September 2014 by Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia

SOUTHEAST ASIA

LANGKAWI EVOLVES WITH THE UNEXPECTED

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

SEPTEMBER 2014

A-LIST TRAVEL AGENTS YOU NEED TO KNOW

ASIA’S BEST SPAS, SHOPPING AND DINING. SOUND GOOD?

A New National Landmark is Rising in Thailandâ&#x20AC;Ś Spectacular Beyond Imagination

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• 2 Most Prestige Waterfront Residences of Asia designed to be among the world's best residential properties with the Bangkok skyline rising above the river. An Icon of the futuristic living quality • 2 Unrivalled Glamorous Retail & Entertainment Complexes - where the best of world-class brands meet the best of Thailand's exquisite products: 500 shops and 100 of the finest restaurants from around the world • State-of-the-Art, World-Class Auditorium, ready to serve ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Seminars, International Trade Exhibitions and cultural performances • The Museum of Treasures, featuring Thailand's Heritage and Wisdom

Ready to enchant the world in 2017

Contents

Style Special

mountains, pulls m er r it t

Shop Like a Local Where to browse and bargain in six of the world’s most stylish cities—with in-the-know tastemakers as guides. edit ed by

gu r le y in and sends her

jacqu elin e giffor d a n d k atie ja m es

Features

102 The Emerald Canopy Enchanting Langkawi, land of flying and mischievous monkeys, and million-year-old

skipping down the evolutionary brick road. pho t ogr a phed by t h a r at hor n sit t hit h a m . gu ide page

113

114 Pure China Pingyao is a time machine into the Chinese past and traditional Han culture. by joseph giova n n in i . pho t ogr a phed by t on y l aw

116 License to Heal Finger-dancing facials, yoga-fueled cleanses, doctor-delivered pedicures: j en in n e lee st . joh n puts her health and beauty in expert hands. illustr at ed by wasin ee ch a n ta kor n . gu ide page

121

122 The Way I Travel Four trendsetters reveal their travel essentials and their favorite destinations.

by a n dr e as l aszlo kon r at h . st y led by mimi lom ba r do

126 A World Apart On a trip through remote southern Ethiopia, gu y tr ebay encounters the last remaining tribes of the Omo River Valley—and the strange, powerful beauty of the unknown. pho t ogr a phed by dav id ch a ncellor . m a p a n d gu ide page

134

in t erv ie ws by j ery l bru n n er . pho t ogr a phed

T H A R AT H O R N S I T T H I T H A M

Ancient forestcapped mountains coat Langkawi, page 102.

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Contents Radar 26 British Invasion Hong Kong’s new eats. 30 Easy Rider Martone Cycling Co. bicycles. 46 Street Smart Jakarta’s coolest area.

Plus Where Michael Kors goes to escape; autumn culture preview; chef’s tables across Asia; offbeat gin joints; overcoming the fear of flying; and more.

Trip Doctor

67 Travel Solutions Why it’s worth using a travel agent; touring Asia in the green season; and more. 70 Strategies The A-List, our annual compendium of the top travel advisors. 82 Tech Our picks of the best new headphones. 86 Deals T+L reader specials.

Decoder

136 Our Definitive Guide to Phuket

Last Look

142 Cambodia Apsara dance renaissance. In Every Issue t +l digi ta l

e d i t o r ’s n o t e

con tr ibu tor s

18 i n b ox

20 On the Cover A catamaran cruise in Langkawi, Malaysia. Photographed by Tharathorn Sitthitham. Styled by Tunvardee Jutavarakul. Model: Nithiporn Lertnitiwonsakul. Hair and Make up: Witthaya Kaeoaim. Photographer’s assistant: Tanawat Asasutjarit. Swimsuit: Katarina. Pants: Diane von Furstenberg. Scarf: Bvlgari. Sunglasses: Chanel.

136 12

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C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P L E F T: K AT E O W E N , C O U R T E S Y O F M A R T O N E C Y C L I N G C O . ; D A N N Y K I M ; S I M O N W AT S O N ; P O R N S A K N A N A K O R N ; C O U R T E S Y O F C O C O P R I V É K U D A H I T H I

56 Loco for Coco Private Maldivian stay.

T+L Digital #TLAsia Readers shared their favorite snapshots of the season on Instagram. — instagram.com/travelandleisureasia

SHOP LIKE A LOCAL / LANGKAWI / A-LIST TRAVEL AGENTS / PINGYAO / NEW-LOOK PHUKET

Last-minute beach deals influence Thais the most (67 percent), followed by South Koreans (65 percent) and Japanese (64 percent). A full half of Singaporeans say spa treatments are a requisite of any beach vacation.

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EVOLVES WITH THE UNEXPECTED

SEPTEMBER 2014

A-LIST TRAVEL AGENTS YOU NEED TO KNOW

ASIA’S BEST SPAS, SHOPPING AND DINING. SOUND GOOD?

09Cover.indd 1

8/7/2557 BE 12:28 PM

Available on IOS, Android, Win 8 and Zinio Desktop Reader.

↑ Get the September issue now.

Thais are the biggest Instagram fans—and the most likely to post selfies (53 percent).

Facebook is the most-used social media route for posting vacation snaps, followed by Instagram and Twitter. Indians are big on Facebook (83 percent).

SOUTHEAST ASIA

LANGKAWI

S E P T E M B E R 2014

Indian travelers post the most pictures per week (50), followed by Singaporeans (37), Americans (35), Hong Kongers (33), Thais (32) and Malaysians (29).

Hong Kongers are most likely to post beach photos online to make their friends jealous (39 percent), though Thais aren’t far behind (36 percent) in that regard. The global average is 18 percent.

Download Us T+L Tablet Edition

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Expedia surveyed travelers in 24 countries about the relationship between their beach vacations and social media. Here’s what they found.

