October 2013

Southeast asia

OCTOBER 2013

green issue:

journeys with meaning

50 LIFETIME TRIPS OF A

Asia’s Spas

Rubbed the Right Way

Cambodia focuses

on its future

Hong Kong’s New Heyday Australia’s Northern Territory:

This is no mirage

71 9 771906 082018

Singapore S$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

Volume 07 / Issue 10

Contents

October 2013 Aerial view of the West MacDonnell Ranges, Australia, page 110.

Features

d a vi d h a n c o c k

94 Hong Kong Now Can a 21st-century megacity retain its soul? pe t er jon lin dberg finds a dynamic group reimagining the city’s landscape with a nod to its past. pho t ogr a phed by a da m fr iedberg . m a p a n d gu ide page 103 104 360° Spas Our modern relaxation centers have their roots in places to seek natural cures. So, we’d like to hat-tip a few of the region’s practitioners who go above and beyond for their communities and the

environment, help keep ancient traditions alive, or insist on tackling your troubles via mind, body and soul—the full circle. by j en in n e lee - st . joh n a n d r ich a r d mcleish

110 A Brutal and Beautiful Expanse In Australia’s vast Northern Territory, benjamin law tells a tale of kangas and camels who roam the white-hot sands, grazing at watering holes and in the shadow of a great rock. Go on and rub your eyes—this isn’t a

mirage. photographed by david hancock . map and guide page 117 118 50 Dream Trips Destinations on the wish lists of T+L readers, some well-traveled New Yorkers and our very own editors. edit ed by jacqu elin e giffor d a n d brook e p ort er

136 Paying It Forward For more travelers, voluntourism is providing better vacation memories than screensaver snaps of

beaches and temples ever could. by ca in n u n ns . illustr at ed by wasin ee ch a n ta kor n

142 Steppes in Time In a coming-of-age Kazakhstan, flowing oil has funded a topsy-turvy new capital, but there are still plenty of nomads sleeping in yurts. m er r it t gu r le y returns to a childhood home to sunbathe on mountains, take in some extreme architecture and ride horses. gu ide page 150

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Contents

33 Responsible Retreats loren braunohler takes a look at hotel chains making a difference.

34 Here Comes the Sun Bangkok’s Phra Athit Road is where hipsters and in-the-know flashpackers mingle. by sylvia gavin 62 Scrappy Fashion A young entrepreneur in Manila has revitalized one of the city’s poorest communities. by niña terol - zialcita

Plus Digital postcards; sea turtle preservation; insider Taipei; a Vietnamese designer’s hymns to beauty; and more.

Trip Doctor

73 Packing The cutest, coolest, comfiest flats for your upcoming trip.

76

T+L’s Guide to Trekking, Walking & Hiking We give you a region-by-region plan for your next great adventure.

88 The Fix What edible souvenirs can you bring back from your travels?

90 Deals An all-star tour of New Zealand; a Maldivian escape; a Bangkok spa vacation; and more.

Plus Vacation homestays; traveling with food allergies; and more.

Decoder 152 San Francisco A culinary scene to rival any other city, eye-popping design and a laid-back, outdoorsy ethos are just three reasons to visit San Francisco right now. jaime gillin takes a tour.

Departments 16 18 … i n b o x 2 0

e d i t o r ’s n o t e

contr ibu tors

26 Sustainable Style A fashion revolution is poised to put Hong Kong on the map for designs that are as green as they are gorgeous. by helen dalley

14 …

On the Cover An afternoon in the Yu Garden, Shanghai. Photographer: Philipp Engelhorn; dress designer: Han Feng; model: Zhang Ting.

photographed by alanna hale

Last Look

158 Shangri-la China’s renamed Zhongdian County, in northwestern Yunnan, stakes its claim as paradise on earth. photographed by luke duggleby

Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse, page 25.

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t r av e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a .c o m

shane chalker

Radar

dest i nat ions

Destinations

October 2013 123 142

sa n f r a nc isco

k a z a kh sta n

152 bh uta n

58

158

s h a n g ri-l a 94

hon g kon g

106

n or th e r n te rritory

110

destination

page

when to go

what US$5 buys

who to follow

Bhutan

58

The country’s never overrun with tourists, but avoid traveling between June and August in order to skip monsoon season

A hearty plate of ema datshi— chili peppers covered with local cheese—one of Bhutan’s most popular national dishes

@tourismbhutan

Hong Kong

94

October to December are generally mild and sunny, ideal weather to be outdoors

A skewer of chicken yakitori at the perpetually popular Yardbird

@HK_Magazine

Kazakhstan

142

Temperatures are brutally hot in summer and freezing in winter. Aim for spring (April and May) or fall (September and October) for the mildest weather

A shot of Russian vodka at the swank Sky Bar in Astana

@kazakhstanlive

Northern Territory

110

The desert’s always hot, but temperatures are less scorching between May and August

A bottle of insect repellent—an absolute necessity in this area

@AusOutbackNT

San Francisco

152

San Francisco’s cooler months are infamous for foggy, gray days. The city comes to life from May to August (but, still, bring a sweater for the brisk nights)

A one-way ticket on one of the city’s iconic cable cars

@onlynsf

Shangri-la

158

Yunnan’s climate is generally mild, but avoid traveling during Chinese holidays such as National Day in the beginning of October and Spring Festival in February to avoid crowds

A donation to Songzhalin monastery

@topchinatravel

Long Weekend

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Beach

Active

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Food+Drink

Shopping

Arts+Culture

Editor’s Note

where to find me chrisk@mediatransasia.com @CKucway on Twitter

One Step Beyond

G

iven a chance to think about it, most of us want our trips to be life changing.

Expanding our horizons, both in the literal and figurative sense, is one of the better results of any vacation. That’s something one of the main characters in our look at voluntourism (“Paying it Forward,” page 136) discovered when in Japan two years ago. An unexpected turn of events—the 2011 tsunami —turned him from a casual visitor into a proponent of doing volunteer work while on vacation. His travels now center on helping others in any number of locales around the world. What he gains from the experiences should inspire the rest of us to do something similar.

Another inspirational figure is documentary filmmaker Kalyanee Mam, who shares her insights on visiting modern-day Cambodia and how she thinks we can and should travel more responsibly (“Capturing Cambodia,” page 30). It’s a candid and concise conversation, one not to miss.

The idea of expanding your own horizons appears throughout our annual Green Issue. Brisbane author Benjamin Law did so on a journey to Australia’s Outback (“A Brutal and Beautiful Expanse,” page 110). Noting that most visitors down under tend to see the country’s shores and little else, Law was astounded by the stark, unforgiving and unforgettable landscape of Australia’s interior. He was out of his comfort zone and loving it.

Of course, these revelatory journeys are rarely a simple weekend getaway. Instead, they tend to fall into longer breaks.

That’s where “50 Dream Trips” (page 118) fits into the equation so well. Whether you’re a foodie, a history buff or simply yearning for a buff at a spa, there’s a journey here for you. After reading the section, and filling out the checklist of where you would love to visit, put the magazine down and set some time aside in the coming year to make those dreams a reality.— chr istopher k uc way

At Preah Khan, in Cambodia.

our next stops

Auckland Bombay

Antarctica Hawaii

The T+L Code 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.

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t r av e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a .c o m

Contributors

Helen Dalley

Richard Mcleish

Cain Nunns

what sets green style apart in hong kong?

The new breed of ecofashion designers offer items like Aman Cheung’s quirky upside-down jumpsuit that doubles as a dress and Eric Wong’s futuristic metallic looks, and are more fashionforward than the mostly classic pieces worn by label-obsessed Hong Kongers. covet-worthy I’m eagerly awaiting Niin’s latest jewelry collection, which incorporates petrified wood. best neighborhood for style-watching Mongkok, where the hip kids flutter around fashion malls in shorts and Dr. Marten boots. Nowhere else is more youthful and on-trend. where are we going shopping? The recently opened Top Shop for high-street Brit style, or locally owned Initial for quirky dresses and wear-with-anything jackets.

how can you tell if a property is truly green or just paying lip service? A quick peek behind the scenes of a hotel’s restaurant kitchen can be telling in terms of their garbage and waste food policy. so how’s soneva kiri in that department? When I learned they were raising their own earthworms to help compost food scraps, I knew they weren’t messing around. spa treatments deep in the trees Getting rubbed with oil in the middle of the jungle brings out the Tarzan in everyone. have you been following the ayurvedic doctor’s advice? I’ve been working on my moon bathing, but such nocturnal activities seem to have side effects.

define voluntourism The practice of travelers giving up their time, and often money, to partake in an organized civicengagement opportunity. some of the cooler options? I’m a fan of the well-researched and established programs for professionals—doctors, lawyers, journalists, IT or whatever—that make a tangible difference to communities, as opposed to a great cocktail party story about teaching English for a week in a monastery. where’s the industry going? It’s a large growth segment that isn’t really understood by the academics yet. Research will increase. I think at some point, the call for greater regulation or at least sustainability guidelines will be adopted, so people who do want to help have signposts to guide the way.

Writer “360o Spas,” (page 104).

Writer “Paying It Forward,” (page 136).

‘Getting rubbed with oil in the middle of the jungle brings out the Tarzan in everyone.’

—richard mcleish

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

Writer “Sustainable Style,” (page 26).

Inbox

La Dolce Vita “The Beach, Italian Style” [July] was great—I loved Devin Friedman’s sense of humor. I know Liguria well and travel there frequently, but was not aware of the little town of Camogli, which he vividly described. Thanks to his references, I’m planning to visit during my next trip there.

Walter Bonora denver , colorado

Big in Japan

Airport Amenities

I read “Bone Soup: An Obsession” [September] with gusto but was puzzled by the writer’s claim that “Japan doesn’t have a culture of street food.” This is simply untrue.

Among the delights of more than a dozen years of living in and traveling throughout Japan, the street food—especially ramen and oden handcarts—were as satisfying as any sushi bar or formal washoku restaurant. The author should revisit Japan during the annual Bon festival in August and focus on local matsuri (festivals), where street food takes on a very different significance for the Japanese.

Joe Hlebica red bluff, california

With every traveler fully equipped with their own portable entertainment device, I was surprised to read in your August issue [“Is This the Best Airport in the World?”] that guests want to watch movies in airports. Such a luxury is available at the Changi Singapore International Airport, but I rather the huge space dedicated to this movie theater be removed and replaced with a spa where I can enjoy a massage instead!

Jeremy Weng Kee Cheong

contact info

singapore

tleditor@mediatransasia.com, travelandleisureasia.com, f facebook.com/ TravelLeisureAsia or @TravLeisureAsia.

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A NEW STAR ON ORCHARD ROAD

Holiday Inn Express Singapore Orchard Road is now open and offers a refreshing change for all savvy travellers looking for a great location with great value.

Located in the heart of, well, everything, Holiday Inn Express Singapore Orchard Road gives LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION.

If you’re looking to be at the pulse of the vibrant city of Singapore, then you have to stay in the first ever Holiday Inn Express in Orchard Road.

Within walking distance of the hotel are shopping malls such as ION Orchard, Takashimaya and Ngee Ann City, as well as a variety of

restaurants and entertainment options. Also close by are medical centres like Mount Elizabeth Hospital and Paragon Medical Centre. The rest of Singapore is also at your doorstep with Somerset and Orchard MRT stations nearby.

you access to an exciting array of dining and entertainment options.

Stay smart with free Express Start™ breakfast, free Wi-Fi and a comfy bed where you can lay your tired head after a big day out in the Lion City.

STARTING THE DAY RIGHT.

IT’S ALL ABOUT CONNECTIONS.

IN A CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS.

VALUED FOR VALUE.

Holiday Inn Express Singapore Orchard Road offers free breakfast. The Free Express Start™ breakfast bar will get your day off to a great start. For those in a hurry, pick up a Grab & Go breakfast option that lets you fill up on the run.

You’re in one of the most wired cities in the world, so staying connected is a must in Singapore. You can stay connected all day with free and fast Wi-Fi access throughout the hotel, whether with family and friends back home or your colleagues at the office.

Each of the 221 rooms at the Holiday Inn Express Singapore Orchard Road, features high quality bedding with a choice of soft and firm pillows. Or recharge with a power shower after a long day exploring Orchard Road.

Holiday Inn Express Singapore Orchard Road offers free breakfast, free Wi-Fi, great amenities and comfort, all in the heart of Orchard Road. And for even more value, take advantage of their opening special rate from S$198 per night for stays until 30 November 2013.

Radar On Our

Evening falls at Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse.

News. Finds. Opinions. Obsessions.

t+l c l a s s i c

Lighthouse on the Rocks Like a ship seeking harbor, Ian Lloyd Neubauer is drawn to this 19th-century lighthouse on Australia’s eastern seaboard.

Lost at sea amid all the hotel options? Set course for Seal Rocks, a fishing village 300 kilometers north of Sydney.

Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse (1 Kinka Rd., Seal Rocks, NSW; 61-2/4997-6590; sealrockslighthouseaccom modation.com.au; cottages from A$340, see website for minimum stay requirements) was built in 1875 on a cliff overlooking a series of exposed reefs that claimed nearly 100 ships during Australia’s colonial period. Until it was automated in 1987, Sugarloaf Point was manned by three keepers who lived in rendered brick cottages—which now have become upscale retro-rustic rooms, following a recent A$1.5 million renovation.

“Because this area is a national park,” says co-owner Terry Brooker, “it’s remained unchanged.” The shipwreckfilled waters are home to bottlenose dolphins, endangered gray nurse sharks and blackfish, as well as 100 whales daily during winter. A safe harbor, indeed. ✚

Photographed by Shane Chalker

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Radar design

Sustainable Style

Clockwise from top: A fashion set from Absurd Laboratory; dress by A Black Cigarette; a sketch from A Black Cigarette.

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Hong Kong may be best known for its sleek malls and glut of luxury designer brands, but a quiet change is taking place among eco-conscious creatives.

These tree-loving designers have found a platform for their passion through Hong Kong-based NGO Redress, which champions planet-friendly threads and raises the profile of eco designs by hosting the annual EcoChic Design Awards. Last year’s winner, Wister Tang, has a collection currently available at Esprit Hong Kong and selected stores globally that includes everything from a daring denim bustier made from upcycled denim to practical dresses crafted from organic cotton. This year’s victor will get the opportunity to design an outfit for Hong Kong singer Sandy Lam as well as see his or her range in Esprit, a long-term partner of the NGO. Prizes of this caliber can really launch a young designer’s career.

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Case in point: 2011 Redress alum Aman Cheung is garnering international attention for her A Black Cigarette (49-57 Amelie St., Aberdeen; 852/3957-8449) label, featuring a casual-wear line made largely of recycled cotton. The designer’s Spring/ Summer 2013 collection incorporates upcycling and zero-waste techniques, with stand-outs including a silk chiffon tunic and an upside-down jumpsuit that doubles as a dress.

Cheung is hopeful for the future of eco fashion in the city. “As we’re located close to mainland China, there is an adequate supply of eco fabrics like soya and bamboo fiber,” she says. “However, we still need to educate consumers and manufacturers to increase their awareness on sustainable fashion.”

Eric Wong’s Absurd Laboratory (absurd-lab.com), meanwhile, is a street-wear label he set up with two other local designers that uses leftover,

c l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p : c o u r t e s y o f A b s u r d l a b o r at o r y; c o u r t e s y o f a b l a c k c i g a r e t t e ( 2 )

A fashion revolution is poised to put Hong Kong on the map for designs that are as green as they are gorgeous. By Helen Dalley

c l o c k w i s e f r o m r i g h t: © r ay l a i ; c o u r t e s y o f a n g u s t s u i ; c o u r t e s y o f n ii n

end-of-roll factory fabric to create show stoppers such as Spring/Summer 2013’s metallic looks and scalloped skirts. This is not without its challenges: most of the fabrics the label has access to are basic cotton jersey and twill. “We can’t get any printed stock fabrics as, with most of them, it’s obvious they’re from a certain brand,” Wong says. He says he hopes more designers will use unwanted fabrics from factories, but “the main problem is they can’t get the unwanted fabrics easily, and even if they can, they may have been damaged.” The designer would also like to see Hong Kong’s eco-friendly designers gain a foothold in other countries and utilize what they’ve learned about designing overseas back at home.

Lovers of vintage threads will adore Eileen Chan’s The Yesterday Skin (the-yesterdayskin.com) label, which focuses on recycling and reconstructing old finds, and is big on fitted skirts and dresses. “In our last collection we painted color blocks onto dresses and skirts, and this time we plan to experiment further,” Chan says.

“Most of the clothes from the first collection were actually collected when I was traveling. It seemed a shame to waste them, so I started the label.”

Nostalgia is super green. “The fashion industry is focusing more on the efficiency of making new products.

Machinery is one solution but it lacks a human touch,” she says. “Vintage clothing makes up for that with delicately designed collars, pleating, hand-stitched hems and belt loops.”

Hong Kong’s new green design approach extends to jewelry—Niin by Jeannie Hsu (307 Yu Yuet Lai Building, 43-45 Wyndham St., Central; 852/2878 8811; niinstyle.com) uses natural and recycled materials and works by artisans in the Philippines. Hsu says the label’s recent line of polished rock agate cuffs was a big success and the designer plans to incorporate petrified wood into her latest collection, which will be available from November. “I have always hated waste, and once I started working in the industry, I quickly realized how much the fashion industry creates. Jewelry has less of a throw-away culture as opposed to

clothing, and more of a timelessness, so I think it’s more sustainable,” she says.

Fueled by the success of eco design in their native city of Hong Kong, local design students and recent graduates are joining the movement. One young talent creating a stir is Angus Tsui, who scooped up Redress’s EcoChic’s People Award in 2012 with more than 70 percent of the votes for his Longevity Lock collection. Tsui won the overall prize in Hong Kong Design Institute’s (HKDI) graduate fashion show with his zero-waste collection, which was inspired by the Xenomorph from science fiction classic Alien. “As a parasitic reptilian species, Xenomorph absorbs nutrition from the host to transform and grow, which is actually the same practice of human beings

Clockwise from right: Graphics and polka dots from The Yesterday Skin; Angus Tsui and his eclectic collection; Niin’s eye-catching statement jewelry.

snatching resources from nature,” Tsui says. “I put in many different 3-D forms through pleating, tucking and sewing to create the exoskeleton detail on the outfits. As the irregular 3-D forms are created in many different sizes of rectangular panels, no wastage is produced while forming the whole piece of cloth.”

Tsui’s hopes to launch a sustainable label and collaborate with local NGO’s and design colleges such as the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). Given the recent surge of Hong Kong’s new breed of eco designers, Tsui’s dream has a bright green future. ✚

Radar

q& a

Noodle Whiz respect passion and a good work ethic, and I think that came across.

Also, when I started, making your own noodles was very uncommon, and I decided to do mine in-house.

What can we expect from your first U.S. venture?

I didn’t try to reproduce the dishes I serve in Tokyo.

How did you break into the Tokyo dining scene?

It was a crazy idea for a white guy from New York to open a ramen restaurant there. But in Japan, people

con f essions of a cru ise-sh ip e m pl oy e e

In his decades on the water, this seafarer has seen it all with passengers—and it’s not always smooth sailing.

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People will call us and tell us their stateroom phone isn’t working. It doesn’t make any sense.

How are you calling?

Oh, right.

On the phone.…

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I’m serving Japanese comfort food with an American twist, such as a pulled-pork musubi (rice ball) with pickled-plum wasabi and roasted tomato.

My favorite is the shoyu ramen: a blend of simple chicken soup and complex dashi broth, topped with pork belly and scallions.

What’s the most important thing to know about ramen? It needs to

be eaten when hot—noodles suffer after standing for a few minutes, because the flavor and texture change—and slurped.

You just suck it up—literally. ​​ —jennifer flowers

One guy jumped in the water while we were cruising, and was actually angry when we fished him out. He was having a blast working on his backstroke.

Some guests specify that they can’t eat gluten, but then request dinner rolls (or cookies!) when they see others eating them.

They can’t resist.

Ivan Orkin’s Top Tokyo Spots 69 ‘n’ Roll One “My go-to traditional ramen spot is in Akasaka. Chef Shimazaki uses a light chicken-based stock and porcelain bowls from southern Japan that preserve the heat.”

81-4/2715-6969.

Kirakutei “A Japanese gastropub in the suburb of Kugayama, it specializes in fish not commonly found in Tokyo. ​​I suggest the omakase, or chef’s menu.”

81-3/3332-2919.

Sai Se Sakaba “This standing-room-only bar in Shinjuku is known for its offal dishes. Try the grilled intestines and beef tongue in broth.” 81-3/3354-4829.

In the dining room, our servers take orders on iPods.

One lady flipped out because she thought her server was on his cell phone. She was so mad she threw the iPod on the floor!

c o u r t e s y o f iv a n r a m e n ( 2 ) ; i l l u s t r at i o n b y mi c h a e l h o e w e l e r

The U.S. ramen scene is booming—and it’s about to get even more exciting with the arrival of one of Tokyo’s hottest noodle gurus, Ivan Orkin. The New York native—who earned serious food cred in Japan at his two Ivan Ramen (ivanramen. com; ramen for two ¥1,600) restaurants—is returning to his roots, bringing two outposts of his cult brand to Manhattan.​​ ​Here, Orkin, whose first cookbook is out this month, gives us the lowdown on the soup that made him famous.

Shio ramen, from Ivan Ramen.

Radar

Clockwise from left: A still from the movie, showing life in Cambodia; Kalyanee Mam; A River Changes Course poster.

Q& A

Capturing Cambodia

Cambodian-American Kalyanee Mam’s Sundance-winning documentary, A River Changes Course, follows three Cambodian families as they struggle with the costs of globalization. Jeff Chu talks with Mam about her directorial debut and her homeland.

What should non-Cambodian audiences take away from this film? When people think about

another culture, they often think of the exotic. They think we’re so different, but we’re not. This film shows how we are similar—how we love our families, how we sacrifice for one another.

And Cambodians? By going to remote areas and screening the film in 30

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communities without theaters, we hope people will understand what’s happening. It’s one thing to say, “They’re cutting down my forest and moving me off my land.” When you realize it’s happening all over the country, the magnitude sinks in. We’re hoping that villagers will put pressure on the government to stop.

What should a responsible traveler do to leave a good mark on Cambodia? The most responsible

thing to do is to be open-minded—and when I say that, I don’t mean drugs and prostitutes. Be sensitive to the local community. Have conversations. Go into the villages. Don’t just go to Angkor Wat. You can’t understand a country just by visiting its past. ✚

What’s your quintessential Cambodian moment? Sharing a

meal in a village. The most amazing meal I’ve ever had was in Kampong Chhnang province, on a houseboat.

This woman roasted a fish over an open fire. She turned it until the skin was nice and crispy. She cut up green tamarind—still sour—into little pieces, and some red chili peppers. She put them into fish sauce, ground it up, and served it with recently harvested jasmine rice, steaming hot. Divine. A meal is the perfect time to tell a story, to tear down walls.

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c o u r t e s y o f k a lya n e e m a m ( 3 )

What inspired the film? In 2008, I realized the country was changing dramatically. Cambodia really wanted to enter the global economy.

Thousands of hectares of forest were being cut down. The Tonle Sap—one of the world’s largest bodies of freshwater—was being overfished.

Thousands of women were leaving their villages to work in garment factories in the city. I was wondering how these changes were impacting people’s lives and the environment.

They’re struggling.

Radar

From golf ball to fish food in 48 hours.

At Jetwing, cinnamon bark is used as fuel.

c l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p l e f t: c o u r t e s y o f s i x s e n s e s ; 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 e l e p h a n t c a mp & r e s o r t; c o u r t e s y o f G r a n d Hyat t E r a w a n ; c o u r t e s y o f j e t w i n g b e a c h

These bottle caps will help someone walk again.

Lessons with a gentle giant.

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Responsible Retreats

When it comes to putting the environment and the community first, here are four chains that shake things up. By Loren Braunohler Drive to the green

What do you get when you mix an earth-conscious brand with a little golf? At Vietnam’s Six Senses Con Dao, you get well-fed fish.

This resort has introduced a golf ball that releases a core of fish food when the outer cover biodegrades, 48 hours after coming into contact with water. Avid golfers might find the ball a bit sluggish, but as a practice piece on the resort’s cliff-side driving range or from the deck of a luxury yacht, it is ideal for the eco-minded guest. sixsenses. com; doubles from US$580.

Spice it up

At Jetwing Beach, on Sri Lanka’s west coast, Head of Engineering Jude Kasturi Arachchi devised a way to use left-over cinnamon bark, a waste biproduct from Sri Lanka’s famed cinnamon industry, as fuel for the biomass boilers at various Jetwing properties across Sri Lanka. This material is high in carbon and affordable, saving the property around Rp500,000 a month on energy. And the best part? The whole place smells like cinnamon. jetwinghotels.com; doubles from US$180.

Lend a hand

At the Grand Hyatt Erawan in Bangkok, you can give back to the community by drinking a beer. The bottle caps are donated to The Prostheses Foundation (prostheses​foundation.or.th/ eng) to produce artificial arms and legs for physically challenged people across the country. Hyatt employees have been gathering caps since 2007, resulting in approximately 150 kilos of aluminum per year, melted and molded into parts for prosthetic limbs. bangkok. grand.hyatt.com; doubles from Bt4,860.

Learn with elephants

The Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort provides autistic

children an opportunity to develop their social skills by interacting with specially trained, rescued elephants, under the supervision of mahouts, therapists and researchers. This pioneering progam in Thailand’s far north is a first and initial results show improved adaptive behavior, sensory processing, postural control, balance and sociabilty in participating kids. goldentri angle.anantara.com; doubles from Bt35,000, all-inclusive. ✚

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on the map

Here Comes the Sun

Bangkok’s most happening few hundred meters, Phra Athit (“the sun”) Road is where hipsters and in-the-know flashpackers mingle. Sylvia Gavin checks out some great retro bars and eateries.

