live here—don’t miss Chihou Lighthouse, which dates back to 1883, and the restored Chihou Fort, both designed by the British. (For more on Kaohsiung, see page 134).

12 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

d av i d h a g e r m a n ( 3 )

trip ideas

DESTINATIONS

editor’s note where to find me )) chrisk@mediatransasia.com

Green Picks of the Month

Wh e n R o by n E c k h a r d t, o n e o f o u r r e g u l a r c o n t r i b u t o r s, s e n t m e a q u e ry a b o u t t h e g r e e n i n g o f Ka o h s i u n g , t h e p o l i t e s i d e of me thought she had mistakenly merged two very different story ideas. A more knee-jerk response would be that she’d lost her mind. I know Kaohsiung as an industrial wasteland, a polluted center of all things Asian and industrious. Fortunately, in this day and age, I am wrong. The Kaohsiung Eckhardt reports on (“Green Dreams,” page 134) has done an environmental about face, one that has taken much effort and many small steps. “I think Kaohsiung demonstrates that, if the will and the resources are really there,” she says, “even the most polluted cities can be turned around.” While there’s a renewed sense of pride in the city, Eckhardt adds that the local government is the first to admit there’s more work ahead. Our annual green issue elicits much debate within the office well before its contents are set. How eco-friendly can any resort really be? Can airline passengers ever come across as environmentalists? There are no simple answers, yet one conclusion we always seem to

reach, one you’ve undoubtedly heard before, is that traveling green depends upon each of us as individuals. That’s why our look at environmental innovators (“Asia’s New Green Pioneers,” page 49) is such a fascinating story. I marvel at Filipino entrepreneur Illac Diaz and his work with solar bottle bulbs. Without giving away too much, his foundation tinkers with discarded bottles turning them into lights for impoverished communities. If you’ve ever been without light, you’ll recognize this as a simple, brilliant idea. There are many more green stories within—a tantalizing look at Australian eco-lodges (page 39); an account, unlikely as it may seem, of making honey in Hong Kong (page 70); and a wet walk through a stunning corner of Japan (page 91)—hopefully tales that will leave you asking more of your next vacation. Just remember to raise pertinent questions. The answers, à la Kaohsiung, might prove a pleasant surprise. — c h r i s t o p h e r ku c way

INDIA The six thatchedroof cottages at Sarai at Toria in Madyha Pradesh are crafted out of mud, stone and bamboo. But the real gem is at the nearby Panna Tiger Reserve, home to a handful of tigers and a healthy leopard population— the inside scoop is that you have a onein-three chance of spotting a leopard. saraiattoria.com. CAMBODIA For the past two years, I’ve cycled in the Angkor Wat Bike Race and Ride, a race through the 900-year-old temples in the cool Cambodian dawn. There are three rides—100, 30 and a family-friendly 17 kilometers—each raising funds in support of four local schools. villagefocus. org/bike. on our radar Making the rounds of film festivals such as Telluride and Toronto is a documentary worth watching out for: The Island President. The cameras focus on Mohamed Nasheed’s first year in office in the Maldives and his work to save the nation from rising seas, a topic he raises with anyone who will listen.

travel + leisure 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.

14 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

editor-in-chief art director features editor senior DEsigner DEsigner ASSISTANT editor/Illustrator Assistant Editor

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

Regular contributors / photographers Cedric Arnold, Jennifer Chen, Robyn Eckhardt, Tom Hoops, Philipp Engelhorn, David Hagerman, Lauryn Ishak, Naomi Lindt, Jen Lin-Liu, Nat Prakobsantisuk, Aaron Joel Santos, Adam Skolnick, Darren Soh, Daven Wu

chairman president publishing director

publishER director singapore/associate publisher DIGITAL MEDIA MANAGER business development managers CONSULTANT, HONG KONG/MACAU CONSULTANT, Australia/New Zealand 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 Stuart Singleton Gaurav Kumar Kanda Thanakornwongskul Supalak Krewsasaen Porames Sirivejabandhu Yupadee Saebea

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travel+leisure southeast asia Vol. 5, Issue 10 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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melanie lee writer

oberto gili photographer

Assignment Wrote “Strangers in the Park” (page 118). Best of Taman Negara Watching an adorable dusky leaf monkey swing from tree to tree. Scariest moment When a giant tapir tried to sniff me up. Dream trip outdoors A luxury safari in Kenya. Big cities are better because… One word: Toilets. Next big assignment Exploring tea plantations in Hangzhou.

Assignment “Renaissance City” (page 126). When in Florence, don’t miss... A walk in the square at Santa Maria Novella. Tip for Visitors Try to meet the mayor, Matteo Renzi. He’s the only Italian politician not to be shy of. What does Italy mean to you? Total chaos. Most cliche Italian landmark to photograph I Fori Imperiali, in Rome— it’s a great example of archaeological mismanagement, but still absolutely beautiful. Restaurant you’d fly back to have dinner at Don Alfonso 1890, overlooking the island of Capri. Hot off the press My book on bohemian interiors, Home Sweet Home, comes out in October (Rizzoli).

timothy hornyak writer Assignment Wrote about his slightly wet trek in Yakushima (“In the Land of Giants,” page 91). Favorite Yakushima memory Soothing my aching feet in a hot spring after hiking to Jomon Sugi. And then hitting the futon. The great outdoors or the big city I’m a city slicker but I always have an eye, and a toe or two, on the nearest mountain. Lesson learned Take an underwater camera when hiking on Yakushima. Favorite creature comfort My Takamine classical guitar. Made in Japan, of course. Dream outdoors trip I dream of riding a mule into the Grand Canyon to the Colorado River and then doing a three-day rafting trip.

TO P , F ROM LE F T : COURTES Y O F m e l a n i e l e e ; c o u r t e s y o f t i m o t hy h o r n y a k ; p a u l j . d a l e y BOTTOM , F ROM LE F T : d a r r e n s o h ; k e n s t r a i t o n ; o b e r t o g i l i

contributors

mail

the soul of Bali in the heart of Ubud

Letter of the month

I had a good chuckle at your story about store-bought foods from around the world [“Market Values,” September 2011]. I’d always thought that the strangest packaged foods would come from the strangest places on earth, like the soi I live on in Thailand.

There I can amaze visitors by showing off street tables laden with deep-fried insects—a kind of packaged food. Then I read that Italy has baby food made from horsemeat. Unbelievable. Still, an interesting read. Keep these types of stories coming. —aaron duangnam, bangkok

Found Treasures

Giving Back

Look up is the best advice in your August issue. I enjoyed the review of preservation in Malacca [“For Good Measure,” August 2011], its pitfalls and triumphs. I’ve just visited the town and, if it weren’t for my getting lost on purpose, I might have missed some of the architectural treasures found in the back lanes and alleys. As your writer points out, nothing beats experiencing the history of a place, any place, than meeting with long-time locals. They remain the real history books and are normally happy to swap stories about their home. —sonia ng, singapore

While it was great to see that Phnom Penh is doing so well when it gets to shopping and eating [“Cambodia on the Rise,” August 2011], I wish the story would have focused more on giving back to the local community. I think Cambodians as a group still need help from the outside world, a fact apparent on any visit. You do mention Artisans d’Angkor, but there are others worth checking out as well. Ask your hotel there what charities they are associated with. It’s a grassroots way of connecting with the local community, one you won’t soon forget. —anna prasert, chiang mai

Packaged Foods

“The resort itself was also very special, with delicious food and ambience. One of the best things about Komaneka is the staﬀ, they are so friendly and welcoming and genuinely strive to make your holiday the best it can be”. – KY. Perth – Australia

e-mail t+l

KOMANEKA

Monkey Forest | Tanggayuda | Bisma Your home address in Ubud +62 361 976090 sales@komaneka.com www.komaneka.com

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.

bestdeals

budget-friendly tips for your travel planning

AFFORDABLE ASIAN TRIPS

deal of the month s n a p

Away Suansawan Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Sofitel Macau at Ponte 16, Macau.

borneo adventures MALAYSIA Dive package at Gayana Eco Resort (60-88/380-390; gayana-eco-resort. com) in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. What’s Included A three-night stay in a Rimba

or Pantai villa; round-trip boat transfers from Jesselton Point Ferry Terminal; breakfast; one four-course Chinese dinner; one house reef dive; two boat dives per day, or a deep jungle spa package for nondivers; a tour of the Marine Ecology Research Centre; and nonmotorized water sports. Cost From RM4,440 (RM1,480 per night), double, ongoing. Savings 25 percent. MALAYSIA Connect to Nature package at the Shangri-La Rasa Ria Resort (60-88/792888; shangri-la.com) in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. What’s Included A stay in a Deluxe Sea View room; breakfast; bird watching; nocturnal animal watching; an Orang Utan Rehabilition Centre visit and guided treetop canopy walk; and membership of the resort’s Foster an Animal Programme. Cost From RM875 per night, two-night minimum, double, through December 21. Savings 22 percent.

mahout experience

THAILAND Mahout for the Day package at the Away Suansawan Chiang Mai (centara hotelsresorts.com; 66-53/044-095). What’s 22 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

Gayana Eco Resort, Malaysia.

Included A two-night stay in a Superior

room; daily buffet breakfast; one welcome dinner; round-trip transfers to an elephant campsite; and a mahout training experience with lunch included. Cost From Bt9,560 per person, through October 31. Savings 35 percent.

foodie escapes

MACAU I Love Macarons package at the Sofitel Macau at Ponte 16 (853/8861-7312; sofitel.com). What’s Included A stay in a

Superior room on the Club Sofitel floor; express check-in and check-out; breakfast at Club Sofitel Lounge; one Macaron Love Affair afternoon tea at Rendezvous for two; one box of macarons; evening cocktails and canapés; and free Wi-Fi. Cost From HK$1,590 per night, double, through October 31 (blackout dates apply). Savings 15 percent.

CHINA Penta Escape package at Pentahotel Shanghai (86-21/62521111; pentahotels.com/ shanghai). What’s Included A stay in a Penta room; welcome drinks at the pentalounge; daily breakfast; in-room Internet; 20 percent off dining at pentalounge and laundry services; and city sightseeing tickets on a double-decker bus. Cost From RMB600 per night, double, through October 31 (weekends only). Savings 25 percent.

THAILAND Culinary Creations package at the Hansar Bangkok (66-2/209-1234; hansarbangkok.com). What’s Included A stay

in an Urban suite; breakfast; a one-hour Thai cooking class; evening cocktails at VUE bar between 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; complimentary mini-bar; in-room teaand coffee-making facilities; local calls and daily newspaper; and free Wi-Fi. Cost From Bt9,000 per night, double, through December 31. Savings 35 percent.

Pentahotel Shanghai, China.

c l o c kw i s e f r o m t o p l e f t : c o u r t e s y o f a w a y s u a n s a w a n c h i a n g M a i ; c o u r t e s y o f S o f i t e l m a c a u a t p o n t e 1 6 ; c o u r t e s y o f g a ya n a e c o r e s o r t ; c o u r t e s y o f p e n t a h o t e l s h a n gh a i

i t

askt+l

The

Ultimate Paradise

Welcome to Your Own Private Paradise The perks of premium economy.

Villa Bentota in Sri Lanka, above and below right.

Chaweng Regent Beach Resort

Can you recommend a good place to stay on Sri Lanka’s coast? —gloria chau, singapore Halfway between Colombo and Galle on the country’s west coast you’ll find Villa Bentota (94-34/227-5311; paradiseroadhotels.com; doubles from US$224). The 15 rooms and suites here are geared to the outdoors—12 face the Indian Ocean—as much as the tropical yet elegant interiors. The resort is chock-a-block with artifacts such as Chinese pottery, Dutch door frames and objets d’art from around the island. Best of all, Villa Bentota is a great getaway from it all. That said, book well in advance at this popular stop on the coast.

Q: Is premium economy class really the bargain it’s made out to be? —ben shipton, hong kong

BANGKOK SALES OFFICE: Tel: (66 2) 530 7866 till 70 Fax: (66 2) 530 7871 till 2 E-mail: bkkmkt@chawengregent.com SAMUI: 155/4 Chaweng Beach, Koh Samui, Suratthani 84320 Thailand Tel: (66 77) 230 391 till 400 Fax: (66 77) 422 222, 231 013 E-mail: admn@chawengregent.com

w w w. c h awe n gregent.com

a: The answer to that has many angles, some not so obvious. On its website, Seatguru (seatguru.com) breaks down the costs of sitting in this cabin, pointing out that, on trans-Pacific flights—normally, premium-economy cabins are found on long-haul routes— the seats cost an average of 95 percent more than in the economy cabin. That’s pretty much double, though it’s still 65 percent less expensive than a perch in business class. Seatguru also recommends last-minute bookings as a route to more savings, sometimes only a 10 percent premium on an economy ticket. For those holding economy tickets, when checking in, ask about the cost of an upgrade to the premiumeconomy cabin since most airlines

normally aim to fill the front sections of the plane as much as possible. Among those in the region offering premium-economy class are Air New Zealand, ANA, China Southern Airlines, EVA Air, Japan Airlines, Qantas and, to a degree, Thai Airways. By mid-2012, Cathay Pacific plans to introduce a premium-economy cabin on its long-hauls to Europe and North America as well as on some shorter flights to Australia and the Middle East. The airline says that these seats will be similar to regional businessclass seats, with better pitch and recline than found in economy class. what’s your travel question?

» E-mail us at

editor@travelandleisuresea.com

» Post queries at

Facebook.com/TravelandLeisureAsia

» Follow us on Twitter at

@TravLeisureAsia (Questions may be edited for clarity and space.)

c l o c kw i s e F ROM t o p LE F T : C o u r t e s y o f P a r a d i s e R o a d h o t e l s ; © L u c i a n C o m a n | D r e a m s t i m e .c o m ; c o u r t e sy o f Pa r a d i s e R oa d h ot e l s

Lying against the fine white sand of Chaweng Beach. The intimate beachfront resort allows guest to enjoy the beauty of nature and the entertainment sports, restaurants and shopping with the very best location to suit all tastes.

travelandleisure.com month 2010 00

traveler

websites, apps, tech gear, e-advice, and more

eco tech When it comes to the environment, technology can be a double-edged sword. New devices use up energy and precious resources, but they also offer exciting ways to travel green. These days, the best are doing this while also lightening their footprints. Take the Android-powered Samsung Replenish smart phone (samsung. com), made from recycled plastic and without many of the toxic chemicals found in other phones. It is loaded with a bundle of eco-friendly apps (Treehugger; National Audubon Society) and can be powered using

T+L Picks: resources for the road

Avoid data-overage charges with the free Telicost-Lite app (Android; Blackberry; iPhone), which monitors your phone and alerts you as you approach your plan limit.

Crafted from sustainably sourced woods, Vers 1E Earphones (versaudio.com) deliver great sound and block 90 percent of outside noise.

28 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

Forget an important file at home? TeamViewer Host (teamviewer.com), free for Mac, lets you remotely access your Apple computer and edit files from anywhere.

Protect your tablet from travel mishaps with G-Form’s iPad Extreme Sleeve (g-form.com), a rugged, water- resistant case capable of absorbing strong shocks.

who he is Not since Richard Branson has Britain seen an entrepreneur as iconoclastic as Woodroffe. He designed rock shows for Stevie Wonder and Rod Stewart, launched the chain of conveyor-belt YO! Sushi restaurants, and then created Yotel in 2007, which blends the self-service of Japanese pod hotels (touch-screen check-in kiosks; motorized retractable beds) with a stylish, airplane-cabin vibe. his big idea Woodroffe’s newest outpost, Yotel Times Square (yotel.com; doubles from US$259), in New York City, is a living demonstration of convenience through technology. The hotel features the world’s first luggage robot, a cranelike contraption that retrieves bags and stores them in a sleek white wall of drawers in the lobby. At its restaurant, Dohyo, the tables can be lowered into the floor, opening up the space for performances. Guest “cabins” all have Yotel’s trademark “techno- wall,” with flat-screen TV’s, music and power services, and device-storage areas.

Illustrated by Leif Parsons

F ROM LE F T : COURTES Y O F ANAMALOUS NET W OR K S ; COURTES Y O F TEAMVIE W ER ; COURTES Y O F G - F ORM ; COURTES Y O F Y OTEL

Trend of the Month

a solar battery charger. Music lovers, meanwhile, can take comfort in knowing that the new Etón Soulra XL (etoncorp.com) iPod dock, which is designed to resemble an old-school boom box, not only charges while it plays but lasts up to five hours on a single solar charge—perfect for the beach. Unfortunately, most travel-size solar chargers are still not strong enough to power your laptop. In the meantime, though, there’s the Energy Star–rated IDAPT i1 Eco (idaptweb.com). Constructed of recycled materials, it lets you charge nearly any device on the go. The green edge: when a gadget is fully powered, the IDAPT turns itself off—conserving essential electricity. Taking a road trip sometime soon? At agencies such as Enterprise and Hertz, you can now rent cars with built-in dashboard eco-modes that will show you, in real time, how efficiently you’re driving. A new generation of smart-phone apps, such as the free OnStar MyLink (iPhone), will also now deliver an overall assessment of your driving, showing you how to save both gas and money. —to m samiljan

innovator

Simon Woodroffe

Subject?

Background?

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newsflash your global guide to what’s happening right now...

hotel highlights C L OCKW I SE FROM TOP L EFT : COURTESY OF O B ERO I HOTE L S & RESORTS ; A d r i a n S t e i r n / C o u r t e s y o f Si n gi t a G a m e R e s e r v e ; FERNANDO G UERRA ; A d r i a n S t e i r n / C o u r t e s y o f Si n gi t a G a m e R e s e r v e ; COURTESY OF S I AM HOTE L S & RESORT s ; FERNANDO G UERRA

From a mobile safari camp to a resort on a private island, T+L rounds up the most exciting openings—plus two coming soon INDIA Oberoi Hotels & Resorts has done it again, with a 202-room property on the outskirts of New Delhi. The Oberoi, Gurgaon (oberoihotels.com; doubles from US$706) features suites with private pools, 24-hour butler service, a cigar lounge and Delhi’s first 24-hour spa—because you never know when the desire for a massage may strike. ITALY Giorgio Armani returns to his hometown—and Italy’s fashion capital—for his second hotel venture, opening soon. Like his first property, in Dubai, the Armani Hotel Milan (armanihotels.com; rates not available at press time) promises to have as sleek a silhouette as Armani’s ready-to-wear. Sheathed in a glass box above the atelier’s flagship store, the 95-room hotel (with the city’s largest guest rooms) is just steps from La Scala Theater. PORTUGAL Wine is the focus at L’and Vineyard & Resort (l-andvineyards.com; doubles from US$370), set in the burgeoning Alentejo wine region, about 97 kilometers east of Lisbon. In addition to an outdoor

lounge where you can choose from 39 offerings by the glass, the on-site winery hosts daily classes, and the spa uses antioxidant-rich grape seeds and skins in treatments. Plus, ten of the 22 villas have retractable ceilings. TANZANIA Singita Grumeti Reserve’s Singita Explore (singita.com; from US$1,300 per person per night) is a new “mobile” concept that allows guests to camp in remote areas of the reserve’s 1,375 square kilometers. Spacious canvas tents and a private guide and chef mean you won’t be roughing it. THAILAND Set among palaces and temples in the historic Dusit district, the Siam, Bangkok (siamhotels.com; doubles from US$538), takes cues from its surroundings. Designed by American architect Bill Bensley, the boutique hotel—which opens in January— will be filled with antiques (opium beds; Siamese maps) and flea-market finds (velvet French cinema seating). Four of the 39 suites are actually teak houses from the ancient Thai capital of Ayutthaya.—heidi mitchell

Checking in Clockwise from top left: The Oberoi, Gurgaon, overlooks a reflecting pool; a communal sitting area at Singita Explore; the patio lounge at

L’and, where nightly wine tastings are held; a guest tent at Singita Explore; a villa pool at the Siam, Bangkok; the indoor pool at the L’and spa area.

travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 31

newsflash

feel-good flair Clockwise from top left: Hanoi restaurant Song Thu; in Luang Prabang; Luang Prabang craft store Ma Té Sai; French cuisine at Song Thu; hiking with Forest Café, Yunnan; Soria Moria boutique hotel, in Siem Reap; at Ma Té Sai.

guide

Looking to make a difference on your next trip? Try Mekongresponsibletourism.org, an online guide designed for eco-minded travelers. Previously a guidebook, the new site hones in on over 185 carefully vetted, sustainable travel experiences in Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, and China’s Yunnan and Guangxi provinces. Below, four highlights. STAY The 38 airy rooms aren’t the only draw at Siem Reap boutique hotel Soria Moria (Wat Bo Rd., Salakamrouk; 855-63/964769; thesoriamoria.com; doubles from US$50). There’s also a sleek rooftop bar and open-air Jacuzzi—plus, the hotel is 51 percent owned by the friendly local employees. SHOP Beautiful artisanal handcrafts are the specialty at Luang Prabang’s Ma Té Sai (02/58 Ban Xieng Mouane, Sisavangvong Rd.; 856-71/260-654; matesai. com), whose fair-trade products are sourced directly from local villages. Look out for hand-woven cotton scarves and sleek bamboo place mats.

l’orange and mousse au chocolat at Song Thu (34 Chau Long St.; 84-4/3942-4448; hoasuaschool. com; dinner for two VND490,000), a restaurant and culinarytraining facility that supports underprivileged teens. DO Kickstart a Yunnan trekking adventure with a home-brewed coffee at Forest Café (Mengla Rd. 23, Jinghong; 86-691/8985122; forest-cafe.org; guided treks from RMB250), which customizes itineraries to off-the-beaten-track villages and trails.— liang xinyi

EAT In Hanoi, sit down at a relaxed, French-inspired space and tuck into dishes like duck à

the shop

buy in the sky Good news for shopaholics: Korean Air (koreanair.com) has scrapped 13 seats on each of its new Airbus A380’s to install in-flight duty-free stores—the first of their kind. These walk-in shops carry Lancôme beauty products, Longchamp totes, Crown Royal whisky, and more. Just make your picks, and they’ll be delivered before touchdown.— jim shi 32 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

G u i d e : C l o c kw i s e f r o m t o p l e f t : c o u r t e s y o f H o a S u a S c h o o l ; © N o pp a k u n / D r e a m s t i m e . c o m ; c o u r t e s y o f M a T e S a i ; c o u r t e s y o f H o a S u a S c h o o l ; c o u r t e s y o f F o r e s t C a f e ; c o u r t e s y o f S o r i a M o r i a ; c o u r t e s y o f M a T e S a i . Sh o p : ILLUSTRATION B Y k a gE n m c l e o D

MEKONG SPOTLIGHT

newsflash

Asia, naturally

Below, five natural, locally crafted artisanal products to keep you looking and feeling good on the go

restaurants

farm fresh T+L picks three new locavore restaurants that are turning heads in the region

MANILA Global flavors and local ingredients meet at chef Sandralyn Hataway’s light-filled Tourné, where a quote by slow-food pioneer Alice Waters emblazons the white walls. Try the delicate lemongrass consommé with chicken and shitake, or the hearty Reuben sandwich with red-cabbage slaw and carabao cheese. Save room for the citrus and pili brownies with caramel. The Fort Strip, 7th Ave. corner 26th St., Bonifacio Global City, Taguig; 63-2/555-0267; lunch for two P900. HONG KONG At buzzing New

York–Italian joint Linguini Fini, even a humble mixed salad is an experience—think perfectly seasoned lollo rosso and frisée, sweet cherry tomato and cucumber sourced from organic farms in the New Territories. The linguini pomodoro bursts with flavor, while the robust egg pasta is faultlessly al dente. Perch at the long dark-wood pasta counter and watch the chefs at

34 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

work. 1st floor, The L Place, 139 Queen’s Rd. Central; 852/2857-1333; linguinifini. com; lunch for two HK$220.