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Social Beaches

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f 1. Bali (@i a m m i k e ys a n c h e z ) 2. Bali (@ m e t m e t t i q u e ) 3. Rawa Island, Malaysia (@ b e t z m m p) 4. Maldives (@ b e t z m m p) 5. Cambodia (@ m a r c a u x v i s u a l ) 6. Sumilon Island, Philippines (@ i a m m i k e ys a n c h e z )

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Search Instagram for #TLAsia to see more photos and videos, respectively. And be sure to tag your own favorite vacation scenes! 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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Editor’s Note

September 2014

Where We’re Going

Taipei Siem Reap The Maldives New Zealand

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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N A P AT R A V E E W AT

WHERE TO FIND ME

chrisk@mediatransasia.com @CKucway on Twitter

oes anyone still use travel agents? The answer, a resounding yes, might surprise you at first but shouldn’t. In today’s world where everything is specialized, you’d be mad to not seek the advice of an expert. That’s why we include our A-List of the Top Travel Advisors (page 70) in this month’s issue. These are the go-to gurus when planning your trip of a lifetime: they help you avoid the usual pitfalls, can book you into sold-out hotels and are in touch with any need-to-know locals. When we say specialists, we don’t just mean in the geographical sense. They’re experts when it comes to food-and-wine itineraries, adventure journeys, affordable travel and cultural sojourns. As au fait as this exclusive collection of travel advisors is, I wonder if any one of them has ever had to deal with luxury monkeys. As features editor Merritt Gurley and art director Wannapha Nawayon encountered on assignment in Langkawi (“The Emerald Canopy,” page 102), the island’s mischievous macaques aren’t above raiding your minibar should you fall for their charms and let them into your room. The best advice, of course, is not to and, instead, simply enjoy the many more innocent lures of this Malaysian getaway. Elsewhere, this month’s issue looks like a microcosm of what those specialized travel advisors would suggest for your next break. Shopping in six different locales around the world takes center stage (“Shop Like a Local,” page 91), while the new wave of healthy spa treatments hitting Asia (“License to Heal,” page 116) might be the best therapy after your retail excursion. Finally, directing you away from the norm like the best travel advisor should is “A World Apart” (page 126), a journey to Ethiopia that also begins with a little monkey business but then, as the title suggests, veers down paths to rare adventures, a world where Instagram and Twitter meld with African soothsayers; where you’ll learn as much about yourself as you do about the environment you are visiting. That’s when you know you’ve had a trip of a lifetime. —c h r i st oph e r k uc way

Contributors Simon N. Ostheimer — Writer Decoder: Phuket page 136

David Chancellor — Photographer A World Apart page 126

Molly Jong-Fast — Writer Into Thin Air page 48

The magic of Ethiopia’s Omo Valley lies in... Just being there. It’s an extraordinary place, largely untouched by the outside world—though that’s changing at an alarming rate. Unforgettable moment Finding the Suri tribe in a lush valley near the Omo River, before a storm. Portraiture 101 To quote Eve Arnold, “If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given.” Don’t miss... Watching the sun rise and set on the same day. Most useful local phrase? A smile.

Top advice for flying-averse travelers Understanding I had the problem made me feel better. Also, do not underestimate the power of breath. Bucket-list trip you’re now able to plan, having put aside your fear of flying My mom went to Hong Kong last year and said it was beyond belief. I would love to go. I live in New York City and I’ve never traveled farther than Greece. Carry-on essentials A book and an iPad filled with movies and the comedy series Broad City. The name of the game is staying occupied.

C L O C K W I S E F R O M TO P : C O U R T E S Y O F S I M O N O S T H E I M E R ; J E R R Y B A U E R ; C O U R T E S Y O F DAV I D C H A N C E L L O R

How long have you lived on Phuket? Three years. I moved here to escape the hectic city life of Bangkok. I somewhat succeeded. “Somewhat”? Love it or hate it, Phuket is changing. With new malls, roads and condos, it’s on its way to becoming Bangkok-on-the-Sea. Where should we go drinking? With two young children, I don’t get out as much as I used to. But when I do, I enjoy the strong cocktails at Wonderland. Best island that’s not your island Forget Phi-Phi, Samui and Phangan. For a real taste of Thailand’s old south, look no further than the rural charms of Koh Yao Yai.

Inbox “The Return of Biarritz” [July] proves that the best beach destinations are those that reinvent themselves but still maintain the spirit of the place. —Susan Coleman texas

Backseat Driver

Indian Ocean Obsession

I remember the hidden area of Saigon that you show from the Vietnam Vespa Tour [“Moveable Feasts,” April]! I was here for my first trip to Vietnam in 2006. — Sariokoh Onuah

I’ve always thought that the Maldives [“Isle of Inspiration,” December 2013] is a heaven on Earth! It’s well known for its crystal-clear waters and beautiful scenery. I would love to be there for a totally relaxing holiday. I want to enjoy the waters, sand, sea breeze, massages, food, drinks... It would be awesome! —Jie Han Lee

arizona

Curry Favor

When I’m in Malaysia, I will definitely try the Indian food in Penang [“Hidden India,” April]. It looks good.

Taipei looks delish [“Temples of Taste,” September 2013]. Beef Noodle Soup. Yum. —Rich Young

Check out all that great-looking food in Hoi An [“Six Dishes,” April]—sweet silky tofu, com ga, local noodles. No wonder Anthony Bourdain practically lives there. —Leo Vardar

british columbia

new york

Hand-Pulled Hunger

Choengmon Beach, Samui Telephone: (66) 77 245 888 info@salasamui.com - www.salasamui.com

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SALA Samui Resort & Spa

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Book to travel in 2014 and your companion will travel half price. Please code EO25 at the time of booking.

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TRAVEL+LEISURE SOUTHEAST ASIA VOL. 8, ISSUE 9 Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia is published monthly by Media Transasia Limited, Room 1205-06, 12/F, Hollywood Centre, 233 Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong. Tel: +852 2851-6963; Fax: +852 2851-1933; under license from American Express Publishing Corporation, 1120 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036, United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the Publisher. Produced and distributed by Media Transasia Thailand Ltd., 14th Floor, Ocean Tower II, 75/8 Soi Sukhumvit 19, Sukhumvit Road, Klongtoeynue, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand. Tel: +66 2 204-2370. Printed by Comform Co., Ltd. (+66 2 368-2942â&#x20AC;&#x201C;7). Color separation by Classic Scan Co., Ltd. (+66 2 291-7575). While the editors do their utmost to verify information published, they do not accept responsibility for its absolute accuracy.

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Radar News. Finds. Opinions. Obsessions.

r e s tau r a n t s

INDIAN SUMMER

Designer Marie-Anne Oudejans with her border collie, Aedo, at Bar Palladio, in Jaipur, India.

P HOTOGR A P H ED BY A PA RN A JAYA K U M A R

“Jaipur is already the Pink City, so I wanted to do something totally different,” says Dutch designer Marie-Anne Oudejans of her latest creation, Bar Palladio, at the Narain Niwas Palace Hotel. Best known for Tocca, her line of sari-fabric dresses, Oudejans has turned her eye to interiors, fashioning an over-the-top space with an opulence worthy of a maharajah: Indian motifs (flowers; vines; leaves), tented ceilings and murals of exotic birds. At secluded banquettes, stylish locals mix with international textile artists over plates of penne all’arrabbiata and basiltinged Ambassador martinis. Oudejans designed the entire Rajasthani fantasy, down to the crystal stemware, block-printed pillows—even the bar logo. “If you come to India,” she says, “this is what you imagine it will look like.” bar-palladio.com. —kate betts

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Radar

Jamie Oliver heats up Hong Kong.