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Photographed by Cedric Arnold

1 Riva Surya Hotel

Raising the boutique bar in the neighborhood is the riverside Riva Surya Hotel.

Loll in a poolside daybed and sip on their signature cocktail, the Mandarin Chili Martini—but be warned, it has a kick. The hotel’s stylish market café, Babble & Rum, is also worth checking out. 23 Phra Athit Rd.; 66-2/633-5000; rivasurya.com; dinner for two Bt2,000.

2 Jazz Happens Bar

This is where Bangkok goes beatnik. With live jazz starting every night at 7:30 p.m., up and coming young musicians from Silpakorn University’s Faculty of Jazz play their hearts out. Tap your foot to Coltrane covers as you sip on a carafe of kamikaze. Black, thickrimmed eyeglasses are optional. 62 Phra Athit Rd.; 66-2/282-9934; dinner for two Bt800.

3 Salad on Demand

The healthiest option in the neighborhood. Choose from an array of greens, vegetables and proteins… and then undo all the goodness by ordering their divine green tea panna cotta for dessert. 60 Phra Athit Rd.; 66-2/629-3982; lunch for two Bt400.

4 Hemlock

5 Escapade Burgers & Shakes

Widely considered to serve some of the best burgers in town, this place is proof that good eats come in small packages. Elbow space in this mini shophouse may be limited, but the great grilled ground meats and creative cocktail concoctions more than make up for it. Try their lamb burger in a chocolate-bread bun. 112 Phra Athit Rd.; 66-81/4063773; dinner for two from Bt1,200.

Clockwise from top: The line at Roti Mataba; night dive into Riva Surya; rocking out at Jazz Happens; greens at Salad on Demand.

6 Santichaiprakarn Park & Phra Sumen Fort

A late-afternoon hipster hangout, the park also hosts daily 6 p.m. riverside aerobics classes where you can bop about energetically to accelerated versions of “Gangnam Style” that’s blasted out through crackling speakers.

Entertaining stuff.

7 Good Story

Locals and tourists flock here for the extensive Belgian and German beer menu. Settle into one of the retro sofas and sip on a Blanche de Namur. 72 Phra Athit Rd.; 66-2/629-2924; dinner for two from Bt1,000.

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This legendary little place has been rolling out rotis since 1943. The near constant queue outside the narrow shophouse tells you they must be doing something right. 136 Phra Athit Rd.; 66-2/282-2119; lunch for two from Bt200. ✚

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An oldie but definitely a goodie. “Farang friendly” Thai food served to a soundtrack of easy-on-theears jazz, doused by a good selection of wines and sometimes topped off with performances or exhibitions upstairs. You cannot fault it.

And their Penang curry is

really good. 56 Phra Athit Rd.; 66-2/282-7507; dinner for two Bt1,200.

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Insta-Hits

Dear Museumgoer,

When we heard that Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport was the most Instagrammed spot on the globe, we couldn’t help but wonder what else made the list. Seems folks really love their sports, airports and international icons.

1S uvarnabhumi Airport Bangkok by @ju_mp

2 Siam Paragon shopping mall Bangkok by @2grace02

3 Disneyland Park Anaheim, California by @clubjosh

4T imes Square New York City by @arnoldda

5 AT&T Park San Francisco by @crazixbear

6 Los Angeles International Airport by @alienmindtrick

update, We hate to interrupt your Facebook tly? but do you mind scooching over sligh you le whi e ptur scul the see can Then we more? figure out which pic to post. A little h. That Ouc Oooh, careful, look out for the.... ze, bron it’s looks like it hurt. Don’t worry, you didn’t damage it.

The thing is, fellow culture lover, we s came to see the art, not your hilariou was am Scre The n interaction with it. Whe need ly real you did , at MoMA in New York g your to take all those selfies in front, doin in c traffi up held It n? best howl imitatio (and g ctin stra a-di ultr was the gallery and third trust us, it was not nearly as cute the are hes flas era cam : Plus ). or tenth time banned for a reason—they really do damage the work.

We’re not saying museums should be exclusive temples of high culture; the le to whole point is to make art accessib d stoo everyone. But just because you n issio adm y in a long line and paid a heft an at ’re fee does not mean that you estion. amusement park! So we have a sugg at look ally actu Take a few minutes to and g etin twe Stop what’s in the gallery. er that experience it. You’ll remember it bett way—trust us.

Enjoy the show,

7D odger Stadium Los Angeles by @jordanasheara

8 Eiffel Tower Paris by @mollyms619

9 Staples Center Los Angeles by @cherososa1

tip sheet

secrets of the sky T+L dropped in on Virgin Atlantic’s flight-attendant training and gleaned four travel pointers you can use, too.

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Foods to avoid Onions, cabbage, cauliflower and carbonated beverages can make you feel bloated at high altitudes.

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Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate Drink three liters of water: one before, one during and one after your flight. Also bring a facial spray with essential oils (plain water is drying).

Healthy hint Polyphenol-rich fruit juices (cranberry; pomegranate) reduce the risk of blood clots.

Ditto oily fish.

Safe keeping The night before you check out, place your shoes with your passport and wallet in the hotel’s safe.

Never forget anything again! —k athryn o ’shea evans

Radar hotels

Outback Outreach

Kangaroos, koalas and high-style comfort—this eco-lodge off Australia’s Great Ocean Road has it all. By Madeline Gressel Every sunrise at the Great Ocean Ecolodge brings

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Clockwise from top: The Great Ocean Ecolodge; koalas kicking back; a research assistant feeds a baby wallaby.

Veteran and amateur trekkers tackle the 103-kilometer route, which winds along the coast through bluff and beach, heath and forest.

Cape Otway is the entry point to the Great Otway National Park, a swath of eucalyptus and redwood trees spread across 100,000 hectares of waterfalls, lakes and fern gullies, home to a sizable koala population.

Most of the Ecolodge’s four-legged guests are wounded or sick animals brought from the neighboring park for care.

There are some permanent members on the property

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too, including two sugar gliders, one potoroo, and a community of fierce tiger quolls kept for research and breeding. There were six koala joeys when I visited.

One adorably intrepid female, Henrietta, climbed right into my arms and promptly fell asleep.

The lodge encourages guests to observe and interact with all the animals, though the baby koalas need space. Neal guides guests on a daily dusk walk in search of wildlife, and every meal is served in the dining room, overlooking the herds of grazing kangaroo.

Even if you’re not hiking the Great Ocean Road, there’s no shortage of things to do. The lodge will help organize spa treatments, champagne picnics, Otway culinary tours, a treetop forest walk, helicopter rides or a sunset canoe safari on Lake Elizabeth in search of the elusive platypus. Stroll the beach and search for cresting southern right whales. Or ensconce yourself in your charming, solar-powered room and watch the kangaroos hop by.

635 Lighthouse Rd.,Great Otway National Park; greatecolodge.com; doubles from US$370. ✚

c l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p : c h r i s h i l l a r d ; © J o r d a n M u l l o y; m a r k w at s o n ( t o u r i s m vi c t o r i a )

grazers to the field. Not cows, but tall, reddishbrown bipeds that use their enormous feet and muscular tails to spring from lawn to lawn, munching grass.

Part luxury lodge, part social enterprise, the Great Ocean Ecolodge was founded in part to help realize this pastoral vision.

Couple Lizzy Corke and Shayne Neal bought the property in Southern Victoria nearly 10 years ago.

They founded and built the Conservation Ecology Centre to research and offer sanctuary to the region’s native wildlife, including koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, potoroos (kangaroo-meets-rat), sugar gliders, and the rare and endangered tiger quoll.

The Great Ocean Ecolodge was designed to help pay for the center’s research. But now it’s thriving in its own right.

Guests are drawn to the charming five-room lodge—a house, really—by the wildlife and the proximity to Australia’s Great Ocean Road, a stretch of National Heritage coastline running from Torquay to Warnambool.

Radar Clockwise from left: Bonnae Gokson; Marie Antoinette’s Crave cake; the classic Ebony & Ivory cake.

food

Let Them Eat Cake

Fashion and food have long been two of Hong Kong’s obsessions, so it’s no wonder that the city’s latest confection craze has some serious style roots.

Design maven and business mogul Bonnae Gokson is best known for helping top-tier brands such as Chanel, Armani and Prada establish themselves in Asia.

She’s also lent her discerning eye to hotel chains including Ritz-Carlton and W. Lately though, she’s been refocusing her attention on a sweeter subject: cake.

Gokson first displayed her affinity for confections at Sevva, a favorite of the power lunch set. Before long, the restaurant’s baroque desserts, like the macaron-and-cotton-candy-adorned Marie Antoinette’s Crave cake, began commanding as much attention as the savory stuff. In response to the rising demand, Gokson opened a separate bakeshop. Called Ms B’s Cakery, the place offers whimsical creations like the Madam Butterfly—rainbow-hued chocolate, pistachio and beetroot chiffon layers crowned by a hand-painted sugar butterfly; and Ebony & Ivory—black sesame and white coconut butter cake finished with coco shreds. These edible works of art have all the panache of a designer handbag, and are just as highly coveted. Ms B’s Cakery; 39 Gough St., Central, Hong Kong; 852/2815-8303; msbscakery.hk; cakes from HK$420 for 500 grams.

c l o c k w i s e f r o m t h e l e f t: c o u r t e s y o f c h e n m a n ; c o u r t e s y o f m s b ’ s c a k e r y ( 2 )

Cake couturier Bonnae Gokson is churning out confections so highfashion they should come with their own runway. By Diana Hubbell

Radar

Clockwise from left: Christian Lacroix at Sofitel So Bangkok; beachy glamour in Mauritius; staff at the Jing An Shangri-La; Four Seasons Pudong’s uniform.

trending

Front Desk Fashion

Sofitel So Mauritius

(sofitel.com; doubles from €296) owes its elegant, eye-catching aesthetics to Kenzo Takada. The seemingly ageless Japanese designer hooked up with Thai architect Lek Bunnag to frame the ultracontemporary property on Mauritius’s rugged southern coast. The Paris-based Takada, known for his striking silhouettes on the catwalk, drew inspiration from the omnipresent hibiscus for both its beauty and simplicity when designing the hotel’s staff uniforms. Meanwhile, staff at the Sofitel So over in Bangkok sport designer duds by none other than Christian Lacroix.

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When Hong Kongtethered chain Shangri-La wanted to make a statement with its new flagship in Shanghai, Jing An Shangri-La (shangri-la.com; doubles from RMB2,150), it turned to local-girl-madegood Han Feng. The New York-based designer and costume czar of stage hits like Madama Butterfly, delivered uniforms for most of the hotel’s departments in plush cottons, silks and linens. But it’s the front-ofhouse and guest-relations uniforms that encapsulate Shangri-La’s design makeover towards contemporary Chinese sophistication and luxury with outfits of splashy reds and vivid yellows.

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Across the Huangpu River from Shangri-La Jing An, The Four Seasons Pudong (fourseasons.com/ pudong; doubles from RMB2,280) went in another direction with super hip Tokyo designer Masaru Mineo. Inspired by Shanghai’s glam and sultry seduction of the 1930’s, Mineo paid homage to fashion giant Coco Chanel’s couture cuts and understated elegance.

Front-of-house uniforms run in exquisitely tailored black, navy and white suits for men, while female guest-relations staff rock a simple, smart tailored dress in black and white. And the chefs? Well, they still wear aprons. ✚

c l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p : s o fi t e l s o b a n g k o k ; s o fi t e l . c o m ; s h a n g r i - l a . c o m ; f o u r s e a s o n s p u d o n g

Hotels collaborating with artists and interior designers is so last season.

Cain Nunns reports on global fashion icons bringing a touch of the runway to the world of hotel uniforms.

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c o n s e r vat i o n

Turtle Recall

There are several new initiatives aimed at protecting our flippered friends. Paul Ehrlich shares his favorite non-profits and resorts that are shelling out to save the turtles. jellyfish, a main source of their diet, and plastic bags. In fact, leatherback and green turtles are eating twice as much plastic as they did 25 years ago, according to a study released in August by the University of Queensland.

The unrelenting pressure has put many species at a high risk of extinction. Beaches where they once came to lay eggs have all but vanished.

The giant leatherback could be gone within 20 years, according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). âž”

New hatchlings heading out to sea.

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Š D o u g P e r r i n e / g e t t yim a g e s . c o m

Southeast Asia has both the largest population and widest variety of turtles in the world.

It also has the unfortunate distinction of being one of the most hazardous regions to their existence.

Rising tourism, poaching and plastic waste have made this a dangerous time and place to be a turtle.

Fishermen’s nets and long-lines entangle air-breathing turtles, drowning them. Marine pollution is also a big killer: leatherbacks, for example, cannot distinguish between

Radar From left: Pure Blue Founder Anchalika Kijkanakorn; a green sea turtle at home.

Malaysia Terengganu Turtle Conservation journeymalaysia.com/ conservationtganuturtle.htm Turtle Conservation Society turtleconservationsociety. org.my.

Indonesia ProFauna Indonesia profauna.net/id.

Yayasan Pulau Banyak acehturtleconservation.org.

Philippines The Baguan Island Marine Turtle Sanctuary oneocean.org/ambassadors/ track_a_turtle/denr.

The Philippines Ocean Heritage oceanheritage. com.ph.

Thailand The Queen’s Project on Sea Turtle Conservation ioseaturtles.org.

Vietnam The Cuc Phuong Turtle Conservation Center iasianturtlenetwork.org.

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Thai Muang is open to see a wide-range of turtles being hatched and cared for.

Founded in 2010, Pure Blue has raised and released more than 290 endangered leatherbacks, 47 olive ridley turtles, and 24 hawksbill into the Andaman Sea. Pan Pacific Nirwana Bali Resort

(Jln. Raya Tanah Lot, Tabanan 82171, Bali; 62-36/181-5900; panpacific.com/ bali; doubles from US$250) collaborates with, and financially contributes to, the Turtle Conservation and Education Centre at Serangan Island, the only place on the island with a turtle hatchery. Endorsed by the World Wildlife Fund, guests can visit the hatchery and join eco-friendly activities, plus participate in releasing turtles back to the sea on the resort’s powdery beach.

On Malaysia’s east coast, Club Med (29th Miles, Jln. Kuantan-Kemamam, 26080, Kuantan, Pahang Darul Makmur; 60-9/581-9133; clubmed.com. my; superior room from RM64) in Cherating, helps support nearby Cherating Turtle Sanctuary, which protects turtles that lay eggs between April and August. Guests learn about conservation and and the imminent threats to their survival. Twenty percent of the profits from selected Club Med products, including a polo shirt with the sanctuary’s logo, are donated to the sanctuary. ✚

D a vi d J o h n s o n ( 2 )

Other places to see turtles, donate and learn more:

Some countries have responded by putting limitations on the import and export of turtles, rolling out programs to promote awareness, and providing training for border authorities to be more vigilant. But enforcement is lax and often borders between China and other countries are like sieves for smugglers.

“Perhaps the biggest problem is now illegal trade. But we are nonetheless optimistic,” says Dr. Ronald Orenstein, a wildlife conservationist, zoologist and author of such books as Turtles, Tortoises and Terrapins: Survivors in Armor. “There is more recognition about the problem, and countries are cooperating more than before, but it’s still a huge clandestine trade.”

Conservation groups—often working with top hotels and resorts—are also helping to halt the critical decline in the numbers of leatherbacks, green, hawksbill and other turtles and tortoises.

And guests can get involved.

In Phuket, Pure Blue Foundation, setup by Anchalika Kijkanakorn, runs the Aleenta Sea Turtle Fund, in cooperation with Aleenta PhuketPhang Nga Resort & Spa (3 Ladpraw Soi 95, Bangkok; 66-2/514 8112; aleenta. com; doubles from Bt5,297). The beach resort holds fund-raising events—the next one is December 7—and also involves guests in releasing turtles back to the ocean. The nearby center in

Radar r e s tau r a n t

Italian Exports

Pino Lavarra tends to get excited when speaking about his menu at Tosca (Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong, International Commerce Centre, 1 Austin Rd. West, Hong Kong; 852/2263-2270; ritzcarlton. com; dinner for two, HK$1,800). On this, the day before the two-Michelinstar chef heads home to Puglia on vacation and after the crush of lunch, his energy levels are double. First off: pizza with his family in the south of Italy. Yes, the basics are as popular in Italy as they are around the world.

What has changed, at least in Asia, is that a handful of top Italian menus focus specifically on ingredients from a particular region. Call it Italian food as Italians eat. Tosca at the RitzCarlton Hong Kong is but one example.

“I believe that southern Italy is still unspoiled, so when I put something on a plate it might look contemporary but the real taste comes from the south,” Lavarra tells me high above Hong Kong. “When you see any dish here, everyone asks, ‘Is this Italian?’ When they taste it, they know it is.” A perfect example is his spaghetti alla chitarra with baby squid. The dish is wrapped in swordfish paper—tender, waferthin sheets of sashimi—lending it a vaguely Vietnamese feel, but the black olive oil lets your palate know this is purely Italian. Says Lavarra: “It’s a game. We’re still talking about the same ingredients, but they’re put together in a different way.” That explains the Mediterranean red prawn carpaccio that lends a briny flavor to 52

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Clockwise from top: Chef Pino Lavarra preparing a signature dish; Mediterranean tuna with a caper sauce; tiramisù gets an aquatic makeover.

Lavarra’s Sea Tiramisù dish. Not everything on his menu is a mystery though: the Mediterranean tuna in a caper sauce looks and tastes like it could only come from the waters off the Italian coast.

Skip to Bangkok and immediately to a dessert that any chocolate lover cannot miss. At JoJo (St. Regis Bangkok, 159 Rajadamri Rd., Bangkok; 662/207-7815; starwoodhotels.com; two-course lunch for two, Bt1,590), you’ll find Gobino chocolate flown in from Piedmont. The triangle-shaped hazelnut chocolate, whose recipe dates back to Napoleonic times, is given all the fanfare of a quality cheese cart, sliced into thin pieces at your table and topped with a vanilla sauce and fresh

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berries. A serving is of this delicacy is easily shared but it’s best to phone ahead for this melt-in-your-mouth experience. The lunch menu at JoJo is defined as rustic Italian, while dinner is a more elegant affair.

New to Singapore, Buona Terra (29 Scotts Rd., Singapore; 65/6733-0209; scotts29.com/buonaterra; tasting menu with wine pairings S$178 per person) chef Denis Lucchi now touches on the Italian regional theme with an authentic tasting menu from different areas of Italy on six scheduled nights until March. Next up is Calabria and Puglia on October 8, with Tuscany, Veneto, Piedmont, and Lombardy and Emilia Romagna to follow in the months ahead. ✚

c l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p : c o u r t e s y o f r i t z- c a r lt o n h o n g k o n g ; © c h r i s t o p h e r k u c w ay ( 2 )

If a trip to Italy is not in your immediate plans, a handful of menus around Asia offer the next best thing.

By Christopher Kucway

Radar spotlight

Hymns to Beauty Mimi Ledo, founder of eco-friendly clothing label BoAime, draws inspiration from both her past as a refugee and life today as a globetrotting fashion designer. By Nana Chen

Handicrafts → Ledo makes her own jewelry, using leftover fabrics, and techniques drawn from traditional Vietnamese handicrafts.

“I love the way women use their hands to do crochet, embroidery, needlework, knots, patchwork and dyeing. I incorporate all these elements into every collection.” She is considering adding a jewelry collection to BoAime, but for now, the colorful ribbons and pompoms stay wrapped on her wrists alone.

← Bathe Products Ledo also takes cues from the meticulous vision of Annie Ahman, the owner of Bathe (bathestore.com), a Bali-based line of paraffin- and parabin-free bath products. “Annie pays attention to small details of her shop and products, from the hand-painted wallpaper to the thousands of shells hung on the ceiling to decorate the lighting.”

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↓ Paintings by Lysanne Pepin Espace Pepin (pepinart.com) is a boutique gallery nested in the hip neighborhood of Old Montreal, run by Ledo’s good friend Lysanne Pepin.

The boutique doubles as a showroom for independent labels such as BoAime (boaime.com) and as a gallery for the owner’s paintings and installations. “Lysanne Pepin creates without restrictions or barriers, always making her subjects shine through. It is the same process to which I aspire when creating my collection for the modern BoAime women.”

C l o c k w i s e f r o m to p r i g h t: NANA CHEN ; C o u r t e sy o f p e pi n . a r t.c o m ; c o u r t e sy o f b at h e s to r e .c o m ; N a n a c h e n (2)

← Saigon’s colonial buildings Though Ledo fled war-torn Vietnam by boat alone at age 11, the architecture of her childhood home still sparks her imagination. “To me, they are a hymn to beauty. They’ve stood the test of time to tell stories of a people and their cultural heritage.”

Radar mobile

The postcard with all its antiquated charm, is getting a high-tech makeover.

Postcard. The mere word evokes a sense of romance and adventure. A small window into a journey from a faraway place. But when was the last time you sent a postcard? Today’s hyperconnected world makes the art of sending a postcard laborious and archaic; and its receipt, frustratingly slow.

But postcards have gotten a digital makeover and are in the midst of a comeback.

for minimalists: Postagram allows you drop a photo taken with your mobile phone into a postcard template, write a tweet-length message and select a recipient from your phone’s address book. The app then sends a postcard for you. The signature feature of a Postagram? The recipient can pop out the photo and frame it as a keepsake. postagramapp. com; US$0.99 for a postcard in the U.S.; US$1.99 internationally.

for flair-seekers:

for artists:

you sign your digitally created postcard with your finger. To transport your recipient on an olfactory journey to the beach, add a suntan lotion scratch-andsniff for an extra US$0.50. If you don’t have a mailing address handy, use the app’s address retrieval service to request information from your recipient via email or text. postcardontherun.com; US$2.49 for a postcard in the U.S.; US$2.89 internationally.

displays your photo on the front of the postcard, then allows you to crop and zoom, choose a border (say, leopard print for a safari) and add a personal note on the back, all right from your phone. snapshotpostcard.com/ solution; credits range from US$0.80 to US$1.99; one credit for a postcard in the U.S.; two credits internationally.

— loren braunohler

Postcard on the Run lets

Snapshot Postcard

f r o m l e f t: c o u r t e s y o f p o s ta g r a m ; c o u r t e s y o f p o s t c a r d o n t h e r u n ; courtesy of snapshot postcard

Postcards from the Edge

debut

A Small World

c o u r t e s y o f o b e r o i h o t e l s & r e s o r t s ; i l l u s t r at i o n b y mi c h a e l h o e w e l e r

With properties everywhere from India to Indonesia, Oberoi Hotels & Resorts has always embraced multiculturalism. And in the United Arab Emirates, crossroads of rampant internationalism, the group’s new Oberoi, Dubai (oberoihotels.com; doubles from Dhs1,200) is one big global romp, including Arabic coffee at check-in and a general United Nations approach to hospitality. Here's a look at some of the brand’s highlights, country by country.

india On staff at the city’s first 24-hour spa: Priyanka Chowdhury, who won two gold medals for India in the Yoga Olympics. Relax with the shirodhara treatment, a stream of oil on the forehead.

japan At Umai restaurant (dinner for two Dhs400), Takeyuki Nakagawa is one of the few chefs in the U.A.E. certified to prepare fugu, the poisonous puffer fish that’s a Japanese delicacy.

england Classic British afternoon tea (house-made scones and lemon curd; authentic clotted cream) gets a twist with Asian-inspired pandan eclairs and Turkish halvah.

czech republic The lobby is dominated by two epic chandeliers: created by the Czech firm Lasvit, each is made from more than 100,000 shimmering crystal pieces.

Only in Dubai. —tom austin

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At Tiger’s Nest Monastery, in Bhutan.

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Designer Kim Jones.

Mountain Man “Bhutan is the only place in the world where snow leopards and tigers cross paths,” says Kim Jones, men’s style director for Louis Vuitton (louisvuitton. com). Jones recently returned from a weeklong hiking trip in the Himalayas, where the expedition included nights in the Paro Valley’s rustic-chic Uma by Como (comohotels.com; doubles from US$300) and a visit to the cliffhugging Tiger’s Nest Monastery.

These experiences inspired his Fall 2013 collection for Louis Vuitton.

“Nature and wildlife are continuing inspirations in my work,” Jones says. The materials (astrakhan wool, sheepskin, yak leather) bring a newly rugged sensibility to the brand.

The result? Pieces worthy of seasoned members of the Explorers Club—or anyone who dreams of reaching that next peak. —mimi lombardo From the Louis Vuitton Fall 2013 collection: 1 Wool pullover with embroidered snow leopard commissioned from London-based artists the Chapman Brothers.

2 Metal sunglasses with lambskin side shields. 3 Shearling coat, cashmere suit and accessories. 4 Chapman Brothers carpetbag in Himalayan-meets-French-Baroque motifs. 5 Made-to-order leather trunk backpack with wool blanket. 6 Carabinerinspired calf-leather key chain. 7 Shearling, lambskin and calf-leather ankle boot.

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m o n a s t e r y: k im j o n e s . k im j o n e s : F RANCO I S GU I LLOT/A F P/G e t t y I m a g e s . s w e at e r : t o m s c h i e r l i t z . a l l o t h e r s c o u r t e s y o f l o u i s v u i t t o n

st yle

Clockwise from top left: Arthur Huang; Eco-Ark, built out of recycled bottles; Nonzero’s repurposed interior; W Taipei’s eco mooncake gift boxes; browsing Shihlin Night Market.

m y tow n

Green-tinted Taipei

Architect Arthur Huang, of leading sustainable design firm Miniwiz, guides you through the urban jungle of Taipei. By Lim Sio Hui Stay Amba Hotel (77 Wuchang St., Section 2; amba-hotels.com; doubles from NT$3,410) is a quiet place to stay in the middle of Ximending. The hotel worked with leading LEED firm Steven Leach for its air quality system. On the higher end of the price spectrum, W Taipei (10 Zhongxiao East Rd., Section 5; wtaipei.com; doubles from NT$8,900) collaborates with us, using postconsumer materials collected from W Hotel’s waste to make products like mooncake gift boxes.