BANGKOK Blink and you’ll miss

Seven Spoons, a tiny, Canangawood-paneled gastrobar converted from an old Chinese shophouse. Open only for dinner, the kitchen specializes in mod-American fare (spaghetti with Moroccan-spiced meatballs; Haloumi tikka with cardamom risotto and tamarind) with an emphasis on seasonal, Thai-sourced produce. Cocktails are a highlight: don’t miss the Bronze Spoon, a blend of spiced rum, mandarin orange, lime and sugar cane. 211 Chakkaphatdi Phong Rd.; 66-2/628-4588; dinner for two Bt900. —lara day

FROM FIELD TO FORK Clockwise from top left: Chef-owner Sandralyn Hataway, of Manila’s Tourné; house-made pasta at Linguini Fini, in Hong Kong; at Seven Spoons, Bangkok; Tourné; Linguini Fini.

INDONESIA Calming vetiver, bergamot and lavender form the base of this handy sleep balm by Bali’s Blue Stone Botanicals— perfect for combating jetlag. Apply it to your temples and wrists to promote a natural state of restfulness. bluestonebotanicals.com. LAOS Survive mosquito season with this citronella insect repellent from Les Artisans Lao, available in Vientiane and Luang Prabang. Free from harmful chemicals like DEET, it’s also the best-smelling bug repellent we’ve found. artisanslao.com. CAMBODIA How to keep your pout moisturized? Try a sweet-smelling coconut-, orange- or mango-flavored lip balm from Senteurs d’Angkor. The pretty sugar-palmleaf packaging is an added plus. senteursdangkor.com. PHILIPPINES Beat the Asian heat with this handy traveler’s mist, a refreshing spray and toner from hip Manila ecostore Ritual. Ingredients include antibacterial tea tree, uplifting lemongrass, soothing pandan and cooling peppermint make this a must-have in warmer climates. ritualshop.com. MALAYSIA Asian herbs and spices like cinnamon and star anise are the key ingredients in Indochine Natural’s biodegradable soap bars. Mild and gently hydrating, they’re perfect for sensitive skin. indochinenatural.com.— l . x .

R e s t a u r a n t s , c l o c kw i s e f r o m t o p l e f t : c o u r t e s y o f T o u r n é ; c o u r t e s y o f L i n g u i n i F i n i ; c o u r t e s y o f S e v e n Sp o o n s ; c o u r t e s y o f T o u r n é ; c o u r t e s y o f L i n g u i n i F i n i . b e a u t y, f r o m t o p : c o u r t e s y o f B l u e S t o n e B o t a n i c a l s ; c o u r t e s y o f L e s A r t i s a n s L a o ; c o u r t e s y o f S e n t e u r s d ’ A n gk o r ; c o u r t e s y o f R i t u a l ; c o u r t e s y o f i n d o c h i n e n a t u r a l .

beauty

newsflash the trips

idol encounters Everyone has someone they admire—a certain chef, musician or adventurer, perhaps. Here’s the chance to get up close and personal with your hero. by brooke porter FOR THE FOODIE The new gastronomic tour from renowned French chef Guy Savoy begins with lunch at his Paris restaurant (he’ll be there to greet you), where the menu is tailored to your next destination. This month, you’ll get whisked away on a jet to an oyster farm in Brittany; in November, you can create your own Cognac in Charente. The intimate trips end back where they started, with a meal hosted by the chef. guysavoy.com; from US$7,000 (all-inclusive); Oct. 26–28 and Nov. 16–18. FOR THE MUSIC LOVER At Hollywood, California’s Rock ’n’ Roll Fantasy Camp, you’ll form a band, get pointers from Kiss’s Paul Stanley, and take the stage at the Gibson Showroom. Leather pants not included. rockcamp.com; from US$6,000 (includes most meals, a recording session and evening activities); Nov. 10–13. A ragoût of market vegetables at Guy Savoy’s Paris restaurant. Inset: Chef Guy Savoy.

FOR THE SPACE JUNKIE Buzz Aldrin—the second man to walk on the moon—will speak to starstruck guests at Soneva Kiri by Six Senses Thailand, as part of the Exploratory Talkers’ Tables series. sixsenses.com; doubles from US$3,100, including meals; April 8, 2012.

city hideaway From left: Bangkok Treehouse; nature’s close up; owner Joey Tuylanond.

up in the trees Bangkok is better known for its forest of skyscrapers than for its green hotels. But that may change next month, with the opening of Bangkok Treehouse (Moo 1, Bang Nampheung, Samut Prakan Province; 66-8/14531100; bangkoktreehouse.com; doubles from Bt4,690). Overlooking the Chao Phraya River, close to the new Bang Na Skytrain station, the hotel and organic restaurant will offer 12 elevated guest quarters—one treehouse, plus 11 treetop “nests” on concrete stilts— made with materials like bamboo, palm leaf, reclaimed wood and even recycled milk cartons. T+L talks to owner and founder Joey Tuylanond.—ben keene

36 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

Q: Your family runs the Old Bangkok Inn. What inspired you to open Bangkok Treehouse? A: I read a book a while ago, Walden by Henry David Thoreau, and it struck me as a very Buddhist way of life. It made me think we should be learning from nature rather than working against it, because nature provides solutions to a lot of the problems we have. We decided to open Bangkok Treehouse to see how much we could push the limits. We wanted to put our hearts into it.

Q: What does being green mean to you?

Q: How do you stay green on the road?

A: To be green, you have to be genuine. It’s not enough to have a neutral impact. We promise to clean up a kilo of trash for every booking. We’re proving to ourselves and to our guests that we’re putting an effort into what we’re saying.

A: I take along everything I can, like shampoo and soap. Often you also have to insist that you don’t want your room to be made. It might be as simple as putting up a “Do Not Disturb” sign.

Q: Does size matter? A: Bigger hotels use more resources for upkeep, so stay in small places that don’t have hectares of garden to water or big lobbies that require even bigger air conditioners.

Q: Any more tips? A: I try to travel by land as much as I can, and take less transportation in general. I also try to stay in owner-operated inns or hotels. We know firsthand that money goes back into the local economy more effectively there.

t o p : LAUREN CEMOUTON ( 2 ) . c o u r t e s y o f b a n gk o k t r e e h o u s e ( 3 )

Q+A

insider

destinations trends restaurants + more

GOING GREEN DOWN UNDER.

C l o c kw i s e f r o m t o p l e f t : c o u r t e s y o f G r e a t O c e a n E c o l o d g e ; c o u r t e s y o f S i l ky O a k s L o d g e s ; c o u r t e s y o f T a n o n g a

from a chic outback stay close to Sydney to an indulgent rain-forest retreat in queensland, T+L uncovers five stunning eco-lodges across australia. By Benjamin Law

ustralia’s vast and varied ecosystem is one of the world’s most breathtaking. Yet it’s also temperamental and volatile: some years bring droughts, while others bring record-breaking floods. Locals are acutely aware of climate change, and the organization Eco Lodges of Australia (ecolodgesaustralia.com. au) helps band together accommodation that adheres to the highest standards of ethical and sustainable lodging. As a bonus, they boast a wealth of creature comforts. Here, we pick five.

eco chic Clockwise from top left: Cape Otway’s Great Ocean Ecolodge; Silky Oaks Lodges, in Queensland, is set in lush rain forest; Tanonga Luxury Eco Lodges, in South Australia.

NEW SOUTH WALES ■ Tandara Sydney Eco-lodges are usually

synonymous with remote parts of Australia, but the newly opened Tandara Sydney is a mere 10-kilometer train ride from Sydney’s CBD, Harbour Bridge and Opera House. Not that you would know it: Lane Cover River Tourist Park, » travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 39

insider eco-lodges where Tandara is located, is so quiet and filled with sleepy, native animal life that it feels a world away. Staying in a luxury canvas tent, guests experience the latest in “glamping” (glamorous camping), with the fun of open-air sleeping enhanced by all the mod cons: sleek bathrooms, a king-size bed, a floating wooden floor, a giant flat-screen TV and even Wi-Fi. Plassey Rd., North Ryde/Macquarie Park, Sydney; 61-2/9888-9133; lcrtp.com.au/tandara-sydney; doubles from A$390.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA seeking complete isolation should head to South Australia’s Tanonga Luxury Eco Lodges, 650 kilometers from the state capital of Adelaide, yet a mere 15-minute drive from nearby Port Lincoln airport. Each of the two private lodges offers a distinct view: the Valley has 360-degree panoramic bushland views (perfect for sunsets), while the Ridge overlooks the waters of the Southern Ocean. In fact, Tanonga—an Aboriginal word meaning “sweet water”—is surrounded by freshwater springs that run through the property and attract local wildlife, including possums, kangaroos and rare birds such as the yellow-tailed black cockatoo, an endangered species. Each lodge comes with a well-stocked kitchen of fresh local ingredients and condiments, though order ahead and the staff can arrange packages of local beers, wines, cheeses, meats and seafood. Don’t miss Port Lincoln’s renowned lobsters, prawns and oysters. Pope Dr., Port Lincoln; 61-8/8684-5066; tanonga.com.au; doubles from A$207.

VICTORIA ■ the great Ocean Ecolodge

the great outdoors Clockwise from top left: Tandara Sydney doesn’t skimp on comfort; wildlife spotting at the Great Ocean Ecolodge; Karijini Eco Retreat’s upscale fare; “glamping”—glamorous camping—at Tandara Sydney; a room at Tanonga, in South Australia.

40 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

GREAT VALUE

For travelers hoping to get up close and personal with Australia’s wildlife, the Great Ocean Ecolodge goes far beyond a petting-zoo experience. Run by the Cape Otway Centre for Conservation Ecology, the lodge encourages guests to help local researchers preserve endangered species by collecting koala DNA, assisting with habitat restoration and gathering food for injured or orphaned koalas. At the end of the day, relax with a stroll along some of the world’s most renowned coastlines, feast on gourmet Aussie fare—curries; moussakas—made with organic ingredients grown on site while watching kangaroos graze nearby, then collapse into cozy, fully solar-powered cottage-style lodgings, appointed with antiques, »

C l o c kw i s e f r o m t o p l e f t : c o u r t e s y o f T a n d a r a Sy d n e y ; c o u r t e s y o f G r e a t O c e a n E c o l o d g e ; c o u r t e s y o f T a n o n g a ; c o u r t e s y o f T a n d a r a Sy d n e y ; c o u r t e s y o f K a r i j i n i E c o R e t r e a t

■ Tanonga Luxury Eco Lodges Travelers

insider eco-lodges

aussie naturals

by humans. Karijini National Park, off Weano Rd.; 61-8/9425-5591; karijiniecoretreat.com.au; doubles from A$269.

QUEENSLAND ■ Silky Oaks Lodge For serious indulgence,

crisp linens and locally made herbal bath products. Lighthouse Rd., Cape Otway; 61-3/5237-9297; greatoceanecolodge.com; doubles from A$160.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA ■ Karijini Eco Retreat Because it takes up such a huge chunk of Australia’s geography, Western Australia’s Karinji National Park is home to some of the most breathtaking natural vistas in the country, including Mt. Augustus, the world’s biggest monocline (a geologic fold). Karijini Eco Retreat takes full advantage of the surrounds, offering upscale tents with ensuites that are entirely solar powered and outfitted with recycled timber flooring. Most visitors rarely spend time indoors, though. Instead they opt for exploring the abundant nature trails, canyons and water pools, where sheer cliffs and spectacular gorges descend to pristine, hidden swimming holes, barely touched 42 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

it’s hard to beat Far North Queensland’s Silky Oaks Lodge, set within Daintree National Park. Nestled in dense tropical rain forest and right next to the crystal-clear Mossman River, visitors are spoilt for choice here. Whether they check into a riverside or treehouse lodge, all guests are treated with giant in-room spas baths and uninterrupted nature views. Hiking aficionados can engage with traditional Kuku Yalangi Aboriginal culture on guided trails, while those who just want to unwind can relax at Healing Waters, one of the best day spas in the region, with treatments based on Australian botanicals (clay; macadamia oil; organic flower extracts) and floor-to-ceiling views of the outside vegetation. Best of all for your conscience, Silky Oaks’ power and waste-management systems ensure the lodge’s long-term environmental impact is neutral. Finlayvale Rd., Mossman; 61-7/4098-1666; silkyoakslodge.com.au; doubles from A$389. ✚ green travel tips for more ideas and recommendations on ecoconscious travel in southeast asia and beyond, go to travelandleisureasia.com

C l o c kw i s e f r o m t o p l e f t : c o u r t e s y o f K a r i j i n i E c o R e t r e a t ; c o u r t e s y o f T a n o n g a ; c o u r t e s y o f S i l ky O a k s L o d g e s

Clockwise from left: Karijini Eco Retreat, in Western Australia’s Karijini National Park; an overview of Tanonga; relaxing at Silky Oaks.

FEEL ON TOP OF THE WORLD

For a bird’s eye view of the rainforest situation in Brunei, climb to the top of the canopy tower at the Ulu Temburong National Park. A 360° view of lush primary jungles, as far as the eyes can stretch, will greet you alongside the sounds of a pristine environment teeming with life. And this can be experienced only 3 hours away from downtown Bandar Seri Begawan, the lovely capital of friendly Brunei Darussalam, the prosperous, safe and placid ancient Sultanate nestled on the northern shores of the huge island of Borneo. Pristine nature is complemented by strong Malay, Islamic and Royal traditions that effortlessly blend heritage and piety with outward looking modernity, tolerance and genuine hospitality. In Brunei one can also enjoy world class golf, diving and business events, from remote jungle lodges to palatial resort accommodation, allowing discerning travelers wholesome vacation experiences at good value for money. Nature, heritage, opulence…Discover Brunei, the Green Heart of Borneo.

BRUNEI TOURISM Jalan Menteri Besar Bandar Seri Begawan BB3910 - BRUNEI DARUSSALAM Tel : + 673 - 238 28 22 / Fax : + 673 - 238 28 24 Email : info@bruneitourism.travel

www.bruneitourism.travel

insider eat SAKTI

“In the past five-plus years in Bali, there has been a growing interest in yoga, holistic and eco-conscious living, and most recently, raw living foods,” explains Lahra Tatriele, co-founder of Fivelements Puri Ahimsa, an upscale retreat on the banks of the Ayung River. Healing cuisine is the aim of Fivelements’ restaurant, Sakti, headed by Balinese chef Made Runatha, a graduate of California’s famed Living Light Culinary Arts Institute. In a multi-tiered bamboo space under a high alang alang thatched roof, the restaurant serves up dishes like live lasagna layered with spinach, marinated shitake mushrooms, cashew cheese and béchamel herb sauce, and Tulamben crab-free cake, made with almond and zucchini shreds—a worthy imitation of lump crab meat. The kitchen is left open so that diners can ask the chefs what’s (not) cooking. T+L Tip Book in advance and choose from three-, five- and seven-course chef’s tasting menus. Fivelements, Puri Ahimsa, Banjar Baturning, Mambal; 62-361/469-206; fivelements. org; dinner for two Rp1,000,000. CLEAR CAFÉ

nutrients, creative uncooked cuisine is on the rise in bali’s spiritual center. T+L scopes out the scene. by liLi Tan

fresh takes Clockwise

from top: Sakti, at Fivelements Puri Ahimsa, serves up refined raw fare; Soma’s live raw pad thai; the highceilinged Clear Café.

rganic restaurants are no surprise in holistic, healthconscious Ubud. But these days, more of them are offering recipes based entirely on raw ingredients. In addition to fruits and vegetables, raw food—meaning dishes prepared at 48 degrees Celsius or cooler to retain their nutrients and enzymes—includes nuts and seeds, sprouted whole grains and even sashimi. And with Bali’s innovative chefs transforming fresh ingredients through inventive recipes, it’s not just good for you; it can also be fun, flavorful and fulfilling, with kitchens emphasizing produce from local organic farms—great for helping to reduce your carbon footprint. Here, we pick four restaurants that are spearheading the island’s raw movement.

44 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

A pair of weathered Balinese doors leads to the sleek, traditional-meets-modern interior of Clear Café: think dark wood floors, cylindrical f r o m t o p : c o u r t e s y o f f i v e l e m e n t s p u r i a h i m s a ; J o h a n n e s P. C h r i s t o ( 2 )

RAW UBUD. packed with flavor and

back to BASICS

f r o m t o p : J o h a n n e s P. C h r i s t o ( 2 ) ; c o u r t e s y o f f i v e l e m e n t s p u r i a h i m s a ( 2 )

pendant lamps and, as a centerpiece, a thick Flores stone table surrounded by off-white chairs. The diverse menu foregrounds fresh, clean flavors, clearly marking whether dishes are vegetarian, vegan or completely raw. Our favorite uncooked offering: the satiny Clear linguine, a julienned-zucchini “pasta” with four choices of sauce, two of which keep the dish raw—the alfredo, made with dairy-free cashew and garlic, and the red primavera, a veggie-chocked marinara. T+L Tip If you’re in detox mode, precede the faux pasta with the Super Nova Cell Salt, a lemon-and-cayenne drink that will help boost your metabolism. No. 8 Jln. Hanoman, Padang Tegal Kaje; 62361/889-4437; clear-café-ubud.com; dinner for two Rp250,000.

According to Tel Aviv–born nutritionist and macrobiotic chef Liat Solomon, going completely raw isn’t advisable, especially if you have a medical condition. To find out why, try a theory or practical-cooking course at Down to Earth (downtoearth bali.com; three-hour classes from Rp450,000), her new organic vegetarian café in Ubud, set to open this autumn. Expect a mix of dishes from her already-popular Seminyak eateries, Zula and the Earth Café (think raw strawberry pie).

wholesome eats

Clockwise from top: On the shelf at Down to Earth; a cooler at Clear Café; a healthy lunch at Sakti; the restaurant’s design takes its cues from surrounding nature.

SOMA

If Soma’s low-lit interiors are too dim for your tastes, head outdoors and grab one of two wooden tables and benches for prime Ubud people watching. Wherever you sit, the live raw pad thai is not to be missed. Ringlets carved from carrot, jicama and daikon radish serve as the “noodle” base, and packs a crunch that will keep any snack cravings at bay. The quaint café boasts fine ingredients such as cold-pressed organic coconut oil and produce washed with purified spring water, as well as local organic fare like cashews harvested from the slopes of nearby Mt. Agung. T+L Tip It is always best to start a meal with fruit since it digests faster than all other foods, says founder Rachel Sugiharto. Jln. Dewi Sita; 62-361/971-120; somabali.com; lunch for two Rp150,000. »

travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 45

insider eat Health buffs flock to Kafe, Ubud’s consistently bustling organic-food institution that draws yogis, energy healers and transient detox fiends. Fewer are aware of Little K, its open-air sister restaurant that overlooks the grassy site of the Yoga Barn’s new studio. Where Kafé offers up a daily raw food special on a chalkboard, Little K has a dedicated raw menu featuring dishes such as carb-free raw ravioli, bursting with intense flavors like daikon radish and sundried tomato sauce. There’s also a selection of healthful cooked options—organic nasi goreng with red rice; veggie quesadilla with salsa and sour cream—for those who want a break from raw eating. T+L Tip Stop for a Yin yoga class next door either before or after your meal. The Yoga Barn, Pengosekan St.; 62-361/971-236; balispirit.com/ kafe; lunch for two Rp150,000. ✚

RECIPEs go raw Want to try making raw dishes at home? Pick up a copy of Diana von Cranach’s Rawfully Good (River Books), a journey into fresh Southeast Asian flavors inspired by luxury properties around the region. Highlights: Penang mamak noodles made with white daikon (Bon Ton Resort); sapodilla– snake fruit sorbet with rose apple and pomelo (Soneva Kiri Koh Kood).

Clean and green From above: Open-air raw-food restaurant Little K, in Ubud, Bali; carb-free flavors at the restaurant.

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LITTLE K

insider Asian Scene bright ideas

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

Clockwise from top: A yak-wool shawl by Norlha; a solarbottle bulb from A Liter of Light; the EcoARK, in Taipei.

ASIAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S NEW GREEN PIONEERS. Young, inspired,

creative, entrepreneurial: these three game-changing innovators have found fresh new ways to make a difference to the planet. T+L finds out what makes them tick. By Lara Day

travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 49

insider Asian Scene building the future

Clockwise from left: Arthur Huang; inside the EcoARK; pollibricks, the structure’s building blocks; tea bottles made from the same material.

ARTHUR HUANG

Architect, Taiwan

the stunning ship-like pavilion at the center of the 2010 Taipei International Floral Exposition. Made using 1.5 million postconsumer PET bottles, the sleek structure spans 300,000 square meters pieced together with polli-bricks—modular polymer units that, when interlocked, become sturdy enough to withstand typhoons and earthquakes, yet can also be taken apart and reassembled. “The idea came from PET-bottle

ghetto housing,” Huang explains, “but it wasn’t the housing that inspired us. It was the trash.” Miniwiz building techniques can be applied to other forms of architecture such as big-box retail, says Huang, whose design references span everything from Roman engineering to Apple products to traditional Chinese architecture. His latest creation? Covetable iPhone 4 cases made of discarded rice husks. miniwiz.com.

Huang’s picks Architectural Inspirations “I’m inspired by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, because he specifies proximity and connection to nature. But I don’t want my company to compete with his. I want to make green products that will help

out of the box

Clockwise from bottom: The Banyan Tree, Lijiang; miniwiz makes green products like this portable HYmini solar panel; outside the EcoARK.

him. Young architects can never compete with experienced architects, but maybe they can offer something they haven’t discovered.” Yunnan escape “Hotels tend to look better in pictures, but two years ago I was

at Lijiang’s Banyan Tree (banyantree. com) and the pictures didn’t do it justice. The mountains are much more majestic than you can imagine. They’re an amazing backdrop.” Work-Life Balance “I’ve gone to Boston, New York, Germany, Italy, Prague and Austria, all within

50 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

the last two months. Next up are Malaysia, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu. These days I mix work trips with leisure. If I’ve been overstressed, I might take a few days to slow down and enjoy myself. Recently I did a road trip in Germany and drove from Berlin to Prague and Yugoslavia. That was really refreshing.”

On Green Travel “The easiest way to reduce your carbon footprint is to plant more trees. The problem is there are a lot of online carbon calculators for traveling these days. You need to question where your money is going so you know you’re getting more than just a certificate.”

c o u r t e s y o f m i n i w i z ( 6 ) . B o t t o m : c o u r t e s y o f B a n ya n t r e e

rthur Huang doesn’t like things to go to waste. He still wears his college T-shirt. He re-soles his shoes, which he’s worn for more than a decade. “Things last,” says the 32-year-old Harvard-trained architect and engineer. “It’s just that our desire doesn’t last.” Melding desire with design is the calling card of miniwiz, his Taipei-based green-tech company, best known for conceiving and constructing the EcoARK,

insider Asian Scene

DECHEN YESHI

Fashion Entrepreneur, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture nomad chic

Going Local “I’ve always liked staying with local families when I travel. I try to make sure what I spend goes into local people’s pockets. Travelers should find out who owns the hotel they’re staying in, and ask where their money’s going.”

t 3,200 meters in altitude, the remote village of Zorge Ritoma, on the Himalayan plateau, is populated mainly by nomads who struggle to eke out a living from the dry surrounding grasslands. It’s here that Dechen Yeshi, 29, calls home. A TibetanAmerican filmmaker turned fashion entrepreneur, she arrived six years ago to work on a documentary, but instead found a different, unexpected calling: yak wool. “Yak wool is thick and coarse, but underneath it there’s a layer of extremely fine wool that’s softer and warmer than cashmere,” she says. “As I went along, I realized that if we made this work, we could really affect people’s lives.” Teaming up with her mother, Paris-

based designer Kim Yeshi, she created the Norlha Workshop, a bright, airy atelier that employs 80 former yak herders to weave exquisite shawls, scarves and throws for top French fashion houses such as Sonia Rykiel and Arnys. Now a mother herself— she and her husband, a Tibetan from Gannan prefecture, have a twoyear-old daughter—Yeshi aims to expand within Asia and design more affordable collections using the coarser yak wool. “We’re different from other companies in that we respect traditional Tibetan culture and rituals,” she says. “People need to put their hearts into what they’re doing. Without that, this would be impossible to achieve.” norlha.fr.