Will Meyrick of Mama San fame.

Chef Gordon Ramsay.

BRITISH INVASION Three British super chefs are stepping onto Hong Kong’s dining scene, adding star-studded restaurants that are sure to find a fanatic following. The Brits are taking Hong Kong by sweet and savory storm. Roll out the red carpet and get ready to make some reservations, because U.K.export celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and Will Meyrick have finally opened eateries in this happening harbor city. Meyrick, whose explosive Asian fusion restaurant has been a culinary mainstay of Bali since its 2010 debut, has opened his second Mama San (1F, 46 Wyndham St.; 852/2881-8901; dining concepts.com; dinner for two HK$700) in Central. The hip décor—think plush brown leather banquettes 26

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juxtaposed against scarlet lamp shades—has drawn the city’s trendy crowd, but it’s the food that has them coming back. Every dish packs a punch, from the soft shell crab rujak salad with green mango, rose apple, mint, peanuts, sesame seed and tamarind chili sauce to the sublimely refreshing lemongrass panacotta with cucumber lime jelly and citrus lemon basil sorbet. Jamie Oliver, currently Britain’s richest chef with a net worth of £240 million, opened Jamie’s Italian (2F Soundwill Plaza II–Midtown, 1 Tang Lung St.; 852/39582222; jamieoliver.com; dinner

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for two HK$600), in Causeway Bay in July. As a nod to the neighborhood’s days as a fishing village, there’s a shipping container in the open kitchen and a sliding ship ladder at the antipasti bar. Dishes range from bar bites like the fried three-cheese gnocchi, to the made-to-share meat plank with Levoni ham, to the vongole taglioni, a toothsome pasta that showcases Oliver’s passion for classic Italian fare. Hot on the heels of Oliver, his rival and long-time adversary, Gordon Ramsay is launching his first restaurant in Asia,

Bread Street Kitchen

(MF, LKF Hotel, 33 Wyndham St., Central; gordonramsay.com; menu not released as of press time) in Hong Kong this month at the Lan Kwai Fong Hotel. Based on Ramsay’s winning concept in London, the restaurant’s must-try plates include a decadent—is there any other kind?—full English breakfast, and ricotta hot cakes with banana and honeycomb butter to start the day off right, while its welcoming warehouse-style, decked out in mismatched furniture, reflects the no-fuss British menu.—helen dalley

C L O C K W I S E F R O M L E F T: C O U R T E S Y O F M A M A S A N ; C O U R T E S Y O F J A M I E ’ S I TA L I A N ; C O U R T E S Y O F G O R D O N R A M S AY

chefs

Radar r ec o n

THE LATEST NEED-TO-KNOW OPENINGS Hotels First in a

series of boutique properties planned along the ancient Tea Horse Road,

b o o ks

L’ART DE VIVRE Xavier Girard’s The French Riviera in the 1920s (Assouline) captures that indelibly glamorous era, a time and place where Marlene Dietrich sunbathed at the Eden Roc, Jean Cocteau lived at Coco Chanel’s villa, and Gerald and Sara Murphy threw fêtes in Cap d’Antibes for Man Ray, John Dos Passos, and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Characters became legends, excess was in vogue and a destination was born. —nate storey

LUX* Lijiang

(luxresorts.com; doubles from RMB1,382), flaunts 30 gold-toned rooms inspired by the Naxi ethnic group. + Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, the duo behind London’s everpacked Wolseley and Delaunay restaurants, have opened their first hotel, the Beaumont (thebeaumont.com; doubles from £395),

in an Art Deco building in Mayfair. The room to book: ROOM, an “inhabitable sculpture” by artist Antony Gormley. + Raffles Istanbul

(raffles.com; doubles from €385) takes its place on the city’s booming skyline as part of the cuttingedge Zorlu Center, in Beşiktaş. Highlights: one of the city’s largest spas and butler service in every room. + Namibia’s far north now feels a little less remote, thanks to Hoanib Skeleton Coast Camp

(wilderness-safaris. com; from ZAR5,556 per person); eight tents have decks for viewing the desert’s

lunar plains and roaming elephants. + Travelers passing through Tokyo’s inner-city Haneda Airport can check into THE Haneda (rph-the.co.jp; doubles from ¥1,800), which is affixed to the international terminal, bypassing the hassle of immigration. + Marriott chose Milan’s Malpensa airport as the first location of its new millennial-focused brand, Moxy Hotels (moxy-hotels. marriott.com; doubles from €89). How are they drawing next-gen travelers? Free Wi-Fi, self-serve snack food and hot coffee, and a casual lobby lounge.

t ypography

WHAT YOUR INSTAGRAM FILTER SAYS ABOUT YOU A picture may speak a thousand words, but a filter is a look into a traveler’s soul. Here’s what you’re projecting with your choice of special effects. Inkwell

Kelvin

Sutro

[No Filter]

Earlybird

Inkwell

Kelvin

Sutro

[No Filter]

To blazes with hardedged modernity! You yearn for the softly faded era of steamer trunks and hot-air balloons. Jules Verne is your Virgil. Your ideal evening starts with a Delmonico steak and an oyster roast, and ends at the kinetoscope. In your luggage: a hoopskirt and a stovepipe hat.

Ahh, you swoony love child of Ansel Adams and Henri Cartier-Bresson.... Don’t we all want to live in Paris between the wars? Your photos don’t capture light—they capture truth. Color? A cloying distraction. Not only do you shoot in black and white, you only wear black and white.

You don’t go anywhere unless it’s 25 degrees, sunny and within earshot of the ocean. “In search of the perfect wave” isn’t just a credo, it’s your torso tattoo. Clouds don’t exist in your world. Neither does tartar. Every summer is endless; every barrel is epic; every hour is golden.

You’re drawn to the darkness at the edge of town. Bad hotel lighting never bothers you; hell, you travel with your own blackout shades. The message on your door is the message on your heart: DO NOT DISTURB. Next vacation: Nome. Or outer Minsk. In winter.

Purity is your doctrine. Your body is a temple, your art needs no adornment, your eye needs no doctoring. (You probably don’t eat salt, either.) Why are you even on Instagram, anyway? #timetostartatumblr. —n . s .