Eat For a casual setting with great coffee, snacks and mouthwatering

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waffles, check out Dears Waffle, Bakery & Café (8, Ln. 71, Section 4,

Ren Ai Rd.; 886-2/2773-110; waffles for two NT$200), which has nice interiors with an eco edge. Nearby, Nonzero (5, Alley 4, Ln. 27, Section 4, Ren Ai Rd.; 886-2/2772-1630; nonzero.com.tw; dinner for two NT$1,800) is home to repurposed furniture and uses organic ingredients in its food.

Do The Taipei Fine Arts Museum (181, Zhongshan North Rd., Section 3; tfam. museum) is a must see. Next door is the colossal Eco-Ark (1, Yumen St.; taipei-expopark.tw) in Yuanshan

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Park—the jewel of Miniwiz and Taipei city. It is the world’s first pavilion structure of this size, curtained with 100 percent recycled PET bottles (your water and soda bottles).

Shop You can always find everything you’ll need in Taiwan’s night markets, like Shihlin Night Market (101 Jihe Rd.). For those looking to buy a gift, Taipei 101 (45 Shifu Rd.; taipei-101. com.tw) features boutiques from around the world, so you’ll be spoiled for choices, and for a spectacular view of the city, ride to the top of Taipei 101 and take in the skyline. ✚

c l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p l e f t: c o u r t e s y o f mi n i w i z ( 2 ) ; c o u r t e s y o f n o n z e r o TA I P E I ; c o u r t e s y o f w h o t e l s ; P ATR I CK L I N , GETT Y I M AGES

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Radar goods

Scrappy Fashion

Social enterprise Rags2Riches transformed the lowly foot rug into a high-fashion statement. By Niña Terol-Zialcita

From top: Designer Reese Fernandez-Ruiz; these colorful totes started off as discarded rags.

A dumping ground hardly seems like the proper incubator for high fashion, but for Philippine brand Rags2Riches (R2R), it was the perfect jumping-off point for an “eco-ethical” revolution.

In Payatas, where half a million of Manila’s urban poor reside, scraps of cloth are turned into foot rugs and sold to traders for US$0.20 a day. Enter a group of young idealists out to change the lives of Payatas’s poor, an haute couture designer willing to make a difference, and the audacious goal of turning rags into coveted fashion items—and just like that a stylish social statement was born.

“We are believers that doing good should be cool and beautiful,” says Reese Fernandez-Ruiz, the 28-year-old president and founding partner of Rags2Riches, who is also a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and a Rolex Young Laureate.

“Each [Rags2Riches] piece tells the story of the artisans who handcrafted it, as well as the designers who envisioned it. Every time advocates carry our products, they can be sure that they are carrying a story of how people from different backgrounds came together to help each other and make the world a better place.”

R2R’s first collaborator was Rajo Laurel, one of the Philippines’s foremost fashion designers. After hearing the founders’ pitch, he

“played around” with the rug and found himself fashioning a wine bottle holder—then a bag, then a wallet, then a yoga mat. More product designs unfolded, and the collaboration took off. Products were sold at premium prices (totes sell for up to US$200), and the artisans quickly multiplied their earnings—some, to more than 2,000 percent of their original profit.

“We don’t make products for the sake of making products,” says Fernandez-Ruiz. “We make welldesigned, beautiful products, because doing so will sustain many local livelihoods.”

Over the next six years, the brand has featured a total of five Filipino designers—including Hollywood favorite Oliver Tolentino—and unveiled more product lines that incorporated indigenous and organic materials with the upcycled fabric.

The brand’s latest experiment is a collaboration with Filipino-French designer Olivia d’Aboville, whose home designs called Merienda are inspired by Filipino snack delicacies, and are handcrafted to customers’ specifications. Each chunky floor pouf or pillow is made-to-order and costs between US$60 and US$140.

“It has always been our dream to fuse interesting, inspiring and even surprising materials together,” says Fernandez-Ruiz. “Each piece represents what the Philippines is really all about—a melting pot of different cultures that can come together beautifully.” ✚ Where to buy

Rags2Riches is available in upscale stores in Manila, in Anthropologie stores in the UK and, soon, in New York.

All designs—except the large home accessories—may be purchased online at rags2riches.ph.

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Photographed by Ed San Juan

Radar icon

Chain Reaction The definition of “quality time”? Chanel’s new Première watch—a revitalized version of the Parisian classic. Here, T+L tracks its origins.

By Mimi Lombardo

↓ The Mastermind Coco Chanel on the balcony of her suite at the Ritz Paris in 1935.

The Watch → Today’s version of the 1987 Première design comes in a variety of materials (shown here: stainless steel with a mother-of-pearl face).

← The Bag The watch’s chain-link strap is derived from the brand’s quilted handbags, launched in 1955.

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hair and mak eup: carolina dali

The Inspiration Like the Chanel No. 5 bottle, the Première watch evokes the octagon-​shaped Place Vendôme (above), where Coco Chanel lived at the Ritz Paris and where the brand now has a jewelry shop (left).

c o u r t e s y o f c h a n e l (5 ) . c e n t e r : t o m s c h i e r l i t z

↓ The Perfume Chanel No. 5—created in 1921 by Ernest Beaux, onetime nose for Russian royalty—has a bottle stopper modeled after the Place Vendôme (right).

shop

Private Purveyors

From top: Bangles

by Harmony Necklaces; graphic art, Anakijo; a handcrafted lime tote, lined with a pop of purple, NHD Leather Designs.

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You have to know where to look to find these oneof-a-kind handbags, jewelry collections and other off-the-grid gems. Loren Braunohler ditches the crowds with this insiders’ guide to secret shopping.

Sprawling malls, meandering markets: step aside. There’s a new game in town. Some of the most coveted, unusual products in the region can be found not at the traditional shopping haunts, but in the less traversed aisles of international gift fairs, at the homes of designers and in private showrooms. Using online media and local, artistic venues, an eclectic mix of artisan-entrepreneurs have launched their brands to a niche market of clients who know how to find them. Their products include an assortment of apparel, jewelry, art, handbags and home items, which you can find in locations ranging from Langkawi seaside resorts to chic designer galleries in Saigon. Here, a few favorites. ➔

f r o m t o p : c o u r t e s y o f h a r m o n y n e c k l a c e s ; c o u r t e s y o f a n a k ij o ; c o u r t e s y o f n h d l e at h e r d e s i g n s ( 2 )

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Nina Heyer, Founder/Designer of NHD Leather Designs

(nhdleather.com), started out making leather dog collars, but quickly moved into the handbag market when she realized the leather she used was “just too beautiful” to be cut into pieces. Fully handmade and available in a variety of vibrant colors from ocean blue to bright pink to lime green, the bags are left uncoated so that you can feel the softness of the leather’s natural fats.

Buy: Heyer has a private showroom in Bangkok (139/2 Thonglor Soi 7, Sukhumvit Rd. Soi 55; 66-86/374-3513), and sells at various boutiques in Laos, Singapore and Australia and online (etsy.com).

Dror Lam, Founder/Designer, Harmony Necklaces

(harmonynecklaces.com), a designer and world traveler, is the artistic and entrepreneurial mind behind a line of elegant necklaces characterized by their bold size. Pieces are handmade from the finest materials, including Italian leather, French crystal, Chinese jade, Hong Kong pearls and Vietnamese lacquers.

Buy: Harmony Necklaces can be purchased at Gaya (1 Nguyen Van Trang St., Q1; Saigon; gayavietnam.com).

Valerie Baumal, Founder/Designer, Anakijo (anakijo.com),

drew inspiration for her line of colorful, handcrafted accessories for children from the flora and fauna of Southeast Asia and the batik fabric of the region.

Buy: Baumal has a private showroom in Kuala Lampur (Bangsar No. 21, Jln. Turi, Bukit Bandaraya, Bangsar) and products can also be purchased online (etsy.com and my-little-accessories.com).

Clockwise from top: Tassle necklace made of silk and horn, by Harmony Necklaces; clutch, NHD Leather Designs; throw pillows, Anakijo; playful accessories for children, Anakijo; bracelet, AnnA Jewelry; scarves, AnnA.

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Annebe van Dijk, Founder/Designer, AnnA Jewelry

(annajewelry.biz), creates jewelry composed of a diverse mix of beads from Thailand, China and Bali, as well as an array of stunning natural-fabric scarves, which are “inspired by well-known trendsetters in Europe.”

Buy: Su Esthetic Home Spa (59/45 Sukhumvit Rd. Soi 26, Bangkok; 66-2/258-5224) in Bangkok and at select boutiques in Cambodia, The Netherlands, France and Canada. ✚

c l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p : c o u r t e s y o f h a r m o n y n e c k l a c e s ; c o u r t e s y o f n h d l e at h e r d e s i g n s ; c o u r t e s y o f a n a k ij o ( 2 ) ; j o h n b o y e r ; c o u r t e s y o f a n n a j e w e l r y

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Radar t+l p i c ks

Up Close and Natural

Verdant mangroves. Lush rain forests. Snowcapped peaks. The terrain may differ, but these stylish lodges do have one thing in common: they all grant special access to some of the world’s top national parks.

iceland Ion The proximity of this property to Thingvellir National Park means you can fish on Iceland’s largest natural lake—then let the hotel’s chef cook your catch. The bar has dimmable lights and wraparound windows for prime aurora borealis viewing. ioniceland.is; doubles from ISK19,900.

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thailand Sala Khaoyai With only seven guestrooms, including two expansive pool villas carved into the mountainside, this is one of the most intimately luxurious ways to experience the sprawling jungles of Khao Yai National Park. salaresorts. com; doubles from Bt5,500.

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malaysia The Andaman An eco-friendly spot on Langkawi, The Andaman offers all kinds of nature activities, including rain forest walks, visits to an on-site coral nursery, kayaking on Kubang Badak River, and tours of the nearby Kilim Karst Mangroves, a unesco Geopark. theandaman. com; doubles from RM742.

australia Cicada Lodge The 18-suite retreat in Nitmiluk National Park immerses guests in Aboriginal culture: a chef turns out salted crocodile and barramundi, and local guides lead cruises into a series of gorges and on treks through the outback. cicadalodge.com.au; doubles from A$645.

sri lanka Cinnamon Wild Yala This rustic luxury resort channels the feel of an upscale game lodge just outside Sri Lanka’s popular Yala National Park, which has the highest concentration of leopards in Asia. cinnamonhotels.com; doubles from US$210.

—diana hubbell and lindsey olander

courtesy of ion luxury adventure hotel

The Ion hotel, set near Iceland’s Thingvellir National Park.

your travel dilemmas solved ➔ s t y l i s h wa l k i n g s h o e s 74. . . t r e k k i n g , m a d e e a s y 86 … b r i n g i n g b a c k e d i b l e s o u v e n i r s 88 … d e a l s 90

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hik ing

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Trip Doctor

by Amy Farley

Walking on air

The most important item in any suitcase? A pair of stylish, comfortable shoes that can get you around with your head—and arches—held high.

Cole Haan’s soft nubuck Gramercy Oxford Cap-Toe (US$198) comes in a variety of playful colors and has a flexible, cushioned sole that will keep you well grounded.

For more of T+L’s walking-shoe picks, turn the page.

Photographed by Meredith Jenks at Hôtel Americano, in New York City

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Packing

by Mimi Lombardo

Q: I need walking shoeS for my upcoming Rome trip. any Suggestions?

Leather insoles add extra comfort— and style—to any shoe.

Red Carpet, from US$30.

A rubber tread and buttery-soft leather for breathability. US$158, Johnston & Murphy.

—Elena Fernandez, via e-mail

A: Despite the uneven

cobblestoned streets of the Eternal City, tennis shoes are a no-no: Italian women love their stylish footwear, and you’ll want to fit in. Unfortunately, finding chic yet comfortable options is easier said than done. Here, our picks for classic ballet flats, preppy loafers and booties that will give you a leg up.

Extra cushioning—and a flexible sole. US$79, Naturalizer.

Brocade fabric, tassel detailing and a plush footbed. US$90, Sofft.

Belgian-loafer style, with a quilted insole and leather sole to increase airflow. US$275, Tory Burch.

A rubber tread lets you pound the pavement from day to night.

US$79, Aerosoles.

Why is Dansko the go-to brand for nurses? Roomy toes and arch support.

US$190, Dansko.

LOAFERS

Antimicrobial linings and memory foam arches give a footloose feeling.

US$134, Pluggz.

Stretch uppers and a gel heel insert for shock absorption.

US$119, Arcopédico.

Pebbled driving soles soften the step; leopard-print pony hair raises the cool quotient. US$525, Tod’s.

BOOTIES

Comfy OrthoLite footbed and a stacked-wood, rubbersoled heel. US$120, Clarks.

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Lightweight leather uppers— plus rubber bottoms and interior cushioning. US$160, Rockport.

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Surprise: these Lycra-blend boots are machine washable!

i n s o l e s : c o u r t e s y o f RED CAR P ET

BALLET FLATS

Engineered with the help of a podiatrist, it has a padded footbed and molded arch support. US$275, Blake Brody.

Packing is rarely easy—we’re here to help. Send your questions to tleditor@ mediatransasia.com.

Photographed by Tom Schierlitz

Strategies

In a west coast rainforest on New Zealand’s South Island

Trekking, Walking & Hiking

There’s no better way to explore a new destination than on your own two feet. Here, our region-by-region plan for your next great adventure. Plus Quick day trips, emerging regions and more.

By Bree Sposato

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south pa c i f i c

page 78 eu rope

page 80 a fr ica & the middle east

page 81 north a mer ica

page 82 south a mer ica

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M ARC M UENCH / TANDE M ST I LLS + M OT I ON

T+L’s Ultimate Guide to

table of contents asia & the

Strategies

New Zealand: Top to Bottom Five ideas on how to explore the country’s diverse terrain from Active Adventures New Zealand (activeadventures.com).

Volcanoes, emerald-hued mineral lakes and tufted grasslands define the Tongariro Northern Circuit, where the Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed.

N

auckland

0

Prayer flags at Namgyal Tseno monastery, in Ladakh, India.

Wellington

128 KM

Christchurch

Carved by glaciers 20,000 years ago, the 1.2 millionhectare Fiordland National Park is full of snowy peaks and primeval rain forest.

The 22,530hectare Abel Tasman National Park is located on the pristine South Island coast, where golden beaches, granite cliffs and quiet estuaries are populated by tui and pukeko birds.

Two massive glaciers draw trekkers to the South Island’s Westland National Park.

Himalayas The world’s highest mountain range is the spiritual heart of many cultures, all of which offer unique on-the-ground experiences.

Cultural Immersion: India A one-hour flight north of

New Delhi, the arid Ladakh region is filled with villages and Buddhist monasteries. Shakti Himalaya runs six homestays with large, comfortable beds and a private staff; guests use them as a base for visiting nearby communities and sites on foot. shaktihimalaya.com; eight days from US$4,290.

Physical Challenge: Nepal Snow-cloaked peaks rise

out of deep valleys and narrow gorges in the Nepalese and Tibetan stretches of the Himalayas. Epic Tomato runs a trek on Nepal’s Annapurna Circuit and along the less-visited Nar Phu Valley, before crossing into Tibet. epictomato.com; 15 days from US$7,880.

Spiritual Retreat: Bhutan This carefully preserved

landscape is steeped in Buddhist culture. The MerakSakteng Trek from Asia Transpacific Journeys goes to the country’s east, where you’ll pass hillsides filled with wild rhododendrons to reach remote monasteries. asiatranspacific.com; six days from US$2,700.

etiquette tips Always walk to the left of monuments and shrines.

Photography in the main hall of temples and monasteries is often forbidden; ask before you shoot.

Use both hands to receive food, drink or a gift.

It’s rude to step over someone’s outstretched legs; draw yours up if someone is passing by.

emerging destinations Custom trips to Sri Lanka by Red Savannah (redsavannah.com; 14 days from US$5,352) might include walks between tea plantations or hikes up the 2,250-meter-high Adams Peak. Mongolian Vistas from Nomadic Expeditions (nomadicexpeditions.com; 15 days from US$5,795) starts in the vast Gorkhi-Terelj National Park and ends in the Gobi. desert.

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ANNA M AZUREK

Thousands of rare glowworms cling to the walls of the Waitomo Caves, which you can explore by foot or by boat.

Strategies

special-interest trips for culture mavens: ireland The Connemara & Galway Bay trip from CW (formerly Country Walkers) hits classic sites—such as the cliffs of Moher—on lesstouristed paths. You’ll also participate in a traditional céilidh dance and share a pint at a pub while taking in a seisiún with fiddlers. cwadventure. com; seven days from US$4,198.

Trekking the Matterhorn with REI Adventures.

Best of the Alps Choose your own adventure in one of these four regions.

Matterhorn

EngadinE

Dolomites

The Draw

The Draw

The Draw

Located in the Pennine Alps, on the border between Italy and Switzerland, the area around this 4,478-meter-high mountain is known for its rich village life.

This valley in Switzerland’s easternmost corner is known for wildflower meadows, Bronze Age ruins, glaciated peaks and charming inns.

Gastronomy rules in northern Italy’s Dolomites, a unesco World Heritage site with dramatic limestone formations, crumbling castles and Austrianinfluenced cuisine.

The Trip

An inn-to-inn tour with Ryder-​

REI Adventures

leads a trek between Grindelwald and Zermatt that will have you hiking up to 18 kilometers a day and exploring medieval hamlets along the way. rei.com; nine days from US$4,775.

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The Trip

­Walker Alpine Adventures stops

at cozy woodpaneled chalets and 17th-century houses. ryder​ walker.​com; seven days from US$3,740.

The Trip

On an itinerary from Whole Journeys, the new travel arm of Whole Foods Market, you’ll visit a farm where cheese and yogurt are made and hike past ancient shingleroofed farmhouses. wholejourneys.com; seven days from US$4,595.

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TYROLEAN ALPS The Draw

Austria’s historyfilled North Tyrol has centuriesold palaces and pristine lakes.

The Trip

The Wayfarers offers a walk that stops at the original summer lodge of the Von Trapp family and passes the Imperial Palace of Empress Maria Theresa, the Hapsburgs’ only female ruler. thewayfarers.com; seven days from US$3,995.

The 57-hectare Can Rigall estate, operated by ecotourism group Basecamp Explorer, is modeled after a Catalan farmstead, with 11 rustic-chic rooms providing an ideal base for trekking into the Mount Canigou range. basecampexplorer.com; doubles from US$340 per night.

for foodies: alsace, france Bespoke trips from Trufflepig follow the Route des Vins between Strasbourg and Colmar. Take a 13-kilometer walk through vineyards to sample Klevener de Heiligenstein (a rare Savagnin Rose), or go on a kitchen tour of the Michelin three-starred Auberge de L’Ill, in the town of Illhaeusern. trufflepig. com; six days from US$3,000.

for history buffs: turkey Visit the ancient city of Ephesus and follow the Silk Road to the cave churches of Cappadocia on Turquoise Coast & Cappadocia from Classic Journeys before spending four days based on a yacht on the Mediterranean Sea, exploring secluded coves. classicjourneys.com; nine days from US$4,695.

CLOCKW I SE F RO M TO P LE F T: COURTES Y O F RE I AD V ENTURES ; DAN I EL DE M P STER P HOTOGRA P H Y/ALA M Y; COURTES Y O F BASECA M P EX P LORER ; I L I AN F OOD & DR I NK /ALA M Y; I AN DAGNALL /ALA M Y; I M AGEBROKER /ALA M Y; J OHNER I M AGES /ALA M Y; HEEB / LA I F/ REDUX ; I M AGE SOURCE /ALA M Y

for nature lovers: the french pyrenees

Africa: Walking Safaris Step out of the jeep and into the wild.

Zambia

In the home of the walking safari, veteran Zambian outfitter Robin Pope Safaris offers a mobile camping trek through a remote part of South Luangwa National Park.

You’ll spend days tracking lions or observing buffalo along the Mupamadzi River bank, and evenings at a roving camp with walk-in tents and Mara campfires. robinpopesafaris.net; eight days from US$4,388.

Tanzania

Ker & Downey’s Tanzania Walking Safari focuses on elephant- and giraffespotting in private concessions adjacent to Tarangire National Park and on Rubondo Island in Lake Victoria; you’ll also visit

Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) in Tarangire National Park, Tanzania.

northwestern Serengeti National Park. A team will escort you to each of the three destinations, where you’ll stay at top-notch lodges and tents with en suite bathrooms. kerdowney.com; 10 days from US$10,165.

Kenya

Excursions on foot are the focus of Dorobo, a camp located on the Masai-owned Naboisho Conservancy and operated by sustainabilityminded Basecamp Explorer.

The site has 10 canvas tents with open-air showers and a well-stocked bush bar.

Use the camp as your starting point for daily wildlife walks with naturalist Masai guides. basecampexplorer. com; from US$340 per person, all-inclusive.

Ry s z a r d L a s k o w s k i / D r e a m s t im e . c o m .

culture spotlight The Meket Community Tourism Walk in Ethiopia from Journeys by Design (journeysbydesign. com; seven days from US$4,500; ) heads north from Addis Ababa along the Meket escarpment, where you’ll encounter remote highland communities and sleep in rustic inns. Wild Walk in Palestine from Wild Frontiers (wildfrontiers.co.uk; nine days from US$2,782; ) visits sites on the biblical path of Abraham between Nablus and Jerusalem. A Morocco trip from CW (cwadventure.com; 11 days from US$5,298; ) goes from Fez to Marrakesh and into the High Atlas Mountains.

Conquering Kilimanjaro Africa’s highest peak (5,585 meters) is attainable— choose the pace that’s right for you.

t+l tip

I just want to get to the top Machame Trail

I’ve got time, and lots of it Lemosho Trail

Extreme is my middle name Grand Traverse

The Mount Kilimanjaro climb from Micato Safaris takes the Machame trail (the fastest and most straightforward route), ascending 4,267 meters over the course of a week. You need to be in good shape, but afternoon tea and fireside chairs keep things comfy. Also in your party? A guide, a chef, porters to carry your gear, and waitstaff. micato.com; seven days from US$4,750.

If you have the vacation days to spare, take the 11-day Lemosho route, which gently ascends to the summit at a relaxed pace, making it easier to acclimate. Alpine Ascents pairs this route with a visit to Tanzania’s Tarangire National Park and Ngorongoro Crater. alpineascents.com; 16 days from US$6,600.

You’ll need extra training to conquer the Grand Traverse route, which circumnavigates the mountain. A trek with Thomson Safaris begins on the western side and cuts east to the Mawenzi Volcano before making camp inside Kili’s crater at 5,731 meters. thomsonsafaris.com; 10 days from US$8,290.

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For advice on how to avoid altitude sickness, visit the Altitude Research Center (altitude research.org).

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Strategies

View across Swiftcurrent Lake, Glacier National Park, Montana.

Day Hikes Get a quick dose of the outdoors.

Iconic Hikes Our top picks for tackling some of the most scenic U.S. landscapes.

Yosemite National Park california

On the Yosemite Walking & Hiking tour from Backroads, stroll beneath an 1,800year-old giant sequoia in the park’s Mariposa Grove and stay in the 123-room Ahwahnee hotel, a National Historic Landmark, before hiking to the roaring Lower Yosemite Falls alongside two naturalist guides. backroads.com; six days from US$2,998.

Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks idaho, montana and wyoming

Off the Beaten Path

creates bespoke trips that combine the ragged peaks and pristine lakes of Glacier National Park with the abundant wildlife of Yellowstone. This spring the outfitter is partnering with Airstream 2 Go to provide top-of-the-line trailers as part of custom itineraries in the Rocky Mountains. offthebeatenpath.com; nine days from US$2,900.

Appalachian Trail massachusetts and new hampshire

Loop from Boston to New Hampshire’s Mount Washington during prime leaf-peeping season with G Adventures’ new Autumn Along the Appalachian Trail. The 43-kilometer route starts in Franconia State Park and continues to the scenic Arethusa Falls Trail. gadventures.com; six days from US$1,599.

NORTH CAROLINA A 40-minute drive south of Asheville on the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Mount Pisgah Trail (below) is a 2.4-kilometer hike to the 1,744-meter top. blueridgeparkway.org.

COLORADO The 5.6-kilometer Rustler Gulch Trail, near Crested Butte, culminates in an 3,475-meter-high alpine meadow; creeks and mining ruins round out the experience.

CALIFORNIA Thirty minutes by car from L.A., the fivekilometer Temescal Canyon Loop, in the Pacific Palisades, passes a waterfall.

HAWAII (BIG ISLAND) The 6.4-kilometer Kilauea Iki Trail starts at the rim of the crater and descends 122 meters into a rain forest and lava lake. nps.gov.

t+l pick: trekking pole

A good walking stick can provide better stability on rough terrain.

Black Diamond Equipment’s carbon-fiber Ultra Distance model (blackdiamondequipment.com; US$160) is light and compact. level of difficulty:

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Folds down to 33 centimeters.

Easy

Intermediate

Off the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Challenging

Rigorous

CLOCKW I SE F RO M TO P : © s t e v e g e e r / i s t o c k p h o t o . c o m ; Cv a n d y k e / D r e a m s t im e . c o m ; COURTES Y O F BLACK D I A M OND ( 2 )

NEW YORK At Bear Mountain State Park, 80 kilometers north of Manhattan, you can walk around a placid lake or ascend 396 meters for views of the Hudson River. nysparks.com.

Strategies

Patagonia Made Easy

It can take up to two days to reach South America’s wild southern frontier from North America.