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On Language and Connection “I grew up speaking English and my father’s Tibetan dialect, but I had to learn Amdo, the local dialect here, to get by. If I didn’t

speak it, I’d always be disconnected from people. It makes a huge difference.” Next up “When I first came to Zorge Ritome it was very exciting and different. Now that this is kind of normal to me, I’m looking for something else completely new. My next trip is to Istanbul, where I’ve never been. I also want to go to South America, though people tell me that lots of places in South America look exactly like Tibet.”

C l o c kw i s e f r o m t o p l e f t : c o u r t e s y o f d e c h e n y e s h i : c o u r t e s y o f n h o r l a ( 3 ) ; © A m i ta i / D r e a m s t i m e . c o m ; c o u r t e s y o f n o r l h a

yeshi’s picks

Clockwise from left: Dechen Yeshi; at Labrang Monastery, in Gannan; Norlha’s ultrasoft shawls are made from khullu, or fine yak wool; Zorge RItoma, in China’s Gansu province; Istanbul; Norlha’s stylish designs.

lighting up lives From left: Illac Diaz;

A Liter of Light relies on donations and volunteers; installing a solar bottle. Below left: A bulb in action.

ILLAC DIAZ

C l o c kw i s e f r o m t o p l e f t : c o u r t e s y o f i l l a c d i a z ; c o u r t e s y o f m y s h e l t e r f o u n d a t i o n ( 2 ) ; © S i m o n G u r n e y/ D r e a m s t i m e . c o m ; c o u r t e s y o f m y s h e l t e r f o u n d a t i o n ( 2 )

Social-Development Entrepreneur, Philippines

right ideas don’t come around every day, but when they do, they can be dazzling. Illac Diaz, 38, is the man behind A Liter of Light, a MyShelter Foundation project that installs solar

bottle bulbs—used 1.5-liter PET soda bottles filled with water to refract sunlight and bleach to prevent moss— into the rooftops of shanty homes, illuminating the lives of thousands dwelling in the Philippines’ poorest, most crowded slum areas. “The idea is simple, but when people see it, they clap, they cry. They literally go from dark to light,” says Manila-born Diaz, explaining that the bulbs give out light equivalent to 55 watts but avoid the risk of live flames or the expense of electricity. Named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2008, Diaz is a graduate of M.I.T.’s D-Lab, which trains students to focus their

talents on the 90 percent of people not addressed by conventional designers. “There’s a need to design for the poor and come up with appropriate technology that will reach the masses,” he says. “But the design has to be easily replicable. The purest form of charity is to make yourself obsolete.” At press time, Diaz had just finished an 18-city tour of the northern Philippines and was about to head south to Cebu; already, the project has offshoots in Colombia and South Africa. “Our goal is to light a million homes by 2012,” says Diaz. “In 10 years’ time, people won’t know who we are. The bottles will just pop up on the roof.” aliteroflight.org. ✚

diaz’s picks The Best Donation “Money you can always find, but it’s exhaustible. An idea—that’s what’s really groundbreaking. Maybe there’s a way for people to donate their ideas. Can the next wave of donations not be monetary? Can your next donation be idea-based?” Next Up “I travel a lot. When I was younger I would

hitchhike for months. I’m on my sixtieth country now, and I’m looking forward to going to South Africa this month.” Climb Every Mountain “I love mountain climbing. I’ve been a mountaineer since 1988. My next climbing trip is to Malaysia; I’ll be going up Kota Kinabalu. Going up mountains is my retreat.”

a better world From left: A family

using a solar bottle bulb; on the slopes of Kota Kinabalu, in Malaysia.

travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 53

insider Detour

fresh air Taking

in the Kwai Yai River. Right: Kanchanaburi’s iconic bridge.

BEYOND THE RIVER KWAI. Thailand’s historic western

province of Kanchanaburi offers clean air, breathtaking nature and a new boutique hotel. BY EMMA-KATE SYMONS n STAY Kanchanaburi came to the world’s attention thanks to David Lean’s 1957 classic film Bridge on the River Kwai, which dramatized the construction of the notorious Thai-Burma Death Railway under Japanese occupation. Today, it boasts another draw: the U Inchantree Kanchanaburi (443 Mae Nam Kwai Rd., Thamakham; 6634/521-584; uhotelsresorts.com; doubles from Bt2,100, including breakfast), a cozy boutique hotel that opened last year on the north banks of the Kwai Yai River (as it is correctly known). Across two floors, the 26 contemporary– rustic guest rooms are appointed with carved wooden and rattan

furniture, low-hanging lamps and plush beds festooned with colorful pillows; all overlook a magnificent 150-yearold tree that occupies the central courtyard. While the hotel is just a few minutes’ walk downriver from the historic iron bridge, which was rebuilt with the original curved span sections after the massive bombing attacks during World War II, it also offers some attractive reasons to stay in: a swimming pool and charming riverside bar—with perfect views of the bridge— as well as a gym, library and free Wi-Fi. n EAT Conveniently, the best dining option in the area happens to be adjacent to the U

54 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

Inchantree hotel. Sited on a sleek river pontoon in the shadow of the iconic bridge, the elegant open-air Keereetara (431/1, Tha Makham; 66-34/624-093; dinner for two Bt1,000) serves up superb seafood and local specialties including grilled tiger prawns with deepfried garlic, chicken in pandanus leaves, an assortment of fiery curries and crispy whole duck. n DO Whether you’re staying for a weekend or several days, it’s worth making the one-hour car trip northwest from Kanchanaburi town to the moving Hellfire Pass Memorial (off Hwy. 323; 66-34/531347), an Australian-

built museum dedicated to POW’s killed on the Death Railway. Close by is the stunning Erawan National Park (entry Bt200), with its spectacular seventiered waterfall and four limestone caves— perfect for getting back to nature. Less saturated with tourists is Sai Yok National Park (entry Bt200), also famed for its waterfalls and parade of houseboats bound for Nam Tok—ideal for a scenic day-trip, starting with a train ride over the River Kwai bridge. Travelers can breathe in remote rural Thailand at its sleepy, sparsely populated best, and see the remains of the Death Railway before an invigorating trek around the park.

The Hellfire Pass Memorial.

The 26-room U Inchantree Kanchanaburi.

Inside Erawan National Park.

c l o c kw i s e f r o m t o p l e f t : © N a i p u n g / D r e a m s t i m e . c o m ; j a m e s n v a t h o r n u n k o n g ; © D r hy / D r e a m s t i m e . c o m ; c o u r t e s y o f U I n c h a n t r e e K a n c h a n a b u r i ; © T u p u n g at o / D r e a m s t i m e . c o m

relaxing trip to Thailand typically highlights one of the country’s fabled beach resorts. But only two hours’ drive northwest of Bangkok—or a couple more if you opt for the scenic, if rickety, state railway—lies Kanchanaburi, a destination not to be missed. This lush province, rich in war history and natural beauty in the form of mountain ranges, waterfalls and rivers offers a welcome change from the gleaming towers and bustle of the capital, and a refreshing alternative to a seaside sojourn. ✚

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insider adventure

ON TWO WHEELS. Next time you’re in

need of a getaway, why not choose to pedal there with a scenic part of Asia as the backdrop? By Christopher Kucway

ith the stunning backdrop that is Asia and an urge to tackle it on two wheels, where should you go next? Not only will it depend on the usual suspects—time and money—but your own ability on a mountain bike enters the equation. Just remember, the great thing about cycling is that there are trips for every fitness level. Here, three unforgettable biking itineraries in the region.

PEDAL HAPPY

Clockwise from top left: Bhutan is a dream escape for cyclists; a rest stop in Sabah; exploring Vietnam with Marco Polo Travel; the tour takes in plenty of local encounters.

58 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

Even on the simplest of itineraries, you can combine cycling with a beautiful setting. That’s where a destination like Vietnam is perfect. A leisurely two-day journey north out of Hanoi with Marco Polo Travel (bikingvietnam.com; US$195 per person) is a good start for any level of cyclist. Covering 110 kilometers through the country’s rugged north, the trip may sound intimidating at first, but spread over two days and innumerable stops to eat and drink—this is Vietnam, after all—it’s an easier ride than you might expect. The first day takes in 45 kilometers around Mai Chau, capped with dinner and a homestay in a White Thai village. Aside from stilt houses made with palm-leaf roofs and polished bamboo slat floors, this scenic valley is noted for its silk weaving. Day two sees you cycle out through a karst limestone landscape to Kim Boi Hot Springs for lunch before driving back to Hanoi. T+L Tip Aim to be in Mai Chau on a Sunday, when minorities from the surrounding mountains visit the market.

c l o c kw i s e f r o m t o p l e f t : j o c k m o n t g o m e r y ; C o u r t e s y o f C a b r e n e y J o h n n y/ f l i c k r . c o m ; jock montgomery (2)

VIETNAM EASY DOES IT | TWO DAYS

clockwise from left: jock montgomery (2); C o u r t e s y o f C a b r e n e y J o h n n y/ f l i c k r . c o m / p h o t o s / d c a b 2 /

MALAYSIA POWER UP | SIX DAYS

Within an hour of Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, there’s a list of mountain-biking options as long as the East Malaysian coast. The routes are easily adaptable, offering flat rides, more demanding trails into tropical forests and everything in between. The Travel Trading Company (borneo-travel.com; US$756 per person) leads day-long rides as well as six-day excursions, with longer trips aimed at intermediate cyclists. The six-day ride starts in Kota Kinabalu and includes accommodation in longhouses (word to the wise: bring earplugs, for the forest is quiet for no man) and in mountain villages, with daily distances of up to 70 kilometers. The highlight—and high point—is at Kundasang at the end of the fifth day, with a stay at the Kinabalu Rose cabin, which is above 1,500 meters and within sight of Mount Kinabalu. But by the following day, the highlight might just change when you celebrate the end of »

TWISTS AND TURNS Clockwise from above: Biking in Bhutan; a winding trail in north Vietnam; heading uphill in Sabah.

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insider adventure the trip with a much-deserved dip into the Poring Hot Springs. The return to Kota Kinabalu is by bus. T+L Tip A worthy side trip is to the Sepilok Orang-Utan Rehabilitation Centre (sabah.gov.my), 23 kilometers from Sandakan.

Bike Tour BASICS Questions to ask your tour company CYCLING ASIA

From top: Bridging Vietnam; rough terrain in Bhutan; a Bhutan bike tour takes in plenty of local color; taking a break in Sabah.

• How difficult is the trip? If an itinerary is beyond your capabilities, the route will be much less fun than you anticipated. Most tour companies will provide guidelines for each package. • Is insurance included? And what happens if—we’re talking worse-case scenario, so don’t be alarmed—your trip skids off the trail? • If you’re not bringing your own wheels, what bikes are included in the price and how well are they maintained? Is there a guide who will take care of maintenance? • Is there a back-up plan in case the weather makes a turn for the worse? • Aside from cycling, what other activities are available?

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For those with time and money on their hands, not to mention some strong quads, scaling Himalayan heights (though the climbs are gradual) on two wheels is just the thing. And Bhutan is the place, a dream escape on two wheels. Bangkok-based Spice Roads (spice roads.com; from US$3,950 per person) offers a 14-day trip to the country with 550 kilometers of biking over those famous peaks. The lack of traffic means you can hear birds singing as you ride through aromatic pine forests. Day six proves the toughest day of the trip as you’ll pedal up and over the Black Mountains, a natural barrier between the east and west of the country, one that rises as high as 4,617 meters. Two days later, after a welcome rest day, it’s payback time on a 27-kilometer descent into Chendebji. As spectacular as the scenery in Bhutan is, what you’ll best remember are encounters with the Bhutanese themselves— think having tea with monks in Bumthang. If you don’t have two whole weeks to spare, Spice Roads also offers a seven-day bike journey to Bhutan, but it only covers 190 kilometers. T+L Tip Don’t miss the chance to hike up to the Tiger’s Nest Monastery, which is 900 meters above the floor of the Paro Valley. ✚

from top: jock montgomery (3); C o u r t e s y o f C a b r e n e y J o h n n y/ f l i c k r . c o m / ph o t o s / d c a b 2 /

BHUTAN FULL GAS | TWO WEEKS

insider on the map A shrine in Section 2 of Chatuchak market.

BANGKOK

Anyadharu

Lowndoad Me

THE shopping centers.

T+L’S GUIDE TO three OF OUR FAVORITE MARKETS, WITH TIPS ON THE BEST FINDS. PLUS PLACES TO EAT AND REST YOUR FEET

2 Head to R.S.T. Spices (No. 192, Soi 4, Section 25) for just about every spice under the sun, plus vacuum-packed, ready-to-go curry pastes— essential in Thai cooking.

1 AT E

Ka m

ae n

et 2

Rd .

1 At Ajai Silk Art & Décor (No. 137, Soi 1/6, Section

26), a well-curated collection of handwoven textiles from Thailand’s northeast are mixed with Burmese lacquerware and small silk ikat cushions.

n 3 1R d.

Rd .

AT E

3 5 Section 4

GATE 3

Phahon Yothin Rd.

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Section 5

4 An air-conditioned oasis, Anyadharu (Nos. 123–124, Soi 3, Section 3) has candles and sachets scented with lemongrass and ginger. Need a caffeine fix? There’s also a tiny tearoom in the back. 5 Weathered white cabinets set the stage for the circa-1950 hats, clothing, costume jewelry and old cameras on display at His & Her Vintage (No. 132, Soi 55/1, Section 5).

ae n

Ka m

3 Lowndoad Me (No. 274, Soi 46/1, and No. 284, Soi 46/2, Section 3) stocks colorful, lightweight linen shirts for men and women—perfect for the tropical climate.

6 The 29-year-old graphic designer and owner of namesake gallery Pariwat A-nantachina (No. 118, Soi 3, Section 7) creates panoramic photo collages of Bangkok street life. —jennifer chen

Pariwat A-nantachina

T+L TIPS

• By noon Chatuchak gets stiflingly hot. Go toward the end of the day, before the market closes at 6 p.m. • Take a break at L uksom (No. 089, Soi 38/2, Section 2), which serves freshly squeezed OJ from Thailand’s native greenskinned oranges. • Invest in a good map. Nancy Chandler’s illustrated Map of Bangkok (Bt275) has detailed directions and advice on navigating the stalls. • Get off the subway at the Kamphaeng Phet station. It’s less crowded than the Mo Chit BTS SkyTrain station, and deposits you directly in Section 2.

JASON MICHAEL LANG

CHATUCHAK Weekend Market Vibrant, chaotic and packed with surprises, Thailand’s largest market— with more than 15,000 stalls tucked into narrow sois, or alleyways, on the city’s north side—peddles everything from rare orchids to block-printed textiles.

insider on the map

Flux Productions

S-16 S-15 S-14 S-13 S-12 S-11 S-10 S-9 S-8 S-7 C-20 C-19 1

B/S V-17 V-16

NEW YORK CITY

V-15

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V-1 L-19 L-18 L-17 L-16 L-15 L-14 L-13 L-12 L-11

Clermont Ave.

V-18

L-10 L-9 L-8 L-7 L-6 L-5 L-4 L-3 L-2 L-1

Lafayette Ave.

The Brooklyn Flea, in Fort Greene.

Asiadog

1 Olde Good Things (C-18-20; oldegoodthings. com) offers immaculately restored vintage furniture and massive mirrors framed in reclaimed tin ceiling tiles. 2 With porcupine quills poking from vintage brass vases and tortoiseshelllined old army cases, Hunters & Gatherers (W-9; huntersandgatherersnyc. com) is your one-stop curiosities and home shop.

3 The ultimate Brooklyn keepsake? One of Matt Schwartz’s dreamy Coney Island prints, fashioned from large-format Polaroids. You’ll find them at She Hit Pause Studios (B-7; shehitpause studios.com). 4 Retro connoisseurs love Jellyroll Vintage (B-16; jellyrollvintage.blogspot. com) for its quality threads, from 1950’s circle skirts to mod minidresses. 5 Species by the Thousands (B-13; species bythethousands.com) has edgy handcrafted jewelry. Think amethyst geodes on leather cording and monocle pendants. 6 Flux Productions (V-2; fluxproductions.net) sells one-of-a-kind totes and bike bags made from

66 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

egetable-tanned leather v and lined in colorful screen-printed fabrics. 7 For handmade ceramic bowls, coasters and vases patterned after cable-knit sweaters, milk bottles and Mason jars, stop in at Alyssa Ettinger (E-25; alyssaettinger.com). —colleen clark

Olde Good Things

T+L TIPS

• Market locations vary by day (Saturday it’s Fort Greene; Sunday it’s along the East River waterfront in super-hip Williamsburg) and vendors change weekly. Check brooklynflea.com for directions and updates. • Every Friday, the website’s blog posts two items for a scavenger hunt at each market. Finders, keepers—they’re free. • Don’t miss Smorgasburg, the new all-food Saturday market in Williamsburg, with about 100 stalls for greenmarket produce and cheap eats. One highlight: Asiadog, a haute hot dog stand with toppings like Japanese curry and kimchi apples.

david ale x ande r a r nold

BROOKLYN FLEA Since 2008, the market has grown from a DIY experiment in a publicschool parking lot to an indie shopping mecca with spin-offs around the borough. Here, we explore its original location, in the historic Fort Greene neighborhood.

insider on the map Calle Bethlem

San Telmo Market and La Brigada

Plaza Dorrego

BUENOS AIRES

3 2

Defensa

4 7 6

7 4

Humberto 1

Carlos Olivares and Ricardo Martín

Shopping at the San Telmo Market.

Eclipse Collectibles

1 Dealer Elba Rivas (No. 195) has an eye for accessories (croc clutches from the 1960’s; mink capes) that would be perfect for your next Mad Men– themed party. 2 For a mix of Argentinean memorabilia—tins, jars, silver, comics, posters— used in the early 20th century, head to Eclipse Collectibles (No. 201). 3 Carlos Olivares and Ricardo Martín (No. 205) have created a glitzy shrine to retro Asian rarities. Look

for ceremonial Tibetan silver necklaces and embroidered Mao posters from the 1960’s. 4 You can dig up tiny treasures such as circa-1952 stamps with Eva Perón’s face or the first Argentinean coin (from 1813) at Roberto Manoukian (No. 71). 5 Browsing the vintage toys displayed by Federico Casaretto (No. 9) feels like rummaging through your grandpa’s attic—that is, if Grandpa hoarded lead soldiers and trains that date back to early-1900’s Europe. 6 Spanish art dealer María Lourdes Janeiro (No. 41) has compiled a vast collection of paintings from Cuzco—and an impressive client list that includes Madonna.

68 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

7 Glass seltzer-water siphons were a must-have on every Argentinean dining table from 1910 through the 1960’s. Sifonazo (No. 105) stocks more than 200 of them in a range of vibrant colors. They’re sure to become a part of your dining table. —mariana rapoport

Sifonazo

T+L TIPS

• Download a free audio tour of the market from the city’s tourism site (bue.gob.ar). Renowned Argentine artists such as singer Edmundo Rivero will guide you—in English—with input on where and when to go. • Don’t be confused—there is another, older San Telmo Market (961 Defensa). It’s housed in a Belle Époque building a couple of blocks away, and has dead-stock clothing and Midcentury furniture. • For some of the best steak in town (plus spicy chorizo and buttery veal sweetbreads), head to La Brigada (465 Estados Unidos; 54-11/4361-5557; dinner for two ARS245), nearby.

javie r p ie r ini

SAN PEDRO TELMO MARKET Vintage reigns supreme at this 41-year-old Sunday flea. Here, 260 vendors on Plaza Dorrego sell early-20th-century clothing and memorabilia once used by B.A.’s beau monde.

From Barefoot Simplicity To Grand Elegance Dream Weddings Become A Reality At The Racha

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insider bring it back sweet spots

Clockwise from far left: Hong Kong designer Michael Leung; at Wing Wo Bee Farm; a jar of HK Honey; local beekeeper Yip Ki-hok; Wing Wo Bee Farm, in Sha Tin; local honey from Wing Wo.

HONG KONG HONEY. Next time you’re in the city, take t’s a surprise to many visitors that Hong Kong mainly consists not of neon signs and concrete canyons, but of hilly scrubland and dense forest. Another surprise: one of the SAR’s most memorable souvenirs is a bottle of locally produced honey. But this isn’t the honey you’ve tasted before. Harvested from the wild and bottled in small batches, Hong Kong honey carries the essence of local flora like lychee and longan flowers, varying in taste, texture and aroma from one season to the next. Winter honey is white and creamy, with a deep and complex sweetness; spring honey is ambercolored and vaguely medicinal in flavor. These days, local honey is more popular than ever thanks to HK Honey (hkhoney.org), a project

70 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

WHERE TO BUY IT Wing Wo Bee Farm 136 Pai Tau Village, Sha Tin; 852/2691-7917. Kapok 3 Sun St., Wan Chai; 852/2520-0114. Daydream Nation 21 Wing Fung St., Wan Chai; 852/37410758. Konzepp 50 Tung St., Sheung Wan; 852/2803-0339.

launched last year by product designer Michael Leung. Under the guidance of local bee-masters, Leung has opened highrise bee farms on rooftops around Hong Kong. He packages his honey in beautiful glass jars sealed with beeswax left over from the honeymaking process. There’s a price to pay for such a lovely object: each jar of HK Honey sells for a steep HK$250. But there are plenty of grassroots alternatives. Wing Wo Bee Farm, run by life-long beekeeper Yip Ki-hok, is a bucolic 50-hive apiary in the hills of Sha Tin, right next to a Buddhist monastery. Often described as the best honey in Hong Kong, each bottle sells for HK$50 to HK$90. ✚

H o n e y J a r : N e l s o n Ch a n

home an unexpected sweet treat with a local twist. story and photographs By Christopher DeWolf

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stylish traveler

[st ]

turn back time

Magno Design’s Klocku, made from sustainable Indonesian wood.

design

past perfect

c o u r t e s y o f s i n gg i h s . k a r t o n o

A stylishly retro wooden clock just might be the future of sustainable design. By Sara Schonhardt

Before the age of mass production, goods took time to make—and they were built to last. Today, Indonesian designer Singgih Susilo Kartono, the founder of sustainable-design brand Magno, is taking that approach to heart. The man behind the award-winning Magno wooden radio, now a globally recognized eco-icon, has come up with his first new creation since 2006: the Klocku, a startlingly simple toy-like table clock made of

naturally harvested pinewood and sonokeling (Indonesian rosewood). “Wood is perfect because it’s imperfect,” says Kartono. “It tells us about life, since the grain is the story of the wood. It tells us about balance, because with wood you can see strength and weakness together. And it tells us about our limitations.” Fashioned using a traditional lock system rather than bolts and screws, and finished with protective wood oil, the clock is the product of Magno’s workshop in Temanggung, Central Java, where 40 employees handcraft 5,500 products a year using just 80 trees; every tree is replanted at a nearby nursery. While the clock harks back to the past with its playful, pareddown design, the ethos behind it—melding intelligent, covetable products with natural materials and sustainable methods—is far from history. magno-design.com. ✚

travelandleisureasia.com | October 2011 75

[st] spotlight

Echo Store, in Singapore, offers eco-friendly products.

Stone graneries in Soajo, Portugal.

reclaimed chic

designers in asia are turning to an unlikely source— trash—for creative inspiration and coming up with stylish jewelry, bags and accessories. BY LIANG XINYI

Yilin’s picks singapore eco stops “Piece of Mine [16 Mohamed Sultan Rd.; 65/6440-4886; pieceofmine.asia] sells beautiful upcycled furniture—I love their chairs made from abandoned canvas and tables repurposed from ox wheelbarrows. Echo [Wheelock Place #02-12, 501 Orchard Rd.; 65/62352946; echo-brands.com] stocks environmentally friendly products, such as eco-plastic jewelry from Batucada in Paris.” Ethical Bling “Only buy a piece if it fits you, and always question its provenance. For gold, the Oro Verde organization [greengoldoroverde.org] works with mining artisans in Columbia’s Chocó Bioregion to ensure gold is ecologically harvested and invested back into the community.”