THE PERSONA

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D A V I D A L E X A N D E R A R N O L D . I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y P E T E R A R K L E

THE FILTER

Earlybird

Shelves lined with gin at Ping Pong 129. Below: A G & Tea at G&T Cocktail Bar.

a f t e r da r k

OF ALL THE GIN JOINTS

F R O M T O P : C O U R T E S Y O F P I N G P O N G 1 2 9 ; C O U R T E S Y O F G &T C O C K TA I L B A R ( 2 )

These four bars, with their wide selection of juniper-rich highball cocktails, have us convinced there’s no finer summer drink than the classic gin and tonic. By Diana Hubbell Keep your vodka-spiked kale smoothies and your elderflower-tinis: the old-fashioned G&T is in the midst of a comeback. That’s not to say it ever really went out of style. It’s just that for a while it was relegated to the back of menus alongside Ms. Bradshaw’s cosmopolitans and Mr. Bond’s vesper martinis. At newcomer Ping Pong 129 (pingpong129.com; drinks for two HK$160), a refurbished ping pong hall in Hong Kong’s achingly hip Sai Ying Pun, it’s the raison d’être. No fewer than 50 gins grace the shelves, ranging from traditional to more inventive, such as the Gin Mare, infused with olives, rosemary, thyme and basil. Meanwhile just over in Central, the aptly named G&T Cocktail Bar (gntbar.com.hk; drinks for two HK$125) boasts a whopping 80 gins from seven countries. Their namesake tipple is front and center, but there are also clever reinterpretations like the G & Tea: gin and oolong served in a chilled pot. One of Seoul’s newest and quirkiest gin bars is hiding inside a fully functioning florist shop. Flower Gin (557 Itaewon-dong, Yongsan-gu; 82-2/412-1983; drinks for two W16,000)

will happily serve rose-perfumed Hendrick’s with a bouquet of actual roses. In Singapore, the two-faced Jekyll & Hyde (49 Tras St.; 65/62223349; 49tras.st; drinks for two S$40) is a demure nail salon by day and a dashing gin bar by night, with rare finds such as the German-distilled Monkey 47 making cocktail cameos. Old jazz favorites play in the background, proving once again that classics are classics for a reason.

Radar

spotlight

Lorenzo Martone, founder of Martone Cycling Co. (martonecycling.com), is no stranger to cuttingedge design. His range of lightweight, bold-colored bicycles has already won fans such as Karl Lagerfeld and Oliver Theyskens, and now he’s celebrating the glories of globetrotting with a sleek new gilded bike model. “We decided on golden tones as a reminder of how privileged we all are to have access to the life we do,” Martone says. And what a life it is: in just two years, his company has ballooned from a passion project to a global business, with retailers in 10 countries, a number that will double by the

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end of the year. Yet the idea was born rather humbly. “I was intimidated by the bike industry because it all looked so professional and I’m not a racer,” Martone says. “I love just biking around the city from A to B.” His solution was to create a fashiondriven model that would look as sharp on the streets as it would in his West Village apartment in New York. “It needed to look good in my home since I had to store the bike in my living room,” he says. “If you are going to be looking at it all the time it should look great; it should look like a design piece, like a sculpture.” So he came up with a graphic eye-

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catching frame with an iconic red chain and a basket built into the handlebars, perfect for the daily chores of city life. He liked the result so much he just kept churning them out. “One bike became five and five became 750, and suddenly I had a company,” he says. The inspiration behind

Martone Cycling comes from the founder’s love of exploration. “Riding a bicycle is the best way to get acquainted with local life. It means connecting truly with the environment you’re in,” he says. “I owe everything I know to travel. The food, smells and contrasting architecture I’ve experienced shine through in my designs”— no wonder his favorite cycling cities are London and Paris. The only real question for Martone is: “What bike are you going to wear today?” ✚

P HOTOG R A P H ED BY P E T ER YA NG

K AT E O W E N , C O U R T E S Y O F M A R T O N E C Y C L I N G C O .

EASY RIDER

In Bangkok, the Embassy Diplomat Screens (embassycineplex.com) opened this summer, with a VIP screening room where guests can relax on three-seat sofas, homey daybeds or fluffy couches, with private mini bars on hand and food from Dean & Deluca and The Oriental Shop. In Singapore, WE Cinemas (wecinemas.com.sg) is opening this fall in the 321 Clementi complex, with 10 high-tech digital halls. Over in the United States, a string of Golden Era theaters in downtown Los Angeles are taking a second bow. The Ace Hotel acquired the Gothic-Deco United Artists Theater, renaming it the Theatre at Ace Hotel (acehotel.com) and two blocks north, a thorough renovation of the Globe Theatre (globetheatre-la.com) is giving new life to the Beaux-Arts vaudeville palace as a venue for everything from concerts to film premieres. —colleen clark

The Theatre at Ace Hotel, in Los Angeles.

cinema

CURTAIN CALL From grand movie palaces to intimate screening rooms, luxury cinema is making a come back.

AUTUMN CULTURE PREVIEW

t h e at e r

STARS ON STAGE london Following acclaimed performances in Chekhov’s Three Sisters and Pinter’s Betrayal, Kristin Scott Thomas returns to the Old Vic in Sophocles’ Electra. Ian Rickson directs the Greek tragedy from a new adaptation by Frank McGuinness. Oct. 1–Dec. 20; oldvictheatre.com. + King Charles III, Mike Bartlett’s outrageous chronicle of life after the reign of Queen

Elizabeth II, stars Tim Pigott-Smith in the career-defining role of a ruler-in-waiting who finally ascends the throne. The earlier, sold-out production will play at Wyndham’s Theatre for a limited run. Sept. 11–Nov. 29; delfontmackintosh.co.uk. new york city The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, about an autistic teenager’s search

Clockwise from top: Glenn Close, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Gyllenhaal.

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for truth, is as inventive in its storytelling as it is dazzling in its multimedia execution, as staged by Marianne Elliot (War Horse). Opens Oct. 5; Barrymore Theatre; telecharge.com. + Maggie Gyllenhaal and Ewan McGregor make their Broadway debuts in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, a tour-de-force drama about the complexity of marriage and the igniting force of passion. Opens Oct. 30; American Airlines Theatre; roundabout theatre.org.

+ Glenn Close, John Lithgow and Martha Plimpton are members of a privileged but dysfunctional family in A Delicate Balance, Edward Albee’s unsettling comedy. Opens Nov. 20; John Golden Theatre; telecharge.com. + Bradley Cooper plays the title role in The Elephant Man, based on the true story of Joseph Merrick’s path from freak-show act to darling of Victorian society. Opens Dec. 7; Booth Theatre; telecharge.com. —bill rosenfield

F R O M T O P : S P E N C E R L O W E L L ; S T E V E G R A N I T Z / G E T T Y I M A G E S ; G E O R G E P I M E N T E L / G E T T Y I M A G E S ; J A M I E M C C A R T H Y/ G E T T Y I M A G E S

Radar

music Clockenflap Festival, in Hong Kong.