If you’ve got limited time, Chile’s northern Patagonia is the easiest way into the region. Gray & Co. (grayandco.ca; from US$1,200 per person per day; ) has customized itineraries: take the two-hour flight from Santiago to Puerto Montt, where the six-villa Cliffs Preserve will be your base for expeditions to spot palm-size monito del monte monkeys and to visit the active Osorno Volcano.

Have a few more days? A two-hour drive (plus a 30-minute ferry ride) south is tranquil Chiloé Island, filled with unesco-designated churches and untouched nature preserves. Stay at the new Refugia (refugia.cl), left, where all 12 rooms have views of Chiloé’s inland sea.

Machu Picchu The Incas created hundreds of footpaths throughout the Andes. T+L charts three routes to Peru’s most iconic site.

Salcantay Trail Best for Creature comforts.

Known as the back door into Machu Picchu, Salcantay is also the area’s highest path (it reaches 4,633 meters).

Mountain Lodges of Peru, a string of stone-and-timber inns along the trail, is the only lodge-to-lodge way to reach the lost city of the Incas: take this route on a trip with Wildland Adventures (wild land.com; 11 days from US$3,800; ).

Trekkers here have the Andean landscape practically to themselves.

On a private trip from Aracari (aracari. com; eight days from US$1,822; ), you’ll camp for three nights with a guide, a cook and porters, and finish with a hot shower at the company’s permanent site near Ollantaytambo before taking the 1½-hour train ride to Machu Picchu.

(mtsobek.com; four days from US$3,995; ) tackles the most famous road to Machu Picchu in four days; for a glamping experience, Austin-Lehman Adventures (austinlehman.com; 10 days from US$3,898; ) offers portable showers and even a massage therapist. Book early with your outfitter: the government issues only 500 trail passes daily.

tech tool Looking for the name of that mountain?

The GPS-enabled Peaks app (iTunes; US$2.99) has a database of more than a half-million summits around the world and automatically generates a tweet identifying the mountains that are closest to you.

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Classic Inca Trail Best for Ancient ruins.

Mountain Travel Sobek

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COURTES Y O F RE F UG I A . m a p b y w a s i n e e C h a n ta k o r n

Apu Huayllanay Trail Best for Peace and quiet.

Planning

Bucolic charm on Australia’s Kangaroo Island.

Q: I’d like to get off the beaten path and experience life like a local. any suggestions?

If you’re looking to immerse yourself in a new culture, homestays are a great option; a well-connected outfitter can help you find the right fit. Here, five ideas to get you started.

Wild China the details This tour heads to the southwestern part of one of China’s most culturally diverse regions. In addition to hiking past 1,200-year-old grottoes and exploring ancient trading posts, guests have the opportunity to stay and dine with Naxi and Bai villagers. don’t miss Scouting out local markets and swapping campfire stories, all against the backdrop of Yunnan’s gorgeous mountains. wildchina. com; seven-day trip is priced upon request.

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Shakti the details Six well-appointed houses, situated in villages throughout the Indus Valley, are located on private properties; each comes with a host and guide. Most Shakti guests combine stays at three houses as they explore the region on foot. t+l tip Arrange to meet a nun who practices martial arts, or sip yak-butter tea with the village doctor. shaktihimalaya.com; seven nights from US$4,397 per person, all-inclusive.

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kerala, india Red Savannah the details This outfitter works with the Tranquil resort, set on a 19th-century coffee plantation. All 10 rooms have up-to-date tech amenities and access to a pool and Jacuzzi. The warm hosts can take you coffee-bean picking on the 162-hectare estate, or teach you how to make local specialties such as avial, a curry made with bitter gourd and plantains. don’t miss A guided visit to the nearby Edakkal Caves, where the rock art dates back to the Neolithic period. redsavannah.com; from US$226 per person per day.

thailand G Adventures the details On this whirlwind trip from south to north, you’ll work on mangrove conservation in Koh Phra Thong, become a part of Ban Talae Nok’s local community, zipline through the jungle canopy in Chiang Mai and spend three nights in a hilltribe village. don’t miss The chance to immerse yourself in your homestay village. Visitors can make soap at a local women’s co-op or go fishing with the old pros before heading to the beach for barbecue. geoex.com; 13 days from US$1,599 per person.

kangaroo island, australia Asia Transpacific Journeys the details Partnering with Asia Transpacific Journeys, the 1,416-hectare Stranraer Homestead is a sheep farm on remote Kangaroo Island. Owners Graham Wheaton and his wife, Lyn, have four guest rooms; they join guests for dinner most nights. don’t miss Helping Graham herd sheep with his Australian kelpie dogs, or joining him on a night walk to spot wallabies. asia​ transpacific.com; from US$550 per person per day, all-inclusive.

—bree sposato and diana hubbell

courtesy of tourism austr alia

himalayas, india

yunnan, china

The Fix

large quantities of food products, reasonable amounts for personal consumption are perfectly fine. You can legally bring up to a total of 5 kilograms of beef, lamb, pork, chicken and most seafood into the country. Though Singapore does limit which countries are considered safe, you can usually bring food back directly from the U.S. or Canada, as well as much of Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and parts of South America.

Small amounts of fresh fruits and vegetables are also allowed, although a phytosanitary certificate is needed for produce from the American tropics. Any processed, packaged foods should be fine, as long as their combined value is less than S$100.

Hong Kong

Q: I travel all over the world and love to collect edible souvenirs along the way.

What are the restrictions for bringing food back into Southeast Asia?

—linda hsu, singapore A: Seeking out new foods can be one the most satisfying aspects of traveling. Unfortunately, that wheel of unpasteurized Brie you picked up last time you were in Paris may not be 88

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welcome back home. Every country has its own set of rules and regulations. Here are some of the guidelines for legally bringing food back into several Southeast Asian nations.

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Singapore

The good news is that the Lion City is actually fairly lenient when it comes to importing foods.

Although you would need a special permit to carry

Bad news for carnivores— thanks to multiple foodsafety scares from mainland China, import restrictions for the SAR are prohibitively high, so don’t even think about trying to bring in oysters, sashimi, most dairy products, beef, chicken, pork or other edible beasts without an official certificate and proof of the product’s origin.

Hong Kong also has especially tight regulations on food additives and antibiotics, as well as processing methods. You may not know if you’re carrying food that contains excessive concentrations of Photographed by Phil Toledano

By Diana Hubbell

common preservatives like sorbic acid, sodium nitrate or sulphur dioxide. In other words, it’s easy to break the law without even meaning to. But be wary: Violators of Hong Kong import laws are subject to up to six months of imprisonment in extreme cases, so tread carefully. No pork chop is worth jail time.

Thailand

Certain foods are forbidden for import into the Kingdom, including dairy products; baby formula, food and supplements; royal jelly products; irradiated foods; garlic products; and weight-control supplements.

And even for the foods that aren’t on the No Fly list, you still might need a special import license.

The good news is that a host of Asian favorites, from fish sauce to alkalinepreserved eggs are allowed, as are genetically modified foods, if that’s your thing.

Q: My son has severe shellfish, peanut and gluten allergies.

What can I do to protect him while traveling in Southeast Asia?

A: Food allergies can add all

kinds of logistical hurdles to an otherwise simple trip.

That being said, as long as you exercise proper precaution and make a few extra preparations, there’s absolutely no reason you and your son shouldn’t be able to safely enjoy your vacation. As delicious as it is, you should probably steer clear of street food. Most vendors reuse the same wok throughout the day without cleaning in between dishes.

The exception is Singapore, where hawker stands undergo routine hygiene inspections and the vendors tend to be a bit more accommodating to special requests.

When in restaurants, politely explain to the staff that you would like them to wipe down cooking surfaces to minimize the risk of cross-contamination.

Avoid anything deep-fried, as there’s no way to know what else may have been fried in the oil. To be on the safe side, pack hermetically sealed snacks that you know are safe, an EpiPen and any necessary medication.

If you’re traveling to countries where you don’t speak the language, consider packing an allergy card explaining your son’s dietary restrictions. Select Wisely (selectwisely.com) and Dietary Card (dietarycard.com) both offer translations in many Southeast Asian languages.

For a convenient and discreet way to stay prepared in the event of a hospital trip, MedicAlert Foundation (medicalert.org) crafts customized accessories such as jewelry and watches with clients’ medical information.

What’s Your Problem?

Food Poisoning!

I LLUSTRAT I ONS B Y J OANNA NEBORSK Y

Do...

Ask the local pharmacist for a loperamide-based drug (like Imodium), to prevent dehydration.

Don’t...

Seek medical attention if you experience signs of dehydration, such as dizziness or dry mouth.

Jump back to solid food.

Kiss your entire Start with electrolytevacation good-bye. fortified liquids (coconut Food poisoning water), then move usually subsides within on to rice and bananas. two to four days.

the final say

Q: Is the “service charge” on my roomservice bill the same as a gratuity?

A: Though

the exact definition varies from hotel to hotel, service charge usually indicates a pooled tip, to be divided up by the entire room service department. If your specific attendant was particularly good, you may consider giving an extra gratuity—but are in no way obliged to do so. To be sure, ask what the hotel’s policy is when placing your order.

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Deals

Indonesia

US$580 per night

A romantic getaway at Banyan Tree Bintan.

Romance

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MALDIVES

What Couples Retreat at Sheraton Maldives Full Moon Resort & Spa (starwoodhotels.com).

Details Four nights in a Water bungalow.

Highlights One Special Couples Massage at Shine Spa for Sheraton; one complimentary Dolphin Cruise excursion for two; one welcome bottle of sparkling wine; combined airport transfers; daily in-room continental breakfast; daily dinner for two at Feast. Cost US$2,600 (US$650 per night), double, through December 25, 2014. Savings 35 percent.

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CHINA

What Honeymoon Escape at Anantara Xishuangbanna (xishuangbanna.anantara. com). Details Three nights in a Deluxe Garden View room. Highlights One 200-minute spa Banna Retreat, one honeymoon setup on arrival with sparkling wine and homemade chocolates, one High Tea experience at Lotus Lounge, and daily breakfast. Cost From RMB8,904 (RMB2,968 per night), double, through December 31.

Savings 23 percent.

c o u r t e s y o f b a n ya n t r e e b i n ta n

INDONESIA

What Take Me to the Moon at Banyan Tree Bintan (banyantree.com). Details Two nights in Pool villa – Seaview. Highlights A 90-minute spa body massage for two, an Intimate Moments setup with a bottle of wine, a Blue Moon Romantic in-villa dining experience for two, a daily buffet breakfast for two, and express immigration clearance with return land transfers. Cost From US$1,060 (US$580 per night), double, through December 22. Savings 15 percent.

Island THAILAND

What Weekend Offer at Conrad Koh Samui (conradkohsamui.com). Details Two nights in a Waterfront Pool Villa. Highlights Daily breakfast, as well as a 20 percent discount on all dining and spa treatments. Cost From Bt41,120 (Bt20,560 per night), double, through December 17. Savings 20 percent.

INDONESIA

What Bali Exclusive at Rimba Jimbaran (rimbajimbaran.com). Details Two nights in a Hill Side room. Highlight A hydromassage at the Aquatonic Seawater Pool, filled with water from the Indian Ocean. Cost US$580 (US$290 per night), double, through December 23. Savings 40 percent.

VIETNAM

What Extended Stay at Six Senses Con Dao (sixsenses.com). Details Three nights in a Pool villa. Highlights Complimentary daily

breakfast. Cost From US$1,545 (US$515 per night), double, through October 31.

Savings 30 percent.

Discovery NEW ZEALAND

What Highlights from New Zealand from Zicasso (zicasso.com). Details An 11-day tour including Auckland, Christchurch, Queenstown and Rotorua including accommodations. Highlight See volcanic craters on a visit to Rotorua. Cost US$1,570 per person (US$143 per night), through December 31. Savings 30 percent.

INDONESIA

What Urban Escape at Mandarin Oriental Jakarta (mandarinoriental.com). Details A stay in a Superior room. Highlights Complimentary one-hour Royal Javanese or Balinese massage for one, luxury transfers to Grand Indonesia or Plaza Indonesia shopping malls, US$25 food and beverage credit, and

daily breakfast. Cost From US$188, double, through December 30. Savings 40 percent.

Spa CHINA

What Detox and Recharge at W Guangzhou (starwoodhotels.com). Details A stay in a Spectacular room. Highlights One 90-minute spa treatment, daily buffet breakfast and 20 percent discount on spa treatments. Cost From RMB1,888, double, through December 31. Savings 25 percent.

THAILAND

What The Summer Spa Experience at The Peninsula Bangkok (peninsula.com). Details A stay in a Deluxe room. Highlights One 80-minute spa treatment for two, complimentary use of The Peninsula Spa facilities and daily buffet breakfast at the River CafĂŠ and Terrace for two. Cost From Bt10,500 per night, double, through October 31. Savings 37 percent.

October 2013

Jago Ga zendam

In This Issue 94 Hong Kong 104 Back to Basic Spas 110 Up North in Australia 118 50 Dream Trips 136 Voluntourism 142 Kazakhstan The Zaiilisky Alatau mountain range, Kazakhstan, page 142.

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Hong Can a 21st-century megacity retain its soul? Beneath Hong Kong’s ultramodern surface, Peter Jon Lindberg finds a dynamic group of artists, designers, chefs and entrepreneurs who are reimagining the city’s landscape with a new appreciation for its past. Photographed by Adam Friedberg

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Kong now The skyline of Central Hong Kong.

From left: Paulo Pong, Alan Lo and Yenn Wong—the masterminds behind Duddell’s—in the second-floor lounge.

Above: The emerging Tai Ping Shan neighborhood.

Below: The terrace at Duddell’s, in Central.

On a lushly planted terrace high above the mad dash of Central Hong Kong, a Gatsbyesque bacchanal is fully under way. It’s a balmy May evening with threats of a downpour, but the humidity does little to quash the revelry. The verdant rooftop aerie, aglow with twinkling lights, feels like a secret garden floating above the city. That this opening party coincides with the launch of Art Basel Hong Kong—the first Asian edition of the global art fair—explains why so many gallerists, curators and scruffy young artists figure among the crowd.

Duddell’s, the venue in question, is a curious mash-up: equal parts arts club, restaurant, gallery and salon. With interiors by the British designer Ilse Crawford, the two-level space is deliciously, deliriously retro, as if you’ve stepped into the 1960’s Hong Kong of In the Mood for Love. You expect Maggie Cheung to sashay past in her cheongsam. The dining room serves classic Cantonese, and every detail is artfully executed, from the old-school tea service to the delicate har gau dumplings to the warbly jazz soundtrack. Throughout is an eclectic array of artworks: Chinese brush paintings; contemporary sculpture; rotating exhibitions in the upper-floor galleries. This month brings a show curated by Chinese provocateur Ai Weiwei.

Duddell’s also hosts lectures, screenings, readings and performances, most reserved for members but some open to the public.

“The idea is to build a community around art, not only for collectors and gallery owners but also for artists themselves. We want to be inclusive, not elitist,” says cofounder Yenn Wong. The 34-year-old Singapore-born entrepreneur has plenty of experience creating buzz: she founded JIA Boutique Hotels and owns four restaurants in Hong Kong, including 22 Ships, a new tapas bar from acclaimed London chef Jason Atherton.

Out on the terrace, Wong’s husband and business partner Alan Lo—an art-world player, property developer and successful restaurateur in his own right—is reflecting on the tremendous, ongoing transformation of his hometown. “Ten years ago, what was there to talk about besides the culinary scene and retail?” he says.

“Culturally, Hong Kong is far more interesting now. We have the international galleries, the alternative art spaces, a huge growth in collectors and the auction market. We’re still at an early stage, but in five years things will really be happening.”

Lo and Wong both speak of “a new heyday for Hong Kong,” and though they’re hardly impartial, something, inarguably, is in the air.

The same restive energy that has galvanized the art community also courses through Hong Kong’s food, fashion and design scenes. And it’s bubbling up in unexpected corners of town: in industrial zones turned creative hubs; in historic buildings being reclaimed and repurposed; and in neighborhoods defined not by outsize development but by improbable intimacy and grace. Yes, global brands and corporate heavyweights still dominate the terrain—but small, vibrant things now thrive in the spaces in between. t r av e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a .c o m

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From left: Beverage manager Elliot Faber and chef Matt Abergel at their new restaurant Ronin, in Central; a sashimi sampler of sea bream, squid and mackerel at Ronin; artist Tam Wai Ping’s Falling into the Mundane World, part of a temporary exhibition in Kowloon, from the forthcoming M+ museum.

V i n ta g e p h o t o C o u r t e s y o f M a n d a r i n O r i e n ta l , H o n g K o n g . Opp o s i t e , M a n d a r i n O r i e n ta l L o b b y: P h i l ipp E n g e l h o r n

uddell’s is nothing if not perfectly timed—a clever fusion of the city’s latest obsession (art) with its most enduring (food and drink). It’s also a canny hybrid of old and new, evoking the glamour of the mid 20th century in a place racing headlong into the 21st.

All great cities have their glory years, when their style and identity reach an apotheosis. Think of Paris in the 1920’s, Shanghai in the 30’s. Hong Kong’s golden age, certainly in terms of style and design, lasted from the 1950’s though the 70’s, when, amid an enormous boom in investment and immigration, the world rushed in and a new Hong Kong was born. The titans of finance and industry began erecting ever taller and splashier new headquarters, and the once humdrum skyline of Central was recast as an architectural showpiece.

Many of Hong Kong’s most iconic buildings date from that mid-century heyday, including the old Bank of China tower (1950), a majestic study in Art Deco; Jardine House (1972), whose porthole windows give it the look of a ship plying the nearby harbor; and the Mandarin Oriental hotel (1963), which—at a staggering 27 stories—was once the island’s tallest building.

From the day it opened, 50 years ago this month, the Mandarin has been an emblem of Modern Hong Kong. Local residents have long treated the hotel as their living room, even if they’ve never spent the night upstairs. (Between the bustling lobby lounge, the salon and spa and barbershop, and the 10 restaurants and bars, everyone in town seems to pass through at some point.) Despite extensive renovations, the past remains present. With its boxy chandeliers, its retro tailoring shop, and its chief concierge in tails, the Mandarin still channels that James Bond glamour of the 60’s—the same era that Duddell’s so skillfully evokes and that so many of us imagine when we think of “classic” Hong Kong.

But that sense of history is increasingly rare here. Too often, Hong Kong has forsaken its past—its architectural heritage most of all—in favor of relentless forward motion. Just witness the skyline of Central, where the Mandarin Oriental is now dwarfed by towers twice its size.

“The attitude has been, ‘Why keep an old building when you can build a new one 50 stories taller?’ ” says John Carroll, professor of history at the University of Hong Kong, who was raised on the island. Perhaps because so much has been lost, more and more Hong Kongers—Carroll’s students among them—are becoming interested in preservation. “A certain nostalgia for the colonial period has taken hold, especially among young Chinese, who of course aren’t old enough to remember it,” Carroll says.

If art is putting Hong Kong back on the global map­­, it is also redrawing the cityscape itself.

From left: On the street in Tai Ping Shan; the Captain’s Bar at the Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong, in the 1960’s; M+ executive director Lars Nittve (left) and members of his curatorial team in the lobby of the Mandarin Oriental.

From left: Designer Fiona Kotur (seated center) with fashion-world friends Blue Carreon, Tina Leung and Divia Harilela, at the Man Wah restaurant, in the Mandarin Oriental; “Fruit Loops” consommé, a pea, beetroot and pumpkin play on the breakfast cereal, at the Mandarin Grill & Bar.

Clockwise from above: A bird’s-eye view of the rooftop sculpture garden at the new Asia Society center, in Admiralty; Spring Workshop founder Mimi Brown in the art space’s Industrial Forest installation, in Wong Chuk Hang; the Spring Workshop lounge.

Consider the case of Wing Lee Street, a 1950’s time capsule in the Sheung Wan district lined with colorful old tong lau tenement buildings, where shop owners live above modest storefronts.

Three years ago this tranquil lane came under threat of redevelopment by Hong Kong’s powerful Urban Renewal Authority. Outcry ensued; protests were held—and, in a rare victory for preservationists, the URA called off the demolition, consenting to keep the historic tong lau façades. In a city that typically measures time by the pendulum swing of the wrecking ball, Wing Lee was a turning point, offering hope that at least some parts of Old Hong Kong might endure.

T

he inaugural Art Basel was a huge success, drawing 60,000 visitors and 245 galleries from 35 different countries. But the fair is just one (very big) piece in Hong Kong’s culture-capital ambitions. Last year the Asia Society opened its new headquarters inside a 19th-century explosives magazine built by the British Army, cunningly reimagined by architects Billie Tsien and Tod Williams. Nestled on a hillside above Admiralty, the bunker-like complex sets a dramatic stage for art, film and cultural exhibitions—not least with its rooftop sculpture garden, framed by dense forest.

A kilometer west, the former Central Police Station (erected between 1858 and 1919, decommissioned in 2006) is set to become a nonprofit arts hub designed by Herzog & de Meuron. And a few blocks down Hollywood Road, the Police Married Quarters—two Modernist-era slabs that once provided housing for officers and their families—will soon be a hive of design workshops and performance venues known as PMQ. Meanwhile, major galleries such as Gagosian, Perrotin, Ben Brown, LehmannMaupin and White Cube have opened outposts here. (Hong Kong is now the world’s third-largest art auction market after New York and London.)

Even hotels are raising the bar. The muted oak-and-limestone interiors of the Upper House, designed by Andre Fu, form a gallery-like backdrop to a fine collection of contemporary artworks, including Hirotoshi Sawada’s Rise—an undulating steel waterfall clinging to a 30-meterhigh atrium wall—as well as sinuous abstractions in brass by local sculptor May Fung-yi.

If art is putting Hong Kong back on the global map, it is also redrawing the cityscape itself. Just across the harbor, the US$2.8 billion West Kowloon Cultural District is finally taking shape from a master plan by Norman Foster. The waterfront site will include a Chinese opera house, indoor theaters, outdoor stages, and the much anticipated

M+, a museum of visual culture designed by Herzog & de Meuron and TFP Farrells. When it opens in 2017, M+ (as in “Museum Plus”) will be the most ambitious contemporary art space in Asia. (Its executive director, Lars Nittve, was the founding director of London’s Tate Modern.)

“M+ is a global museum with an Asian perspective, not simply an Asian museum—that’s a key distinction,” says Aric Chen, curator for design and architecture at M+. Chen compares its place to Tate Modern, MoMA, and the Centre Pompidou, in that “you can tell where they are, but they’re not confined to where they are.” He expects M+ to add another perspective to a larger, international conversation, acknowledging that Asia “has been on the periphery of that conversation, until now.”

Chen dispels the myth that Hong Kongers only care about money.

He cites the exhibition of inflatable sculptures curated by M+ and set up along the Kowloon waterfront. “We had 27,000 people turn up in a single day!”

This is clearly a watershed time for Hong Kong’s art scene, which Nittve has compared with that of Los Angeles a generation ago. Of course, there’s a difference between a lucrative art market and a vibrant community of artists—and the latter is what a handful of Hong Kongers are now working to develop.

D

rive south along the expressway from Central to Aberdeen, past the Happy Valley racecourse and rows of unassuming high-rise apartments. Just beyond the tunnel, look left, and on a fourth-story terrace you’ll see a grove of bamboo, rippling in the breeze. Except that it’s an art installation—made of 346 bamboo tent poles—called The Industrial Forest. And that isn’t an apartment, but an artists’ space called Spring Workshop.

Spring functions as a nonprofit—mounting exhibitions, hosting events, and sponsoring residencies for local and visiting artists.

Recent guests include Chinese artist Qiu Zhijie, whose installations play off the theme of maps, both real and imagined; and Indonesian performance artist Melati Suryodarmo, whose latest project entailed dancing in heels atop greasy blocks of butter (YouTube that).

The bamboo is a reference to the surrounding neighborhood: Wong Chuk Hang, meaning “yellow bamboo stream,” which once described this backwater on the far side of Hong Kong Island. During the last century, WCH evolved into a thriving industrial zone. Now many of its derelict factories and warehouses are being reclaimed by young creatives.

“What I love about Wong Chuk Hang is that you can see Hong Kong’s history, present, and future in one small neighborhood,” says Mimi Brown, an expat from Los Angeles who opened Spring in 2011. “You still pick up all these smells: the printing houses, the candle shops, ink from the stamp manufacturer.”

Brown had a career in music before moving to Hong Kong in 2005, where she became active in the city’s gallery scene. “But none of those spaces in Central really spoke to me,” she recalls. When she discovered Wong Chuk Hang, something clicked. “The vastness of the interiors, the high ceilings, the messiness of an industrial neighborhood—it gives you a psychological freedom,” she says.

With its kitchen and expansive terraces, Spring is more artists’ colony than gallery. The intention, Brown says, is that “you don’t just come to view the art—you sit down afterward for a meal, have a drink on the terrace and digest it all at a calmer rate.” Her fingers trace the border of one of Qiu’s conceptual maps. “I always left exhibitions hungry for more,” she says. “I wanted to linger, talk further, suspend myself a while longer before being cast back into the real world.” t r av e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a .c o m

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n Hong Kong, the “real world” has typically meant hermetically sealed shopping malls, as vast as airports and chilly as meat lockers.

But among the current generation, a newfound appreciation for organic street life is emerging.

Alan Lo and Yenn Wong both rave about the tranquil enclave of Tai Ping Shan, tucked above Hollywood Road in Sheung Wan. A hilly tangle of shady lanes and frowzy low-rises centered around a banyan-shrouded park, the neighborhood feels a bit like Asterix’s Gaulish village, still holding out against the Romans. Laundry hangs from bamboo poles. Sidewalks see more xiangqi games than Ferragamo heels. Storefronts are mostly given over to junk shops, coffin dealers and tailors selling clothes for corpses. (Tai Ping Shan has long been the center of Hong Kong’s funeral trade, which has helped ward off superstitious developers.)