SINGAPORE | CHOO YILIN ARTISAN JEWELLERY

Leaf-inspired earrings,i by Choo Yilin Artisan Jewellery.i

Reclaimed metals and included gems—stones deemed flawed and often discarded by refiners—are the raw materials for Singaporean Choo Yilin’s jewelry creations. But don’t be fooled by their organic, roughly hewn aesthetic: each one is meticulously crafted, “applauding life in all its imperfect beauty,” which sums up her philosophy. “I have a deepseated conviction of pursuing a meaningful life,” says the designer. “Business is one way that I could impact society quickly and positively.” A former political analyst, she made the switch to jewelry making—she is entirely self-taught—after moving with her husband to Bangkok, where she launched her eponymous sustainable-luxury label in 2008. Since then, her designs have maintained an ethical focus, from employing the traditional silversmith skills of northern Thailand’s Karen hill tribes to make stunningly modern cufflinks and pendants, to highlighting the destruction of the world’s oceans through coral-inspired rings encrusted with amethysts and sapphires. Her latest collection: the Tree Series, in honor of 2011 as the U.N.-declared International Year of Forests—think gold-gilded bronze bangles and necklaces embellished with hand-cut gems to resemble twigs, leaves, vines and flowers. chooyilin.com.

Sustainable Stays “In Soajo, a tiny village in northern Portugal, a lot of effort has gone into preserving its heritage. In Asia, I’m very supportive of the eco-ethos of brands like Banyan Tree, COMO and Alila Hotels.”

76 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

Choo Yilin, a self-taught designer who now has her own jewelry label.

Yoga at COMO Shambhala Estate, Bali.

At Alila Villas Uluwatu, Bali.

c l o c kw i s e f r o m t o p l e f t : © M a n u e l F e r n a n d e s / D r e a m s t i m e . c o m ; c o u r t e s y o f e c h o ; c o u r t e s y o f c h o o y i l i n ( 2 ) ; c o u r t e s y o f A l i l a V i l l a s U l u wat u ; c o u r t e s y o f c o m o ; c o u r t e s y o f c h o o y i l i n

A trio of jade rings by Choo Yilin Artisan Jewellery.

Billy and Joseph’s picks

View from Jardine’s Lookout, Hong Kong.

Billy Potts (left) and Joseph Ng, at work in their studio.

c l o c kw i s e f r o m t o p l e f t : c o u r t e s y o f H ANDSOME C o . ; © Ok s a n a ph o t o / D r e a m s t i m e . c o m ; c o u r t e s y o f h e r b o l a n d ; c o u r t e s y o f H ANDSOME C o ; D e n n i s L o

DWatch, Handsome Co.’s latest repurposed creation.

HONG KONG | HANDSOME CO. Scavenging may not seem like a typical white-collar activity, but then again, Billy Potts and Joseph Ng are hardly your typical lawyer or average architect. The duo, who met in 2008, spend their free time scouring Hong Kong’s garages for discarded taxi upholstery and seat belts to convert into stylish accessories such as tote bags, laptop sleeves and watches for their design outfit, Handsome Co. “We appreciate old items for their storied characters,” says Ng, “and we’re inspired by humble materials which are connected with Hong Kong’s rich urban landscape.” Founded in 2010, Handsome Co. products are all locally made in Kowloon: each piece comes in three distinctive colors to pay visual homage to Hong Kong’s iconic cabs—red for Hong Kong Island; green for New Territories; blue for Lantau Island—while stitching work is outsourced to seamstresses from local NGO’s, Home Sew and Hong Kong Women Workers’ Association. Which means that while every design is unmistakably handsome, it’s beautiful on the inside, too. handsomeco.com. »

hip Hong Kong “Full Cup Café [4th floor, Hanwai Commercial Center, 36 Dundas St., Mongkok; 852/2771-7775; drinks for two HK$100] is a hidden gem. It regularly hosts live music from local bands. Zixag Commune [5B Manning Industrial Bldg., 116 How Ming St., Kwun Tong; 852/23750263; zixag.com] functions as a contemporary design museum of sorts. Lead designers Kent and Julian always have time for a friendly chat.” Retro Threads “We love Midwest Vintage [Shop 58, Victoria Centre, 15 Watson Rd.; 852/28026886; midwest-vintage. com], in Tin Hau. It creates its own clothes out of old ones. They can really make an ordinary outfit pop.” Lamma stops “On Lamma Island, Herboland [Hung Shing Yeh Beach; 852/90946206; herboland.com. hk; lunch for two HK$80] grows its own organic herbs. It’s a great place to cool off. At the vegetarian Bookworm Café [Ground floor, 79 Yung Shue Wan Main St.; 852/2982-4838; bookwormcafe.com.hk; lunch for two HK$90], you can sit and read in peace.” trail mix “Go hiking. Our favorite trail goes from Park View in Tai Tam Country Park, across Jardine’s Lookout and Dragon’s Back, before ending at Big Wave Bay.”

Sporting totes designed by Hong Kong’s Handsome Co.

Organic treats at Herboland, on Lamma.

travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 77

[st] spotlight Mobile phone accessories by Touch4Good.

An upcycled bag from Touch4Good.

Hiking along Jeju Olle.

SOUTH KOREA | TOUCH4GOOD

Mia Park, founder of Korean social enterprise, Touch4Good.

A colorful tote made from discarded banner, by Touch4Good.

Armed with a degree in political studies and psychology in 2008, Seoul native Mia Park was pondering her post-university career choices when inspiration struck: seeing the number of discarded billboards still in good condition after political campaigns and advertising events, she realized they didn’t have to be thrown away. Together with three like-minded friends, Park launched Touch4Good in the same year, specializing in upcycling used street banners into fun, youthful designs. “Professional manufacturers initially laughed at our naivety and said our business wouldn’t work,” says Park. “That only motivated us to work harder.” Today, they work with in-house designers and design students from local universities to create colorful sandals, backpacks, pencil cases and cup holders, highlighting the graphics and typography on the products’ original tarp fabric. Park doesn’t neglect the charitable aspect of business either, with part of Touch4Good’s proceeds going toward disadvantaged children with atopic allergies across South Korea. “We look forward to the day we go out of business,” Park says, “because it means that there’s no more unnecessary waste and our company is no longer needed.” touch4good.com. ✚

Seoul Savvy “I love hanging out at Hongdae because it respects individuality— the streets are filled with unique fashion, multicultural food, street performances and indie festivals. Within Hongdae, Café Slobbie [163-9 Donggyo-dong, Mapo-gu; 82-2/3143-5525; lunch for two KRW16,000] is my favorite spot. It offers a healthy, seasonal menu and one of the city’s best makgeolli [rice wine]. Plus, it’s a social enterprise and has a really global atmosphere.” Best of Jeonju “I like the coexistence of old and new in Jeonju, a small city often seen as a symbol of tradition in Korea. Make sure to stay at Hakindang [105-4 Gyodong, Wansan-gu; 8263/284-9929; cafe.naver. com/hakindang; doubles from KRW60,000], a well-preserved hanok, or traditional house, dating to 1905. Bibimbap, the famed mixed-rice dish, has its origin in Jeonju. For the best, go to Hanilgwan [4-34 Junghwasan-dong, Wansan-gu; 82-63/2261569; dinner for two KRW30,000] and order it with beef.” Back to Nature “There are many hiking trails on Cheju, an old volcanic island with unique culture and unspoiled nature. I especially love the Jeju Olle [jejuolle. org], a series of long trails that wind through forests, beaches and villages along the coastline. I find the treks meditative.”

Home-style Korean food at Café Slobbie.

78 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

At Hakindang, a restored hanok in Jeonju.

c l o c kw i s e f r o m t o p l e f t : c o u r t e s y o f t o u c h 4 g o o d ( 2 ) ; COUR t e s y o f j e j u o l l e f o u n d a t i o n ; c o u r t e sy o f h a k i n da n g ; c o u r t e sy o f c a F É S lo b b i e ; c o u r t e sy o f to u c h 4 g o o d ; c o u r t e sy o f m i a pa r k

Mia’s picks

[st] destinations

t s a f the k c a r t

S LOOK OF SU MODES r u fo LATEST globe. HERE, Y THE B d the roun INSPIRED a rdo PORT TRANS by Mimi Lomba d Style

M o d e l : K a m i l l a / m c 2 m o d e l m a n a g e m e n t . M a k e u p : B r i a n D u p r e y f o r N a r s C o s m e t i c s /J u d y C a s e y, I n c . H a i r : K e z u n o n f o r K a y r u n n - H i r s c h S a l o n /J u d y C a s e y, I n c . B a c kg r o u n d i m a g e : c o u r t e s y o f b o m b a r d i e r

ARP PERSH

Canada-based company Bombardier is creating the fastest trains in the world. Next stop: Italy.

Gabardine coat and two-tone python boots by Prada; leather bag, Mark Cross; polishedsteel watch, Baume & Mercier.

80 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

Photographed by Torkil Gudnason

B a c kg r o u n d i m a g e : c o u r t e s y o f w a l ly

Yachting goes high-style on the Wally//118 powerboat.

Wool-cashmere coat, felt hat, silk scarf and lizard belt by Gucci; tights, Hue; leather shoes, Stuart Weitzman; crocodile bag, Nancy Gonzalez; 18-karatgold bracelets, Temple St. Clair.

travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 81

When the 787 Boeing Dreamliner launches this autumn with ANA, boarding will be a firstclass occasion.

Satin dress by Marc Jacobs; patentleather shoes, Christian Louboutin; canvas hatbox, Louis Vuitton; sunglasses, Marni; diamond-andgold pendant, Van Cleef & Arpels; gold watch with alligator strap, HermĂ¨s.

82 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

BAC K G ROUND IMA G E : C o u r t e s y o f B o e i n g

[st] destinations

The Urban Luxury Concept car, with its scissoring doors, is Cadillacâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vision for the future.

B a c kg r o u n d i m a g e : c o u r t e s y o f c a d i l l a c

Wool-and-silk belted jacket, sand-crepe pants and fox-fur collar by Dior; patent-calfskin pumps, Christian Louboutin; nylon bag, Louis Vuitton; semiprecious-stone bangles, Kara by Kara Ross.

travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 83

[st] readers’ poll A pre-treatment foot ritual at Discovery Shores Boracay, in the Philippines, voted the best hotel spa in Asia by T+L readers this year.

world’s

best

spas c o u r t e s y o f d i s c o v e r y s h o r e s b o r a c ay

THIS YEAR’S CROP OF WINNERS—AS VOTED BY READERS IN THE T+L WORLD’S BEST AWARDS SURVEY—INCLUDES 17 DEBUTS, FROM AN AUTHENTIC HAMMAm IN NEW ZEALAND TO a classic roman escape on a hilltop. HERE, WHERE TO UNPLUG AND UNWIND NOW. PLUS WELLNESS TRENDS AND NEW SPAS TO WATCH

Top Hotel Spas by Region Asia Discovery Shores Boracay, Philippines 95.63 Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific

The caribbean, Bermuda and the Bahamas

SOFITEL QUEENSTOWN HOTEL & SPA New Zealand 98.93

Excellence Riviera Cancún Riviera Maya 92.00

Continental U.S. and Canada

Pueblo Bonito Sunset Beach Resort & Spa Los Cabos 92.00

Ritz-Carlton New Orleans 98.00

Couples Tower Isle St. Mary, Jamaica 97.67

Mexico

Central and South America

Hawaii

Four Seasons Hotel Buenos Aires 94.58

Grand Wailea Maui 94.39

Africa and the Middle East

Europe

Rome Cavalieri, A Waldorf Astoria Hotel 96.92

Denotes a World’s Best Spas debut

Singita Kruger National Park (Lebombo Lodge, Sweni Lodge) South Africa 94.58

travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 85

[st] readers’ poll Top 5 Hotel Spas in Asia 1. Discovery Shores Boracay, Philippines 95.63 2. Mandarin Oriental Bangkok 95.35 3. St. Regis Singapore 95.23 4. Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai, Thailand 95.19 5. Anantara Golden Triangle Resort & Spa Chiang Rai, Thailand 95.00

TREND: EAST MEETS WEST

Asian Bliss From top: A spa suite at the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok, voted No. 2; spa reception at St. Regis, Singapore; inside the Four Seasons Resort & Spa, in Chiang Mai, Thailand, voted the No. 4 hotel spa in Asia.

Around for more than three millennia, Traditional Chinese Medicine is now being used at spas worldwide

LONDON The Langham’s new six-suite Chuan Spa (chuanspa.com; treatments from £85) has a designated practitioner on hand to perform ancient techniques such as acupuncture and cupping. VANCOUVER Geometric wooden screens set the stage for the detoxifying Jade Jewel Facial at the

Shangri-La’s Chi the Spa (shangri-la.com;

treatments from C$128). Therapists use jade stones—believed to have Denotes a World’s Best Spas debut

86 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

healing properties—to gently massage the skin. MACAU The 3,400- square-meter Banyan Tree Spa (banyantreespa.

com; treatments from MOP1,100) categorizes its menu according to the five elements. The Earth Yin Yang treatment starts with an herbal footbath followed by an acupressure massage and facial using gourd-seed oil. Then relax in the bamboo-filled courtyard. —j e n n i f e r c h e n

c l o c kw i s e f r o m t o p l e f t : c o u r t e s y o f m a n d a r i n o r i e n t a l b a n gk o k ; c o u r t e s y o f a n a n ta r a g o l d e n t r i a n g l e r e s o r t & s pa ; c o u r t e s y o f f o u r s e a s o n s r e s o r t ; c o u r t e s y o f s t. r e g i s S i n g a p o r e

The Anantara Golden Triangle Resort & Spa, in Chiang Rai, Thailand, ranked the No. 5 hotel spa in Asia.

Top 5 Hotel Spas in Central and South America 1. Four Seasons Hotel Buenos Aires 94.58

Top 5 Hotel Spas in the Continental U.S. and Canada

2. Four Seasons Resort Costa Rica

1. Ritz-Carlton New Orleans 98.00

at Peninsula Papagayo 90.65

2. Omni Bedford Springs Resort

3. Los Sueños Marriott Ocean & Golf Resort

3. Four Seasons HoteL Las Vegas 95.00

Playa Herradura, Costa Rica 90.00

Bedford, Pennsylvania 96.50

4. Tabacón Grand Spa Thermal Resort

3. Ritz-Carlton Sarasota, Florida 95.00

3. Wickaninnish Inn Tofino, British Columbia 95.00

Arenal, Costa Rica 86.49

5. Lodge at Chaa Creek San Ignacio, Belize 85.50

Top 5 Hotel Spas in Hawaii

Top 5 Hotel Spas in Europe

2. Four Seasons Resort Hualalai Hawaii, the Big Island 93.23

1. Rome Cavalieri, A Waldorf Astoria

3. Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea 91.41

Hotel 96.92

2. Four Seasons Hotel George V Paris 95.33

1. Grand Wailea Maui 94.39

4. Ritz-Carlton Kapalua Maui 91.21 5. Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort & Spa 90.83

3. Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace Budapest 92.73 4. Four Seasons Hotel Firenze Florence 91.25 5. Grand Hotel Quisisana Capri, Italy 90.00

Top 5 Hotel Spas in Mexico 1. Excellence Riviera CancÚn Riviera Maya 92.00 1. Pueblo Bonito Sunset Beach Resort & Spa Los Cabos 92.00

from top: courtesy of four seasons hotels & resorts; courtesy of r o m e c ava l i e r i ; C o u r t e s y o f p u e b l o b o n i t o s u n s e t b e a c h r e s o r t & s pa

A glimpse into one of 10 treatment rooms at Rome Cavalieri, voted the best hotel spa in Europe. Top left: Poolside at the Four Seasons Hotel, Buenos Aires, No. 1 in Central and South America.

3. Secrets Capri Riviera CancÚn Playa del Carmen 87.73 4. Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita 86.05 5 Maroma Resort & Spa Riviera Maya 85.46

A corner of La Nao restaurant’s shaded terrace at Pueblo Bonito Sunset Beach Resort & Spa, tied for No. 1 in Mexico.

New spas for skin-care sticklers three openings from top beauty brands NEW YORK CITY On

Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Kiehl’s recently unveiled Spa 1851 (kiehls.com; treatments from US$70)— the first spa in its 160-yearhistory. Drop by for a facial or a massage incorporating its apothecary-style products. There’s also an old-school grooming station for straight-razor shaves and haircuts. LOS ANGELES After a

two-year renovation, the Hotel Bel-Air is slated to reopen next month with a new La Prairie Spa (hotelbelair.com; treatments from US$190). Don’t miss

the Recharge Overnight facial—afterward, you’ll sleep with your face coated in special time-release serum with retinol and oxygen to rejuvenate the skin. PARIS At Le Royal Monceau, in Paris, you’ll find the only

Spa My Blend by Clarins

(leroyalmonceau.com; treatments from €100), where a range of services are customized using the My Blend line. The 465square-meter space has a hammam, a sauna and the city’s largest swimming pool—all designed by Philippe Starck. —rachel felder

More spa and wellness destinations for the best places in asia to relax and unwind, go to TravelandLeisureasia.com

travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 87

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Beneath the forest giants that make up the Shiratani Unsuikyo Gorge.

In the Land of Giants Slogging through the wettest and most mysterious island in Japan, Timothy Hornyak explores a forest thousands of years old. photographed by ken straiton

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journal outdoors

walk on the wild side

From below: A yaku monkey; crossing the Arakawa River headwaters; a gnarled cedar in the Shiratani Unsuikyo Gorge.

t’s seven in the morning and I’m in the middle of a dark forest soaked to the bone. I’m following an old railway line into the mountainous heart of Yakushima, a misty jade island off southern Japan renowned for its majestic cedar trees. The operative word here is “rain forest.” Forget cats and dogs: the Japanese complain of doshaburi— raining earth and sand. I’d prefer a sandstorm to this. As small lakes form between the railway ties and every layer of clothing I’m wearing becomes a wet blanket, I realize my preparations for this trek were wholly inadequate. I knew Yakushima would be a rainy place, with an oceanic five meters of precipitation a year, but my waterproofs have proven to be anything but. The next thing to get waterlogged is my expensive digital camera; I didn’t close its plastic bag properly and now it’s swimming in rainwater. It’s toast. I’ve arrived on Yakushima from Kagoshima, Japan’s large southern port known for its kurobuta black pork, scorching shochu liquor and Sakurajima, a puffing volcano next door. Living in Tokyo, for years I’d heard about Yakushima’s legendary cedar trees and unique ecosystem that earned it a spot on unesco’s World Heritage List; friends who bragged

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about hiking through the forest also warned it was a seductively dangerous place. Still, I had to see the green island for myself. After two hours on the ferry, I spy granite crags jutting from the sea like a fortress. Wreathed in cloud, the peaks looked wild and foreboding, as if guarding some forgotten realm conjured from the imagination of a Victorian novelist. It’s no wonder that refugee samurai, vanquished in a civil war in the 12th century, chose to hide here from enemy clans. Five hundred years later, islanders who lacked flat, arable land began trading the abundant timber for rice from mainland Japan. Many of these great cedars were destined to become roof tiles. It was only in the middle of the last century that the island was incorporated into what today is the Kirishima-Yaku National Park. The park is a disconnected group of protected areas that includes volcanoes around the city of Kagoshima; some of the coastline around Yakushima, including the Kurio Marine Park; and a stretch of Yakushima’s southwest coast warmed by the Kuroshio Current. That status has brought hikers by the boatload, and even in the low season I have plenty of company on the trail. The two other foreigners I come across, a Russian and a Brit, seem even more ill-prepared than me.

Part of the Ryukyu archipelago stretching through Okinawa toward Taiwan, Yakushima stands apart from the rest of Japan for its one-of-a-kind ecosystem. It’s only 25 kilometers across but is home to 1,900 species and subspecies of vegetation, 16 mammal and 150 bird species. What lures hikers here every year, however, is the yaku-sugi trees . The Cryptomeria cedars on Yakushima are staggering in size and age—as high as a 13-story building and thousands of years old—recalling California’s seqeuoias and redwoods. Before visiting the trees, I rent a car in the sleepy port of Miyanoura and drive off toward the southern coast in search of thermal activity. Yakushima is blessed with hot springs, and my first stop is the hamlet of Onoaida, backed by lush green foothills sweeping up to the same flinty crags I spotted from the ferry. The quaint Onoaida Onsen is just above the coast road and looks like a storybook Japanese bathhouse, complete with a footbath outside for tired hikers. Inside, it’s a simple affair of shallow concrete pools overseen by a no-nonsense manageress. After a good soak, I’m in the mood for more downtime. The nearby Sankara Hotel & Spa Yakushima, a recently refurbished hotel, provides the perfect poolside spot to contemplate the Pacific, a foreboding, unmetal, a shade »

Yakushima is only 25 kilometers across but is home to 1,900 species

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journal outdoors Resting beside the Kokegawa river, left. A Yakushika deer in the Shiratani Unsuikyo Gorge.

darker than the sky. Set on seven hectares overlooking the southeast coast, Sankara has 24 private villas and a Thai spa specializing in organic herb therapy. While Sankara’s décor recalls Bali, with its emphasis on teak wood, its food is Kyushu regional with a hint of France. Overseen by Joël Robuchon– and Maison Troisgros–trained chef Chiharu Takei, restaurant Okas has an open kitchen with plush booths where guests can enjoy a changing roster of local delights such as beef from Kagoshima black cattle and confit of mackerel in yuzu bouillon. Further west, I find the briny Hirauchi Kaichu Onsen, a collection of rocky pools right on the sea—lovely if your timing is right, since they’re only accessible at low tide. I roll up at a middling tide and for 20 minutes splash out in a stress-killing sea bath the size of the Pacific. Another five-minute drive west brings me to Yudomari Onsen, a mix of hot-spring pools right by the waves and others higher up, overlooking the jagged shoreline. Nearby is Yakushima Youth Hostel, a pristine cedar-built lodge decked with photos of the Hyakumeizan, 100 of Japan’s most famous peaks. Owner Nobuo Fukuhara, a grizzled 75-year-old former Tokyoite who has scaled them all, chuckles when I tell him I’m thinking of spending the night on the island’s Mt. Miyanoura, a famous 1,935-meter peak that’s the tallest mountain in southern Japan. “Don’t even think of it without a waterproof sleeping bag,” he says with a smile. The sun begins to flag as I continue my circle of the island, pausing at the 88-meter-tall Oko-no-taki falls, a broad silver ribbon bouncing down mossy cliffs into a shallow gorge. From there, the road turns into a dark, windy, single-lane track used for forestry. I follow it up along the west coast. Hugging the mountainside and overhung with dense cedar boughs, it twists through rocky overhangs and through herds of deer and macaques. Both are smaller than varieties found on Japan’s main islands, but they’re fearless when it comes to cars. I honk to get through. Returning to Miyanoura, I hit the futon. A big day awaits. 94 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

The cedars look like mighty rivers of wood shooting up from the ground

limbing by bus up into Yakushima’s misty interior, I’m at the trailhead by 6.30 a.m. I put my hood up to the drizzle and set off through the predawn gloom. The forest is a surreal universe of scintillating moss, infinite rivulets and waterfalls, coiled roots webbing over great glistening rocks, all shot through with torrents of frigid water gushing from the mountain. For me, this otherworldiness crosses into science fiction. It’s more a digital background from Avatar, a mix of Yoda’s swamp and the enchanted forest in Princess Mononoke, with a heavy dash of the relentless Venusian rain in Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man. But the forest is astounding, even in a downpour. Mostly found above 1,200 meters, the giant cedars are thousands of years old and look like mighty rivers of wood shooting up from the ground. From afar, they shine blood red in the mist like frozen giants. Some are 20 meters tall and eight meters in circumference. Some are thousands »

journal outdoors Ohko-no-taki waterfall, listed as one of Japan’s “100 greatest” waterfalls.