HEAR, HEAR: THE BEST OF FALL FESTIVALS

S H E A S TA N L E Y

australia A raucous traveling act, Stereosonic stops in Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane over 5 days of musical madness from a rotating line up of more than 60 acts, including Skrillex, Carl Cox and Porter Robinson, to name a few. (Nov. 29–Dec. 7; stereosonic.com.au). hong kong An outdoor music festival set in the middle of Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, Clockenflap brings together a line up of world-class acts. Last year 30,000 people showed up to watch Franz Fernand, Metric and Four Tet headline, and 45,000 are predicted for this year. (Nov. 28– 30; clockenflap.com).

india Held in the beach town of Goa each year, the three-day Sunburn electronic music festival offers a well-rounded variety of international DJs like Swedish House Mafia, Avicii and Armin Van Buuren; live musical acts; and high octane vacation activities like bungee jumping, volleyball and zorbing, the sport of rolling downhill in a plastic ball. (Dec. 27–29; sunburn.in) japan Ultra is roving from its traditional home in Miami to make its much-anticipated Japan debut this September. The party is set to be epic, held in a custom-made event space on Odaiba and featuring some of the world’s

hottest DJs—think: Hardwell, Fedde Le Grand and Afrojack. (Sept. 27–28; ultrajapan.com) malaysia Founded in 2002, Urbanscape is Malaysia’s longest running

creative festival. This year’s program is still pending, but after 2013’s bash, with performances from Two Door Cinema Club and Dangerdisko, we know it will be a stellar show. (late November; urbanscapes.com.my)

Radar

Choreographer Liam Scarlett leads a rehearsal at the Royal Ballet, in London.

art

da n c e

ON POINT WITH LIAM SCARLETT Boyish British choreographer Liam Scarlett created Consolations and Liebestraum, his first major work— and sensational hit—for London’s Royal Ballet in 2009. Now the 27-year-old serves as the company’s artist-in-residence, and this fall mounts world premieres for New York’s American Ballet Theatre as well as the Royal. He spoke to T+L about the new ballets and his cultural agenda for the season. Tell us about your first piece for American Ballet Theatre. It’s a chamber piece with four couples, debuting on the opening night of ABT’s 75th anniversary season. I’m looking forward to working with the exceptional Marcelo Gomes and the talented Misty Copeland and Sarah Lane (Oct. 22–Nov. 2; abt.org). Why have you chosen to set a ballet to Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety, for the Royal Ballet? Because it’s difficult, and I feel I can take risks with my home company. Bernstein was inspired by W. H. Auden’s epic wartime poem, in which four

a r c h i t ec t u r e

NEW BUILDS

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AUTUMN CULTURE

troubled strangers interact in a New York City bar (Nov. 7–17; roh.org.uk).

PREVIEW

What cultural events will you try to get to in New York? I tend to arrive uninformed, open a guide and see what looks interesting. Lucky for me, the season includes the 52nd New York Film Festival (Sept. 26–Oct. 12; filmlinc.com), where I can see what’s fresh and innovative in world cinema. The 11th annual Fall for Dance Festival (Oct. 8–19; nycitycenter.org) provides a smorgasbord of 24 first-rate international companies and individual artists for only US$15 a ticket—amazing!

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Sundaram Tagore Hong Kong. Sept. 11–Oct. 11;

sundaramtagore.com. new york city “Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection,” at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art, celebrates the gift of

an unparalleled collection of works by Picasso, Braque, Juan Gris and Fernand Léger, each of whom propelled Modernism in unique directions. Oct. 20–Feb. 16; metmuseum.org. singapore Rare porcelain pieces from around the world are being showcased at the

What would you recommend in London? As a bit of a traditionalist, I’m interested in historical adaptations, especially the Royal Shakespeare Company’s stage dramatizations of Hilary Mantel’s Tudor novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, now playing in London, which are thrilling (through Oct. 4; rsc.org.uk). —peter webster

Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, winner of this year’s Pritzker Architecture Prize, imbued the new Aspen Art Museum with his trademark ingenuity, including a striking basket-weave wood façade and a rooftop sculpture garden. aspenartmuseum.org. The Inbursa Aquarium, in Mexico City, is Latin America’s largest, with four

hong kong The work of Hosook Kang, Hassan Massoudy and Golnaz Fathi, three artists who blend the visual traditions of East and West, will be on display in “Marked: Contemporary Takes on Mark-Making” at the

← Asian Civilisations Museum in “China

Mania! The Global Passion for Porcelain, 800-1900.” Through Dec. 14; acm.org.sg. —leslie camhi and david ngo

subterranean levels housing more than 5,000 species. The structure by Fernando Romero abuts the architect’s Museo Soumaya and David Chipperfield’s Museo Jumex. Plaza Carso. Opera was invented in Florence, but only now does the city have a venue dedicated to the genre. The new marble-clad Opera di Firenze complex has a

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state-of-the-art theater and concert hall, close to the centro storico. operadifirenze.it. In Rio de Janeiro’s beachfront neighborhood Barra de Tijuca, Christian de Portzamparc’s sweeping Cidade das Artes brings together an art gallery, chamber-music hall and 1,250-seat auditorium. cidadedas artes.org. — raul barreneche

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C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P L E F T: A N D R E J U S P E N S K I ; C O U R T E S Y O F A S I A N C I V I L I S AT I O N M U E S U M ( 2 ) ; © P I E T R O P A O L I N I ; C O U R T E S Y O F T H E A S P E N A R T M U S E U M ; C O U R T E S Y O F C H R I S T I A N D E P O R T Z A M P A R C

SHOWS TO SEE

Radar

m y t ow n

VIENNA, OLD AND NEW The city of waltz and opera also shimmers with cultural innovation. Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, head of the Museum of Applied Art, and his art historian wife, Karin, take in its highlights.

Eat “We go to Café Ansari (cafeansari.at; set lunch for two €19) time and again,” Christoph says of the new Georgian spot in Leopoldstadt, a historically Jewish neighborhood that’s now Vienna’s answer to all things hip. “I order the Lammkibbe (lamb meatballs with peppers and tahini).” Karin loves to sit on the cobblestoned terrace— “it transports you to another century.” + Nearby, the couple enjoy the Wiener schnitzel at former gasthaus Skopik &

Lohn (skopikundlohn. at; lunch for two €52) nearly as much as the mind-bending ceiling mural by Otto Zitko. “It’s a cool hangout for the local creative crowd,” Christoph says. Shop “The best place for gift-shopping is the Confiserie Altmann & Kühne (altmann-kuehne.at), in Innerstadt,” Christoph says. “Ask for the small chocolates—they’re packed in the most beautiful boxes, with patterns from the Wiener Werkstätte.” + He gets his accessories down the street at Knize (knize.at), a heritage men’s-wear shop that’s been making suits since

1858. “I’m too tall for the jackets,” Christoph, who is 202 centimeters, says with a laugh, “but I love the scarves.” + For women, Karin recommends Song (song.at), a fashionforward boutique that carries labels such as Dries Van Noten and Olympia Le-Tan. Do For Christoph and Karin, weekends are made for long walks. One of their favorites: a stroll to a traditional Austrian Heurige (wine tavern) called Dorfschenke Neustift (dorfschenke-neustift. at), on the tourist-light northern edge of the city. “The road isn’t big enough for the buses,” Karin says. + Christoph is a devotee of the Vienna State Opera (wiener-staatsoper.at). “Every night there are over 500 standing-room tickets available, often for only three euros.” —gisela williams

Christoph and Karin ThunHohenstein on a settee by Franz West at Vienna’s Museum of Applied Art.