Lately, the neighborhood has also become quite the hipster scene. Some even insist on calling it “Poho,” after its main thoroughfare, Po Hing Fong.

“Only two years ago it was this sleepy, forgotten place,” Lo recalls. Now it’s full of energy: teahouses, design shops, galleries, nonprofits—or what Lo and Wong call “pockets of soul.”

One of those is Po’s Atelier, an ace new bakery run by a Swede and a Hong Konger that was retrofitted from a 1950’s garage. Next door is its sister coffee shop, Café Deadend, serving breakfast until noon in a courtyard fringed with rosebushes. Here I met Fiona Kotur, the New York–born, Hong Kong–based designer of Kotur handbags. She’s a regular at Po’s, as her studio is two blocks away.

Kotur and her husband moved to Hong Kong when he was transferred for work. “We thought we’d come for a year or two,” she recalls with a laugh. “That was 2002.” Two years later she started Kotur. In the decade since, the fashion world has fallen for her clutches, minaudières and day bags— and Kotur, meanwhile, has fallen hard for Hong Kong. “There’s tremendous optimism here, a sense of excitement about what’s next—arguably more so than in New York,” she says.

Working with brocade, crystal, metallics and skins, Kotur’s designs tend to reference bygone eras, from 1930’s Art Deco to 70’s disco glam. I ask if that element of nostalgie was inspired by Hong Kong. Quite the opposite, she tells me. “Because Hong Kong is a very forward-thinking place, people don’t tend to look back,” she says. “You don’t inherit old jewelry, for fear of bad spirits.

Antique furniture isn’t passed down. And vintage clothing doesn’t have much cachet. Hong Kongers are very current; they dress on-trend.

Traditionally, old things aren’t seen to have value.

And old buildings…well, heritage preservation is quite new here.”

Which, she adds, is why Tai Ping Shan appeals: the age, the grit, the indie cafés and boutiques. “The neighborhood still has balance,” Kotur says as we descend a crumbling staircase toward Hollywood Road.

“There’s birdsong in the morning, people doing tai chi in the park.”

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similar indie spirit is upending Hong Kong’s restaurant scene. Where big, splashy productions once ruled the game—places like Zuma, the swank Japanese restaurant in the Landmark shopping mall—small-and-scrappy upstarts are now all the rage. Prime example: Yardbird, the wildly popular yakitori joint opened two years ago by chef Matt Abergel.

This spring Abergel unveiled his follow-up, Ronin, where the focus is on impeccably prepared seafood. Hidden behind an unmarked door in Central, Ronin has just 14 stools set along a Japanese kiaki-wood countertop. Marley’s “Natural Mystic” lilts over the stereo. In contrast to rowdy Yardbird, Ronin is decidedly more grown-up, with sleek, minimalist décor. Most eye-catching feature: a wall of 90-odd Japanese whiskeys behind the bar, glittering like an altar. The drinks program— which also leans to rare shochus and artisanal sakes—is overseen by Elliot Faber, who grew up with Abergel in their native Calgary. As at Yardbird, the food reflects Abergel’s mastery of Japanese techniques and nuanced flavor combinations. A luscious Shigoku oyster is dressed with red-shiso-infused rice vinegar, to mouthwatering effect; pickled

Looking into the Abode design store in Tai Ping Shan.

mackerel needs only a wedge of tart persimmon to offset the oils and coax out the fish’s sweetness.

You’ve got to love a city where two Canadian Jews can hit it big with yakitori. But the two are more rule than exception in this cosmopolitan town. Life in Hong Kong transcends cultural and culinary borders, such that nothing is foreign and nothing doesn’t belong. Is it surprising that this is the only place on the planet where you can eat raw oysters from six continents?

Of course, that’s long been the case. Hong Kong’s many years of dual citizenship—and its role as a capital of global capital—made it a uniquely “post-national” city, belonging to no one and everyone at once. The cityscape itself came to reflect this: shooting ever-skyward to float above the earth, untethered by physics or geography.

The current population is actually far more homogeneous than you’d think: 94 percent of Hong Kongers are of Chinese descent, with Westerners accounting for only a fraction of non-Chinese residents. Yet while the

international community is small on paper, it plays an outsize role in practice. “This is a Chinese city—it’s not like New York, which is very multiracial and multicultural,” Kotur says. “But Hong Kong is still extremely international in its outlook.”

It is also extremely transient. Among Hong Kong expats, the assumption is that everyone’s just passing through. But if anything, that sense of impermanence has inspired a stronger attachment to the things that have endured, and that seem to mean more with each passing year. Things like the Mandarin Oriental’s throwback barbershop, still looking like the Beatles might pop in for a shave. Or the impossibly skinny double-decker trams that jangle down Des Voeux Road. Or the beloved Star Ferry, founded in 1880, still puttering across the harbor, linking Hong Kong’s future to its past.

For decades it was imagined that Hong Kong’s best days were behind it—that it had become too big, too cold, too dismissive of its inheritance. But while it may not be the first or even the fourth visible layer in the palimpsest of the city, the past is there, giving Hong Kong an indeterminate depth that so many 21st-century megacities lack.

History swirls through this town like a whiff of incense curling up from a temple altar, or a spiraling hawk glimpsed from your 80th-floor window. And the golden age? Beneath all that lucre, between those lofty high-rises, Hong Kong’s golden age may have only just begun. ✚

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STAY Four Seasons Hong Kong A hotel that boasts not one, but two Michelin-starred restaurants.

8 Finance St., Central; fourseasons. com; doubles from HK$5,400.

Hotel Icon Funky training hotel that doesn’t feel like a training hotel at all. 17 Science Museum Rd., Tsim Sha Tsui East; hotel-icon. com; doubles from HK$1,920.

a be rde e n & won g c h u k h a n g

Island Shangri-La Pacific Place, Supreme Court Rd., Central; Shangri-la.com; doubles from HK$4,300.

Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong Still, one the best places to see and be seen in Central. 5 Connaught Rd., Central; mandarinoriental.com; doubles from HK$4,500.

Peninsula Hong Kong An institution since 1928, the Pen has old-world flourishes (Rolls-​ Royce fleet; pillbox-wearing pages) and ultra-high-tech rooms.

Salisbury Rd., Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon; peninsula.com; doubles from HK$5,180.

Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong One of the best views of Hong Kong in the city, either from a guestroom or award-winning restaurant.

International Commerce Center, 1 Austin Rd, West Kowloon; ritzcarlton.com; doubles from HK$4,600.

Upper House This intimate retreat has, refreshingly, no shopping arcades or bustling lobby scene. Pacific Place, 88 Queensway, Admiralty; upperhouse. com; ; doubles from HK$5,000.

EAT Ammo Inside the new Asia Society Center, this showstopper has Deco details and windows onto the surrounding forest—plus a sea-urchin-and-tomato pasta.

Asia Society Hong Kong Center, 9 Justice Dr., Admiralty; ammo.com. hk; dinner for two HK$600.

Duddell’s 1 Duddell St., third floor, Central; duddells.co; dinner for two HK$1,400.

Mandarin Grill & Bar Through October, chef Uwe Opocensky, known for his Adrià-influenced cooking, is serving a special menu for the hotel’s 50th anniversary.

Mandarin Oriental, 5 Connaught Rd., Central; mandarinoriental.com; dinner for two HK$1,200.

Po’s Atelier & Café Deadend 70 & 72 Po Hing Fong St., Sheung Wan; posatelier.com; lunch for two HK$300.

Ronin 8 On Wo Lane, Central; roninhk.com; dinner for two HK$1,200.

Ta Pantry Private Dining French-trained chef (and former model) Esther Sham recently moved her acclaimed private kitchen near the harbor. Sea View Estate, Block C, 5F, 8 Watson Rd., North Point; ta-pantry.com; set menu from HK$680.

22 Ships 22 Ship St., Wan Chai; 22ships.hk; tapas for two HK$800.

Yardbird 33-35 Bridges St., Sheung Wan; yardbirdrestaurant. com; dinner for two HK$800.

DO Asia Society Hong Kong Center 9 Justice Dr., Admiralty; asiasociety.org.

Kotur Hollywood Centre, second floor, 233 Hollywood Rd., Sheung Wan; koturltd.com; by appointment.

Para Site After 17 years, Hong Kong’s most celebrated contemporary art space is still the epicenter of Sheung Wan’s gallery scene. 4 Po Yan St., Sheung Wan; para-site.org.hk.

Spring Workshop Remex Centre, third floor, 42 Wong Chuk Hang Rd., Aberdeen; springworkshop.org.

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Was the origin of “spa” the Belgian baths town, or was it an acronym of the Latin salus per aquae (“health through water”)? Ah, don’t stress about it. One thing that’s certain is, from the beachfront massage salas to the high-tech-facial clinics, our modern relaxation centers have their roots in places to seek natural cures. So, we’d like to get back to basics and hat-tip a few of the region’s most sustainable practitioners. We’re talking about farm-to-massage-table treatments, yes, but also places that go above and beyond for their communities and the environment, help keep ancient traditions alive, or insist on tackling your troubles via mind, body and soul—the full circle. —Jeninne Lee-St. John

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The ornate, Burmeseinspired spa lobby at The Dhara Dhevi.

Opposite: A soothing body scrub at Koh Kood’s Soneva Kiri.

Thailand

Dhara Dhevi and Four Seasons, Chiang Mai You can’t get more cycle-of-life than the traditional Thai massage, the lineage of which traces back to the man believed to be a friend and private physician to the Buddha, Dr. Shivago Komarpaj, who performed the treatment in monasteries. So spend a little time meditating with us on a couple of the spas up in Thailand’s farm-fresh north.

A 3,000-square-meter organic garden snuggles into the sprawling ecosystem that makes up Dhara Dhevi, Chiang Mai. Its produce and herbs are used for everything from feeding the 800 local children in the care of the city’s Don Chan Temple to supplying the hotel restaurants’ kitchens to, yes, greening the resort’s Dheva Spa and Wellness Centre.

An expert on medicinal plants as well as on traditional medicine along the Thai-Burmese border, Oxford lecturer Gerry Bodeker took a sabbatical to Chiang Mai to help create the spa’s herbal compresses, steam

room infusions and its homemade soap using the fruits of the garden. He also designed a new landscaping scheme that, early in 2014, will help, not only the plants flourish, but also the kids at Don Chan—who will receive traditional medicines derived from the garden’s therapeutic crops.

Meanwhile, over at Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai, you can get lessons in traditional Thai healing during DIY Herbal Wraps and Scrubs sessions.

Your private instructor will walk you through the roots of certain herbs as tonics: “Ginger, for example, has a hot and spicy flavor that not only tastes good but also provides health benefits including combating cancers, inflammation cough and sore throat,” spa director Chandarella Luzon says, adding that, from a beauty perspective, it’s known for its ability to prevent premature skin aging.

Then you’ll dig in and mix up a body scrub or wrap using all locally sourced and organic ingredients. Marly

limestone (also known as Thai mountain clay), for one, calms skin, removes toxins, promotes a healthy glow and acts as a sunscreen. The bright yellow prai root has been used for centuries by Thai people to treat various ailments; as an antiinflammatory for muscular pain, swollen sprains and wounds; and as an antiseptic.

Hands-on exposure to “healing methods handed down from generation to generation,” Luzon says, “gives guests a deeper sense of connection and authenticity.” Why else head to the ancient capital than to be treated by the real Thailand?

Dhara Dhevi 51/4 Chiang MaiSankampaeng Rd., Moo 1; 66-53/888888; dharadhevi.com; Lanna Ceremony signature experience including steam bath and herbal compress Bt9,500.

Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai

Mae Rim-Samoeng Old Rd.; 66-53/298181; fourseasons.com; DIY Herbal Wraps and Scrubs from Bt1,000.

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Warriors by the sea at Six Senses Ninh Van Bay.

Vietnam

Consult your Vietnamese elders, and they’ll wax medicinal about nan dien, the concept of healing through energy transfer. It takes different forms in different regions, but on a constellation of craggy rocks off the coast of Nha Trang, Six Senses Ninh Van Bay is making a serious play to become the epicenter of the varied indigenous therapies.

There are 54 officially recognized ethnic groups in Vietnam, and a Six Senses tour of the country begins up in Sapa, where the Hmong and Dao are known for their traditional medicine— the former for their skin restoratives, and the latter for their herbal baths— “the end results of which are excellent physical health including very good complexion,” says spa director Christina Rieken. With that in mind, she launched a series of treatments prescribed by and using products

handmade by these northern shamans. “Promoting their treatments was an excellent avenue to make people aware of their amazing culture,” she says, “and patronizing their products is a small way of helping their livelihood.”

Rieken’s team took a sojourn to Sapa for lessons in extracting essential oils (penduliflora to treat coughs, fevers and clogged sinuses; blanda for soreness and itching) and mixing the poultice and scrub recipes that are now available at Ninh Van Bay. A look at their nearly universally glowing skin should inspire spa-goers to follow the lead of Hmong and Dao women, who—for everything from clogged pores to stress to removing impurities after childbirth, as well as easing them through puberty and menopause— take to the baths in the chilly mountainous climes.

As long as they were up in the clouds, the folks at Six Senses hit the Central Highlands City of Eternal Spring, Dalat, where abundant flora blooms year-round a staggering 1,500 meters above sea level. The result? A soothing new herbal compress massage includes two homeopathic treatments for cancer, and prostate and ovarian health: diep ha chau (phullantus) and trinh nu hoang, or, The King’s Medicine. And apparently Rieken has royalty on the brain, because next on her checklist is a contemporary take on the custom care created for the old dynasties in the imperial city of Hue. Six Senses Ninh Van Bay Ninh Hoa, Khan Hoa Province; 84-58/372-8222; sixsenses.com; Vietnamese Well Being Journey VND4,410,000, Blanda Body Polish VND1,050,000, Herbal Compress Massage VND3,000,000.

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Six Senses Ninh Van Bay

Indonesia

Jamu Traditional Spa, bali Taking its name from an ancient Javanese pure herbal mixture, Bali-born Jamu Traditional Spa centers its philosophy on inherited Indonesian traditions. It is practically an imperative for this center of wellness to pass down its healing knowledge to Balinese women from disadvantaged households. Jamu Spa School, which trains would-be therapists from across the world, has since 2005 provided full scholarships to approximately 100 students, the vast majority of them young women. “We are dedicated to the advancement of women,” says founder Jeannine Carroll, “their independence to be free to choose their futures.”

The first step is a three- to sixmonth commitment to learn the full repertoire of expected spa treatments, as well as reflexology and Balinese massage. Essential to the curriculum: human anatomy and physiology classes, and a thorough reviewing of case studies that makes for a sort of

MBA in holistic healing. In fact, the scholarship program is as much about placing graduates in four- and five-star resort jobs in Bali and abroad—places as far-flung as Greece, China and Lebanon— as providing them business acumen and leadership skills. Some of the upwardly mobile graduates have already gone on to become spa managers.

“The program strengthens the decision-making ability of women, who now have a voice because they earn substantial incomes and can make educated choices for their families and beyond,” Carroll says.

“Whole villages are now able to move out of poverty into a more prosperous life.” We’d definitely call that a comprehensive cure.

Jamu Spa School Jln. Raya Siligita I, No. 1, Nusa Dua; 62-36/128-6595. Jamu Traditional Spas at Alam KulKul Boutique Resort, Kuta, and Tandjung Sari Hotel, Sanur; jamutraditionalspa. com; Balinese Massage Rp550,000.

Therapists in training at Jamu Spa School.

‘women now have a voice, they can make educated choices for their families. whole villages are able to move out of poverty’

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A Healing Realm: Soneva Kiri, Koh Kood

Treatment ingredients, Banyan Tree.

Banyan Tree

High on the green leaderboard since their inception, Banyan Tree Spas beg commendation for the scale and depth of their eco-love.

For those of us on the massage table, these efforts are most apparent most intimately: all potions for body scrubs, facials and skin moisturizing are freshly ground and mixed the day of the treatment using native-sourced herbs, spices, flowers and fruits—such as the coconutty Nature’s Coco body and face massage package at Spa Vabbinfaru in the Maldives—and all other treatment products and oils are all-natural concoctions emanating from Banyan Tree’s partnerships with super-green labs in China, India and Thailand. Less obvious are the accumulated benefits of little efforts like installing sustainable bamboo floors and reducing the use of incense sticks. Aside from that, there are people-power initiatives like the rigorous Banyan Tree Spa schools that churn out stellar salutary specialists in three countries and the contracts for spa furnishings and textiles that ensure a fair market for local artisans.

Banyan Tree Spa Vabbinfaru Vabbinfaru Island, North Male Atoll, Republic of Maldives; 960/6643147; banyantree.com; Nature’s Coco US$220.

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There are few greener pastures to contemplate the merits of holistic healing than a massage bed at the Soneva Kiri resort on Koh Kood, Thailand. This “eco-topian” retreat has taken on advanced responsibilities as a wellness provider, elevating the health of the environment on par with that of its guests.

If spa-going is about nature’s cures, a treatment actually begins the moment you set foot on the property, which is gently nestled among 40 hectares of natural savannah on the island’s best beach—but sends its healing juju far beyond Koh Kood’s shores, funding such initiatives as reforestation in northern Thailand and wind turbines in India. From maintaining a fully self-sustainable water supply to constructing on-site wetlands to organizing staff-wide community service days, Soneva Kiri has so much eco-cred to spare that they aim to be carbon-positive by 2015.

Follow the raised walkways dotted with barefoot staff through the resort to the spa. The welcome area and 10 rooms sink into the natural surrounds with the use of strictly re-growth timber and natural building materials.

The most obvious evidence of their dedication to your well-being: All resort guests are invited, gratis, to an Ayurvedic consultation by a trained practitioner. The process involves a general discussion about health, habits and hardships, and concludes with a litany of recommendations for lifestyle adjustments.

Fresh from Bangkok, my big-city ailments were immediately apparent to the doctor, who diagnosed a pitta body type that, in Ayurvedic terms, means I’m fiery, irritable and have strong desires. (Correct.) He suggested dietary and behavior changes for my pitta-pacifying regime in thorough detail, such as bathing more in moonlight and, less romantically, eating mung beans, along with two feats tricky in Thailand: decreasing both my chili consumption and exposure to heat. He then prescribed a

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four-handed Abhyanga massage treatment. Who was I to disagree?

In line with the resort’s pervasive philosophies, the treatments make best use of the local environment by relying on just that to provide the raw materials required. In the Soneva sense, locally sourced means gathered inside the boundaries of the resort, which boasts extensive herb and vegetable gardens that also service the restaurants. Produce includes thyme, ginger, basil, kaffir lime, lemongrass, aloe and other elixirs and remedies direct from Mother Nature herself.

My therapy began with a head rinse in warm, herbal oil, the ingredients for which are—naturally—grown and produced on site. It was a transformative dowsing. Then, within the immersive architecture of the forest-engulfed treatment room, I entered my healers’ realm.

The synchronized massage strokes from what seemed like a family of hands utterly relaxed me, though apparently I had a lot going on internally—normalizing of blood pressure, eliminating of impurities and liquefying of toxins. The treatment seemed to reinvigorate aspects of my mind, body and spirit that I didn’t know needed attention.

Other compound curatives include Touch of Light, which involves rubbing a melted herbal candle into the muscles and a chakra balance to regulate energy flow, and Jungle Escape, composed of an herbal scrub under a bamboo mist shower and an herbal Thai massage.

To fully wrap yourself in the green mantle, you might retire post-spa to the skylight-ceilinged Eco Villa, where the private pool is filled with filtered rainwater and the air-conditioning unit is solar powered. Yep, even Mother Nature has a sense of irony.

Soneva Kiri, Six Senses Spa, Koh Kood 66-3/961-9800; soneva.com/

soneva-kiri/explore/wellness; Abhyanga Bt7,500, Touch of Light Bt11,800, Jungle Escape Bt12,950; Eco Villas from Bt18,141 per night. ✚

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By Richard Mcleish

Clockwise from top left: Making a herbal compress at Soneva Kiri; the spa’s reception; its Mud Journey treatment; pre-therapy foot cleansing; an all-natural facial mask at the spa.

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Brutal Beautiful Expanse and

Uluru, the world’s largest monolith.

In Australia’s vast Northern Territory, BENJAMIN LAW tells a tale of kangas and camels who roam the white-hot sands, grazing at watering holes, all in the shadow of a great rock.

Go on and rub your eyes—this isn’t a mirage. p h o t o g r a p h e d by dav i d h a n c o c k t r av e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a .c o m

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The sheer red sandstone of Kings Canyon.

It’s

dangerously easy to visit Australia and never see the desert. In fact, it’s common for Australians, me included, to spend their entire lives here and never set foot in the vast, many-named expanse—the Outback, the Red Centre, the Red Heart—that makes up 70 percent of the continent. Still, you could be forgiven for being wary. The terrain can be tough, hot and cruel. Flies swarm in nearBiblical proportions. Temperatures top 35 degrees Celsius.

In the mid-1800’s, explorers found it impossible to navigate with horses and oxen, and had to bring in camels from Afghanistan and northern India to teach them how to travel the brutal expanses of their new backyard.

Those early explorers may have been thirsty and sunburnt, but they also would have been treated to what I see now: some of the most stunning landscapes on earth. At the top of Kings Canyon, I survey a majestic panorama of red sandstone canyons created from 440 million years of ocean floor compression. Plant life that doesn’t exist anywhere else thrives here. Several hours away I’ll hit Uluru, the world’s biggest monolith, recognizable from postcards but so incomprehensibly huge up close, my brain suspects it’s an optical illusion. It’s almost a shame that everyone clusters at Australia’s beaches and harbors. The coastlines are glorious, but the desert offers something akin to a religious experience.

This is the Northern Territory, host to some of Australia’s most incredible landscapes and sacred Aboriginal sites. Much of the land—both traditionally and officially—belongs to a people and living indigenous culture 40,000 years old. Of all the Australian states and territories, the NT population might be tiny—only 233,300 people in a land mass the size of Peru—but that quietness only emphasizes the landscape’s spiritual appeal. Overseas tourists often fly into Uluru, see the great Rock and then catch the first plane out, but those who spend at least week driving around the Northern Territory will be rewarded.

They’ll also soon realize why so many Dreaming stories— Aboriginal creation myths—originate in this part of Australia. After all, much of the Northern Territory, technically desert, is also utterly full of life. In some spots, it almost resembles the spark of creation itself.

Alice Springs

I’ve arrived in Alice Springs as a guest of the Eye of the Storm, a bi-annual literary festival. Exiting the plane is an assaulting experience. Flies flock to my face as though I’m a t r av e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a .c o m

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meal. Some dive bomb directly into my mouth. One local laughs at me as I spit violently, merrily calling out that I’ll get used to it. I make a mental note to buy a fly-repellant hat-and-mask combination, which I soon discover is sold at every petrol station.

Driving into town, one of the first things I notice are the welcoming signs telling me that Alice Springs is a Solar City. It’s not just a nickname: locals take full advantage of the unending sunshine by converting the scorching natural heat directly into electricity. For a town that boasts summer averages of 35 degrees Celsius, it makes sense that Alice would have its own solar power plant. Look up, and you’ll see nearly every home and business comes equipped with solar panels on the roof, too.

The Eye of the Storm mostly takes place in the Olive Pink Botanic Garden, which was founded in 1956 and contains roughly 2,500 plants representing some 500 species. Though lovely to look at, many of these native plants have medical purposes too, long known by Aboriginal people: ilwempe (ghost gum) produces resin to treat cuts and sores; aherre-aherre (native lemongrass) can be inhaled or boiled to treat colds; atnetye (bush banana) roots have a reputation for keeping people slim. In the garden’s venues—open-air, dirt floor stages and nearby rickety old theaters—writers gather from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and beyond for discussion panels, workshops and performances that are filmed for broadcast across the country. Events include “Poets and Lunatics: Dawn Lunar Eclipse Reading” in the morning, and evening-time “Slip of the Tongue Late Night Erotica.”

Leaving Alice Springs the next day, I head an hour west to Ellery Creek Big Hole, a permanent swimming hole nestled in the West MacDonnell Ranges. The water here looks gloriously out of place: a basin-like pool framed by gum trees and two rough red cliffs, jutting out like slabs of rocky road chocolate bars. When locals refer to having “a cool dip,” they’re not kidding. Even with the white-hot desert sun, Ellery Creek Big Hole is nerve-shatteringly cold. After diving in, I burst out of the water swearing, teeth chattering and lips already turning blue. Despite the scorching temperature of the desert, it’s common for people to get hypothermia from swimming in pools like these: with little wind to churn up the more than 25-meter deep water, its lower layers see little movement and almost no sunlight. Ormiston Gorge, another swimming hole an hour west, is just as freezing but bordered by luxurious expanses of sand, giving it the look of an artificial beach. Tourists take advantage, and lazily sunbake.

Glen Helen Resort—the first essential petrol pitstop—is a short drive away. Glen Helen isn’t technically a resort but a flat, single-level roadhouse built in front of a giant ridge.

Workers here are young, multi-accented travelers from all over, earning a quick buck before their next adventure.

Ben, a twentysomething Australian on duty today, apologetically explains that petrol is costly in these parts.

The more remote you get, the steeper the expense. Unleaded and diesel petrol are both A$2.10 a liter. Meals at Glen Helen are more reasonably priced, though equally appropriate to 114

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the environs: A$15 for burgers, with your pick of beef, chicken, veggie or, the perennial Northern Territory favorite, camel. For A$14.50, you can buy a kangaroo salad.