of years old—only those that have been around for more than a millennium or more are called yaku-sugi and younger ones are ko-sugi, or “small cedars.” To shelter from the rain, I huddle in an ancient stump called Wilson Kabu that’s the size of a small house, complete with a mini Shinto shrine inside. A river runs through it, but the roof of roots is a welcome respite from the rain. A young Japanese couple is here too, soaking as well but laughing at a hole in the “roof” that’s shaped just like a heart. The trail itself is tricky at times, with slippery rocks and plenty of spots to lose your footing, but an easy-does-it pace brings me safely to my goal, the legendary Jomon Sugi cedar tree. I reach it, a white wraith in the green-gray light, in blinding rain. Sixteen meters in circumference and more than 25 meters high, it towers over the surrounding camphor trees and everything else. Everyone agrees that it’s the oldest tree in this forest, though estimates of its age range between 2,000 and 7,000 years. At 1,300 meters, it was discovered only in 1968 and doubtless would have been felled long ago had it been more accessible. Visitors are restricted to an observation platform, but that doesn’t diminish my awe in contemplating this titan. I blink at it through the sheets of rain. The Jomon Sugi is named after Japan’s Jomon historical era (14,000 B.C.–300 B.C.), and 96 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

standing before it, I feel a keen sense of the millennia that have passed while it stood there. Before a living thing so old, I’m a mere drop in the stream of humanity. Humbled, and eating a soggy egg-salad sandwich from a Miyanoura grocery in a small shelter near the great tree, I contemplate pushing on to the summit—the Jomon Sugi is on the slopes of Mt. Miyanoura. Three-day courses that traverse the island are popular, but since I don’t have gear for chilly nights in the yama-goya mountain huts—I can’t quite remember what it feels like to be dry—I heed Fukuhara-san’s advice and head back down the trail. After eight hours in the forest, I stagger back to the bus stop, drenched to the core, my mind reeling from what I’ve seen. Later I find that there are equipment rental shops in Miyanoura that carry serious rain gear; with that, a sleeping bag, and bus schedules to and from the trailheads I would have been all set. I pick my way back down the slope toward the bus stop. Down near the old railway, the streams have become swollen torrents crashing down the mountain. My feet are swollen too, but once back at my minshuku inn, the large common bath slowly melts away my pains. I would love to spend more time in the company of Yakushima’s giants, but my frail human frame is no match for the unending rain. I think of what the yaku-sugi have endured over the centuries. I can only hope they continue for many more. ✚

Guide to Yakushima Getting there Japan Air Commuter This small airline, part of the Japan Airlines group, flies to Yakushima from Kagoshima. 81-3/5460-0522; jal.com; ¥12,600 return. Kagoshima Shosen/Toppy (81-99/226-0128; toppy.jp in Japanese) operates hydrofoil services from Kagoshima that take two hours to reach Yakushima. ¥14,000 return. Stay Sankara Hotel & Spa In Mugio overlooking the southeast coast. 81-997/473488; sankarahotel-spa.com; double rooms from ¥50,000, including meals. Eat Nomado Café If you tire of the excellent seafood offerings in Miyanoura, this café on the south coast between Anbo and Onoaida Onsen offers simple bagel sandwiches in a relaxing

setting. 81-997/47-2851; lunch for two ¥2,000. Do Yakushima Environment Culture Village Center Displays about the island’s ecosystems, plus a film with subtitles in English. Next to the ferry in Miyanoura; 81-997/42-2900; ¥500. Yaku-sugi Land See the great trees without trekking into the woods in this nature park, 1,000 meters above sea level. Anbo-koen road; 81-997/464-015; ¥300. Shiratani Unsuikyo Forest This series of hiking trails along the Shiratani creek has a section named for Hayao Miyazaki’s anime classic Princess Mononoke, as well as the 3,000-year-old Yayoi sugi cedar. Accessible from Miyanoura, about 30 minutes from Miyanoura, there are no trekking guides but maps are available. 81-997/423508; entry ¥300.

journal food

the new food capital in SIngapore, a city devoted to eating, every bite opens a window onto an endlessly colorful culture. Adam Sachs digs in. Photographed by Morgan & Owens

Crab bee hoon, a rice noodle dish with Sri Lankan crab, at Sin Huat Eating House, in Singapore.

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ave you ever tried a Singaporean baguette?” asked the doctor. Before I could attempt to answer, he’d run off to find one. It was nearing midnight but many of the outdoor tables around us at the East Coast Lagoon Food Village were still full. Families lingered over late dinners of sticky-charred skewers of Malay satay and platters of Hokkien mee, fried noodles slicked with prawn broth, brightened by a stir of chili sauce and a last-minute squeeze of sweet calamansi limes. Kids draped their legs over wooden benches and beat the night heat with bowls of cendol, a slushy treat of shaved ice and coconut milk, palm sugar, red beans and iridescent green jelly noodles colored with pandan leaves. With the doctor away, I had a moment to consider the relative tranquillity of the scene. Where the hawker stalls and tables ended, the beach began, invisible in the moonless dark. A rumor of a sea breeze moved gently through the palms. The perpetual progress machine of Singapore runs hot and fast. This is not a city that generally encourages quiet reflection. But here at this open-air food court on the shore, the city felt more relaxed, intimate, at ease with itself. Uncles and aunties, as everyone calls the older hawkers, stirred woks, fanned charcoal grills and pressed juice from sugarcane. Late-arriving night-snackers passed from stand to stand, hunting alone like owls or ordering in packs, piling their empty plates on the tables under lit canopies. In Singapore, it’s never too late (or too early or too hot or busy or inconvenient or too anything at all) to search for something good to eat. And to earnestly savor it, whether it costs S$3.60 for humble chicken rice at a hawker center like this one, or a hundred times that at one of the high-priced chef-y places of the moment. The doctor returned. The baguette did not look like a baguette—or like anything a doctor would prescribe. It was charred and eggy, the size of a frisbee and buried beneath a colorful cross-hatching of chili sauce and mayonnaise. “We call it Roti John,” said Dr. Leslie Tay, a jovial family practitioner and ardent hawker-stall enthusiast and food blogger (ieatishootipost.sg). “One day, the story goes, an ang moh—this is what we call foreign people like you, meaning,

literally, ‘red-haired’—asked a Malay vendor to make him some French toast. Somehow he came up with this! It became quite popular and took the name Roti John because it was the roti that John had.” Tay wrote a book called The End of Char Kway Teow (about a famously artery-antagonizing dish of rice noodles and cockles bathed in pork fat and sweet soy sauce) that celebrates the hawker uncles and aunties he’d come to know while hunting down the best of their offerings for his website. (The difference between a lay practitioner and a doctor food blogger is that a doctor will write, of a dish of stewed pork innards: “Most of the colorectal surgeons I know crave for kway chap after a long day in surgery!”) “So tell me,” he said, moving on from the bastardized baguette to a plate of bak chor mee (linguine-like egg noodles with minced pork, mushrooms and black vinegar). “What is your angle?” No angle, I told him. Singapore struck me as a city-state of impressively enthusiastic eaters. My plan was to wander about, sniff around and taste all that I could—high, low and everything in between. At this, the doctor seemed to relax visibly. As did nearly everyone else when I told them I was simply here to view the city through its food. They’d loosen their shoulders, smile and remember another chicken-rice stand I needed to try. “Asian culture is built around food, but Singapore especially because there’s nothing else to do,” Tay said. “What are you going to do? Go rock climbing?”

ime-zone sleeplessness turned me out early from the aptly named Wanderlust hotel, in Little India. Even at 7 a.m., the temperature differential between inside and out formed a cloud of fog on my camera lens. I walked past ramshackle shop-houses painted pink and yellow and blue, past the halal goat-meat sellers on Buffalo Road and the fragrant garland stalls, past the church with an English- and Tamil-language Festival of Healing in progress (blind eyes see! barren conceive! finances restored!). Singapore is known as a city of composure, safety; it’s a model of the high-functioning modern economic center. But beneath all that is a kinetic energy that can be seen at places like Tekka Market Food Centre, in the low-lying streets where much of the city’s Indian workforce lives. »

Singapore struck me as a city of enthusiastic eaters. My plan was to wander about, sniff around and taste all that I could—high and low and everything in between

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journal food

MODERN SINGAPORE From

right: Toasted-rice blanc manger, a dessert at Singaporean-French fusion Restaurant André, in Bukit Pasoh; chef André Chiang at his namesake restaurant. 0

900 km

Pacific Ocean South China Sea

PHILIPPINES

MALAYSIA SINGAPORE

INDONESIA

‘While weʼre eating lunch, we discuss where to go for lunch tomorrow— because weʼve already planned dinnerʼ

Backed by a Bollywood sound track, maids and mothers are buying the day’s groceries. Spices hang sweet in the air: as you move through the market the aromatics of curry leaf and cardamom mingle with sweet tea and cigarettes, incense, ripening mangoes and truck exhaust. I drank iced ginger tea and waited on the corner for a chef named Willin Low to pick me up for the day’s private tutorial in how to eat like a local. Wiry, with a little spike of hair and an easy, affable, let-me-take-you-everywhere warmth, Low is an ideal guide. Like many Singaporeans he’s equally at home with hawker fare and at the globalized brand-name restaurants (Robuchon, Batali, Boulud) that have surfaced in the city with the latest arrival of luxury hotels and casinos. More important, he’s a pioneer of the middle ground: his restaurant, Wild Rocket, introduced the city to the concept of dressed-up modern Singaporean home-style food, as conceived by a former lawyer who taught himself to cook to fend off homesickness and hunger while at school in London. Our first stop: Maxwell Road Hawker Centre for chicken rice at a stall called Tian Tian. It’s necessary to start with chicken rice because it is the quintessential comfort food of Singapore, humble but exalted—what the unadorned omelette is to the French or the margherita pizza to the Neapolitans. Because it’s so simple (poached and blanched chicken; rice moistened with stock and dark soy sauce; a bowl of broth on the side) there is no 100 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

room for error and infinite room for debate. “If you ask ten Singaporeans about the best chicken rice you will get ten different answers,” Low said, pleased at the thought. “This is one of the few places in the world where while we’re eating lunch, we are discussing where to go for lunch tomorrow—because we’ve already planned dinner for sure.” Obviously cities everywhere love their food. What distinguishes Singapore, Low says, is the diversity of cultural (and, by extension, culinary) influence. The population is Chinese, Malay, Indian and Eurasian, new immigrants and old. What makes the place compelling for travelers who like to eat is that notions of authenticity blur and bend in the transforming heat of the melting pot. Take those Hokkien mee: Chinese noodles with a Malay sambal chili sauce and the addition of fried cubes of lard and local limes. “The whole thing is just very Singaporean,” Low says. “We’re a small island and we travel so much, so we’re open to a lot of flavors and receptive to change.” The Singaporization of these flavors leads to compelling local variants. “Look around,” Tay had told me. “You’ll find Chinese crullers dipped in Indonesian peanut sauce and Chinese people doing their own twist on Malay satays. They’ll add five-spice or saffron to the marinade or use pork because they can.”

CITY SWING From left: The low-key

outdoor patio at Wild Oats, in Punggol Park; rambutans and longans for sale at a Tekka Market Food Centre stall; chef Willin Low adds a squeeze of lime to fried Hokkien prawn noodles at Chomp Chomp Food Centre.

The Tian Tian chicken rice was soothing, the wobbly, salty meat delicious on its own or dipped in the gingery chili sauce or dark, reduced soy. Having established the base knowledge, Low continued our lessons all over town. At Candlenut Kitchen, a young chef named Malcolm Lee celebrates the cuisine of his Peranakan (descendants of Malay-Chinese settlers) roots while making it his own. The food is deceptively homey, involving complex techniques and long cooking times. Slow-cooked short ribs are served with buah keluak (an Indonesian nut), the meat of which is ground and reduced to a remarkable sludgy black sauce tasting of coffee, something like a pungent Southeast Asian mole. We paid a visit to an old-school Fuzhou-Chinese place, called Singapura Seafood Restaurant, on the second floor of a government-housing building. It looked a bit like what “Oriental” banquet restaurants in midsize American cities looked like in the 1970’s. And for Low it conjured the same sort of nostalgia. “This is the kind of restaurant my grandparents would take us to for a treat,” he said. Valerie Tang, the owner, told us her father had opened the restaurant in what had been a “seedy Chinese nightclub” decades ago. The recipes—including an excellent breaded pork liver on baby kale—were her father’s, and, like the no-frills interior, they

were worth preserving. Hawkers used to be as free-range as the chickens they’d serve. “I can still remember them as a kid gathering near my home in the late afternoons,” Low said. “There’d be six pushcarts, with makeshift tables and chairs.” Later, for reasons of hygiene and general oversight, the government moved the individual carts to organized clusters called hawker centers. At the Singapore Food Trail, a hawker center beneath the Singapore Flyer (a gigantic Ferris wheel similar to London’s dopey Eye) the stalls have been constructed to look like 1960’s pushcarts. Singaporeans come by their fusion food honestly: we ate satay bee hoon, a dish of Chinese rice vermicelli covered in a Malay peanut satay sauce. “I want you to try an oyster omelette,” Low said. “It’s a Hokkien dish, and there are versions in Thailand and Taiwan, but this version is really Singaporean.” A loose scramble of eggs and oysters with a fish sauce and vinegary chili sauce, it was fortifying and salty and good. And so the lessons continued. We ate more and sweat more and then the world seemed to sweat, too: the bright sky filled with hot afternoon rain. We got back in the car, and Chet Baker sang “Time A fter Time” (“I always play Chet Baker in the rain,” Low said), and we drove somewhere else and somehow ate more. By odd coincidence, I was that evening introduced to the daughter of the man who’d made our oyster omelette, a friend of a friend. Pat Law owns a social-marketing company. Her first job was working for the family » travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 101

journal Food address book Candlenut Kitchen 25 Neil Rd.; 65/6226-2506; dinner for two S$24. Chomp Chomp Food Centre 20 Kensington Rd. East Coast Lagoon Food Village 1220 East Coast Park Hwy. Fifty Three 53 Armenian St.; 65/6334-5535; dinner for two S$480. Maxwell Road Hawker Centre Maxwell Rd. at Neil Rd. Restaurant André 41 Bukit Pasoh Rd.; 65/6534-8880; dinner for two S$255.

Candlenut Kitchen’s twist on kueh pie tee, a traditional dish of prawns, pork belly and braised turnips, above. Right: Sitting down for lunch at the Tekka Market Food Centre.

business. “At the time my dad made duck rice,” she said. “He had a stall at the airport for the staff canteen before there were hawker stands. At 13, I learned to chop the ducks.” “Did you like the smell of it?” I asked. “I liked the smell of my pocket money,” she answered, without hesitation. “I had the oiliest of coins and they smelled like g ravy. But duck gave me life.”

ne afternoon I found myself transported to the upstairs dining room of Restaurant André, a tiny, serene, white-and-gray cloud of a place, a million miles away from the frenetic world outside. Rather than a traditional menu, chef André Chiang presents diners with his “octa-philosophy,” a series of moods or rubrics (Pure, Memory, Terroir, etc.). That’s probably seven or so more philosophies than I’d like to hear about, but by the time the meal was under way I’d discarded the highbrow reading material and was just enjoying the ride. Born in Taiwan and raised and trained in France, Chiang makes French food with hints of Asian influence: tomato sorbet with cured fluke and black seaweed alongside purple sea-urchin risotto and a tartare of razor clams; a foie gras custard topped with a warm, liquid-y truffle jelly that tasted like an earthy Perigordian chawan mushi. From restaurants like André and Fifty Three (another well-choreographed, minimally designed, austere dining

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Rochor Original Bean Curd For silky tofu pudding, a Singaporean treat. 2 Short St.; no phone; snacks for two S$2.50. Singapore Food Trail 30 Raffles Ave. Singapura Seafood

Restaurant room, this one from another 01-31 Selegie Rd.; homegrown chef and lapsed lawyer, 65/6336-3255; Michael Han), I learned that visitors dinner for two S$30. to Singapore needn’t seek out the Sin Huat Eating House 659 Geylang Rd.; international Michelin crew from 65/6744-9755; the casino restaurants to have a dinner for two S$81. transportingly good, high-tone meal. Tekka Market Food Centre 665 Buffalo Rd. Michael Han has staged at Noma and Tippling Club Mugaritz. He tends to his herb plants An inventive food and and edible flowers in the weedy lot next drink laboratory. 8D Dempsey Rd.; to his restaurant. He takes the whole 65/6475-2217; fine-dining thing seriously. But true dinner for two S$290. to the Singaporean code, he doesn’t Wild Oats 8 Hougang discriminate on either end of the Ave.; 65/6858-2087; drinks for two S$13. culinary spectrum. On his night off Wild Rocket Hangout from the kitchen he drove me out to the Hotel, 10A Upper Wilkie old red-light district of Geylang, and we Rd.; 65/6339-9448; dinner for two S$110. parked ourselves on red plastic chairs on the sidewalk outside the Sin Huat Eating House. “To be really authentic it has to be just a little bit dirty,” Han said. We went to the kitchen to pick out the crabs we wanted variously barbecued and wok-fried with noodles. A cook reached into a bucket and retrieved a very large bullfrog, British racing green with a slick underbelly and intelligent black eyes. I felt bad for the big guy, but in the spirit of the city, we’d be eating everything that night. ✚

journal getaway

At the Edge of the World Lush limestone keys above water, coral walls popping with color below, Adam Skolnick searches out a remote corner of Indonesia and comes up, well, hugging. Photographed by Scotty Graham

was in a dead sprint. Breathless, lumbering to the end of the concrete pier just as the hulking ferry started drifting away. Trust me, you don’t want to be that guy. Not in a mod, minimalist airport dash to a departing jet. Not in an Art Deco train station lunging for the last car. And most definitely not here, in Sorong, Papua, a gritty oil and coal port in East Indonesia, rife with tankers, burning rubbish, ramshackle slums, Christian rock bands and competing calls to prayer. As I neared the edge, the last heavy shipping line hurtled toward me and glanced the back of my head. I fell to one knee, the ferry floated further away and my pounding brain echoed with empathetic laughter from the throng gathered here to sell their wares to those already aboard the vessel bound for Waisai in the Raja Ampats, the most talked about

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archipelago in Indonesia today. See, floating off the bird’s head of West Papua are more than 1,500 limestone islands humid with jungle and surrounded by what many scientists consider the richest coral reefs on earth. Alas, on this day, they remained alluring, yet out of reach. Tail firmly tucked, I received kind pats on the back, and an assurance that another ferry would leave the next afternoon as I hailed an ojek, or motorbike taxi, to the Raja Ampat Tourist Office to re-evaluate my options. Typically, Indonesian tourist offices are underwhelming. Seldom is there an English-speaking clerk and even less frequently will you be able to glean any useful tidbits on where to meet, say, the last known headhunters of West Timor. But set in what passes for Sorong’s only luxury hotel, the Raja Ampat tourist office was different. It’s run by a recent college grad, Ibu

Sarlota, who grew up in the islands. She made but one suggestion: “Papua Paradise.” Her confidence was understandable. After all, she had recently processed Prince Albert of Monaco’s National Park entry pass, as well as those of the most recent Miss Indonesia and a former bookkeeper for the notorious Tommy Suharto. Because that’s who’s coming here: Indonesia’s élite, and inthe-know international adventurers. “It’s new,” she continued, “and it’s owned by Hungarians.” Sarlota said this last bit with some enthusiasm. I frowned. Not because I have anything against Hungarians, but because I was hoping for a more localized homestay experience. I wanted the real Raja Ampats. I craved village life. “But maybe they can get you out onto the island tonight,” she reasoned, “and then you can hire a boat to the village the next day?” Which is how I wound up on the Papua Paradise crew boat beneath a golden sky, as fluffy clouds gathered low over jagged island peaks, and Pulau Birie, a bowtie of limestone and coconut palms, floated into view. We made straight for the alluring overwater bungalows lining the sugar-white sand. The water was crystal, the foliage thick and lush. As we sped toward the dock, snap judgments were made. Homestays would wait, village life was probably overrated, flights would be rescheduled. After all, this was the kind of place that makes you hug complete and total strangers, which is how I greeted the blond, blue-eyed and only slightly taken aback Dex Steinbrich and Mel Huser, the German-French Canadian couple who live on Birie and run the resort. They understood. After years of working for gargantuan dive outfits in Thailand, where the reefs are crowded and degrading, they’d been airlifted to way out Indonesia where it is their job to look after only a handful of guests at a time and dive some of the best sites in Asia. In other words, they were prone to spontaneous hugs, too. Dex, the dive operations manager, probed me with questions to ascertain my skills, while Mel led me along manicured, shell-lined, solar-lit paths to my spacious eco-chic bungalow where I pretended to listen to her explanation of the saltwater showers, toilet-tissue disposal protocol and Wi-Fi availability (you thought paradise wasn’t wired?). Afterward I fell into a hammock, glimpsed baby black-tips carving the shallows, rubbed the fortuitous knot on the back of my skull and watched the sun sink until the dinner bell rang. If you had to pick a singular image to define the Raja Ampats, you would picture that famed fly over shot of dozens of lush, rounded limestone keys sprinkled in azure seas. Zoom in and you’d find us, buzzing through the Mushroom Islands. Think: 100 rounded limestone isles erupting out »

by the sea and sand

Above: Striped sweet lips stream by; a pristine beach on Pulau Kri. Opposite: Corals and sponges float just below the surface at a popular dive site.

Mel led me along solar-lit paths to my spacious eco-chic bungalow where I pretended to listen to her explanations

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journal getaway

The archipelago’s relative isolation and protected status make it a spectacular island wilderness to explore

Indonesian beauty

Above: Passengers wait for the ferry under equatorial skies. Right: A colorful crab tries to blend in.

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of dimpled blue glass. Among them you could spot a lone fishing shack on an otherwise deserted beach, a couple of meandering dugouts and a few aboriginal graveyards, where skulls and bones have been left as offerings to the island gods. “There used to be more,” said Dex, “but people started taking them as souvenirs.” On my first visit to the region, in 2007, there were only two resorts on a single island, both owned by Max Ammer, a Dutch-born World War II wreck aficionado, seasoned photographer and fervent Seventh Day Adventist. Back then there was no ferry service, which meant that if you didn’t bed down at Ammer’s, or join a pricey live-aboard trip, you would have to pay a king’s ransom to local boatmen in order to explore the archipelago, and then show up as a guest on a villager’s doorstep hoping they could accommodate and feed you. At the time, you couldn’t even count on the consistency of flights in and out of Sorong, as the airport frequently ran out of fuel. These days, regular ferry service means that it’s easier for local people to open homestays, and for foreign investors to develop dive resorts deeper in the archipelago. But the growing tourism industry hasn’t yet tamed these wild islands or the islanders’ independent and unpredictable spirit. When Ammer originally set up shop on Pulau Wai he required his staff to convert from their animist-inflected Christianity to Adventism. Offended, other villagers burned that resort to the ground. Then just over a year ago, a liveaboard dive outfit took their guests to the reef aboard a dinghy. When the divers surfaced, the dinghy was gone and the boatmen were shivering with fear on a nearby sandbar. Seems the local villagers mistook them for missionaries and co-opted the dinghy at knifepoint. It was eventually returned. There have also been shark-fin issues. “One morning, Max flew in on his ultra light,” said Dex, as if a fellow-resort owner island-hopping by ultra light isn’t absurdly cool, “he said that a local priest told his flock that if they finned shark for a Sorong exporter, they’d get good marks in the afterlife.”