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P HOTOG R A P H ED BY DA NIEL G EBH A R T DE KOEK KOEK

Radar

Pop-Up Charcuterie Room at the Four Seasons Bangkok.

dining

STAYING, BY POPULAR DEMAND Seasons Bangkok

(fourseasons.com; 66-2/126-8866, ext. 1249), a 20-seat wine and Pop-Up Charcuterie Room that was

scheduled to operate for three months only now has an extended run

thanks to the high demand from its devoted following. Aside from the everchanging collection of jamón, chorizo, manchego and Pinots, this little bit of Barcelona offers a rare commodity in Bangkok: an outdoor deck overlooking a tree-lined street. There’s also a strong French and Italian influence, with a

b e au t y

SWISS ADVANTAGE T+L staff members’ latest obsession: Switzerland’s heritage skin-care brands— and their new products for fall.

healthy selection of peppers stuffed with ricotta, Sicilian olives, herb-encrusted sausages and goat cheeses. The menu is always evolving, so making repeat visits is a must before the venue morphs into something new. No date on that just yet. Open Monday to Saturday, 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.; dinner for two Bt3,000.

1 “My weekend bag is filled with Karin Herzog’s travel-size Seven Creams of the Week (karin herzog.com; US$100). The active oxygen-infused Essential Mask gives me a super-hydrated glow.” —katie james 2 “Valmont Elixir des Glaciers Eau Micellaire Précieuse (boutiquevalmont.com; US$150) is a genius all-in-one cleanser, with rose-petal extract and glacial water. No rinsing is required, so I use it to remove makeup before hitting the gym.” —jacqui gifford 3 “Made with apple stem cells, rich in phytonutrients and proteins, Lather Swiss Apple Wrinkle Remedy (b-glowing.com; US$62) is lightweight and improves my fine lines.” —mimi lombardo 4 “I love the cool gel formula and the understated aroma of La Prairie Cellular Eye Essence Platinum Rare (laprairie.com; US$365). After a poor night’s sleep, the serum brightens the eyes.” —sandra garcia

C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P : C H R I S T O P H E R K U C W AY; K A R I N H E R Z O G ; C O U R T E S Y O F V A L M O N T; C O U R T E S Y O F L AT H E R ; C O U R T E S Y O F L A P R A I R I E

By their nature, pop ups are fleeting and ephemeral beings. But what happens when a pop up is too popular to shut down? At the Four

MacPherson outside his new Ludlow Hotel.

the insider

HOW TO MAKE A HOTEL COOL BY SEAN MACPHERSON

New York City hotelier Sean MacPherson owns, among others, the Bowery and Maritime. His latest, the Ludlow Hotel, on the Lower East Side, opened in June.

JAKE CHESSUM

The best hotels have human fingerprints. I don’t need to like the person’s style, but I want to feel their presence and a sense of place. The Grand Hôtel Nord-Pinus (nord-pinus.com; doubles from €185), in Arles, France, is so French, but it also has a strong Spanish influence that reflects the owner’s taste: vintage furniture, bullfighting memorabilia and Peter Lindbergh photographs. At the Saint Cecilia (hotelsaintcecilia.com; doubles from US$370), in Austin, Texas, you feel Liz Lambert’s heartbeat throughout the hotel. The mini-bar, for example, has personal choices such as salted-caramel galettes, prosciutto and Mexican Coke. A hotel should tell a story. Bemelmans at the Carlyle (rosewoodhotels.com) in New York is the benchmark for all hotel bars because it has that history—with Ludwig Bemelmans’s murals and the Kennedys drinking there—yet it’s still very much alive with music and performers. It’s not a bar

that could ever exist in, say, L.A. My newest property, the Ludlow Hotel (ludlowhotel. com; doubles from US$195), is inspired by my time in New York during the 1980’s. There was this tremendous art scene, with Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat running around. And they weren’t mythological characters like Hemingway and Picasso in Paris; this was in our lifetime. Plus the music: like the Ramones, Blondie and early hip-hop. There was a vitality to the city and you could still get an apartment for US$400 a month. So I gave the Ludlow that feeling of loft living, not in a literal way but the sensation of it. I imagined a kid that may be down and out, living on the Lower East Side, but he had some nice furniture his parents gave him and a cool place, so it was going to be okay. Don’t state what’s already implied. Let the product speak for itself. If you allow the guest to interpret the hotel, then it will be exactly what they want it to be. Give room for people to make it their own. At some hotels, the first thing they tell you is how cool they are. That’s like someone telling you they’re smart. “Cool” is almost invisible when it’s done well. You don’t even notice why; you just feel it. —As told to Sara Bliss

Radar

goods

HIDE â&#x20AC;&#x2122;N CHIC Add a touch of texture to any fall look. By Mimi Lombardo

1 Calf-hair-and-leather

pump, $425, by Vince.

2 Suede-trimmed calf-hair

clutch, $750, Nina Griscom for GiGi New York. 3 Shearling-lined bootie, $395, Belle by Sigerson Morrison. 4 Shearling-andleather bag, $348, Diane von Furstenberg. 5 Calf-hair slip-on, $98, C. Wonder. 6 Leather-trimmed shearling messenger bag, $1,300, Coach.

4 5

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Prices are listed in US dollars.

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P HOTOG R A P H ED BY YASU + JU N KO

MARK ET EDITOR: COURTNE Y K ENEFICK

Radar Clockwise from left: Shanghai, old and new; outside Black Pepper; traditional dishes with flair at Shang-Xi; old collectibles at a local market; zipping around the French Concession in a sidecar.

weekender

SHANGHAI’S TWO SIDES There are hidden corners of this thrumming Chinese metropolis where past and future quietly collide. Story and photos by Christopher Kucway Eat At Shang-Xi (86-21/20368888; lunch for two RMB436) in the Four Seasons Pudong is a taste of traditional China with set menus showcasing the best teas in town. Okay, so the sautéed beef happens to be melt-in-yourmouth wagyu and the steamed pork dumplings come with a hairy crab cream, but its these off-script touches that make lunch all the more unforgettable. Among the small collection of restaurants and bars that has sprouted up in a restored Chinese courtyard, Black Pepper (89 Taixing Lu; 86-138/1833-6837; set meal RMB228 per person) is a favorite for inexpensive Turkish fare and filling meals. Broken down into hot and cold starters, grills and desserts, expect haydari (homemade yogurt), a sea prawn casserole, izgara köfte (grilled meatballs), and tavuk göğsü, a blended chicken breast dessert that has to be tasted to be believed. Do Is there any better way to tour Shanghai’s French Concession than from the sidecar of a restored Chinese army motorcycle?