Driving from Glen Helen Resort on the Mereenie Loop requires some courage. Soon, the bitumen road abruptly— and comically—stops. It just disappears, as if someone has scrubbed an eraser over the entire thing. The road looks amputated. Ahead is Laparinta Drive, a dirt track that stretches on for god-knows how long. I climb down to second gear and the drive gets insanely bumpy. Then come a series of foreboding signs, warning of wild camels. There is also: beware: loose surface dust corrugations and gravel road: careful driving techniques are advised. To say the road is rough is an understatement. After several hours, some might call it physically violating. But the view is remarkable: dirt paths, an endless horizon, and wildlife— camels, wild stallions and kangaroos—where you least expect them. The signs might force drivers to slow down, but you naturally want to anyway.

Kings Canyon

The reward at the end of the bumpy drive from Alice Springs is an overnight stay at the luxurious Kings Canyon Resort. Across the road, the resort has built a pathway that winds through the desert towards a magnificent viewing area, where I watch the sunset reflected in the cliff-face.

The walk over to the viewing area is dreamy and strange.

The earth is vivid red and the plants are eerily alien. One is as delicate as seaweed and grows in the shape of a soft dandelion, but is razor sharp to the touch. Looking up at the full moon in the navy sky with the red dirt below us, this may as well be the surface of Mars.

To see Kings Canyon properly though, it’s vital to wake up at 6 a.m. for a guided hike. Leave too late and the heat will make it impossible. Stuart Bet, today’s guide, leads a small group of us to the start of the three-hour, 6-kilometer walk he does every morning. “Definitely no need for a gym membership,” he jokes merrily. The first part of the walk—a series of steep staircase climbs—eliminates one person straight away. (“I’m concerned about your fitness levels,” Stuart tells the woman after just five minutes. Panting heavily, she nods and turns back.) Stuart then takes us through sandstone cliff-faces, pointing at fossils of ancient sea creatures that would have been alive millions of years ago. “See this?” he says, pointing to the edible fruit of a small shrub called selenium. He picks its berries and explains, “This is a bush tomato.” We pass around the fruit and sniff: it’s pungent and wonderful, like the most concentrated extract of a tomato possible.

From afar, the sandstone cliffs of Kings Canyon appear utterly barren. However, more than 600 plant varieties thrive across this expanse. There are ghost gums that glow so hauntingly white under moonlight that they spooked early explorers in the area. When they sent paintings of the gums back to England, Stuart explains, critics scoffed with skepticism: it was impossible trees could appear like that at night in nature. There are the devious, deceptive-looking spinifex bushes that appears soft at first; run your finger

Much of the Northern Territory might be desert, but it’s utterly full of life.

In some spots, it almost resembles the spark of creation

Sunrise over the West MacDonnell Ranges near Glen Helen.

Above: Sunbathing isn’t only for tourists—a kangaroo lounges underneath the desert sun. Below: Aranda Aboriginal woman, Veronica Dobson, standing in the foothills of the West Macdonnell Ranges, just west of Alice Springs.

along its leaves, however, and you’ll discover that they’re sharp enough to lacerate human skin. Also known as “porcupine” and “hummock grass,” the bushes provide small native animals protection and shelter from predators. Local Indigenous people still know how to use spinifex’s natural resin as a sealant and adhesive, and shave down its spiky leaves and weave them into nets and bags. In the Garden of Eden, a fecund undergrowth shielded from the sun, Stuart points out crown-like cycads more than half a millennium old that are currently in their mating cycle and displaying all their sexual organs— bright-red fruit that looks sticky with juices.

At the peak of the canyon, which becomes an operatic waterfall in the wet season, some visitors stand and weep.

Some may be experiencing emotion brought on by dehydration, but most are simply overwhelmed by the view, which arguably rivals anything Arizona has to offer.

Uluru

Two hours after I drive out of Kings Canyon, Uluru—the great rock itself—emerges in and out of my vision like a flirt, dipping behind hills before coming back into view.

Between 900 to 600 million years ago—before dinosaurs roamed the planet—much of Central Australia lay below sea level. Between 400 to 300 million years ago, the land around Uluru collided with other continents in ultra slow motion, forming rocks and then tipping them over at extreme 90 degree angles. While Uluru appears wide and flat, what we can see is actually the scalp of a giant that continues 2,500 meters into the ground. Driving towards it, Uluru resembles the watercolor backdrop of an old movie set. Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, home of the local Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara people, was World Heritage listed in 1987; unesco also recognized its cultural importance in 1994. It’s one of the only sites in the world to have both listings. Interference with the park is minimal; accommodation is confined to the Ayers Rock Resort area.

I book the Sounds of Silence experience, a champagne welcome that becomes a dinner under the endless night sky, incorporating Indigenous dancing, storytelling, star-gazing and a buffet menu of kangaroo-tail broth, lemon myrtle chicken, barramudi, kangaroo fillets and quandong crumble. The next morning: a bus tour featuring a sunrise viewing of Uluru from afar, before local Anangu people teach me traditional bush skills, like how to make resin from nuts, and spear animals from afar. Not that we’re going to kill an animal today, the elders clarify.

In the afternoon, we take a walk at the base of Uluru. It’s considered vulgar to walk on the Rock, but some tourists insist on climbing. The Anangu elders leading our tour roll their eyes. Not only is it disrespectful to their culture— trekking up Uluru was traditionally a male initiation rite—but it’s dangerous too. Nearby, a plaque commemorates all the tourists who have died from falling off. I understand their attraction to the rock, it’s difficult to stay away, but a better examination of it can be had on a sunset camel tour. Like the early explorers who mapped out the Northern Territory, visitors are invited to climb aboard

these langourous animals—originally imported here for transport; now grown to a plague of numbers that lands them regularly on the dinner plate. Still, they are perfectly paced, winding around the great Rock placidly, seemingly as smitten with Uluru and the entirety of the Northern Territory as their human passengers.

Spending time with the Anangu elders is enriching.

They regale us with Dreaming stories in Uluru’s shadow, all involving struggles—between god-like snakes, tragedyfated brothers, and vengeance-fuelled clans—whose clashes resulted in the rock’s formation. The monolith that is Uluru is art itself. From some angles, it resembles a wave suspended in motion; from others, it’s a giant gnarled tree root, a shell, a meringue, a beehive, a carved kidney, the mouth of a whale—a fusion of flesh, soil and fossil. ✚

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T L Guide STAY Glen Helen Resort 1 Namatjira Dr., West MacDonnel Ranges; 61-8/8956-7489; glenhelen.com. au; hotel doubles from A$175, campsites A$12 per person, bunkhouse beds A$35 per person and RV parking A$30 for two.

Kings Canyon Resort Luritja Rd., Watarrka National Park; 61-3/9426-7550; kingscanyonresort.com.au; doubles from A$279.

Sails in the Desert (Ayers Rock Resort) Yulara Dr., Yulara; 61-8/8957-7417; sailsinthedeserthotel.com; doubles from A$440.

Desert Gardens Hotel (Ayers Rock Resort) Yulara Dr., Yulara; 61-8/8957-7714; desertgardens hotel.com; doubles from A$394.

Eat Sounds of Silence Experience Ayers Rock Resort; ayersrockresort.com.au/ sounds-of-silence; A$185 per adult, including cultural performances and buffet dinner.

The Tali Wiru Experience Ayers Rock Resort; ayersrockresort.com.au/tali-wiru; dinner A$295 per adult including didgeridoo performance; four-course dinner with wine, port and cognac; and indigenous storytelling.

SEE+DO Olive Pink Botanic Garden & Flora Reserve A 16-hectare botanical garden with selfguided walks. Tuncks Rd., Alice Springs; 61-8/8952-2154; opbg. com.au; free entry.

Uluru Camel Tours Camelback tour of Uluru with the sunset as backdrop. Ayers Rock Resort; 61-8/8956-3333; ulurucameltours.com.au; A$119 includes hotel transfers, one-hour ride and snacks.

Indigenous Guided Tours The company offers a range of options, including dot-painting workshops, bush food tours and cave/hill walks. ayersrockresort. com.au/indigenous-tours.

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50 Dream Trips Cruising the fjords of Norway. Beach-hopping around Kauai. Seeing the new Seven Wonders of the World. We asked veteran travelers we encountered on the streets of New York, as well T+L followers on Twitter and Facebook, to tell us about the destinations they most want to experience.

Read on for our expert advice on how to bring some of these dreams to life. Plus The trips on our editors’ wish lists.

Edited by Jacqueline Gifford and Brooke Porter

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Ships from Hurtigruten (hurtigruten.us; from US$1,286 per person) sail the country’s dramatic fjords. There are multiday cruises with set itineraries, or you can use the ships as ferries, stopping to fish for cod in Troms or hike in Geiranger. To see Pulpit Rock from the water, book the 14-day coastal cruise through Seabourn (seabourn.com; from US$8,499 per person), which includes a boat excursion from Stavanger that passes the towering cliff.

Pulpit Rock, 600 meters above Norway’s Lysefjord.

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50 Dream Trips

Europe

Rome

Take your own Roman Holiday and see 11 iconic spots featured in the classic film, including the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain and the Mouth of Truth, on a chauffeured day tour with Stefano Rome Tours (stefanorometours.com; from US$490 for up to three people). Margutta 54 (romeluxurysuites.com), a tiny hotel of four former artists’ studios near Piazza del Popolo, is a stone’s throw from where Joe Bradley (played by Gregory Peck) lived at 51 Via Margutta.

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Paris

Rome’s Spanish Steps.

STAY

EAT

The St.-Germain landmark L’Hôtel (above; l-hotel. com)—whose 20 rooms are outfitted with damask silks and antiques—comes complete with a hammam in the vaulted stone basement. For showstopping Eiffel Tower views, there’s nothing better than the Shangri-La Paris (shangri-la.com).

DO

At Drouant (drouant.com), chef Antoine Westermann serves dishes such as bouillabaisse and roast suckling lamb in a centuryold space. The sidewalk terrace is shielded by greenery—but if it’s total privacy you want, reserve the upstairs Salon Colette, with just a table for two.

Skip the Bateaux-Mouches and cruise the Seine in luxury with Art et Thème (art-et-theme.fr; from US$230 per person), which will arrange a dinner aboard one of the private Yachts de Paris. Included: a guided, cut-the-line tour of a riverside museum of your choice (yes, that includes the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay).

I want to go to…

ST.-T r o p e z , France

“There’s no place more glamorous. I would love to go there decked out in a fabulous Missoni caftan.”

Mekleat Sahle, equity sales manager, 28 We’re excited about the new-and-improved Hôtel de Paris (hoteldeparis-sainttropez.com); dating back to the 1930’s, it just reopened after 20 years. Nearby, Hôtel Byblos recently unveiled Alain Ducasse’s Mediterranean restaurant Rivea (alain-ducasse.com). For the best beach club scenes, head to the classic Le Club 55 (club55.fr) or of-the-moment Bagatelle (bagatellesttropez.com).

Spain’s iconic Hotel Real, in Santander.

Spain

Start in Bilbao, with a sampling of pintxos (Basque tapas) at Restaurante Víctor Montes (victormontes.com), before heading west on A-8 to Santander, where the waterfront Hotel Real (hotelreal.es) is an ideal base. The port city has white-sand beaches, chic boutiques such as Carot (34/94-222-2873), and romantic restaurants­—try the Iberian-ham croquettes at Deluz (deluz.es).

Continue west on A-8 to the prehistoric caves and 14th-century palaces in Santillana del Mar and hike up Monte Corona, in Caviedes. Last stop: the fisherman’s village of Comillas, known for its Catalan Modernist architecture, including Gaudí’s summer villa, El Capricho.

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50 Dream Trips

Provence

1 Board the new Catherine for Uniworld’s (uniworld.

com; from US$3,399) eight-day jaunt from Avignon to Lyons. Step off to explore Tarascon’s Provençal architecture, the fifth-century village of Viviers, and more.

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The region is dotted with medieval hill towns, including Gordes, Saignon and Roussillon, in the rocky Luberon Mountains. But our favorite is Fontaine de Vaucluse. Take in the hamlet from a canoe on the Sorgue River, available for rent in town.

3 La Chassagnette (chassagnette.fr)—a

farm-to-table restaurant in Arles—sits in a large garden ringed by roses and sunflowers. Try the local octopus with courgette trompette (an indigenous “trumpet” zucchini).

I want to go to…

L a k e Ga r da , i ta ly

“I fought there as a young man during World War II, and I’d like to return.”

Edwin Fancher, retired psychoanalyst, 90

Italy

Walk Alpine meadows or ski world-class slopes in the Alta Badia region, known for its pink-granite peaks and a culture that feels part Italian, part Austrian.

Tour operator Cari Gray (grayandco.ca) suggests splurging on San Cassiano’s Rosa Alpina (above; rosalpina.it), where you can enjoy a lunch of mushroom risotto and speck in the hotel’s mountainside badia (hut).

London

Don’t miss Isola del Garda, a private island in the lake’s center, reachable by vaporetto.

You can tour the neo-Gothic, Venetian-style villa.

And while we love the luxurious waterfront hotels, intimate Locanda San Verolo (sanverolo.it), a restored 18thcentury farmhouse 6 kilometers inland, offers great value.

Packages through the Wimbledon Experience (wimbledon-experience.com; from US$1,750) include hotels (the Savoy and St. Pancras Renaissance are among the options), lunch at the private Gatsby Club—where you can order your Pimm’s—and afternoon tea, complete with fresh-picked Kent strawberries and cream.

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Turkey

T+L A-List agent Joel A. Zack (heritagetours.com) can arrange visits to Pergamom’s Asklepion—a Roman healing center where the physician Galen practiced in A.D. 157—and meals at Asitane (asitane​ restaurant.com), which uses 17th-​century recipes from Ottoman palace kitchens (above).

Like Agatha Christie did, spend the night at Pera Palace Hotel Jumeirah (jumeirah.com).

Russia

In Moscow, ride bikes through revamped Gorky Park and check out the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture. T+L A-List agent Greg Tepper (exeter​ international.​ com) recommends the Ritz-Carlton (ritz​carlton.com) and Ararat Park Hyatt (hyatt.​ com), both just steps from the Kremlin.

C l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p l e f t: C o u r t E s y o f U n i w o r l d B o u t iq u e Riv e r C r u i s e C o l l e c t i o n ; l o o k / g e t t y im a g e s ; c o u r t e s y o f A s i ta n e ; s p e n c e r h e yf r o n ; a fp/ g e t t y im a g e s ; C o u r t e s y o f R o s a A l pi n a a n d R e l a i s & C h at e a u x ( 2 ) ; C o u r t e s y o f R e s ta u r a n t L a C h a s s a g n e t t e ; C o u r t e s y o f D o m a i n e d e l a B a u m e

france

Greece and Turkey

C l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p l e f t: C o u r t e s y o f LE Si r e n u s e ; C a mi l l e M o i r e n c ; C o u r t e s y o f Wi n d s ta r C r u i s e s ; R u s h J a g o e

Italy In Positano (above right), you’ll have your pick of classic hotels, such as Le Sirenuse (above left; lesirenuse.it), with its decadent champagne and oyster bar; Il San Pietro (ilsanpietro.it), which has a private beach; and Hotel Palazzo Murat (palazzo​ murat.it), the summer residence of the king of Naples in the 19th century. For a leisurely lunch, the family-run trattoria Lo Scoglio da Tommaso (hotel​lo​ scoglio.com)​, in Massa Lubrense, serves addictive fritto misto and linguini alle vongole. In the nearby town of

T+L Editor’s Pick

Amalfi, tour the intricately inlaid Arab-​Norman Duomo and Moorish cloisters before checking in to the cliffside Hotel Santa Caterina (hotelsanta​ caterina.it), where the rooms have handpainted tile floors. It’s just a short hydrofoil ride over to Capri and J.K. Place (jkcapri.com), a cliffside villa with 22 rooms, and La Fontelina Beach Club (fontelinacapri.com), whose straw-thatched terrace overlooks the Faraglioni rocks—and is the ideal spot for paranza (crunchy fried fish).

Follow Odysseus’s journey on the Aegean aboard a fourmasted, 110-meter yacht from Windstar Cruises (windstar​ cruises.com; from US$3,000 per person). Seven-day itineraries between Piraeus, the port of Athens, and Istanbul call on some of the region’s most picturesque isles. In Mykonos, you’ll love the whitewashed churches, thatched windmills, and boutiques that made it a favorite haunt of Jacqueline Onassis. For a sense of Roman excess, stroll through the vast ruins of marbled streets, mosaic-floored villas and the colonnaded library in Ephesus. In Istanbul, take a few days to explore the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, and Topkapi Palace—all are close to the Four Seasons Hotel Istanbul at Sultanahmet (fourseasons.com).

Windstar Cruises.

Iceland “Nowhere seems more desolate and ethereal than the volcanic landscape of western Iceland.

I’d take a guided tour with Butterfield & Robinson (butterfield​and​robinson.com; six-day walking trips from US$6,495 per person)—hiking past glaciers, riding horses, visiting the Westman Islands for a glimpse of the world’s largest puffin colony—before venturing out on my own for a drive up to the remote Westfjords.”

—Lindsey Olander

The Westfjords, in Iceland’s northwestern highlands.

50 Dream Trips

africa + the middle east The restaurant at Morocco’s year-old L’Iglesia hotel.

Below: The seaside town of Essaouira.

Israel

Set on a faith-based tour?

Or want to explore Tel Aviv’s thriving restaurant scene?

Whichever it is, T+L A-List agent Rachel Epstein (frosch. com) will match you with the right guide. On the horizon in Jerusalem: a Waldorf Astoria (waldorfastoria.com), opening at the end of the year.

T+L Editor’s Pick

Morocco

“I’d journey down the coast, stopping in seaside resort towns that were once garrisons and boutique hotels like L’Iglesia (liglesia.com), a 14-room gem in a 19th-century former Catholic church in El Jadida, or La Sultana (lasultanahotels.com), whose pool faces the lagoon in Oualidia.”

—peter frank

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C l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p l e f t: C o u r t e s y o f L’ I g l e s i a ; C o u r t e s y o f V o l c a n o e s S a f a r i s ( 3 ) ; A lv a r o L e iv a

Uganda

The Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is home to nearly half the world’s population of endangered mountain gorillas, and—good news for guests of Bwindi Lodge (below)—the success rate for sightings is more than 90 percent.

Volcanoes Safaris (volcanoes​ safaris.com; four days from US$2,389 per person, allinclusive) offers stays at the eight stone-​and-timber bandas, which have en suite bathrooms with solar-​heated water and balconies overlooking the forest.

T+L Editor’s Pick

Kenya

“I’d travel north to south, starting at the dramatic Matthews Range, then flying over Mount Kenya en route to the Masai Mara to watch the Great Migration at Richard Branson’s Mahali Mzuri camp (mahalimzuri.virgin.com; all-inclusive). The finale: the history-rich island of Lamu.”

—amy farley

so u t h a f r ic a

“I’m really interested in apartheid history.”

Zack Rodetis-Urenda, model scout/booker, 20

Tanzania and the Seychelles

F r o m T o P L e f t: C o u r t e s y o f V i r g i n Limi t e d E d i t i o n ; Sp e n c e r H e yf r o n ; M i c h e l l e Ta n g / C o u r t e s y o f B l a c k S e s a m e Ki t c h e n

I want to go to…

Here’s a 12-day bush-and-beach adventure created by Melissa Hordych of luxury outfitter Micato Safaris (micato.com; US$13,545 per person, all-inclusive): Day 1 Arrive at the 30-cottage Arusha Coffee Lodge, on a working plantation.

Days 2–3 Fly to Lake Manyara, then drive to Exploreans Ngorongoro Lodge, which sits on the rim of Ngorongoro Crater. The collapsed volcano is home to 30,000 mammals (including one of Tanzania’s last black-rhino populations).

Days 4–6 There’s a strong chance of

seeing lions, cheetahs and elusive leopards by Lake Masek in the southern Serengeti. From your tent’s raised terrace at Lake Masek Tented Camp, you can spot hippos as they bob in the water.

Day 7 Overnight in Nairobi, Kenya, at the historic Fairmont The Norfolk Hotel, where Teddy Roosevelt once stayed. The on-site restaurant serves a great Mombasa spiny lobster.

Days 8–12 End at the oceanfront Raffles Praslin Seychelles, where each of the 86 airy villas has a private pool.

Book in advance for the ferry to Robben Island Museum (robben-island.org.za), the prison just off the coast of Cape Town, where former inmates will guide you through the halls. For another perspective, we suggest the tiny District Six Museum (districtsix. co.za), dedicated to the community that saw 60,000-plus black residents forced out from 1966 to 1982.

asia China

Start with a lesson at Beijing’s Black Sesame Kitchen (blacksesamekitchen.com), which offers courses on northern Chinese staples, including hand-rolled noodles, as well as millennia-old imperial recipes. Then head to Transit (86-10/64179090) for a sophisticated take on Sichuan; the dan dan mian (spicy noodles) are addictive. It’s a five-hour bullet-​train ride to Shanghai, where you can learn to make xiao long bao (soup buns) at the Kitchen at Cooking School (thekitchen​at.com).

Or just enjoy them at the Huanghe Lu location of Jia Jia Tang Bao (86-21/6327-6878). For something modern, there’s Commune Social (communesocial.com); try the sea urchin with pepper butter and baby-squid paella.

Noodles with fermented flour paste from Black Sesame Kitchen, in Beijing.

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50 Dream Trips T+L Editor’s Pick

India

According to Jonny Bealby of Wild Frontiers, the houseboat Lotus (thelotus​kerala.com) brings a new level of comfort— and not just because of the air-conditioning.

The two guest rooms have handmade teak furniture and private verandas.

EAT

Malabar House (malabar​​ house.com), a boutique hotel in the heart of historic Fort Cochin, is known for its small on-site restaurant. Try the thali (above)—but Bealby also suggests the catch of the day since “it comes out of the fishing nets that morning.”

DO

From Kochi, it’s a fivehour drive south to Kovalem, a fisherman’s beach fringed with coconut groves. Or, head east to the mountainous area of Munnar, studded with tea plantations, including Kolukkumalai Tea Estate, one of the world’s highest.

—K athryn O’S hea-E vans

Members of an indigenous nomadic tribe in Mongolia.

C l o c k w 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 h e L o t u s K e r a l a ; C o u r t e s y o f Mal abar House; christian Kerber

STAY

Mongolia

“Its sweeping grasslands have always held a certain unfettered allure.

With Nomadic Expeditions (nomadic expeditions.com; from US$4,800 per person), I’d spend my days in the saddle looking out for golden eagles and my nights in the hand-painted gers of the nomadic Zahchin tribe.”

Cambodia and Vietnam Feast on fresh-picked dragonfruit and lychees as you sail the Mekong River from Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake to Phnom Penh, ending in Saigon. The 16-day itinerary from AmaWaterways (amawater​ways.com; from US$3,998 per person) includes an overnight amid the

eerie limestone karsts of Ha Long Bay before a flight to Cambodia and three days at the intricate ancient temples of Angkor. Don’t miss the chance to visit Bantay Srei; though it’s less known than Siem Reap’s other temples, it is arguably the most beautiful.

Limestone karsts in Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Vietnam.

c l o c k w i s e f r o m l e f t: © t b r a d f o r d/ i s t o c k p h o t o . c o m ; c o u r t e s y o f t h e s i a m h o t e l ; c o u r t e s y o f c o m o

Thailand

One step inside The Siam hotel’s Opium Spa by Sodashi (top; thesiam​ hotel.com) and you’ll understand why we chose this Bangkok retreat for a relaxing day.

The Sodashi experience includes a Himalayansalt exfoliant, clay body-mask, herbal steam and facial—plus lunch and post-treatment cocktails. As for dinner, head to David Thompson’s Nahm (comohotels.com) for the caramelized taro (above) and coconutturmeric curry with blue swimmer crab.

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antarctica Steam from Ushuaia, Argentina, across the Drake Passage to the Antarctic Peninsula on the 14-day Journey to Antarctica: The White Continent from Lindblad ExpeditionsNational Geographic (expeditions.com; from US$11,990 per person).

Veteran naturalists such as author Stefan Lundgren lead hikes past penguin colonies, Zodiac land excursions and kayak tours through ice floes, where you’ll spot leopard seals and the occasional orca. Wildlife photographers are also on hand to give photo lessons.

central america+mexico Costa Rica

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Monteverde is a logical starting point, says Michael Kaye of Costa Rica Expeditions (costarica​ expeditions.com).

Look for 500-plus species of orchids and the endangered, red and green resplendent quetzal. Opt for a chalet at the Hidden Canopy Treehouses Boutique Hotel (hiddencanopy.com).

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4 Corcovado National Park

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3 Tortuguero (4 nights)

Hikers can explore this 40,500-hectare wilderness, while surfers can hit the waves in the nearby Golfo Dulce. South of Corcovado, Lapa Rios (laparios.com) has 16 luxe bungalows.

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Trek around the 1,670-meter Arenal Volcano, ride a zipline and raft Class Three rapids on the Sarapiquí River.

Unwind with a volcanicmud massage at Nayara Hotel, Spa & Gardens (arenalnayara.com).

Its sister hotel, the 16-villa Nayara Springs, opens in December.

National Park (3 nights)

Kayak through jungle canals along the Caribbean coast. At Tortuga Lodge (tortugalodge.com), the pool appears to blend seamlessly with the Tortuguero River.

C l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p : s t e w a r t c o h e n / C o u r t e s y o f Li n d b l a d E x p e d i t i o n s - N at i o n a l G e o g r a p h i c ; C o u r t e s y o f T o r t u g a L o d g e & G a r d e n s ; D a v e L a u r i d s e n ( 2 )

50 Dream Trips

Belize and Honduras Most divers explore the 1,100-kilometer reef that stretches from Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula to the Bay Islands of Honduras one patch of coral at a time. But Royal Caribbean International (royal​ caribbean.com; from US$599 per person) offers seven-night

itineraries from Galveston, Texas, with stops in Honduras, Belize and Cozumel, Mexico. Watch for dolphins near Anthony’s Key Resort, on Roatán, Honduras.