So, yes, there are challenges. Originally from the islands, captain Benny Reri, 45, has witnessed the shift from subsistence living toward the developing tourist trade. Once a fisherman himself (he was particularly adept at hunting turtles) he worked for three years with Conservation International on Pulau Misool before taking a job with Papua Paradise last year. “Misool is very beautiful,” he told me after a morning’s dive along a deep, vibrant coral wall that boiled with challenging currents, swarmed with fish and popped with color. “So many fish. Even more than here.” He acknowledged that shark finning was a problem, but was optimistic that, just as villagers have learned to accept guests, this too could be contained. He pointed to himself as an example of the Raja Ampat’s culture shift. “I don’t eat turtle anymore, and it is very delicious.” Yaris Warmasen, 33, laughed. Benny’s first mate, Yaris suggested we visit Arefi village where he led me down a concrete street. Clumps of banana trees and coconut palms gathered behind the weathered, wooden church. “Nobody has a problem eating here,” he said, “but there is not much money. Some of us work in resorts, but most are fishermen.” Yaris pointed to his house among the stilted tin-roof shacks that huddled along white-sand beaches and gnarled mangroves. Most villagers had hand phones, but there is seldom a signal. “They have to go to special places where the mountains don’t interfere,” Yaris explained as we approached an overgrown football field, where children of all ages ran free. They attend a local primary school, shaded by a burly mango tree in the village, but the only high schools are in Sorong or in the main village of Waisai on Pulau Waigeo. Both are at least three hours away by speedboat. Nobody here owned a speedboat. Clearly, villages like these, deep in the Raja Ampats, remain somewhat isolated, but change, in the form of a further influx of resorts, homestays and live-aboards, is coming. Plus, there are environmental factors to consider. “The islands are shrinking,” warned Yaris who has noticed increased coastal erosion in the last few years. “Before, the beach went out further for at least 10 meters, and there wasn’t such a steep drop.” Still, the archipelago’s relative isolation and protected status make it a spectacular island wilderness to explore. After tangling with underwater currents on challenging drift dives, then floating serenely over pristine coral reefs, Mel, Benny, Yaris and I went for a hike to a waterfall. Although regular bird-watching treks to spot the famed Wilson’s Bird of Paradise at dawn are offered by Papua Paradise, we had a less ambitious agenda. Benny steered our ship directly into a deep blue bay, sheltered between two generously jungled arms of Pulau Batanta. At the end of the bay was the entrance to a vast mangrove estuary. Spidery roots and the tall, slender trees

they feed rambled for half a kilometer before we reached land, and followed a stream into pure jungle where 30-meter trees soared toward pale blue sky. Yaris led the way and we hiked half in and half out of the water, rambling over boulders, dodging rapids and slogging through the mud until we reached a miraculous 50-meter waterfall that poured down sculpted rock in a thousand threads. The water’s texture was less a deluge and more of an embroidered lace curtain. We all swam and laughed and took more pictures than proved reasonable. Afterward we motored back to Paradise, buzzing past a succession of blond beaches to those familiar overwater bungalows, lit up gold in the gloaming. That’s when the Raja Ampat’s cumulative effect took hold. When you’re at the ragged edge of global perception, immersed in so much wild nature, beauty itself transforms from a pleasing-to-the-eye concept into something far more profound and palpable. My muscles relaxed, sighs of relief became involuntary, my outlook shifted from slightly dystopic to profoundly optimistic. For the first time in too long, my mind was clear and open, my heart full. ✚

Guide to the raja ampats WHEN TO GO Most live-aboard dive outfits congregate here between the months of November and April, but planning a trip for the shoulder seasons of May–June or September– October, when you’ll be the only foreigners around and the diving is still magnificent is also an option. GETTING THERE Express Air Offers flights from Jakarta to Sorong, via Makassar, where you can connect from Bali. The resorts here will pick you up in Sorong and shuttle you to their respective islands by speedboat. 62-951/328-200; US$500 return. Marina Express Fast passenger boats with airline-style seating to Waisai from Sorong’s Pelabuhan Rakiat harbor at 2 p.m. daily—show up at the pier in advance. No phone. Economy tickets Rp120,000. STAY Papua Paradise No phone; papuaparadise.com; meals and unlimited diving €135 per person per night. Misool Eco-Resort 62-816/ 4710-0003; misoolecoresort.

com; seven-night water cottage accommodation from €1,800 per person. Kri Eco Resort 62-811/4807610; papua-diving.com; week-long stays including meals from €998 per person. DO Raja Ampat Tourism Office All visitors must register and pay their park fee at the office. 62-812/483-5115; Jln. Basuki Rahmat Km. 7; gorajaampat.com. The Mushroom Islands and the limestone isles around Pulau Gam offer some of the northern half of the archipelago’s most spectacular scenery. If you time it right, you’ll be able to spot two types of birds of paradise (the red and the Wilsons) on Pulau Gam, and the Wilsons on beautiful Pulau Batanta. The highlight and hub of the southern reaches of the national park, Pulau Misool is accessible by twice-weekly ferry during their wet season; during the dry, it’s accessible more regularly. By some accounts the scenery and the diving here is even more special than the north, since it’s less populated and more untouched.

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journal american scene

The view from Washington Square Park, in New York City’s Greenwich Village.

the birthplace of cool New York city’s bohemian enclave for close to a century, greenwich village is thriving. lifelong resident REGGIE NADELSON explores all that’s new in her old stomping grounds, From Washington Square to the Waverly Inn. Photographed by Whitney Lawson

s dusk falls over Greenwich Village, I’m at Minetta Tavern, sipping a martini with friends who last drank here 61 years ago. “It’s like night and day,” says Lynn Reiser, a handsome painter, as she assesses the old bar where Wall Street guys now order rye whiskey at 35 bucks a shot. “It’s the people. We were all artists then.” Reiser arrived in the Village in the 1940’s, when young artists and writers started coming for the camaraderie, conversation and cheap rent. “We met here in 1947,” says Reiser’s husband, graphic artist Marty Hechtman. “I had just come from having my coffee grounds read by a Romanian gypsy who said I’d meet a tall, dark-haired woman and marry her. I did.” Outside, on MacDougal Street, the crowd swells—locals hurrying home to Sullivan Gardens; students from NYU looking for falafel, crêpes and pizza; tourists peering at signs that offer body piercings, comedy, and a whiff of the “real” Village. Across Minetta Lane at Café Wha?—where Dylan, Hendrix, and Peter, Paul and Mary played in the sixties—green neon lights claim it as a landmark, cashing in on the nostalgia for the neighborhood when it was still the Great American Bohemia. » travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 109

journal american scene “Here at Minetta, a glass of beer was a dime and a big meatball was a quarter,” Hechtman says, looking at pictures on the wall of many of the poets and pugilists who have frequented the tavern since it opened in 1937.

ON THE TOWN From top: New York University faculty housing and offices on Washington Square North; outside the Village Chess Shop; a cucumber sandwich with tea at Tea & Sympathy.

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or the best part of a hundred years, Greenwich Village was our Left Bank, a sort of protectorate for artists. When Jackson Pollock announced that his paintings were about expressing his feelings instead of illustrating his surroundings, he not only described Abstract Expressionism but also tagged much of the Village scene. Beat poetry, modern jazz and experimental theater were nurtured here, often involving radical politics and anarchic acts. This was a state of the seditious and the silly, and to be poor for your work was a badge of honor. Mass production, capitalism and corporate life were all dirty words. You went to “the Village” (no one ever called it anything else) for the culture—and, perhaps, for a pair of those handmade brown leather sandals from Fred Braun, on Eighth Street. I had those sandals. I was born and raised in Greenwich Village in the fifties and sixties, and still live only a few blocks south. I was the kind of teenager who sneaked into the Village Vanguard to see Miles Davis, probably clad in black tights and carrying something (visibly) by Camus—in French. There are still girls in the Village with attitude. You might find them wearing designer black tights at Minetta, where a good beer is now 12 bucks. But the food is terrific. At a booth in the back, Hechtman and Reiser and I tuck into stuffed calamari, some of the best beef in town, and a miraculous Grand Marnier soufflé. But then, Keith McNally, who co-owns the restaurant, has long had perfect pitch for what people want to eat and where. Even if Minetta is on the celebrity (and wannabe) A-list, McNally has still kept the old tavern nearly intact.

Preservation has always been part of the Village ethos. In the fifties and sixties, locals such as urban critic Jane Jacobs fought for its narrow streets and low-lying buildings—even as the rest of the city rose in steel and glass, a midcentury modernist wet dream. “There’s no other place like the Village,” says McNally, a longtime resident. “It still has that essence. I see it in the chess shops on Thompson Street, where the old Village guys play. It’s in the number of ways you can walk from point A to point B. I still get lost.”

t’s that essence that I go looking for as I set out to rediscover Greenwich Village. When people think of the Village, they often think downtown. But this is not about the East Village, or SoHo. (Those came later, as artists and musicians went looking for bigger, cheaper space.) With the Hudson River on the west, Broadway to the east, and 14th and Houston as its northern and southern borders, the boundaries of Greenwich Village are specific. It’s only about 2.6 square kilometers, but it’s dense with history. At its heart is Washington Square Park, where I witness a girl splashing in the fountain; a guy with a funky upright piano on wheels pounding out a tune; students sleeping on the grass; and Korean tourists taking snapshots under the Washington Square Arch. New flower beds have been planted, the grass trimmed, and, on a sunny day, the park seems eternal. This is the Greenwich Village town square, its piazza. »

You went to ‘the Villageʼ (no one ever called it anything else) for the culture and, maybe, sandals

ADDRESS BOOK Waverly Inn 16 Bank St.; 1-917/828-1154; brunch for two US$35. SEE and DO IFC Center 323 Sixth Ave.; 1-212/924-7771. Jefferson Market Library 425 Sixth Ave.; 1-212/243-4334. EAT and DRINK Blue Hill 75 Washington Place; 1-212/539-1776; dinner for two US$298. Café Wha? 115 MacDougal St.; 1-212/254-3706. Caffe Reggio 119 MacDougal St.; 1-212/475-9557.

(Le) Poisson Rouge 158 Bleecker St.; 1-212/505-3474. Shrine Church of Our Lady of Pompei 25 Carmine St.; 1-212/989-6805. Shrine Church of St. Anthony of Padua 155 Sullivan St.; 1-212/777-2755.

Da Silvano 260 Sixth Ave.; 1-212/982-2343; dinner for two US$100. James Beard Foundation 167 W. 12th St.; jamesbeard.org. La Ripaille 605 Hudson St.; 1-212/255-4406; dinner for two US$85. The Lion 62 W. Ninth St.; 1-212/353-8400; dinner for two US$120. Minetta Tavern 113 MacDougal St.; 1-212/475-3850; dinner for two US$110. Morandi 211 Waverly Place; 1-212/627-7575; brunch for two $50. Patisserie Claude 187 W. Fourth St.; 1-212/ 255-5911. Rocco Ristorante 181 Thompson St.; 1-212/677-0590; dinner for two US$70. Stonewall Inn 53 Christopher St.; 1-212/488-2705. Tea & Sympathy 108 Greenwich Ave.; 1-212/989-9735; lunch for two US$40. Wallse 344 W. 11th St.; 1-212/352-2300; dinner for two US$140.

St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village 371 Sixth Ave.; 1-212/ 741-1274. Village Vanguard 178 Seventh Ave. S.; 1-212/255-4037. SHOP Chisholm Larsson Gallery 145 Eighth Ave.; 1-212/741-1703. C.O. Bigelow Chemists 414 Sixth Ave.; 1-212/533-2700. Faicco’s Pork Store 260 Bleecker St.; 1-212/243-1974. Joe’s Dairy 156 Sullivan St.; 1-212/677-8780. Three Lives & Co. 154 W. 10th St.; 1-212/741-2069. Village Chess Shop 230 Thompson St.; 1-212/475-9580.

journal american scene Around the close of the 19th century, while the upper crust was observing the proprieties near Washington Square, south of the park Italian immigrants flooded in. They built their own churches—St. Anthony of Padua; St. Joseph’s; Our Lady of Pompei—and taught America to use olive oil. There is evidence everywhere of that old Italian community: Perazzo Funeral Home, on Bleecker Street; an Italian lady, gray hair freshly coiffed, who always pushes her wire shopping cart up Bleecker to Faicco’s Pork Store on Tuesday afternoons; big Italian men, skin as white as their undershirts, making the city’s best mozzarella every

The Waverly is lovely. And empty. We sit under the low ceilings. Soft light trails in from Bank Street day at Joe’s Dairy; Rocco’s; Caffe Reggio—restaurants and coffeehouses that have been in the Village for nearly a hundred years. If the heyday of Village culture was the twenties through the sixties, the culinary scene—presided over by James Beard in his West 12th Street town house—really got going around 1975 with the opening of Da Silvano, the first northern Italian restaurant in an area of “red sauce” joints. Silvano Marchetto still dispenses hefty, delicious veal chops while allocating the best tables to pals such as Jack Nicholson. Greenwich Village usually ate Italian, but today you’ll find a global mix. There is Wallse for modern Austrian dishes, La Ripaille for French bistro fare, Tea & Sympathy for English cuisine—in case you’re craving 112 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

Yorkshire pudding. And Blue Hill, as elegant and well mannered a restaurant as Henry James could have wished, serves the freshest American food in town, using ingredients from its farm. There’s also a mini-movement of retro-Village chic under way. The Minetta Tavern and the old Lion pub have been restored to some imagined former time, as has the Waverly Inn.

was reluctant to go to the Waverly again; it’s run as a kind of semi-club by Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, and it’s packed in the evening as people jockey for the “right” tables. You need connections to get in. Finally, I ask a friend in the know to do the business. We discover the Waverly Inn is now open for brunch. And it’s lovely. And empty. We sit under the low ceilings. Soft light trails in from Bank Street. The waiters are attentive, the smoked fish fine, the scones delicious and the coffee—regular American coffee—is the best I’ve had in a long time. For the first time since the Waverly Inn reopened five years ago, it feels like the Village. We drift out onto Seventh Avenue, satisfied and slightly drunk, in the mood for some music. The Village Vanguard, a few blocks up the street, has barely changed in decades. Lorraine Gordon—whose late husband, Max, founded the jazz club in 1935—still reigns, and Ravi Coltrane plays the saxophone, just as his father, John, did 50 years ago. Instead of Dexter Gordon and Miles Davis, you can now hear Bill Charlap and Wynton Marsalis. All that’s missing is the smoke. Still, there are plenty of people, and even a few middle-aged, finger-popping daddy-O’s bobbing to the beat.

est of Seventh Avenue lies the most iconic part of Greenwich Village. Bank, Jane, Christopher—the streets here have names instead of numbers, and run in an improbable pattern (West 10th Street crosses West Fourth Street).

You’re off the grid. Maybe it’s whimsical, but I like to think of this as a metaphor for the essential Village culture: the refusal to observe convention. Forget Marc Jacobs and the imperial chains that have colonized Bleecker Street. Head to Three Lives & Co., on 10th Street. If indie bookshops are having a renaissance, then this is ground zero. Around the corner, there’s the Stonewall Inn, where the 1969 riots gave rise to gay rights. This past summer, when the city legalized samesex marriage, people gathered there in record numbers to celebrate. “Why did I choose to live in the Village?” asks Robert Chisholm, who co-owns the Chisholm Larsson Gallery, a vintage poster shop. “It was the epicenter of gay culture. The tables were always turned—abnormal out there is normal and comfortable here. What an eye-opener and a wonderful setting for those accustomed to living a life on the sidelines,” Chisholm says.

t the fringe of the West Village is the restored development. A once desolate area, it’s now all jogging paths, gardens, playgrounds, and Hudson River views. When I go biking here, I feel I’m in a pretty but alien suburb. Villagers are much warped by nostalgia. I remember the scary old piers, where artists and urban pioneers once lived, sometimes without running water. Do I regret their passing? As I ride, I’m comforted by: students talking politics outside the New School; music at (Le) Poisson Rouge, once the Village Gate; C.O. Bigelow, a 19thcentury drugstore; the wonderfully restored Jefferson Market Courthouse, now a public library. And by passionate moviegoers at IFC Center for screenings of obscure Japanese films, followed by steak and eggs at Morandi or a pear tart from Patisserie Claude. Somehow, in the streets, in the stones themselves, that old Greenwich Village essence remains. ✚

journal trends

china club

Clockwise from left: The entry to the fitness center at the Mandarin Oriental, Paris; Ladurée’s Rue Bonaparte tea salon; storage urns for tea leaves at La Maison des Trois Thés; Asia-inspired looks from Givenchy’s Spring 2011 collection; La Bauhinia restaurant, in the Shangri-La Hotel, Paris.

the asia effect B o t t om : G ivenchy H au t e C ou t u r e by Ricca r do Tisci S p r ing 2 0 1 1 C ollec t ion / cou r t esy of G ivenchy

from hotels to high-end dining, Paris is awash in the style of the Far East. By hEATHEr smith MACISAAC. Photographed by James Carrière

he first tip-off came upon my arrival: a pair of oversize Ming dynasty–inspired vases flanking the Belle Époque entry. This was, after all, the Shangri-La Hotel, Paris, the European debut of the Hong Kong–based hotel group. I’d half-expected to be welcomed by a phalanx of attendants in crisp mandarin-collared jackets, but what greeted me instead was a small swarm of doormen whose smart, dark uniforms matched the refinement of the surroundings. What was exotic, however, were their broad smiles and lighthearted demeanor. Could this be Paris? » travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 113

journal trends

shanghai on the seine From

far left: A suite at the Hôtel Daniel; tea at La Maison des Trois Thés; chef Adeline Grattard at her restaurant, Yam’Tcha. Opposite: gallery C.T. Loo & Cie’s pagoda-like structure.

The mantra of Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts—“To treat a stranger as one of our own”—flies in the face of the capablebut-cool attitude that has long characterized the city’s five-star properties. But in something of a white-gloved throw-down, no less than four Asia-based luxury groups have made their entrance onto the scene. Raffles Hotels & Resorts came first last fall with the reopening of Le Royal Monceau, featuring interiors by Philippe Starck. ShangriLa’s December 2010 opening was followed this summer by the Mandarin Oriental, Paris, with the Peninsula slated to join the pack in 2013. Hotels, interiors, food, fashion: these days, Paris is taking many of its style cues from Asia. Old Shanghai was the inspiration for Louis Vuitton’s Spring 2011 ready-to-wear show, designed by Marc Jacobs and featuring hand-embroidered dresses in a cheongsam-like silhouette. At Givenchy’s Spring 2011 couture presentation, creative director Riccardo Tisci showed his collection exclusively on Asian models. Meanwhile, in canny recognition of the spending power of China’s newly minted millionaires, French luxury houses are even bringing Paris to the East. Hermès (which flew its own artisans to Shanghai last September for a seven-week demonstration on Huaihai Road) is now backing a new apparel and home-furnishings brand called Shang Xia, overseen by French-trained designer Jiang Qiong Er. And Cartier, the top luxury jeweler in China, recently released a limited-edition collection crafted from jade and diamonds. Although the new yin-yang of Franco-Asian relations is increasingly apparent, at the Shangri-La, Paris, the influences remain understated. The staff is predominantly 114 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

European, but their comportment (via extensive training) is decidedly Asian. It’s a subtle distinction, yet the result is service that feels genuinely welcoming: professional but never officious. While I was checking in, seated at the desk in my room with its panorama of the Left Bank, the guest-relations staffer poured me a cup of jasmine chun hao tea, the pot kept warm in a lacquered cozy. (She even dealt smoothly with a poorly designed spout that dribbled on the desktop and carpet.) Downstairs in Le Bar, a handsome space done up in Empire style, the drink I ordered had its roots in the East but was composed by a delightfully eager Frenchman practicing a cocktail version of ikebana. Ever so studiously he placed a blossom atop my Kowloon Delight, a concoction of vodka, ginger beer, umeshu liqueur and kumbawa fruit.

he building that houses the Shangri-La, Paris, couldn’t be more French: an hôtel particulier near the Seine once owned by Napoleon Bonaparte’s grandnephew. Its position high on the Chaillot hill—and steps away from the Musée Guimet, whose Asian art holdings are unrivaled in Europe—means that nearly half the guest rooms have dazzling views of the Eiffel Tower. After four years of restoration, the hotel is appropriately grand and gilded, but also manages to seem warm and intimate. Paintings and ink drawings by Chen Yanning, Chu Teh-Chun and Hung Hoi are displayed in the marble foyer and in the sitting rooms off the lobby. Groupings of celadon vases and vessels fill shallow niches lined in chinoiserie wallpaper in La Bauhinia, a restaurant crowned by a vast

looking east Asian-inspired design is cropping up all over Paris.

minimalist plating

Shrimp dumplings with dried scallops at Yam’Tcha bistro.

t o p lef t : jean - ma r ie del mo r al . B o t t om : cou r t esy of louis vui t t on

chinoiserie wallpaper

skylight and an equally impressive chandelier of Murano glass. Although Shang Palace, the hotel’s other fine-dining option, had yet to open during my visit, the buzz had been building for months; as the first haute Chinese hotel restaurant in Paris, it promises to further elevate the local perception of the cuisine with sophisticated variations on dim sum and roast duck. If the Shangri-La, Paris, is an elegant madame, the Mandarin Oriental, Paris, is her younger, jazzier sister. Like the Shangri-La, the Mandarin Oriental is in a listed building, but the Art Deco lines immediately cue a more modern aesthetic. Its location, within the knot of high-end shopping on Rue St.-Honoré, can make for a livelier experience, although the leafy courtyard garden provides an antidote— not only to the hubbub of the street but to the flashiness of a lobby featuring fiber-optic lights and silky curtains with diamond-studded tiebacks. The Asian notes here—delicate flower-petal sculptures as wall ornaments in the spa; plum-colored silk cushions and trimmings in guest rooms—are light and contemporary. The service is as calm and attentive as that at the Shangri-La. In the spa, discretion meets skill in equal measure: during my massage, the oh-so-polite therapist unerringly zeroed in on my meridians. (No doubt she was also expert at kneading muscles with warm bamboo sticks, another of the spa’s treatments.) A cup of tea and a delicate, diminutive cake were the rewards for such divine subjection. Ironically, the hotel most overtly Asian in style is one envisioned by a Lebanese decorator now based in London and affiliated with Relais & Châteaux. Hôtel Daniel Paris »

At Ladurée’s tearoom on Rue Bonaparte.

single-bloom display

A flower arrangement at the Mandarin Oriental, Paris.

cHEONGSAM DRESS

A classic silhouette from Louis Vuitton’s Spring 2011 ready-towear collection.

travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 115

journal trends represents a full-blown fantasy of Orientalism. With Chinese porcelains and Hotan carpets, Orientalist verre églomisé panels, Chinese hand-painted wallpaper produced by de Gournay and toile de Jouy fabrics with chinoiserie motifs, interior designer Tarfa Salam turned it into a masterful celebration of the classically exotic. Hôtel Daniel is the latest example of France’s long love affair with chinoiserie, a decorative form championed in the 17th century by Louis XIV (he built a retreat called the Trianon de Porcelaine for his mistress Madame de Montespan). The style was further celebrated by Louis XV and his mistress Madame de Pompadour; they became passionate sponsors of the Sèvres porcelain factory, which produced ornate pieces such as ormolu-mounted vases. Today it turns up all over Paris—in the mid-18th-century Salon Chinois at the Musée Carnavalet, as well as at another more astonishing Chinese room in Victor Hugo’s former residence on the Place des Vosges. Amid the expanse of limestone façades, it’s startling to come across La Pagode, a landmark 1895 movie house that still screens an eclectic range of films, or C.T. Loo & Cie, a gallery in a red Mandarin-

style pagoda. At Ladurée’s Rue Bonaparte location, those in the know head past the lines at the macaron counter up front for a break in its salon de thé, tucked in the back and featuring bamboo motifs and showy peacocks on the walls.

t makes sense that the strongest links between Paris and China would involve decoration and, quite literally, taste. Parisians respect the depth of knowledge of tea master Madame Yu Hui Tseng, not to mention her temerity in requesting that customers not wear perfume in the tasting room of her shop, La Maison des Trois Thés. And lately, they compete to secure one of 20 seats at the Michelin-starred Yam’Tcha, where chef Adeline Grattard’s inventiveness and skill with a wok is complemented by a menu of teas selected by her husband, Chi Wah Chan. They sing the praises of Jacques Genin’s extraordinary chocolates, including those featuring Thé Toi (wu long tea) and Sichuanpepper ganache, sold at his chic boutique in the Marais. In an age of increasing globalization, such evocative details prove the staying power of Paris’s stylistic connection to Asia—even if the red carpet now goes both ways. ✚

ADDRESS BOOK C.T. Loo & Cie

e ight h Ar r .