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Tooling around the tree-lined, history-laden streets on a sunny autumn day for a few hours with Insiders Experience (86-138/ 1761-6975; insidersexperience.com; tours from RMB1,700), a typical stop is the pine- and maple-dotted gardens of Yongfoo Elite (86-21/5466-2727; yongfooelite. com; set dinners RMB780), a private club with a throwback feel that conjures the Shanghai of decades past. While in the sidecar, make time for a chat with owner Thomas Chabrieres, who is a font of inside information when it comes to lesser-known addresses. If you’d rather amble about on your own two feet, then touring some of the last remaining shikumen in the city is, well, up your alley. Wedged between Black Pepper and the Four Seasons Puxi (86-21/6256-8888; tours from RMB2,400) is a cluster of streets that date back to the 1920’s, but you’ll need the assistance of a resident to find your way around. That’s where photographer Wang Gangfeng enters the frame. This is his ‘hood and he leads tours through these time-worn buildings

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THE CITY IN A GLANCE Getting Around It is easiest to take taxis but have your destination written down in Chinese and always ask for a receipt or fa piao. China in Focus After your tour of the shikumen, stop in at Wang Gangfeng’s studio (gangofonephotography. com) to see his often- comical work from around China shot during the past 30 years. See the Light Don’t miss a glimpse of Shanghai’s creative side at DAFF—Design, Art and Fashion Fair—a show of pop-up shops, art installations, craft food and drink, and live music. The next fair is October 25-26 (daff. tictcreative.com).

to which few others have access. The area just screams black-andwhite photography and, in fast-changing Shanghai, better visit now. Some of the narrow lanes are protected but, when asked, Wang admits, “Shanghai people don’t really care about these buildings.” Stay A standout in Shanghai’s forest of a modern skyline, the Four Seasons Pudong (fourseasons.com; rooms from RMB2,350) is an escape, both in that you could easily stay put in the hotel all weekend—state-ofthe-art spa, excellent dining and well thought-out guestrooms— and as a launch pad for exploring the older charms of Puxi. ✚

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

An All-in-One Getaway Call it a destination within a destination. Conrad® Macao, Cotai Central, only minutes from the city’s international airport, is home to everything you want, and it’s all under one roof. It really is its own city, an integrated resort that will leave you wondering when you can return as soon as you arrive. GUESTROOMS Home to 636 guestrooms and 24-hour concierge services, Conrad Macao still manages to key on the little things to make your stay special. Each guestroom is fitted with an MP3 player and iPod/iPad docking station as well as premium bathroom amenities by Aromatherapy Associates. But this is no standard hotel: as an ultimate convenience, there’s also guaranteed early check-in, with advance notice and space being available from the previous night. DINING Don’t forget you’re in Asia, where food tops most lists. Conrad Macao is home to a global cross-section of menus. Dynasty 8 evokes the charm of old-world China, one that includes high-end Chinese cuisine. Each of the eight private dining rooms is styled after a dynasty so be sure not to miss the signature fresh king prawns with caviar and deep-fried crab claw with five spices. At Grand Orbit, diners embark upon a culinary journey around the globe, enjoying Portuguese-influenced Macanese cuisine, Creole-

inspired dishes from Louisiana and even Brazilian Churasco. There’s also Italian, Thai, Indian and Malaysian dishes, so you simply cannot go wrong. In the lobby is The Lounge, home to Asian or Western breakfasts, afternoon tea and, come nightfall, signature cocktails. SHOPPING Another favourite pastime in Asia is shopping, which at Conrad Macao is never far away. With over 100 retail outlets, Shoppes at Cotai Central is paradise for shoppers in search of luxury goods. Think Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Omega, Rolex, Marc Jacobs and Zara Home. ENTERTAINMENT Of course, there are also diversions for young guests. DreamWorks Experience at Cotai Strip Resorts gives children the chance to interact with their favourite animated characters and for you to take a deserved break. BODHI SPA By now, you might need some downtime, so book an appointment at Bodhi Spa but don’t for a second think that this is just another five-star spa. The award-winning spa specializes in treatments, whether Ayurvedic, Aboriginal or Asian. You’ll relax knowing that your time in Macao has been well spent at Conrad Macao. HEALTH CLUB Enjoy the health club, a state-of-the-art facility that incorporates cardio and strength equipment as well as yoga and pilates sessions. The heated pool is surrounded by cabanas and day beds.

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Clockwise from left: Conrad Macao’s welcoming lobby; a Two Queens Deluxe bedroom; Dynasty 8 offers stylish Chinese cuisine; there’s nothing but soothing times at Bodhi Spa.

Conrad Macao, Cotai Central LUXURY OF BEING YOURSELF Rates from HKD2,498++ Until 31 Dec 2014 • Luxury accommodation for two in Deluxe Room • Enjoy a choice of either: - complimentary breakfast for two - complimentary upgrade to Deluxe Suite CONRAD MACAO SIGNATURE PACKAGE Rates from HKD2,498++ Until 31 Dec, 2014 • Luxury accommodation for two in a Deluxe Room • Daily breakfast for two at Grand Orbit • Portuguese Style Afternoon Tea Set for two (2 drinks included) • Stay for an extra night and enjoy: MOP200 Shopping and Dining Dollars

Estrada do Istmo. s/n, Cotai, Macao SAR, P.R. China Tel: +853-2882-9000 Fax: +853-2882-9001 www.conradmacao.com

Radar on the map

STREET SMART Along the lively crossroads of Panglima Polim, style-conscious Jakartans shop for sub-culture spiced in local street life. Asgar Badass Barbershop → Get a stylish cut in suave surroundings inspired by Baz Luhrmann’s interpretation of The Great Gatsby. Jln. Panglima Polim IX No. 15; facebook.com/ asgarbadass; cut Rp60,000.

JLN. PANGLIMA POLIM X

JLN. PANGLIMA POLIM IV

PO LI M V

JLN. PANGLIMA POLIM IX

JL N. PA NG LI MA

← Convivium On the corner of Panglima Polim IX and V, there’s an Italian café and deli that specializes in homemade pasta and dessert, including a wide assortment of artisanal gelatos. Jln. Panglima Polim IX No. 1; 62-21/726-9963; facebook.com/conviviumdeli; dessert for two Rp120,000.