On Belize’s Turneffe atoll, you may see branch and pipe coral, manatees and green moray eels.

australia+ New Zealand +the south pacific

C l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p l e f t: E a r l C a r t e r ; C o u r t e s y o f J o n at h a n W h e r r e t t/Av a l o n Ci t y R e t r e at s ; C o u r t e s y o f B a j a E x p e d i t i o n s

Mexico

Swim in lagoons, hike the cactus-covered landscape, and learn to stand-up paddleboard among dolphins and whale sharks on trips with ecotourism company Baja Expeditions (bajaex. com; two nights from US$480 per person). Up to 16 adventurous travelers have the run of the protected biosphere reserve, an hour-long boat ride from La Paz off the coast of Baja California Sur. Meals (including fresh fish tacos with handmade tortillas) are eaten family-style, and nights are spent in simple two-person safari tents—or directly under the stars, if you prefer.

A salad of heirloom carrots and wild olives from Garagistes.

Below: Avalon City Retreat.

Tasmania

This compact island makes it easy to hike, eat and drink wine. Live like a (well-heeled) local in Hobart’s new Avalon City Retreat (avalonretreats. com.au), a two-bedroom penthouse decked out with a gourmet kitchen and an outdoor tub made of Huon pine. The Coal River Valley is an easy day trip for Pinot Noir tastings; come back for dinner at Garagistes (garagistes.com.au), which serves seasonal dishes such as slow-roasted lamb saddle with salt-baked celeriac.

Some of the best hikes can be found on the eastern coast, including an informal trek along the Freycinet Peninsula to glittering Wineglass Bay and a guided coastal walk from the ​fi res.com.au; three days eco-chic Bay of Fires Lodge (bayof from US$1,928 per person, all-inclusive).

Fiji “I used to question traveling across the world for a beach, but then I discovered the remote and untouched Yasawa Island. American Express travel specialist Robin Turner suggests Yasawa Island Resort & Spa ( yasawa.com). A private bungalow, picnics on deserted beaches, scuba diving—in a word, paradise.”

T+L Editor’s Pick

A tented camp on Espíritu Santo Island, in Mexico.

— brooke porter

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50 Dream Trips

New Zealand STAY

The aust r a l i a n o u t bac k

SIP

DO

“I’m not interested in the cities; I’d rather experience nature.”

Fabian Quesada, construction close-out manager, 46 Though Queenstown has earned a reputation for adrenaline-rush activities (bungeejumping, anyone?), it also lays claim to one of New Zealand’s most stylish hotels: Matakauri Lodge (matakauri.co.nz), on the edge of Lake Wakatipu, where the 11 cream-and-rustcolored suites have massive bay windows.

Our idea of the classic outback experience?

Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park’s vast central desert. Set right in the park, Voyages Ayers Rock Resort offers both lavish tented suites at Longitude 131˚ (longitude131.com.au; two-night minimum) and the more rustic Outback Pioneer Hotel & Lodge (ayersrock resort.com.au).

the caribbean British Virgin Islands

On catamaran charters from Sailing Directions (sailing​ directions.com; seven-day charters from US$2,000 per person) that depart from Tortola, a crew cares for the logistics of the sail among 60 islands and cays, leaving you free to swim Virgin Gorda’s Baths or to sip a rum “Painkiller” at Soggy Dollar Bar, on Jost Van Dyke.

Bequia “I’ve been to many islands, but this one, in the Grenadines, has eluded me. It’s famous for boutique properties such as Sugar Reef Bequia (sugarreefbequia.com)—all driftwood accents and mosquitonetting-draped beds.”

Nearby Arrowtown is the gateway to the Central Otago region, home to 200 wineries.

On your way there, stop at Amisfield Winery & Bistro (amisfield.co.nz), which produces beautiful Pinot Gris and Rieslings; fuel up on braised lamb leg with black-leaf kale, pearl onions and ricotta pudding at its adjoining restaurant.

How about 18 holes with breathtaking mountain views?

Jack’s Point (jackspoint.com), one of the South Island’s best golf courses, is less than an hour away from Matakauri.

Another top spot: the Hills (above; thehills. co.nz) on 200 hectares in Arrowtown, the host of next year’s New Zealand Open.

south america T+L Editor’s Pick

T+L Editor’s Pick

—L aura B egley B loom

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Chile

“My mom and I have always wanted to strand ourselves on Easter Island, which is more than 5,000 kilometers from Chile’s mainland—it doesn’t get more middle-of-nowhere than that. And just how huge are those moai statues in person? We’d splurge on the rustic-luxe Explora Rapa Nui (above right; explora.com), where every room comes with a Pacific view.” —Jac quelin E Gifford, senior editor

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CLOCKW I SE F RO M TO P LE F T: S P ENCER HE Y F RON ; COURTES Y O F M ATAKAUR I LODGE ; COURTES Y O F A M I S F I ELD ; M ARK H I LL / COURTES Y O F THE H I LLS ; COURTES Y O F EX P LORA S . A . ; COURTES Y O F EX P LORA S . A .

I want to go to…

canada

Argentina

C l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p l e f t: C o u r t e s y o f B l u e P a r a l l e l ; s p e n c e r H e yf r o n ; C o u r t e s y o f R o c k y M o u n ta i n e e r ; C o u r t e s y o f O n t h e W at e r i n M a i n e ; C o u r t e s y o f HOTEL P AT I OS DE CA F AYATE

South American road trip

First things first: get a motorcycle license. Then, says Emmanuel Burgio of custom-travel company Blue Parallel (blueparallel. com; from US$1,200 per person per day), head to Argentina for its dramatic landscapes. From Buenos Aires, fly to the northwestern province of Salta (colorful rock formations; deserts) or south to Patagonia (mountains; glaciers), where a motorcycle (and helmet) will be waiting. Trips also include hotels—such as Salta’s Patios de Cafayate Hotel & Wine Spa (below; patiosdecafayate.com)— meals, and a support vehicle if you need a break from the open road.

I want to go to… the ga l Á pag os

“I’d love to see turtles, sea lions, birds and other wildlife.”

Dana Reynolds, former flight attendant, 40 We turned to Eric Sheets of Latin Excursions (latinexcursions.com), whose top pick for animal viewing is the westernmost island of Isabela, home to 70 percent of the area’s endemic wildlife. You can swim with penguins, visit a tortoise-breeding center, snorkel with gentle sharks, and spot a variety of seabirds. Sheets can put together itineraries combining land stays and cruises (from US$3,500 per person per week).

Coast to coast—Halifax to Vancouver—by train Thanks to a partnership between VIA Rail and Rocky Mountaineer (rocky​mountaineer. com; from US$8,475), travelers can take a 16-day, 6,500-kilometer​ journey across Canada, with tours of Yoho National Park and Niagara Falls along the way.

While the Halifax-​to-Banff leg (run by VIA) has you sleeping on the train, the ride from Banff to Vancouver includes overnights at historic railroad properties, including the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise and Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge.

united states Maine

Settle into a lake cottage in Maine with a first-edition To Kill a Mockingbird and a bottle of 1973 Château d’Yquem Choose from 175 full-service rentals from On the Water in Maine (onthewaterinmaine.com; from US$1,000 per week); our favorite is Wishbone Point, in Camden, a group of three 1920’s cottages on the banks of Megunticook Lake. For a night out, head to nearby Rockland’s locavore restaurant Primo (primo​restaurant. com), helmed by James Beard Awardwinner Melissa Kelly. On the Water owner Jason Ford can help with reservations—not to mention procure you fishing poles, fresh figs and chilled lobster, if that’s your fancy.

Wishbone Point, in Camden, Maine.

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50 Dream Trips

Hawaii

Kauai and the Na Pali Coast

I want to go on…

1 Makua No trip to Kauai is complete without seeing this beach, nicknamed “Tunnels.” You’ll find superb snorkeling inside a pair of protected reefs.

1 “We’d love to do a three-week road trip, visiting places like Joshua Tree and Yosemite National Park.”

N a Pa li coast

2

k a li h iwa i

4

pac i f ic Oc e a n

0

3

4 Na Pali Coast

Want to capture that ultimate Instagram shot? Charter a private catamaran for a sail past these dramatic 24-kilometer-long cliffs; a photo-savvy guide will show you the best angles (photosafari​hawaii. com; US$2,700 for a full-day tour).

8 km

poi pu

poi pu

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This secluded bay is great for boogieboarding—and the St. Regis Princeville Resort (stregis.com), popular with celebs such as George Clooney, is close by.

3

Poipu The classic beach has a bit of everything: a wading area for toddlers, swells for surfers, even the occasional Hawaiian monk seal basking in the sun. For a modern hotel right on the sand, there’s Koa Kea Hotel & Resort (koakea.com).

Arizona River rafting the Grand Canyon

Rafting the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon.

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2

Kalihiwai

k aua i

Maaike Oberink, 35, and Sjaak Trekhaak, 29, Dutch travelers High on our list: new rental company Airstream 2 Go (airstream2go.com; from US$3,850 for five days), whose retro-chic trailers are like sleek hotel suites on wheels (they come hitched to GMC Yukon Denalis).

Explore California and the Southwest at your own pace, or have them customize an itinerary. Pickup stations are in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Bozeman, Montana.

m a kua tu n n e l s

Multiday guided trips from Off the Beaten Path (offthebeatenpath. com; from US$3,500) make the 140-kilometer trip down the Colorado River, from Lee’s Ferry to the sands near Phantom Ranch.

After a day of riding Class Five rapids, you’ll arrive at camp—welcomed with a hearty meal of beef bourguignonne and a Dutch oven–baked rhubarb crisp for dessert. (Your tent will be set up, too.)

CLOCKW I SE F RO M TO P LE F T: M I CHELE WEST M ORLAND/ CORB I S ; L o n e ly P l a n e t/ G e t t y I m a g e s ; C o u r t e s y o f S t. RE g i s P r i n c e vi l l e ; C a r l T r e m b l ay; Sp e n c e r H e yf r o n ; S u p e r s t o c k ; l u f ta u f n a h m e Wi e l a n d & G o l l h a r d t/ l a if/ R e d u x ; L o n e ly P l a n e t/ G e t t y I m a g e s

A w est c oa st r oa d t r ip

50 Dream Trips

Visit the New Seven Wonders of the World Christ the Redeemer Rio de Janeiro

Agra, India Want to fly from New Delhi rather than driving four-plus hours? Greaves Tours will get you on its own Super King Air B200 (the Agra airport only accepts private aircraft); you can return that evening. Stay If you’re spending the night, there’s the Oberoi Amarvilas (oberoihotels.com), where all 102 rooms have a view of the Taj. Book with Carole Cambata (greavesindia.com).

The Colosseum

Machu Picchu

Peru Travel during April and May, just after the rainy season—when the Incan citadel turns an incredible emerald green. Stay A 20-minute drive away, the Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel (inkaterra. com) feels secluded with its cloud-forest setting and 5 hectares of gardens. Book with Marisol Mosquera (aracari.com).

Rome Under the main arch, you can see the only remaining plasterwork from the first century. After a tour with Perfetto Traveler, walk to nearby Caffè Propaganda (caffepropaganda.it) for lunch. Stay At Palazzo Manfredi (palazzomanfredi.com), close to the Colosseum. Book with Uri Harash (perfettotraveler.com).

50 Dream Trips Checklist united states and canada

Arizona California and the Southwest Canada Hawaii Maine

132 132 131 132 131

Europe

Amalfi Coast and Capri, Italy The Dolomites, Italy Greece Iceland Lake Garda, Italy London

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Norway 119 Paris 121 Provence, France 122 Rome 120, 134 Russia 122 Spain 121 St.-Tropez, France 121 Turkey 122 mexico

123 122 123 123 122 122

Espíritu Santo Island Yucatán Peninsula

129 134

The Caribbean

Bequia British Virgin Islands

Petra

Jordan There’s more than just the famous Treasury— including a Roman amphitheater and a Byzantine church that dates back to the fifth century. Stay Close to the siq (gorge). The Mövenpick Resort Petra (moevenpickhotels.com) is famous for its rooftop restaurant, with mountain views.

Book with Jean Glock (jngworldwide.com).

Central America

Where do you want to go?

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Imperial Tours will drive you from Beijing to Mutianyu or Jinshanling (restored sections of the wall that get fewer tourists) and then take you back for dinner with Diego Azudel, a photographer who spent 15 months walking the wall’s entire length. Stay The imperialstyle Aman at Summer Palace, Beijing (amanresorts.com), where suites are clustered around a lovely courtyard. Book with Guy Rubin (imperial​tours.net).

Belize and Honduras Costa Rica

129 128

south America

Argentina 131 Brazil 134 Easter Island, Chile 130 Galápagos Islands, Ecuador 131 Peru 134 asia

Agra, India 134 Cambodia and Vietnam 127 China 125, 134 Kerala, India 126 Mongolia 126 Thailand 127

Chichén Itzá

Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico Most make this a day trip from Cancún or the Riviera Maya. Choose a hotel close to the site, and get there when it opens at 8 a.m. Stay The Lodge at Chichén Itzá (mayaland.com) has 39 bungalows and its own entrance to the complex.

Book with Zach Rabinor (journeymexico.com).

africa and the middle east

Israel Jordan Kenya Morocco Tanzania and the Seychelles South Africa Uganda

124 134 125 124 125 125 124

australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific Fiji 129

Tasmania, Australia The Outback, Australia South Island, New Zealand

antarctica

129 130 130 128

Reported by

Andrea Aguilar, Christine Ajudua, Jennifer Chen, Frances Hibbard, Katie James, Sarah Khan, Alexandra Marshall, Heidi Mitchell, Valerie Waterhouse and Jane Wooldridge.

G e t t y I m ag es (7)

The Taj Mahal

It’s a three-hour trek, but hiking Corcovado Mountain to reach the statue is worth it. A Matuete guide will lead you through the Tijuca National Forest on the way up. Stay The tropical-chic Hotel Santa Teresa (santateresa-hotel. com) is set halfway up Corcovado. Book with Martin Frankenberg (matuete.com).

Great Wall of China

Paying It For a growing legion of travelers, vacation memories—more than temples ever could. By Cain Nunns.

Forward voluntourism is providing better screensaver snaps of beaches and Illustrated by Wasinee Chantakorn

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E

d Hollands was shopping for a wedding present in Tokyo’s byzantine Ameya Yokocho market when the first earthquake hit. There would be hundreds more to come, along with the massive 9-meter tsunami, that shattered the normally calm coastal communities in central and northern Japan in March 2011. By the time it ended, more than 18,000 people were dead or missing. A nuclear meltdown was looming at Fukushima, and the World Bank warned that Japan’s already moribund economy would be hammered to the tune of US$235 billion.

Within hours, the first of harrowing frames of wanton destruction were beamed across the globe, but Hollands, a 38-year-old software salesman from New Zealand, already had an inkling of the damage. “I was in Taiwan when an earthquake killed about 2,000 people. I knew from the feel and length of the quake, that it was bad. Really bad,” he says. “I felt like I had to do something, anything really. But the enormity of what I was watching left me paralyzed. I didn’t know what to do or how to help.”

A chance meeting with a foreign journalist, who was dropping off supplies at makeshift shelters in Tohoku, near the quake’s epicenter, offered a solution. Hollands went on to spend the next 10 days shuttling supplies to the battered region, before hooking up with a group of foreign volunteers, who were digging the avalanche of

mud out of flattened villages. “I thought I understood the devastation from TV, but it was nothing compared to the reality on the ground,” he remembers. “It was freezing. Entire villages were just rubble. Family members had been swept away by the wave, and children orphaned.

It was just awful.”

It also was expensive for him personally.

Rates were so high for scarce hotel rooms, gas and food that Hollands estimates he spent about US$300 per day to dig out villages and help clear roads. But it was well worth the money, he says: “There was this unrelenting sense of spirit and unity with the Japanese. They rallied around each other. It changed my life.” In the years since, he has helped rebuild schools in the violencewracked Marshall Islands and hooked up with a Taiwanese NGO to deliver rice to North Korea.

Hollands’s new addiction to “voluntourism”— shelling out his own money for altruistic reasons on vacation—reflects a growing trend in travel.

The 350 million visitors to this part of the world in 2012 represented a 5 percent increase (as compared with a 2 percent bump in Europe and zero in the Americas), according to the Bangkokbased Pacific Asia Travel Association, and voluntourism has by far the largest growth figures, says Matthias Hammer, founder of Biosphere Expeditions. The U.K.-based Projects Abroad, for example, which has sent nearly a third of its more than 60,000 volunteers to Asia since the early 1990’s, has doubled in size over the past three years. The number of options now offered by NGOs and travel companies is

staggering, and include everything from the universally accessible language-teaching courses, conducting environmental and species surveys for conservation projects, protecting endangered reefs and aiding in disaster recovery, to the more specialized: providing medical assistance and working on agricultural or public-infrastructure construction projects.

“I don’t even have a handle on it,” says Stephen Wearing, an associate professor at Australia’s University of Technology, and author of Tourism Cultures: Identity, Place and the Traveller, “because it has grown so quickly.”

The tsunamis in the Indian Ocean and Japan compounded a movement that Wearing says began with September 11: volunteer trips previously dominated by idealistic gap-year students began to attract retirees with time and cash to spare as well as thirtysomethings looking to maximize their positive experiences on their limited vacation time. Projects Abroad used to cater solely to student travelers on teaching and cultural tours, but founder Peter Slowe says about 12 percent of his clients now are professionals over the age of 30. “More skilled people are retiring and utilizing those skills in places that they may have wanted to visit anyway,” Wearing says. “Asia has become a great market for that, and it’s also very affordable.”

E

ight months in India teaching English and coaching cricket inspired Slowe to launch Projects Abroad, which now shuttles travelers to and from all corners of the globe—

Korean physiotherapists lend a hand in Fiji, business students head to Chengdu and Shanghai to help local Chinese companies grow, lawyers teach children indentured in illegal Ghanian gold mines about their rights. “We are only scratching the surface with these types of problems, but it is uplifting and it is worth doing,” Slowe says. “We aren’t under any illusions about saving the world, but what we do does make a difference.”

One of his pet projects is the rehabilitation of reefs on Cambodia’s heavily damaged southern coast. After years of dynamite fishing and unenforced regulations on the use of trawler nets, fish stocks had plummeted and the reefs were dying. Projects Abroad volunteers sign up for a two-week stint a two-hour sail from Sihanoukville to clear old nets from reefs and document the ecological conditions. They eat local food, are billeted with families and try to immerse themselves in the community.

Scientific work is among the more popular options in a region rife with beaches and endangered species, and it can be done luxe.

Biosphere Expeditions, founded by former German paratrooper Hammer, who is a walking Swiss Army knife of outdoor pursuits, sends clients to about a dozen high-end conservation projects in far-flung spots. One such project takes volunteers on a six-day scuba research trip in the Maldives. Small teams aid marine biologists study and collect data on some of the region’s most stunning coral reefs and their resident whale shark population.

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Limited to groups composed of five volunteers, a team leader and a scientist, participants come away with a Reef Check EcoDiver certificate and a wealth of important data needed to protect the stunning atolls.

“We took the strategic decision not to be part of the obsession with growth in voluntourism,” says Hammer, a qualified wilderness medical officer, ski instructor, mountain leader, dive master and survival skills instructor. “Being intimately involved on the ground, we are in it for the long haul, so wildlife and people benefit.”

And on the ground is where you can get the best intel on what’s actually needed in a community or region. “Where communities have the ability to come up with their own projects and have control over how they work, I think that can be a really positive outcome,” says Wearing, the professor.

R

egardless of cost or comfort, the motivation for all voluntourists is to provide tangible benefits while having a fulfilling vacation. And for many—about 40 percent of those who volunteer abroad, according to a recent survey by GeckoGo.com and Bradt Travel Guides—this is their sole time set aside to give back. That helps explain why more than three-quarters of respondents took altruism trips longer than two weeks, and more than half for longer than a month. Perhaps most

telling: 77 percent of those surveyed said they found their trip to be “very meaningful,” while another 22 percent found it “meaningful.”

Los Angeles-transplant Jake Robbins had spent the better part of a decade teaching English throughout Asia. “To be honest, I didn’t really feel good about myself,” he says. “It was like selling education fast-food—barely nutritious and kind of empty.” But he still loved the idea of working with kids, so when he found himself on holiday in a Rangoon bar packed with NGO workers, it wasn’t a hard sell to convince him to join up with Opportunities Now, a small group dedicated to training Burma’s chronically underemployed youth.

Robbins, who had worked in some of L.A.’s best restaurants before heading to Asia, signed up on the spot to take a two-month break from work and teach vocational cooking classes to at-risk teenagers in a broader program involving computer classes, front-of-house hospitality training and carpentry workshops.

“It was the most rewarding experience of my life. The kids worked so hard, and they were so blindingly enthusiastic,” he says. One inspiring success story? “One of my students, Chock, helped his mother in the city’s morning market, then was a waiter at nights. He was exhausted during class. We still keep in touch. He started working at a hotel and then got a gig on a cruise boat. That sort of thing is priceless.” ✚

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T L Guide Biosphere Expeditions Founded in 1999, this non-profit wildlife volunteer organization offers conservation programs across the globe.

U.K. office: 44-870/4460801; biosphere-expeditions. org; six-day Maldives atoll dive and reef check program starts at US$2,620 per person excluding airfare.

Projects Abroad Set up in 1992 with a few part-time staff sending U.K. students to teach English in Eastern Europe, Projects Abroad has exploded to hundreds of staff, global offices and a choice of 31 destinations for volunteers, including China, Burma, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Mongolia and Nepal.

Hong Kong office: 852/82088605; projects-abroad.org; two-week Cambodian reef

protection projects start at US$2,000 excluding airfare.

Friends for Asia Set up by an American and headquartered Chiang Mai, this group runs programs in Indonesia, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam, most of which focus on teaching, NGO volunteering, healthcare and conservation. Chiang Mai, Thailand office: 66-5/323-2053; volunteerasia.org; two-week health programs in Nepal start at US$799 excluding airfare.

Habitat for Humanity Builds, rehabilitates and repairs tens of thousands of houses worldwide, with the assistance of homeowner families, volunteer labor and donations. Habitat program costs vary depending on the country

selected, the individual host and the duration of the stay. Volunteers are expected to cover their own airfares, living and incidental costs, along with making a donation to Habitat’s program in the country they visit. Bangkok office: 66-2/632-0415; habitat.org/asiapacific.

NGOabroad Works in nine Asian nations, offering skilled-labor programs ranging from journalism training to community development to microfinance. ngoabroad.com; programs generally require a US$750 upfront investment, and roughly US$12 a day for living expenses.

Orphanage Tourism: A Cautionary Tale Even an industry filled with do-gooders can be susceptible to scams—and worse. Advocates, like Wearing, warn voluntourism as a whole needs better regulation so travelers can make more informed decisions, and so that the right people benefit.

One emerging trouble spot, so-called orphanage tourism, in which travelers pay a fee to visit and teach English at orphanages, is coming under increasing fire from NGOs and child welfare groups. A multimillion dollar cottage industry has sprung up in Southeast Asia as, critics say, orphanages routinely “rent” children from their parents for show, turning youngsters into pawns and hurting the fabric of family and community life.

Cambodia has seen an at least 65 percent spike in the number of orphanages since 2005, according to unicef. There are more than 300 in the country, yet only 21 are run by the state.

And, an estimated 70 percent of children in the orphanages have at least one parent or immediate relative still living—not an entirely unsurprising fact in a deeply impoverished country in which only 10 percent of orphanages are regulated, according to James Sutherland of Cambodia’s Friends International.

“These ‘orphanages’ don’t work under the usual guises of transparency, and there are real concerns about predators because background or police checks aren’t required,” Sutherland says. For that reason, “We don’t advocate any direct involvement with children… If it’s not right at home, it shouldn’t be here.”

For more information about orphanage tourism, visit Friends International at friends-international.org.

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C l o c k w i s e f r o m b o t t o m l e f t: j a g o g a z e n d a m ( 2 ) ; C o u r t e s y o f t h e k a z a k h s ta n t o u r i s m i n d u s t r y c o mmi t t e e ( 1 ) ; J a g o G a z e n a m ; c o u r t e s y o f t h e k a z a k h s ta n t o u r i s m i n d u s t r y c o mmi t t e e ( 2 ) ; J a g o G a z e n d a m ( 2 )

Clockwise from left: The Bayterek building in Astana; hunting with eagles; local transport; Almaty at night; vast lands; a summer stroll in the mountains of Almaty’s Alatau-Eliy National Park; stained glass doves symbolize peace inside the Norman-Foster– designed Palace of Peace and Harmony; babushkas enjoying an afternoon out at the Kok-Tobe park.

Steppes in Time In coming-of-age Kazakhstan, flowing oil has funded a topsy-turvy new capital, but there are still plenty of nomads sleeping in yurts. Merritt Gurley returns to a childhood home to sunbathe on mountaintops, take in some extreme architecture and ride horses. t r av e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a .c o m

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During the Soviet era, Kazakhstan, so far from Moscow, was deemed an ideal place for testing bombs and exiling enemies. Fyodor Dostoyevsky was banished here, forced to be a soldier in the Seventh Line Battalion, where he began The House of the Dead. Leon Trotsky was shipped off here too. In the Cold War, caches of nuclear weapons were stored here, and more than 700 nuclear bombs were detonated.

Mother Russia had no idea that the country they were treating like a wasteland was a flipbook of stunning topography and, quite literally, a goldmine. Kazakhstan supplied the USSR with titanium, phosphorus, magnesium and chrome. The republic had millions of cattle, sheep and goats, and close to 40 million hectares of cultivated land.