Le Royal Monceau-Raffles Paris

Hôtel Daniel Paris s e co nd A rr.

Musée Guimet

Jacques Genin

Shangri-La Hotel, Paris

Yam’Tcha fourt h Ar r.

Seine River

La Pagode

s e v e n th A rr .

Musée Carnavalet Ladurée

Maison Victor Hugo

s i x th A rr. f if th Ar r.

La Maison des Trois Thés

0.8 km

Stay

Hôtel Daniel Paris 8 Rue Frédéric Bastiat, Eighth Arr.; 33-1/42-56-17-00; hoteldanielparis.com; doubles from €426. Le Royal Monceau – Raffles Paris 37 Ave. Hoche, Eighth Arr.; 33-1/42-99-88-00;

116 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

leroyalmonceau.com; doubles from €782. Mandarin Oriental, Paris 251 Rue St.-Honoré, First Arr.; 33-1/70-98-78-88; mandarinoriental.com; doubles from €925. Shangri-La Hotel, Paris 10 Ave. d’Iéna, 16th Arr.;

Yam’Tcha 4 Rue Sauval, First Arr.; 33-1/40-26-08-07; dinner for two €132. See

Mandarin Oriental, Paris t hird A rr.

sixteenth A rr .

Sixth Arr.; 33-1/44-07-64-87; tea for two €14.

33-1/53-67-19-98; shangri-la. com; doubles from €658. Eat and Drink

La Bauhinia Shangri-La Hotel, Paris, 10 Ave. d’Iéna, 16th Arr.; 33-1/53-67-19-98; dinner for two €175. Ladurée 21 Rue Bonaparte,

La Pagode 57 Rue de Babylone, Seventh Arr.; 33-1/46-34-82-54. Maison Victor Hugo 6 Place des Vosges, Fourth Arr.; 33-1/42-72-10-16. Musée Carnavalet 23 Rue de Sévigné, Third Arr.; 33-1/44-59-58-58. Musée Guimet 6 Place d’Iéna, 16th Arr.; 33-1/5652-53-00. Shop

C.T. Loo & Cie 48 Rue de Courcelles, Eighth Arr.; 33-1/45-62-53-15. Jacques Genin 133 Rue de Turenne, Third Arr.; 33-1/45-77-29-01. La Maison des Trois Thés 1 Rue St. Médard, Fifth Arr.; 33-1/42-36-93-84; tea for two €28.

Indulge yourself

T+L SOUTHEAST ASIA

Throughout Southeast Asia

THE GREEN ISSUE / ASIA’S ECO PIONEERS / FLORENCE / ORGANIC BALI / WORLD’S BEST SPAS / YAKUSHIMA / ASIAN PARIS

SOUTHEAST ASIA

KAOHSIUNG TAIWAN’S SECOND CITY GOES GREEN

ASIA’S NEW WAVE

THREE CUTTING-EDGE ECO INNOVATORS

Paris FALLS FOR FAR EAST STYLE

O C TO B E R 2 011

WORLD’S Best SPAS

10 GREEN Cover FINAL.indd 1

OCTOBER 2011

DOWN UNDER WONDERS

AUSTRALIAN ECO-LODGES WORTH A LOOK

UBUD UNCOOKED

Bali’s organic food scene

FINDING NEW LIFE IN JAPAN’S OLD GROWTH

Tra ve l a n d L e i s u re A s i a . c o m

08/09/2011 16:39

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Strangers in the

Park

Taman Negara, Malaysiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest national park, is just the place for non-outdoorsy urbanites to get acquainted with jungle wilderness. By Melanie Lee. Photographed by Darren Soh

Baby steps along the canopy walk. Opposite: A tapir on the night trek.

into the wild

Clockwise from top left: A nest of giant forest timber ants; night-trek guide Abdullah; blowpipe darts in their ornately carved quivers in Bateq village; buttress roots help support a narrow tree; upriver to the Latah Berkoh rapids; at the start of the canopy walkway. Opposite: A Bateq family outside their village.

hen my husband, Darren, and I told city-dwelling friends that we were going to Taman Negara, they all had a common reaction: a look of trepidation. In each case, that was followed quickly by a nugget—or three—of advice on wilderness survival. “Hiking shoes. You need hiking shoes.” “Compass. You never know. And the iPhone battery runs out fast.” “Wear pantyhose. I swear, the leeches will not get to your legs with pantyhose.” I wasn’t sure if they were speaking from personal experience or from spending too much time plonked down in front of the Discovery Channel, but their outdoors advice was both fast and forthcoming. In my mind, our journey would be something worthy of television. Appropriately enough, Taman Negara means “national park” in Malay and was established in 1939 as a conservation area. Northeast of Kuala Lumpur, this pristine forest covers an area greater in size than six side-by-side Singapores and is spread across three Malaysian states— Pahang, Kelantan and Terengganu. And thanks to its equatorial location, it was spared the worst ravages of the Ice Age. Today, Taman Negara is an adventure-travel haven for outdoor lovers and for sheltered city folk like my husband and I who love nature. That tinge of ruggedness is immediate once we check into our wooden chalet at the Mutiara Taman Negara Resort. “Don’t leave your shoes out. The wild boars and macaques like to steal them,” our porter advises. Later that evening, however, my sense of adventure comes into question during a night trek. It all starts out comfortably. On a cool and breezy evening, our guide, Abdullah, with his high-powered flashlight, points out nocturnal creatures—owls, spiders, deer. Outside of that beam of light, it’s pitch dark, but I trust I’m in good hands. I don’t even flinch when Abdullah strokes a scorpion’s nest and a troop of the venomous arachnids scurry out. My gung-ho take on nature falters once we come across upon a pair of tapirs staring quizzically at us. “You all so lucky. Tapirs usually not so friendly,” Abdullah says before beckoning us to draw closer to them while he rattles on with a list of tapir facts and figures, including about how, by adulthood, they can weigh more than 350 kilograms. In a zoo,

they’re cute. But up close, they’re creepy and gigantic, like striped baby elephants with miniature trunks. When one walks over with its snout in the air, I let out a high-pitched scream and hide behind a Dutch woman who is half my size and shrieking just as loudly. Abdullah laughs. “People like to see animals up close, but if too close, then, people get scared.” Later that night, a group of American hikers show us photos of wildcats they had just spotted. Proof, if any was needed, that there are more than 300 animal species lurking around in this jungle, including tigers, bears, leopards and even the odd rhinoceros. The blanketing darkness I found so serene earlier suddenly seems a little more insidious, and I am more than relieved—yes, the city girl in me surfaces—when the hotel staff welcomes us back from the trek with cold towels.

ome animals here are used to the presence of humans, but they are still wild, you know?” our guide Sabaruddin says, trying to comfort me. “It might seem okay to stroke them but then suddenly, they might bite your hand off,” Din says as we enter the Bukit Teresek Trail near the resort. On that reassuring note, he shows us fresh Asian elephant footprints along the trail, their excrement tucked behind giant buttress roots, explaining how these creatures have a knack of bulldozing their way through trees and probably humans. Dangerous animals aside, it is a beautiful, dense forest to walk through, with hints of sunlight penetrating the towering trees above. Most of the Bukit Teresek trail is steep, but »

my gung-ho take on nature falters as we come across a pair of tapirs travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 121

dangerous animals aside it is a beautiful, sunlight penetrating the towering trees.

Taking a dip at the Latah Berkoh rapids.

dense forest to walk through, with hints of roots form a natural stairway up the path

as we climb up a creaky ladder 45 meters above the ground, my legs wobble mercifully, a series of buttress roots form a natural stairway up the sloped path. As I marvel at the haphazard ergonomics of this, Din says, “Nature is kind to man sometimes.” He also makes it a point to ply us with whatever edible snacks he finds along the way, usually when he sees us panting away up through a stretch of steep trail. “Here, try this: wild ginger shoots, very good for fever. Oh and try this: like blueberries, except free.” He has the pizzazz of a supermarket salesman as he whips out his pocketknife to slice our found munchies. I nibble on them tentatively, not wanting to hurt Din’s feelings. My less-adventurous husband, just tosses them away. We end at the Canopy Walkway, a series of suspended bridges that forms a 510-meter-long canopy walk. When we reach it, we’re confronted with a long queue snaking around the ticket booth. “Boy Scout from Singapore scared of heights; not moving,” Din tells us with a chuckle. The wait is worth it. Once on the bridge, we’re rewarded by a spectacular view of the rich forest foliage, a sea of green that is home to more than 10,000 plant species. The lush scene comes with its own soundtrack: an orchestra of cicadas, cackling monkeys and, as a gentle breeze sweeps by, rustling leaves. I feel inconsequential as I look up and spot a yellowbeaked rhinoceros hornbill glide above the forest. For some though, walking along the narrow, rickety walkway proves harrowing. While undoubtedly an engineering feat when it was built in 1992, even the most delicate steps cause the bridges to sway. By the third bridge, a woman in front of me crouches down: “Mamma mia, I cannot do this any more.” I try to talk her through the rest of the walkway—“It is 100 percent safe;” “No one has been hurt before.” But as we climb up a creaky ladder suspended 45 meters above the ground, I waver and my legs begin to wobble. Eventually, we both make it to the end of the walkway. “I will never do this again in my life, never,” the woman tells me. My sense of inadequacy in the forest peaks when we visit an indigenous Bateq village, one of the friendlier Orang Asli riverside settlements in Taman Negara. There are more than 2,000 Orang Asli in Taman Negara, many leading a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle in small groups of around 40 people. The village we visit consists of six stilted huts of wood and leaves. It’s considered a modern village according to Din, because some of the Orang Asli here wear sarongs. More to the point, I spot an empty package of instant noodles on the ground. Still, it’s all a far cry from anything urban. A topless woman carves blowpipe darts, a man sporting a beer T-shirt busies himself by collecting wild yams and a naked baby is occupied with a bunch of twigs. 124 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

We then get a crash-course in jungle survival. The village chief’s sturdy 14-year-old son, Mangus, wields a menacing parang (knife) and hacks on a thick vine for its water. “Just in case you get lost in the jungle, you know where to get fresh water,” Din explains, followed by a hasty disclaimer that most vines in this forest are “very, very poisonous.” Mangus then starts a fire in a few minutes using bamboo leaves and twigs as fuel, putting any Boy Scout to shame. Finally, he shows us how to load a blowpipe with poison darts and uses it with amazing precision, debilitating a nearby dartboard. These demonstrations of their daily tasks now doubles as a stunt show for tourists. Din intuitively senses my displacement and tells me, “The forest is their home, not ours.” We opt to relax the next day on a boat trip along Tahan River to swim at Lata Berkoh waterfalls. “The ride there is just like the Tourism Malaysia television advertisement,” the hotel receptionist tells us. It turns out, she’s right. The trip is amazing. Grand Neram trees tower over the Tahan River to form a majestic green arch along the waterway, with ferns, mosses and orchids hanging from the trunks. Cruising along the heart of a rainforest, it is easy to lose all sense of time with the seemingly infinite spread of flora and fauna and the lulling sounds of gentle river streams. The only reminder of civilization is the whiff of diesel from the chugging outboard motor. Trudging up the 1.2-kilometer trail to the Lata Berkoh waterfalls, I chat with a German lady who, like me, is unaccustomed to the outdoor life and admits she is still getting used to her stiff hiking pants. “This is quite a hard swim to earn, isn’t it?” she asks me breathlessly, while clinging onto my shirtsleeve for balance. But 15 minutes later, as we approach the sound of falling water, she claps her hands in delight and bounds up the rocks. I feel like I’ve reached the Fountain of Youth, when a group of elderly tourists, who had been so lethargic trekking up suddenly transform into happy-go-lucky schoolkids at Lata Berkoh. Men somersault into the water, women giggle as the gentle water rapids tickle their backs. The real children, meanwhile ride the rapids. As I plunge into the cool, crisp water, it strikes me how swimming in a river is so much more invigorating than swimming in a pool. It’s an enchanting afternoon, a perfect end to our little adventure. Except for the elderly man screaming hysterically about the leech on Darren’s ankle, but that’s another story. A place like Taman Negara will always be alien to a city girl like me. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to wild boars gracing the hotel lobby or monkeys screeching at me to share my ice cream. But Taman Negara’s beauty has convinced me of one thing: I know I will be back here one day. ✚

A glimpse of Green

Clockwise from top left: A tree seed common on the forest floor; the view across Tembeling River toward Kuala Tahan; a boatman negotiates the shallows of the Tahan River; chalets at the Mutiara Resort; ferns are also common in this jungle.

Guide to TAMAN NEGARA GETTING THERE

Tahan; 60-9/266-3500; mutiara-

Kuala Tahan, the nearest town to

hotels.com; doubles from RM320.

Taman Negara, is a four-hour drive from Kuala Lumpur. After that, it’s

EAT

just a two-minute boat ride (RM1)

Agoh Island Café It’s difficult to

across to the national park. An

miss this tropical café, accessible

alternative, Kuala Tembeling, is a

only by boat, on a tiny island

3½-hour drive from the capital,

between Kuala Tahan town and

before a more scenic 2½-hour

the park. Dinner for two RM30.

cruise (RM100 round trip) along the river to reach Taman Negara.

SEE AND DO

Ping Anchorage (60-9/626-2020;

Taman Negara National Park

pinganchorage.com.my).

Visitors are required to get permits from the Department

STAY

of Wildlife and National Parks at

Mutiara Taman Negara The only

the entrance. 60-3/9086-6800;

resort located within Taman

wildlife.gov.my; admission RM1;

Negara National Park. Kuala

camera pass RM5.

Bukit Teresek Trail This is a basic forest route that most visitors will walk. It is about 2 kilometers from the park entrance and ends at Bukit Teresek, a 342-meter hill that has generous views of the surrounding forest.

Gunung Tahan This 2,187-meter

Canopy Walkway The 510-meter walkway is accessible via the Bukit Teresek Trail and is the highlight of any visit to the national park. A great spot for bird watching. Admission RM5.

entrance office to recommend

Gua Telinga Caves Crawl around this ear-shaped cave to spot assorted species of fruit bats with a torchlight. The caves are about 2.6 kilometers from Kuala Tahan.

mountain is the highest point in Peninsular Malaysia and it’s a good idea to hire a local guide for this challenging seven-day trek. Ask the rangers from Department of Wildlife and National Parks available local guides—it costs RM250 per day for a guide, but the total cost can be split among a group of 12. Lata Berkoh Waterfalls A great place for a scenic dip along Tahan River. It’s a 40-minute boat ride to go there from Kuala Tahan, followed by a 20-minute trek to get to the waterfalls.

travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 125

Florenceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Piazza della Signoria with the Neptune Fountain.

Renaiss

Some 500 years after the Medici left their mark here, a new generation of tastemakers and power brokers is breathing fresh life into Florenceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s old soul. Maria Shollenbarger reports on the welcome dose of contemporary culture thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reinvigorating this Tuscan city. Photographed by Oberto Gili

ance City

of the world’s more love-letter-inspiring cities. (For rather more accomplished paeans, please see Forster, Stendhal, Lawrence, Shelley. And you might also check D, for Dante.) Florence’s CV is virtually unmatched among destinations: it is the birthplace of modern poetry and merchant banking, the locus of a robust share of the most important architectural and artistic monuments of postmedieval times. In more recent ones, it has been a temporary home to an equally robust share of American college students, who come to immerse themselves in, and perhaps be irrevocably changed by, its cultural endowments and profligate, heart-constricting beauty. I was one of them; maybe you were, too. But whether you first see it at 18 or at 68, Florence tends to imprint itself on you in a series of visual mnemonics: the sedate, rosy curve of the Duomo; the sylvan fairness of Botticelli’s Primavera; the cypresses like black-ink brushstrokes on the hills near San Miniato—single components which, to paraphrase Walt Whitman (who, sadly for him, never laid eyes on this city), contain numinous multitudes. Definitely lovable. But is it livable? Or, more precisely: living? Alas, that is a more complex discourse. Milan is virtually defined by its relentlessly contemporary fashion industry. Rome is kept current by maintaining, after two-odd millennia, its status as a political seat. Even gloriously moribund Venice has conspired to focus the attention of the 21st century’s great and good on itself for a few months each year, with twinned Biennales of art and architecture and a film festival. But with mass tourism generally doing more damage than service to both its resources and reputation, and citizens feeling disenfranchised by a city they perceive to be managed more for visitors’ benefit than their own, Florence has run the risk of becoming a hostage of its own patrimony—a hermetically sealed monument to, well, its many monuments. Città d’arte, yes—and not much else. Change is in the air here, though. After reaching a collective sense of essere stufi (being fed up), citizens from across the spectrum are waking up to the potential of a Florence that’s more than simply the sum of its beautiful parts. They come from private and public sectors: civil servants, businesspeople and members of the founding families, along with artists, hoteliers and curators. All have a stake in moving the city forward along social, civic, commercial and cultural lines, with an aim of helping Florence recapture the title of contemporary hub, some six centuries after first holding it. Foremost among these agents of change is Matteo Renzi, Florence’s charismatic 36-year-old mayor, who took office in 128 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com

2009. It’s hard to think of another European politician who enjoys such uniform approval across such a broad demographic and partisan swath. (The enthusiasm with which he’s namechecked at both working-class bars around Piazza Savonarola and dinner tables presided over by scions with 900-year-old titles recalls the fairy-dusted cachet Obama possessed in his “Yes We Can” days.) “We’ve been a bit asleep to our own potential,” Renzi says when we meet one afternoon in late April in his magnificently frescoed office in the Palazzo Vecchio. “And also to one important imperative: you can’t organize a city like a museum. We have to create every opportunity for citizens to be engaged with and proud of [Florence]. As for the tourists, you have to give them more, and better, reasons to come back.” Renzi’s wide-ranging plan for improvements reflects his commitment to both groups. To wit: Via Tornabuoni and the Santo Spirito and Pitti piazzas became pedestrian zones in June, creating veins of calm in some of the city’s most congested sections. Millions of euros are being allocated to the rejuvenation of the Arno riverbanks and, next year, to the Cascine gardens at the western edge of the city. Museum programs and hours are being revised, with some institutions granting free admission on select days to residents and most remaining open until 11 p.m. once a month. This commenced last spring at the Palazzo Vecchio, with the nighttime circumnavigation of its walls, known as the camminamento di ronda, an instant hit (one that, Renzi notes, earned the city almost €11,900 in the three days prior to our meeting alone). And after an almost 20-year delay, the Firenze Card launched in March; it costs €50, is valid for three days, and covers 33 of the city’s most important museums. (By the end of this month, Gucci will add another to the city’s roster when it inaugurates a museum celebrating the history of its illustrious brand, in the Piazza della Signoria.) Then there is Le Murate, a 15th-century former monastery on the Via Ghibellina, which through public grants has reopened as an arts space comprising galleries, a café and administrative offices. The brainchild of town alderman for culture Giuliano da Empoli, Le Murate’s public areas go by the acronym SUC, for Spazi Urbani Contemporanei; the idea is for it to serve as a social nexus for emerging artists and those who are interested in them—Italian and international, local and tourist alike. Away from the Palazzo Vecchio and the official ministrations of civil servants, hoteliers and restaurateurs have tapped into a sense of the city’s elevated potential. Though most have strictly local roots, one notable opening by an American hotel »

model : sofie vee r en / t he fashion model managemen t

e may as well start by calling this what it is: a sort of love letter. It’s of course not the first penned to Florence, famously one

Private Gallery

The entrance of the Michele Bonanâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Â designed J. K. Place Firenze hotel, on the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella. Top by Prada; jeans, Raven Denim; shoes, Roger Vivier; bangles, Pono; bag, Fendi.

group constitutes a major vote of confidence. The St. Regis Florence made its debut in May on the site of the old Grand Hotel Firenze, in the Piazza d’Ognissanti. Some of its 100 rooms and suites fly (in tasteful fashion) the Medici-inspired flag of opulent silks and velvets in royal-ecclesiastical shades; others are rendered in a gorgeous muted palette. St. Regis is a hotel brand on a roll, and much strategy goes into the selection of its locations. Its arrival here is a direct result of what St. Regis brass is actually calling Florence’s “second Renaissance.” At Il Salviatino, just up the hill toward Fiesole, the traditional hospitality model is turned neatly on its head by a staff of Service Ambassadors—driver, butler, waiter, guide and concierge rolled into a single, nattily dressed individual. They’ve been met with mixed reviews, as has the hotel’s erratic décor: at times admirably tasteful (as in the beautiful doubleheight, wood-paneled library), at others less so (hanging oldmaster reproductions from metal chains, parallel to the ceiling in the restaurant, defies explanation). Thank goodness the terrace, with its sofas and views of the gardens, is a delight. Back in town, just off the Piazza della Repubblica, is a jewel, Palazzo Vecchietti: more residence than hotel, tailor-made for the creative classes seeking low-key live-work space and privacy. There’s no lounge or bar, but all rooms have stocked kitchens and working and sitting areas; and all are modern— the handiwork of designer Michele Bonan, whose imprimatur of artfully contained flamboyance is instantly recognizable. Bonan also designed J. K. Place Firenze, the boutique hotel on the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella that, after eight years,

New Classics

From left: Inside the Luisa Via Roma boutique; Mayor Matteo Renzi in his office at the Palazzo Vecchio. Opposite, clockwise from top left: Inside the new St. Regis Florence, housed in a 15th-century palazzo; the hotel’s main entrance, on Piazza d’Ognissanti (dress and pants by Giorgio Armani; shoes, Barbara Briones; bag, Marc Jacobs); chef Nicolò Baretti at IO Osteria Personale.

continues to evolve. Its cocreator, Ori Kafri, is a sharp 34-yearold entrepreneur with his hands in, among other things, publishing and art galleries. J. K.’s well-connected general manager, Claudio Meli, launched Bravo Concierge service in 2007 so he could finesse clients’ time in Italy beyond their J. K. Place stay. On any given evening one might find a small crosssection of the city’s art, fashion, media and business worlds commingling in the hotel’s living room and restaurant; on Sundays at lunchtime, the terrace proliferates with friends and families. With its alchemy of ease and style, exclusivity and openness, the hotel has become a Florence institution—one that’s spreading, with an outpost in Capri, a planned opening in Rome in late 2012, and aspirations to launch projects in London, New York City and Tel Aviv. IO Osteria Personale, on the Borgo San Frediano, by contrast, opened just months ago, but it already has the feel of an institution in the making. Owner Matteo Fantini studied and practiced veterinary medicine, but dreamed for years of starting a restaurant. So last December, enlisting 23-year-old chef Nicolò Baretti, he did just that. IO organizes its menu by primary ingredient (meat, fish, vegetables) rather than by course. Fantini, who chats happily with diners for half an hour at a time, draws whimsical art naïf deconstructions of the day’s dishes onto chalkboards above the sparsely elegant table settings. The facile presentation is in winking contrast to the sophistication of the food: whole pigeon embellished with smoked pig’s cheek; delicate warm seafood salad served with minced panzanella and asparagus gelato.

About a kilometer down the river in San Niccolò there’s a sliver of storefront marked zeb, outside of which a line forms most days around noon. Inside, Giuseppina and Alberto Navari, mother and son, prepare dishes of simple rustic perfection the way they’ve probably been prepared for a hundred years. It’s the space itself—white, conspicuously designed, equal parts chic diner and fancy urban food emporium—that startles, given that this food is more often paired with scuffedwood shelving, dusty Chianti flasks and rickety tables. Instead, customers perch on chrome-and-kidskin stools and point to what they want behind the glass-and-steel counter; and while Alberto pours a nice something from Bolgheri or Montecucco, Giuseppina, with a lambent smile like a benediction, serves up polpettine, lampredotto and carciofi. Not that there’s no room in this evolution for tradition of the most established, proto-Florentine sort. Some of the city’s oldest winemaking families—the Frescobaldis and Antinoris, Mazzeis and Ricasolis, Corsinis and Incisa della Rocchettas— collaborated with IMG Artists last year to launch Divino Tuscany, an ultra-exclusive annual wine festival. The four-day event saw guests from 17 countries sample prized vintages from the region’s top producers. There were private concerts, tours and lavish dinners at family palaces around the city. The weekend culminated in a party hosted by Sting and Trudie Styler at Il Palagio, their estate in Figline Valdarno, just 45 minutes outside the city—a hot ticket also attended (and, in a few amusing cases, crashed) by a nice representation of Florentine society. » travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 131

Florence, Past & Present

Kitchen-side dining at the restaurant Ora d’Aria. Model’s top by Piazza Sempione; skirt and boots, Prada; ring, De Petra. Opposite: The Numen/For Use collective’s Tape Florence installation, in the Palazzo Strozzi courtyard.

But if you were to canvass the locals at any of these settings as to the most conspicuously successful manifestation of a putative New Florence, many would point you in the direction of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi. Created in 2006, the FPS has in five years hosted a clutch of exhibitions that have earned international praise; last fall’s Bronzino retrospective—the most comprehensive to date of the Mannerist painter’s work— garnered unprecedented attendance and requests from major American and European museums to host it. Here, in the courtyard café of the imposing 15th-century Strozzi family palace that houses the foundation, you’re likely to find James Bradburne, the FSP’s tall, dandy, fifty-something AngloCanadian director, holding an impromptu meeting in a fluent Italian-English mix or simply observing the ebb and flow of visitors though the massive twinned double doors. “This place used to be closed to the public when there wasn’t an exhibition on; there were no plants, no café, no shop,” Bradburne notes. “Now it’s open all the time, and it’s a living building. It gets 25,000 visitors a week. And we aren’t even targeting tourists.” The FPS is an Italian experiment in institutional management. Its board of directors represents both the public and private sectors; among them are Florence’s museums superintendent Cristina Acidini and hotelier Rocco Forte. “We have a lot more freedom,” Bradburne says. “The board tends to say ‘yes’ rather than ‘no.’ There’s a level of transparency and immediacy that’s”—he smiles—“not typically Italian.” He says he was given two clear mandates. “One: Bring internationalcaliber exhibitions to Florence. As it happens, we don’t bring them here, we produce them here. Two: Give the palazzo back to the Florentines.” “It needed someone as bright as James to make it happen,” says Leonardo Ferragamo one morning at his headquarters, in the Palazzo Spini-Feroni. Besides holding various executive positions within his family’s company and chairing Lungarno Hotels, Ferragamo is president of the Associazione Partners Palazzo Strozzi, one of the FPS’s founding entities—and, as such, one of Bradburne’s bosses. “This started five years ago because of our frustration with Florence not doing its best in terms of managing its assets,” he said. “It piqued the pride of certain among us, enough so we finally acted.” The FPS is also home to the Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina. To run this gallery, Bradburne enlisted Franziska Nori, a former director of Frankfurt’s Museum for Applied Art, who has made CCCS a showcase for topically provocative, intelligent exhibitions that have moved contemporary art from relative obscurity to near the forefront of Florence’s public cultural offerings—significant for a city in a constant struggle to escape from under the shadow of the Renaissance it spawned. “The goal [of FPS] is to be a contemporary institution in a Renaissance city,” Bradburne says. “One doesn’t negate the other. The backdrop is the inspiration.” It remains a delightfully inescapable backdrop. Across the river, below the brushstroke cypresses surrounding San Miniato, is the 14th-century San Niccolò tower, the southeast-

ern entry to Florence during its golden age. On July 1, after a 40-year closure and a €280,000 restoration effort, it was reopened to the public as part of Mayor Renzi’s improvements program. Stairs lead to its 45-meter summit, where one can gaze over the entire city. The view isn’t terribly dissimilar to the one enjoyed from nearby Piazzale Michelangelo. All the monuments, all the familiar landmarks are spread out below— bathed in the same pellucid sunshine, cradled in the same gentle hills. It’s still the Florence we all know and love, but amazing how a small change of perspective can make it seem just a bit different, somehow new. ✚

Guide to Florence STAY GREAT VALUE Casa Howard Florence Guest House 18 Via della Scala; 39-06/6992-4555; casahoward.com; doubles from €127.

Il Salviatino 21 Via del Salviatino, Fiesole; 39-055/904-1111; salviatino.com; doubles from €505. J. K. Place Firenze 7 Piazza di Santa Maria Novella; 39-055/ 264-5181; jkplace.com; doubles from €350. Palazzo Vecchietti 4 Via degli Strozzi; 39-055/230-2802, palazzovecchietti.com; doubles from €529. St. Regis Florence 1 Piazza d’Ognissanti; 39-055/27161; stregis.com; doubles from €571.

in wildly creative ways. 11R Via dei Georgofili; 39-055/200-1699; dinner for two €117.

Villa San Michele This timelessly elegant Fiesole stalwart is more than keeping up with the competition. 4 Via Doccia, Fiesole; 39-055/567-8200; villasanmichele.com; doubles from €860.

Zeb 2R Via San Miniato; 39-055/ 234-2864; lunch for two €37. ShopFlair The best spot for Italian design inspiration. 6R Piazza Carlo Goldoni, 39-055/267-0154. Luisa Via Roma A Florence classic that’s been recently renovated, with Felice Limosani as creative consultant. 19/21R Via Roma; 39-055/906-4116.

EAT Il Santo Bevitore An elevated interpretation of the trattoria, this new two-room restaurant is always packed. 64/66R Via di Santo Spirito; 39-055/211-264; dinner for two €63.

SEE AND DO Cascine Gardens Via delle Cascine; no phone.

’ino There’s no better place to pop in for an expertly executed panino and a glass of red from a boutique producer. 3R Via dei Georgofili; 39-055/219-208; lunch for two €13.

Divino Tuscany For more information on next year’s event, to be held in May, visit divino tuscany.com.

IO Osteria Personale 167R Borgo San Frediano; 39-055/933-1341; dinner for two €78. Ora d’Aria On a tiny lane in the shadow of the Uffizi, chef Marco Stabile gathers traditional ingredients and reimagines them

Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi/ Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina Piazza degli Strozzi; 39-055/277-6461. Le Murate Piazza della Madonna della Neve; lemurate.comune.fi.it. San Niccolò Tower Piazza Giuseppe Poggi.

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At the Niaosong Wetland Park. Opposite: The view across Kaohsiung Harbor from Cijin Islandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lighthouse.

GreenDreams

If you think Kaohsiung isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t an obvious choice when it comes to green urban settings, then you need to visit Taiwanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new and revamped second city. By Robyn Eckhardt P hotog r aphe d by Davi d hage r man

n a muggy morning in June, Kaohsiung Cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Love River

estuary hums with activity. From their seats at tables along the riverside, bleary-eyed locals nurse iced lattes and watch a parade of perspiring runners, stroller-pushing families and couples leading pooches with painted nails on faux-jewelled leashes. Chinese tourists sporting wide-brimmed sun visors wait at jetties on both banks to board pleasure boats and in front of the blocky structure housing the Kaohsiung Film Archive a group of middle-aged fisherman in shorts and singlets cast lines and compare catches. Near the mouth of the river, bicyclists buzz back and forth over Kaohsiung Bridge. Retirees practice tai chi on a timber platform jutting over Love Pier, with the sculptural forms of the portâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s container cranes as a backdrop. It is the sort of weekend tableau that residents of water-embracing cities like Sydney, Seattle and Stockholm take for granted. But only a decade ago, it would have been unimagineable in this urban center, now officially known as Kaohsiung City, in the southwest of Taiwan.

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Facing the Taiwan Straits and blessed with a large natural harbor, Kaohsiung comes with its own baggage. Early in the twentieth century it was targeted by the Japanese for development as an industrial powerhouse, a policy continued after World War II by the Kuomintang. But it paid a price. By the end of the 90’s the city was one of Asia’s most polluted, its air and waterways sullied by the emissions and effluents of more than 6,000 factories. Industrial runoff and raw sewage had rendered Love River, which slices through the heart of the city, lifeless. Landfills dotted the cityscape, green space was near nonexistent and the harbor, home to a busy container port, was off-limits to its residents. Not the stuff of a dream vacation. “The sky was almost always gray, we hardly ever saw the sun. And the river stank,” remembers Lin Kunhai, who heads up the non-governmental Kaohsiung Wild Bird Society (KWBS). But over the last decade Kaohsiung has undergone a remarkable transformation, from blighted metropolis to regional exemplar of ecologically sustainable urban development. The statistics are impressive: Kaohsiung City’s latest Pollution Standard Index is less than a third of what it was when measurements first began in the early 90’s. By 2010, the city had twice as much parkland per capita as Taipei. Today, it has more than 225 kilometers of bike paths. Taiwan’s second largest city also lays claim to a series of sustainability firsts including the country’s first ecologically friendly sports stadium, built for the 2009 World Games (an international event for sports not contested in the Olympics). The roof of the futuristic egg-shaped structure, designed by Japanese architect Toyo Ito, is lined with solar panels that generate a whopping 1.1 million kilowatts of power a year. Kaohsiung was the first Taiwanese city to introduce solarpowered cruise boats (on the Love River), initiate an urban bike-rental system, and construct urban wetlands (starting with Niaosong Wetlands Park, which opened in the city’s northeast in 2000). In June, in a bid to encourage factories to lower their emissions by upgrading to clean technology, it became the first Taiwanese city to implement the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s air pollution quota control system. As a result, Kaohsiung City has become eminently liveable: one survey named it among the world’s top 100 cities for quality of life, up there with the likes of Madrid and Chicago.

appy Kaohsiung” is a phrase you’ll hear often when

speaking with city leaders. What began as a campaign slogan—one that propelled a Green Party (as Taiwan’s opposition Democratic People’s Party, or DPP is known) candidate to mayoral victory for the first time, in 1998—has become a quality-of-life mantra for the string of Green Party mayors who have overseen Kaohsiung’s reinvention since the DPP took over. Then, environmental awareness was at an all-time high; the Kyoto Protocol was adopted just two weeks prior to the election. For an administration determined to take industrial Kaohsiung in a new direction, green and clean presented an obvious alternative path. That switch to a green city first looked towards the water. The aim was to reconnect Kaohsiung with its river and harbor. The city invested in sewage-treatment facilities, ramped up efforts to increase connectivity to the municipal sewage system and devised ways to encourage industries to reduce the amount of effluents flowing into Love River and its connected canals, many of which were so rank that they a city transformed had been covered in concrete. The river’s rebirth is apparent with From top: Toyo Ito’s eco-friendly World the reappearance of fish and other aquatic species in its waters, Games Stadium; more than 50 at last count. Residents now flock to river promenades art along the harbor’s bike path; and nearby parks for recreation and relaxation, river cruises have seating built for become a must for sightseers, and every other year for three days two near the Love River. Opposite: in June thousands of visitors from around the world gather on the A cleaner skyline for Love River’s banks and bridges for dragon boat races. » modern Kaohsiung. travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 137

From Love Pier, at the mouth of the river, ferries depart for the short trip to Cijin Island, a narrow spit of land popular for its seafood restaurants. From Cijin’s ferry station you can rent a bike and cruise its southern coast along more than 15 kilometers of bike paths before stopping in Cihou town to snack on grilled squid and visit Cihou Temple, dedicated to Mazu and Kaohsiung’s oldest at almost 440 years. A timber plank walking trail constructed over shoals at Cijin’s western tip leads to a path uphill to Cihou Lighthouse, built by the Japanese in 1916, and a Qing dynasty era, British engineered red brick fort. Both offer sweeping views west over Kaohsiung Harbor and on to the Taiwan Straits, where fishing boats mingle with slow-moving freighters. Kaohsiung is home to the world’s sixth-largest cargo container seaport, but that hasn’t stopped its current administration from putting harborside real estate to use for residents’ benefit—the Green Party, says the bird society’s Lin, has “opened up the boundary between the harbor and the public.” The difference a decade can make is apparent to hometown boy Lee Tsung-Lin, an architect who returned to Kaohsiung in 2009 after 10 years studying and working abroad. He now works for the city’s Public Works Bureau. “Kaohsiung has become a city with open spaces, a city where people can walk,” Lee says, citing for special praise urban renewal taking place along the harborfront. From Love Pier it’s a pleasant walk or bike ride along the water to Pier 2, a collection of exhibit areas, artists’ workshops, museums and performance spaces occupying a cluster of formerly decaying warehouses at the edge of the city’s freighter supplies district. Weekends find kids clambering over the undulating timber-slat wave sculpture that dominates Pier 2’s Arts Plaza as the beat of a pop band’s drums seep through the doors of the adjacent Moonlight Theater. Vendors sell peanut- and sugar-dusted ice cream spring rolls from tiny carts in front of the Museum of Labor, art lovers and shoppers drift in and out of a warehouse containing revolving exhibits and a boutique and café, and everyone poses for photographs with mod-painted statues of bulbous human forms dotted throughout the complex’s grounds. More plans to enhance the city’s harbor frontage are afoot. Over the next half decade, Kaohsiung will cut a path through its container port to create a “blue transport system” incorporating Love River and its canals—one of which, Canal 2, has been cleaned up and beautified with landscaping and five bridges uniting neighborhoods on opposite banks. An Exhibition and Convention Center and Marine Culture and Pop Music Center will rise beside the harbor, and a dedicated terminal will welcome large cruise ships.

mong Asia’s greener cities Kaohsiung is unique for its

construction of wetlands, dense areas of water-supported vegetation that absorb carbon dioxide, attract birds, butterflies and other animals, capture floodwater run-off, and serve as incubators for environmental awareness among the public. You might say it all started with a sexually confused bird. In the mid-nineties a 10-year-old bird-watching enthusiast spotted a Urban animals pheasant-tailed jacana—a large, mostly black and white bird with a From top: Exercising on a distinctive yellow patch on the back of its neck and an extravagantly platform jutting swooped tail that feeds and breeds in marshy areas—skimming the over the harbor; urban symmetry; surface of a water chestnut field on the city’s northwest edge. snapping pheasantAlthough Kaohsiung county was once a favorite habitat of the tailed jacanas at Zhou-zai Wetland species, whose polygamous female members defend multiple nests Park. Opposite, while males incubate eggs and care for the young, it had been years clockwise from top left: A dog has its since anyone saw a breeding pair. day near the Love Alerted to the jacana’s reappearance, the bird society partnered River; the Zhou-zai Wetland Park; odd with national non-governmental organization Wetlands Taiwan to sculptures at Pier 2; lobby the city government to abandon its plan to fill in the water » the pier’s Arts Plaza.

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field for a for a traditional park with clipped lawns and flowering shrubs to be replaced with the seasons and construct a wetland around it instead. Zhou-zai Wetland Park opened in 2003. Within earshot of the rail line and bordered by a busy stretch of highway, the 10-hectare triangle is truly an urban oasis, full- and part-time home to more than 130 non-migratory and migratory bird species. On a steamy Saturday, Lin and I met KWBS research assistant Chuck Hung and Robin Hsieh—the aforementioned pint-size jacana spotter, now a university student—at Zhou-zai’s back gate. After a caretaker let us in (park managers close the park every other weekend to give the birds a break from human traffic) we followed a grassy path to the northern edge of the jacana’s habitat, an expanse of water one-third blanketed by saucer-shaped water chestnut leaves and lily pads sprouting magenta blooms. The water lilies are a compromise that goes against KWBS’s preference for plant diversification within the wetlands, Lin told me, introduced to supplement the short-lived water chestnut as breeding and feeding area for the jacana. They’ve done their job. Within minutes Hsieh and Hung spied a male bird near the opposite bank pecking about the floating vegetation in search of food. “The pheasant-tailed jacana can be found easily elsewhere in Southeast Asia, so its disappearance from Kaohsiung said there was a real problem with our environment,” notes Hung, who leads birding tours in his spare time. “Its return says things are slowly getting better.” The proliferation of wetlands within Kaohsiung represents a profound change of thinking on the part of public works planners. Before, says Lin, “the government considered them as wastelands.” Now Zhou-zai, Niaosong and 10 other wetlands form a semi-connected corridor running north to south through the city, protected by a wetlands conservation declaration signed in 2007 by the current mayor. In July, the Kaohsiung government indicated further commitment to wetlands development by signing on as a participant in an international biodiversity project administered by Germany’s International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives. Altogether Kaohsiung City now boasts more than 770 hectares of open space, including Central Park, a city block–size expanse of rolling hills, ponds and shady paths patrolled by policemen on horseback. On Kaohsiung’s outskirts at the end of June, 2,000 additional hectares of land around the remnants of an 18th-century city wall and popular hiking spot Shousan Mountain were declared a National Nature Park.

robably the best way to appreciate the depth and breadth

of Kaohsiung’s eco-metamorphosis is on two wheels. Three years ago the city introduced an urban bike rental scheme called C-Bike, comprising 4,500 sturdy three-speeds parked at 50 credit card-friendly, self-service stations scattered across the city. Taking advantage of the city’s more than 225 kilometers of bike paths, C-bike complements an admirable public transport network that includes a two line Mass Rail Transit system that opened in 2008 (two more lines will open by 2013) and an enlarged and upgraded fleet of buses running on a mixture of biofuel and gasoline. Early one Sunday I celebrate the end of a solid week of rain by great outdoors From top: The old sliding one of the grass-green, basket-equipped “iron horses,” as city wall near residents call them, out of its stable near Zhou-zai wetland. For Shoushan Mountain; bike paths are hours I ride east and then south to the harbor, avoiding cyclistclearly marked; at unfriendly thoroughfares by pedalling up and over several recently Zhou-zai Wetland Opposite from completed overpasses. Beneath a canopy of shade trees paralleling a Park. top: Biking along stretch of train track I briefly join a gaggle of bike enthusiasts the harbor between Love Pier and ranging in age from teenagers to those in their mid-sixties. I whiz by Pier 2; a mural at apartment blocks and small-scale workshops, old temples and » Pier 2’s Arts Plaza. travelandleisureasia.com | october 2011 141

The glassed-in Formosa Station, above. Below: On the Love River. Opposite: Managing local traffic.

tile-roofed brick houses, and the entrance to 11.5-hectare Chong Du, the city’s newest wetland park, which opened in 2010. Zipping over Kaohsiung Bridge and past a packed Pier 2, I reach the old train switching yard, now a sea of grass and site of an interactive railway museum. (Kaohsiung is rerouting 18 kilometers of railway tracks underground and converting them to bike paths, with a 2017 completion date.) After snaking through the Gushan neighborhood, known for its mango-ice outlets and site of another terminal for ferries to Cijin Island (bicycles allowed), I end up beached at Siziwan, a sandy spot in front of National Sun Yat-sen University that’s a favorite with sunset watchers. These days Kaohsiung Harbor smells like seawater and the only gray marring the skies are the typhoon-season clouds. But the city government isn’t resting on its laurels; there’s much work to be done. Lin and others like him would like to see more resources devoted to wetland construction, a commitment to natural plantings and diversification within even non-wetland public parks, and cooperation between Kaoshiung’s corporate sector and environmentalists. Lee the architect hopes for a bus network extensive enough to entirely eliminate his need for a car and the creation of more public gathering spaces like Pier 2. And Wu Hong Mo, director general of the city’s Public Works Bureau, is looking for ways to change minds about public transport. Although MRT ridership is up, the system has yet to turn a profit. C-Bike is also a money loser. “We need to find a way to get more people out of their cars and off of their motor scooters,” he says. Yet it’s difficult to overstate the strides that this former industrial wasteland has made towards eco-sustainability: the Kaohsiung of today would have been unimaginable to residents of the city 20 years ago. Says Wu, “From the appearance of Kaohsiung, from its environment, and from the life we have here now—you can see the changes.” ✚

Guide to Kaohsiung Stay T Hotel The stylishly renovated hotel boasts comfy beds, a stupendous breakfast and a great location, near Central Park and the the Formosa MRT Station. 177 Tatung 1st Rd.; 886-7/231-2141; t-hotel.com.tw; doubles from NT$1,880. Grand Hi-Lai There are generously sized rooms, some with expansive harbor views, as well as a dozen restaurants and cafes and a swimming pool. 266 Cheng-Kung 1st Rd.; 886-7/2161766; grand-hilai.com.tw; doubles from NT$8,100. Eat and Drink The Wood House The wait for a table here is justified by its fresh seafood. Everything is good, especially milkfish fillets griddled to a crisp, deep-fried whitebait, oyster soup and sashimi. Mu Wu; 151 Da Zhi Rd.; no phone; dinner for two NT$350. Mi Gou The shop specializes in poached milkfish, fish balls, meat balls, and rice topped with tasty stewed pork. Order water spinach or seasonal leafy green

vegetable digua to accompany your meal. 107 Da Ren Rd.; no phone; lunch for two NT$300. The Coffee Lady Across the street from the bike path that runs along the eastern bank of the Love River, this friendly family-run kiosk makes a great stop for iced tea and snacks. G/F, 272 Tong Ming 3rd Rd.; 886-7/ 323-2019; tea and snacks for two NT$40. Zhonghua Dian Siphon-brewed coffee is the caffeine delivery vehicle of choice at this old-style shop, across from Central Park. 23/2 Zhonghua 3rd Rd.; 886-7/215-1340; coffee for two NT$30. Kaohsiung Milk King Papaya milk is a local specialty and here you’ll find the richest, tastiest version. 65-5 Zhonghua 3rd Rd.; 886-7/ 282-3636; papaya milk for two NT$40. Liuhe Night Market Not Kaohsiung’s biggest night market but probably its best in terms of quality. Liuhe 2nd Rd. between Zhongshan 1st Rd. and Zhili 2nd Rd.; 6 p.m.-1 a.m.).

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Do Tourist Information Center Make this your first stop for city, Cijin Island and bike path maps and info on goings-on around town in Chinese and English. Minsheng 2nd Rd. at Hedong Rd. Love River Cruises Thirty-minute solar-powered cruises depart from a jetty steps from the Tourist Information Office. 4 p.m.-11 p.m.; NT$80 per person. Cijin Island Ferries to the island depart from Gushan Ferry Terminal (Binhai 2nd Rd.; 5;15 a.m.-2 a.m.; NT$15 per person). On weekends and public holidays there are ferries from Love Pier (11 a.m.-9:30 p.m.; NT$15 per person) to Cijin fishing port, in the middle of the island. C-Bikes Bikes can be rented from and returned to any one of 50 self-service stations around

the city. There is a staffed rental station at Love Pier. NT$30 for the first half hour, NT$20 for each subsequent half hour. 886-7/973-1036. Pier 2 A single ticket buys admission to everything going on at Pier 2, which is liveliest on weekends. 1 Dayong Rd.; 886-7/ 531-7181; Tuesdays-Sundays, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; NT$199 for one person, NT$369 for two. Niaosong Wetland Park The Kaohsiung Wild Bird Society offers free educational tours at the park (although only in Chinese) almost every Sunday. 886-7/236-1872; kwbs.org.tw. The society’s research assistant Chuck Hung (886-929/013-971; helapiz@gmail.com; from US$150 per day) offers eye-opening birdwatching excursions in Kaohsiung and elsewhere in western Taiwan.

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lastlook

Franklin River, Tasmania “In Tasmania, the air is crisp and the water clean. There are no crowds. Through the middle of this wild land flows the Franklin River. The journey along the 110-kilometer corridor of water is one of the finest river trips in the world. I first became aware of the river as a teenager when it rose to national significance because of plans to dam it for hydro power. There was a very public campaign to save the river. Ultimately, it was the images showing the beauty of the place that galvanized community support for its protection. The river has become an icon for eco tourism. For me the Franklin is a gift. I have traveled its length many times. It is a place where life slows and there is time for wonder. This photograph reminds me of how I feel when I’m there—renewed by the river and ready to head through the gap and back to the real world. Isn’t that what adventure and travel are all about?” ✚ p h o t o g r a p h e r m at t h ew n ew t on • interviewed by christopher kucway 144 october 2011 | travelandleisureasia.com