Tulips—sorry Holland—are actually from Kazakhstan. So are apples; the name of the old capital, Almaty, is a blend of Russian and Kazakh that translates roughly to either “full of apples” or “father of apples.” Though the crops withered in the 1990’s, Aport apples, weighing more than a kilogram apiece, with juiciness and flavor second to none, were once so bountiful you could argue the idiom should’ve been “as Kazakh as apple pie.” And yet for all this prosperity, it was one of the poorest and least developed nations in the Soviet Union. Still, the Kazakh people worked hard and endured, and this bucolic grit is at the heart of their culture.

The friendly family dropped me off at the the chairlift to Shymbuluk ski resort, and by the time I

Jago Ga zendam

H

alfway up the mountain road to Shymbuluk, en route to meet Alexander Yezhov, our car broke down. Though the middle of June, it began to snow. My driver cursed and then, in an instant, flagged down another car and ushered me to the back seat. “Is this another taxi?” I asked, bewildered. It wasn’t. I looked around at the smiling family in my new ride and returned a weak grin. Dad turned from behind the wheel and, half laughing, bellowed, “Welcome to Kazakhstan!”

Welcome to the largest land-locked country on Earth.

It’s as big as Western Europe and yet this behemoth has remained a wallflower on the world map. It’s an enigmatic sweep of land with stark mountains, severe terrain and icy winters that have scared off many a brave explorer. On his travels, Marco Polo saw the towering mountain range from afar and decided “Nah…” But those who barreled forward were the stuff of legends. Herodotus wrote of it as the birthplace of the Scythians and Sarmatians, ancient races whose warrior women inspired the tales of the fearsome Amazons. Even Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table have left traces here, according to some archaeologists.

reached the top, the gentle flutter of snowflakes had turned into a summer snowstorm. This wasn’t my first tangle with the fast-changing weather in Kazakhstan, so I was armed with a winter coat, which I pulled tighter as I stared through the flurry over the peaks and valleys below. It was both bleak and breathtaking, just how I remembered it.

I’d doubled in age since last I stood in this spot, back before Sasha Baron Cohen—a.k.a. Borat—turned the entire nation into a punch line, back when I was still in high school and following my father’s career in the U.S. Foreign Service on its whirligig path around the world, when the capital was still Almaty and the fall of the Soviet Union still hung like a fog over its satellite states.

Kazakhstan was not an easy place to be a 15-year-old American girl. The year I moved there, it snowed from October through to May. Babushkas approached me with their witchy advice: “Don’t sit on cold surfaces or your parts will freeze and you won’t be able to have children”—a tall order in a frosty country. There were 35 students in my school and, like convicts serving out a sentence, we tolerated each other. One classmate grimly joked that you could tell a kid who’d gone to Almaty International School by their thousand-yard stare. I agreed that it sucked and resolved never to return.

But in the past 15 years, the country discovered untapped wells of “the big five”—oil, gas, diamonds, uranium and gold. The teenagers living here now have

never known Kazakhstan as a Soviet state; they’ve grown up in a democracy, largely outside the shadow of the KGB. The capital has moved from Almaty to Astana. The government is plowing US$9.8 billion into tourism, hoping for a four-fold growth in visitors by 2020. Naturally, I was curious to see exactly what they’d be visiting, and how a decade and a half had changed this mammoth country.

I was meeting with a Kazakh old-timer and Almaty expert, Alexander Yezhov, because, unlike me, he’d never left the country, making him just the man to fill me in on everything I’d missed. Alexander even looks like the land that he loves, from his milky sapphire eyes to his snowy hair—all whites and blues and quiet strength. “I was born in the mountains and I’ll die in the mountains,” he told me with great pride. I believed him.

After a hearty lunch at the lodge, a buffet of shashlyk (chunks of meat grilled on a stick) and pelmini (meat dumplings), Alexander took me on a tour of Almaty, narrated by his absurdist tales of life in Kazakhstan under the Soviet Union. His family, for example, had a dacha on the outskirts of the city, but it was only 20 square meters and they weren’t allowed to add to it: “All you could have was a one-room apartment so not enough to sell or to have a banya, or a swimming pool.” When a neighbor built a pool, everyone said he’d be arrested, but when the officials showed up to investigate they found a sign on the pool

Astana bridge over the Isham River, as seen from the promenade.

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I felt the call of the wild, so headed out.

I wanted to traverse the plains on horseback and to sleep in a yurt, just like a Kazakh. Descended from a Mongol tribe led by Genghis Khan in the 13th century, they are historically a nomadic people: shepherds and cowboys.

They ride horses and use trained eagles to hunt wolves; they are as tough as the land they call home.

The Aul Resort on the outskirts of Almaty was everything I’d hoped for, a green swathe of prairie, a setting sun, a summer evening, the earthy smell of animals in the air. It was Instagram-worthy all right, but I was already thinking about the day ahead.

I slept on a comfortable mattress on the floor of a glammed-up yurt. Every surface was covered in elaborate red carpets, and giant woolen tassels hung from the ceiling, like fuzzy dice on a rear view mirror. (And, no, not just like a Kazakh.) I woke to rain blowing in the open windows.

After a “Western” breakfast of boiled eggs, cookies and chicken wings, I was led through cold, gray drizzle to my four guides and a giant brown horse named Ardagan.

Victoria Khachatryan, Aul’s manager, told me Ardagan had “a wide chest, muscle body, famous for special stamina.”

I’d been horseback riding before, so I was feeling confident as I reached for the saddle. But his “muscle body” was too much for me and my efforts to clamber into the stirrups, hopping on my toes and stretching the limits of my flexibility, were met with throaty chuckles from the 146

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guides. Once atop Ardagan, with the embarrassing help of a foot stool, it became clear that this horse and I weren’t going to get along. My guide, Alisher, clucked gently to calm him but nothing was working. Ardagan was dead set on tossing me off.

So Alisher changed tactics. He started belting out Kazakh pop hits and, sure enough, this was the key to Ardagan’s heart. After a few minutes of song, my steed relaxed and we found our groove. Finally I could kick back and take in the surroundings. It was a pastoral paradise, a cross between Mongolia and Montana: big sky country, rolling mountains, endless steppe, glittering lakes that swallowed the horizon, kaleidoscopic blankets of wildflowers, the kind of jaw-dropping landscape that evokes sappy turns of phrase. Suddenly the gloomy weather stopped feeling unfortunate and instead lent an air of adventure to the outing. The small hills were alive with grazing goats and bucking colts. A man was cleaning out a real yurt, a small and practical structure very different from the genie’s bottle I’d spent the night in, wrapped in plastic to keep out the rain. He had the ruddy complexion and Mongolian features of a real Kazakh, a face lined with resilience, heartache and the hard toll of an empire’s ruin. We passed a herd of 30 horses running free and my guides kicked into gear, corralling them into the distance, lest they lure our own stallions and mares into a life in the wild.

By the time we made it back to the resort I was shivering so I made my way to the banya: these therapeutic hot baths are a mainstay of Kazakh recreation. I followed the basic routine, alternating between a tiled room so thick with steam that I couldn’t see down to my own lap, and a wooded sauna where the dry heat clung to me like spandex, and finally to the swimming pool, to cool my boiling bones. I’m not sure if this experience drained me of toxins, staved off illness and improved my cardiovascular system. But I’m positive it felt amazing.

Six hours after riding a horse in Almaty, I was in Astana eating one. It was unsettling, yes, but it was also pretty delicious, and in local terms, no better or worse than cows or pigs. Victoria had already assured me, “We have three different kinds of horse: kind to ride, kind to work and kind to eat.” I chose to believe her.

Going from Almaty to Astana was… awkward—like meeting a friend’s new wife for the first time and thinking, “Wow, she’s had work done.” Almaty is the more natural beauty, but Astana has benefited from the country’s newfound gas and oil money. In the 1990’s this city was called Akmola, which translates to “white grave,” fitting for frozen steppe and dusty plains—where temperatures make a hundred-degree swing from minus-40 in winter to 40 in summer, with dust storms and mosquito swarms along the way—but an odd choice for a new seat of government.

In 1991, the “white grave” became Astana (“the capital”) and any questions about the billions spent to build it stopped once the oil fields in the north started flowing. I met with the Minister of Industry and New Technologies,

o pp o s i t e : J a g o G a z e n d a m

reading, emergency fire water reserve. The man worked for the government and knew all the laws—including the one requiring every construction to have a reservoir. Laughing hard, Alexander punctuated every other sentence with, “Can you imagine?” in his deep Russian accent. “After that everyone had a swimming pool!”

So there was progress of sorts even under the Communists, I learned on an excursion that was equal parts geography, history and sociology. We wound from the harsh mountains—where often, above the cloud line, the weather is warmer than in the city, making for an unlikely pick-up spot: “In Almaty, it is negative 20 degrees and here in Madeo, it is plus 12. Where else can the boys find women sunbathing?” Alexander said with a wink—through the agrestic grasslands, to the city, with its parks and bronze Soviet statues. Since it was no longer the capital, most urban development migrated to Astana, leaving Almaty frozen in time. It still had its cable car from town to the top of Kok-Tobe hill. The architecture was still dominated by that signature Soviet faceless concrete. Mad Murphy’s, the Irish Pub my parents used to frequent, was still there, still exactly the same. More signs were in Kazakh than Russian now, but otherwise I was surprised by how little the years had altered this city. Even the apples as big as babies’ heads have made a comeback, an echo of the past.

Alexander cooed, “The nature here is beautiful and unspoiled,” and he was right. Almaty’s strength had never been its city, but rather its landscape, which also had changed precious little over the years. It is still out there, untouched, off the radar of the traveling world.

Ornate carpets decorate the flashy yurts at Aul Resort.

A rainbow over Lake Almaty, after a snowstorm in June.

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dollar sign.” My favorite is the Bayterek building (“the lollipop”), designed by President Nursultan Nazarbayev himself to look like a giant poplar tree with a glowing golden egg in its branches. This little city is almost Incan in the deliberate nature of its lines, with perfect symmetry from the presidential palaces on one side of town to the top of the Norman-Foster-designed Palace of Peace and Harmony on the other. Everything was according to plan.

I headed to the riverside in search of a spot for dinner. I walked along the promenade, and though it was past eight, the sun was just setting over the river, casting pink reflections off the gilded skyline. I found the perfect restaurant, with a gaudy interior and live Russian music, and snuggled up in a giant chair along the esplanade to take in the evening. Men with carts sold ice cream to smiling children, couples walked hand in hand, teenagers skateboarded passed irritated grown-ups. And in the background, a river, a prairie and a burgeoning city. It was a panorama of great charm, progress and promise. I was glued to the scene for 30 minutes, marveling at the how far this country had come in such little time, wondering what the next 15 years might bring.

The waiter interrupted my musings to serve me tender chunks of meat and cold beer, then dropped a straw into the mug with flourish. I looked at him quizzically. “To make better for a woman to drink beer,” he explained. I smiled, and sipped deep. Welcome to Kazakhstan. ✚

Jago Ga zendam

Asset Issekeshev, to get his opinion on this gamble. “When I moved to this building, this was all steppe,” he said. “There was nothing.” He motioned to one of his colleagues, who jumped up and went to the window, quickly raising the blinds. With every centimeter, a little more of the city’s gleaming skyline was revealed, flooding the room with sunlight and chrome. Issekeshev swept his arm towards the view, “As you see Astana is evolving into a metropolitan city, growing rapidly.”

Indeed, Astana was unrecognizable as the place I’d visited briefly back in 1999. It was full of bizarre and beautiful architecture, plucked from various cultures and eras. The result is flashy, bold and dissonant, and yet somehow it works. Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa devised the basic city plan and architects from around the globe were invited to help create this capital, battling the handicaps of extreme temperatures and the occasional crumbling of the Ishim riverbanks. It’s a functional, growing, evolving work of art, a mix of classic and sci-fi architecture, parks and tree-lined thoroughfares.

Some buildings stand empty—relics from the spur of construction to accommodate the 2011 Asian Winter Games—but others are teeming. Many have irreverent nicknames based on what they resemble, like Shabyt (“the dog bowl”) and the Palace of Peace and Harmony (“the pyramid”). The Houses of Ministry are known as “the beer cans,” KazTransCom is “the cigarette lighter,” and the Ministry of Finances building is appropriately called “the

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T L Guide Getting There International: Air Astana (airastana.com) runs direct flights to Almaty from Bangkok, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul and Saigon, in Asia, and from Amsterdam and London, in Europe.

Domestic: There are daily flights from Almaty to Astana on Air Astana.

Visas Make sure to get your visa well in advance as it can take up to five weeks for the paperwork to go through.

Visas are not required for Hong Kong passport holders.

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Tour Operators Organizing a trip on your own may prove challenging if you don’t have local contacts. The Visit Kazakhstan website (visitkazakhstan.kz/en), is a useful resource, with a list of approved travel agents on the ground. There are also a few international tour operators who can help you plan your trip, including: Stan Tours stantours.com; horseback riding tours of Kazakhstan, from US$220 per day.

Ak-Sai Travel ak-sai.com; Colors of Kazakhstan cultural group tour, eights nights from US$875.

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Almaty Stay Aul Resort A horseback riding basecamp in the grasslands of Zailiskiy Alatau. aulresort.com; guided horseback tour, US$20 per hour, yurts from US$210, breakfast included.

Royal Tulip A gaudy-fabulous five-star in the center of Almaty. royaltulipalmaty.com; doubles from US$450.

Eat & Drink Assorti Restaurant This is a popular chain throughout the country, but the venue at the top of Shymbuluk mountain is gloriously garish, with antler chandeliers and bearskin wall hangings, and menu of decadent foods to match. assorti.kz; dinner for two US$35.

Alasha This is “traditional” Kazakh with a big side of camp.

Dine in one of the ornate rooms,

and enjoy big chunks of barbecued meat while you watch the dance performances. alasha.kz; dinner for two US$25.

Astana Stay Raddison Blu Nice views from the higher floors and clean, good-sized rooms, a twominute walk from the river. radissonblu.com/hotel-astana; doubles from US$392.

Rixos President Astana Hotel A luxury hotel in the city center. rixos.com/en; doubles US$295.

Eat & Drink Astana Nury Live music and great Kazakh food, right on the river. a-n.kz; dinner for two US$25.

Sky Bar The drinks are good and the service is okay, but you come for the panoramic view of the skyline. sky-bar.kz; cocktails for two US$23.

c l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p l e f t: C o u r e s t y o f t h e k a z a k h s ta n t o u r i s m i n d u s t r y c o mmi t t e e ; j a g o g a z e n d a m ( 2 )

Clockwise from above: The Kok-Tobe cable car line over Almaty; lighting candles for lost loved ones at Zenkov’s Catheral; morning mist near Aul Resort.

Our Definitive Guide to

Overlooking the Proxy Project, a pop-up collective in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley. Opposite: Cappelletti with beets, Gorgonzola dolce and poppy seeds at Cotogna, in Jackson Square.

A culinary scene to rival any other city, eye-popping design and a laid-back, outdoorsy ethos are just three reasons to visit San Francisco right now. Jaime Gillin takes a tour.

Photographed by Alanna Hale

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Lay of the Land Union Square Big-name luxury boutiques border this central plaza downtown.

Mission District The fast-gentrifying neighborhood is known for its Latino culture and standout restaurants and bars.

Hayes Valley A stone’s throw from the opera and symphony hall, Hayes Street is chockablock with chic shops and cafés.

Pacific Heights Come to this mansion-filled hilltop for postcard-worthy views of the city.

SoMa This sprawling area includes a plethora of museums, destination restaurants and the ballpark, all amid a sea of parking lots and highway ramps.

Getting Around Taxis and public transportation are plentiful—the BART light rail system (bart.gov), Muni trains and buses (sfmta.com), and the city’s cable cars can get you most places.

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Clockwise from left: Outside Cotogna; a pizza with pea shoots, prosciutto and an organic egg at Cotogna; Saison’s potato crisp topped with trout roe.

Eat

The city’s hottest tables dish up an enticing mix of fusion cuisines.

Benu Chef Corey Lee has reinvigorated the city’s fine dining scene with the clean-lined Benu, in SoMa. Here, every detail is carefully considered, from the porcelain tableware to the Eastern-inspired chef’s tasting menu (a 1,000-​year-​old quail egg; salt-and-pepper squid; lobster-coral xiao long bao). benusf.com; $150.

Cotogna At the lively Cotogna, most plates come from the open hearth, including succulent, spit-roasted meats and wood-fired pizzas.

As is the case at its sister restaurant Quince, the pastas are a must— try the buttery raviolo

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di ricotta with farm egg. cotognasf.com; $70.

Mission Chinese Food This raved-about restaurant may have a divey interior, slack service and an hour-​ long wait—but the food is worth it. Founding chef Danny Bowien (who last year opened an outpost in New York) calls his cuisine “Americanized Chinese food”; think fiery kung pao pastrami and a cardamom-laced beef brisket soup. Can’t brave the line? They deliver. missionchinese​ food.com; $55.

Rich Table You’ll want to come back again and again to this homey restaurant

owned by husbandand-wife chefs Evan and Sarah Rich. Dishes perfectly balance acidity and texture, and highlight surprise ingredients—the addictive sardine-laced potato chips are served with horseradish sauce; the chicken lasagna is sprinkled with crunchy popped sorghum. richtablesf. com; $85.

Saison After its scrappier spot received two Michelin stars, the farm-to-table Saison, run by chef Joshua Skenes, moved to a grander space in a SoMa historic building.

Choose from an 18- or

seven-​course tasting menu—both highlight local ingredients, sourced from foragers and farmers’ markets. saisonsf.com; 18-course tasting, $298 per person.

State Bird Provisions Waiters roam the room serving innovative small bites from dim-sumstyle carts at this casual, buzzy spot.

Luckily, the food stands up to the quirky concept: the seafood selections in particular are worth flagging down for delicacies such as black-garlic aioli on a fried nori chip. statebirdsf.com; $75.

Restaurant prices throughout are approximate US$ rates for dinner for two unless noted.

Shop

Five stylish boutiques not to miss.

Rand & Statler Co-owners Catherine Chow and Corina Nurimba have built a mini fashion empire in Hayes Valley, with the opening of Azalea in 2003 and Welcome Stranger in 2010. Their latest bid for retail domination is Rand & Statler, which is stocked with cutting-edge looks from the likes of Alexander Wang and Acme. randandstatler.com.

Wilkes Bashford After a top-to-bottom refit, the town-house-style emporium in Union Square now has a men’s store featuring Brioni and Kiton boutiques and a madeto-measure bar for suits. wilkesbashford.com.

Heath Ceramics The 65-year-old, Sausalitobased houseware company, renowned for its heirloom-quality tableware and tile, recently opened

this 1,860-square-meter factory, shop and café in the Mission District.

Glass walls give visitors a peek at tile production while they browse the bowls, vases and table linens. heathceramics.com.

Harputs Proprietor Gus Harput turns out avant-garde pieces that look deceptively simple on the rack. Most can be worn a multitude of ways; the three-hole blazer and the swacket (sweater-jacket) are travel essentials. harputsown.com.

March This gallery-like space specializes in goods for the kitchen, home and pantry.

Owner Sam Hamilton has commissioned work by local artisans, including Carrara worktables, leather bags and Japanese indigo-dyed clothing. marchsf.com.

Stay

Clockwise from left: A silk dress at Rand & Statler in Hayes Valley; housewares at Heath Ceramics, in the Mission District; stoneware mugs at March, in Pacific Heights.

Want to know where to check in?

Here, the hotels we’re excited about.

New & Noteworthy Hotel Zetta The Viceroy Hotel Group’s latest property attracts a hightech crowd thanks to its sleek interiors (a curved wooden wall above the bed; butcherblock desks), a game room off the lobby, and a floor-toceiling Plinko installation that you can actually play. viceroyhotelgroup.com; $459.

St. Regis San Francisco

A room at Hotel Zetta, in Union Square.

Hotel prices are starting US$ rates for double occupancy unless noted.

With its luxe rooms—creamcolored leather and Mozambican wood on the walls; endless marble in the bathrooms—the St. Regis brings a dose of glamour to the SoMa district. The Japanese-themed restaurant Ame only adds to the appeal. stregis.com; $585.

Inn at the Presidio Set within the 603-hectare Presidio park, this intimate, 26-room inn was carved out of two historic buildings—a 1903 brick structure and a neighboring clapboard house.

What we love best: the hiking trails out the back door. innatthepresidio.com; $325.

Mystic Hotel Star chef Charlie Palmer took over the Victorian-​era Mystic, exposing brick and adding vintage mirrors to the rooms, and opening a speakeasy-​ inspired tavern that has quickly become a local favorite. mystichotel.com; $249.

The Classics Mandarin Oriental The just-renovated Mandarin

has some of the best views of the city, especially from the Bridge to Bridge rooms (binoculars included). mandarinoriental. com; $625.

Ritz-Carlton San Francisco Fresh from a makeover (good-bye chintz, hello earth-toned geometric patterns), today’s Ritz, near Nob Hill, still has doting service. ritzcarlton. com; $655.

Hotel Drisco Expect a residential feel, turn-of-the-20th-century architecture and plenty of perks (including bicycles) at this hilltop property in Pacific Heights. hoteldrisco. com; $375.

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See Do 1

Ferry Building This is what foodie heaven looks like: dozens of local purveyors, hawking everything from cheese and chocolate to cupcakes, line the arcades of this historic waterfront building.

Two standouts are Miette Patisserie and Acme Bread. Three days a week, the city’s most seductive farmers’ market— perfectly piled heirloom carrots; a full spectrum of peppers—sets up out front. ferrybuilding​ marketplace.com.

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SF Jazz Center The new US$64 million, 3,250-​square-meter SF Jazz Center is America’s first stand-alone space for jazz, with a 700-seat auditorium designed to evoke both a club and concert hall. The adventurous programming encompasses both emerging talent and established stars including Ahmad Jamal. sfjazz.org.

Biking the promenade at Crissy Field near the Golden Gate Bridge.

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Golden Gate Park A green jewel in the city’s crown, Golden Gate Park is a must-visit not only for its Herzog & de Meuron–designed de Young Museum but also for lesserknown gems such as the Victorian-era Conservatory of Flowers, paddleboating on Stow Lake and a paddock where rare American bison roam. golden-gatepark.com.

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Crissy Field Sun-seekers, runners, dog-walkers and kiteboarders come to this scenic bay-​front beach and promenade. Pass through the restored tidal marsh en route to the Warming Hut, a cozy stop for lunch.

Visit in the morning if you can; the wind picks up in the afternoon. parksconservancy.org.

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Proxy Project A once-vacant lot in Hayes Valley has been transformed into the popular Proxy Project: a collection of converted shipping containers now houses pop-up businesses, including a beer garden, a sportswear shop and a futuristic ice creamery that uses liquid nitrogen to create scoops in 60 seconds. proxysf.net.

From left: Contemporary furniture at Dzine, in the Mission District; oven-roasted clams at the Slanted Door, in the Ferry Building; inside the “Rainforests of the World” exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences.

Local Take Three insiders share their favorite spots.

Yves Béhar

Designer

I have lived in the city for more than 20 years, and its spirit for innovation influences every aspect of the city. My go-to spots for great architecture: Daniel Libeskind’s

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Contemporary Jewish Museum

(thecjm.org) and Thom Mayne’s Federal Building (90 Seventh St.) in SoMa. For cool contemporary furniture, don’t miss Dzine (dzinestore.com) and Arkitektura (arksf.com). Another boutique worth checking out is Propeller (propellermodern.com), which sells beautiful decorative objects.

All Hail the Mixologist

Michael Mina

Jennifer Siebel Newsom

Executive chef, Michael Mina San Francisco

Women’s activist and documentary producer

For me, the “real” San Francisco is all about food. My ideal culinary tour would include Swan Oyster Depot (1517 Polk St.; 1-415/673-1101; $70), the Slanted Door (slanteddoor. com;$55) and La Taqueria (2889 Mission St.; 1-415/285-7117; $60).

Another favorite is the Moroccan restaurant Aziza (aziza-sf.com; $80).

Chef Mourad Lahlou blows me away with his bold, vibrant dishes such as duck-confit bastilla. The pastries (banana-cream tarts; éclairs) at Tartine Bakery & Cafe (tartine​ bakery.com) are second to none.

I was born here and have lived all over the world but returned when my husband became mayor in 2003. I like to take my kids to the California Academy of Sciences

(calacademy.org), then walk around North Beach—aside from the strip of gentleman’s clubs—and take in the view of the bay from the 64-meter Coit Tower. The vista is breathtaking and reminds me of Italy. For breakfast, I’m a huge fan of Mama’s (mamas-sf.com; $30), on Washington Square Park; try the cranberry-orange French toast.

Bartenders citywide are elevating the cocktail with fresh ingredients and creative techniques. At Trick Dog (trickdogbar.com), drinks are named for Pantone colors and employ unusual spices and even the odd beet. Try Grandma’s Sweater, made with gin, blood orange and a rhubarb liqueur. • Call ahead to reserve a table at Wilson & Wilson (thewilsonbar.com), a detective-agency-themed bar with a three-drink tasting menu.

• Rum fanatic Martin Cate opened the new-wave tiki bar Smuggler’s Cove (smugglers​ covesf.com) to spotlight the 400-odd rums he’s sourced from around the globe.

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Last Look

Photographed by Luke Duggleby

Mythical and mysterious China renamed the hill-andvalley-filled Zhongdian County as Shangri-la—staking a claim to the earthly paradise also rumored to be in Bhutan, India and Nepal.

Shangri-la Robed repose Shangri-la, in northwest Yunnan on the Tibetan border, is thought to have been an ancient refuge for Buddhists.

Today, it’s home to these monks from Songzhalin monastery.

Lift every voice In a remote village church, an ethnically Tibetan Catholic follows the hymnal at Sunday mass. An estimated 3,000 Christians live in Yunnan.

The pilgrimage of Kawakarpo

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The 240-kilometer trek circles the mountain range. Tibetans believe if a human sets foot on the actual peak, Kawakarpo’s eponymous warrior god will abandon them.