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↓ Woodpecker Coffee Try this new Melbourne-style coffee shop, by the owners of Common House, for quality coffee and croissants. Jln. Panglima Polim V No.23; 62-21/720-067; atelierkreasi.com.

↑ Velodome Coffee + C and Taco Local In an annex of Velodome Bike Shop, joining the Taco Local restaurant, is a new in-house coffee shop. Now, in addition to Taco Local’s famous zesty Mexican fare, you can get a high-class cup of joe. Jln. Panglima Polim V No. 38; 62-21/9494-9538; tacolocal.com.

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↑ Maris Store Need new duds to match your new do? Check out this streetwear-centric, multi-concept store to fit yourself out in fashion-forward street labels like Made In Paradise or Tuff Stuff. There are ample options for that effortlessly hip look expected in the creative district. Jln. Panglima Polim IX No. 15; 62-21/720-8681; maris.co.id.—lauren shipman

C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P R I G H T: C O U R T E S Y O F C O M M O N H O U S E ; L A U R E N S H I P M A N ; C O U R T E S Y O F M A R I S S T O R E ( 2 ) ; C O U R T E S Y O F C O M M O N H O U S E ; C O U R T E S Y O F TA C O L O C A L ; L A U R E N S H I P M A N ; C O U R T E S Y O F C O N V I V I U M ; C O U R T E S Y O F A S G A R B A D A S S B A R B E R S H O P

↑ Common House This is the cure for the common mall: shopping minus the crowds and fluorescent lighting. Instead you’ll find boutiques showcasing local designers, rotating art shows and an organic restaurant, in a setting that’s all warm wood and natural light. Jln. Panglima Polim IX No. 16; commonhousejkt.com.

Radar t+l p i c ks

AT WATER’S EDGE Five new seaside hotels where you can splash out in style.

COURTESY OF À L A CARTE

City and shore from the rooftop pool at À La Carte, in Danang.

maldives The definition of bliss: Maalifushi by COMO, where Indonesian thatched-roof bungalows sit on stilts over a placid lagoon, and you can practice your pranayama in guided meditation and breathing classes. Be sure to set an alarm; the Indian Ocean’s fuchsia sunrises are particularly vibrant from your private plunge pool. comohotels.com; doubles from US$650.

playa del carmen, mexico Cacao arrives this month, a sophisticated respite from thumping Fifth Avenue. Expect a mural by Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra, a hyacinth lily pond and a scene at Nibs restaurant, which highlights fresh Yucatecan ingredients (coconut ceviche; lobster with green mango). hotelcacao.com.mx; doubles from US$196.

tela bay, honduras Sprawling across 730 hectares on the country’s primeval northwestern coast, Indura Beach & Golf Resort celebrates its natural setting with 60 tree-house-inspired suites and a golf course that winds through banana palms inhabited by capuchin monkeys. And the Caribbean is just steps from your front door. induraresort.com; doubles from US$209.

bodrum, turkey The Black Card crowd has a new Mediterranean hideout in the Mandarin Oriental Bodrum, set on two olive-grove-backed beaches overlooking the Aegean. After soaking up some sunshine, head to the spa for a hammam treatment using botanicals from the resort’s gardens. mandarinoriental.com; doubles from €745.

danang, vietnam Live DJs, a beach club and a rooftop bar with an infinity pool set a South Beach Miami vibe at À La Carte, which is drawing on Danang’s rising buzz factor. The loft-style digs have spa-like bathrooms and chef’s kitchens. alacarteliving.com; doubles from VND3,108,000. — colleen clark additional reporting by tim leffel.

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point of view

INTO THIN AIR

Or, how I got over my fear of flying. By Molly Jong-Fast

aron Spelling had a train car. Aretha Franklin has a custom bus. Even easygoing Marge Simpson suffered from it. I came by my pteromerhanophobia (fear of flying) honestly: my mother wrote a novel called Fear of Flying. But it started even before that. My DNA was equal parts deoxyribonucleic acid and panic. This didn’t mean that I didn’t fly.

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I grew up on Pan Am Flight 002, a Boeing 747 that went from JFK to Delhi with a stop at London Heathrow. We flew Clipper Class (which was Pan Am’s old-school name for business). The flight was always chaotic, stuffed to the gills, hot as the inside of an oven, hours late, and

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populated almost entirely with screaming babies. At least that’s how I remember it. Fast-forward to my twenties: I am sitting on a plane. The creases in my palms are filling with sweat. I can hear my heart pounding in my ears. Am I going to die? Definitely. Suddenly tears spring from my eyes. I can feel the pitch, the noise of the engines. Is that the landing gear sticking? Is one of the engines not working? Is that popping sound the engine stalling or catching fire? Is the plane supposed to tilt like that? What about that strange ringing sound? Is an alarm going off somewhere on the plane? Does it mean we are all going to die? Does it mean that this flight is doomed? Did the pilot look tired? Drunk? Depressed? That was my life on an airplane. And there was more, of course; I once grabbed the hand of a strange man next to me on a flight from Denver to LaGuardia. And once I dug my nails into film director Brett Ratner’s arm even though he barely knew me. And finally one day I just stopped flying, because I figured it wasn’t worth it. I’d gone everywhere I wanted to go. I would just spend the rest of my life on the Northeast Corridor, shuttling around via Amtrak. And for a while, about a decade, I didn’t fly, and I was okay, and I thought I had won. Perhaps I had figured it out. But what I didn’t realize was that not flying actually made the fear worse. Flying haunted me. I would dream about flying. I would fantasize about flying. I would pass airports and get a chill down my spine. Every night was a slightly different flying dream, some more disturbing than others, but the message was always the same: I was stuck, and I wasn’t going anywhere. My self-esteem plummeted. My friends would be talking writers on about their Christmases or flying — second in a series their spring breaks and they would say “Oh, that’s right, Read Gary you don’t fly.” Those six Shteyngart’s essay words cut me. They felt like “Fly Me to the Moon” an indictment. How had I at tandl.me/ gstravl. become so profoundly

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damaged that I couldn’t participate in what the rest of the world did easily and regularly? I was pretty sure if I didn’t deal with this fear it would mushroom. I could already feel myself getting nervous about bridges and the subway. I knew fear of flying could lead to a larger pathology—I’ve heard it often does. I could easily end up unable even to get in an elevator. I was crossing the line from charmingly neurotic to meshuga. After all, even Woody Allen could get on an airplane. So I started looking for a cure. Here are some of the things that did not work to cure my fear of flying: being what seemed like sneezed on by a mad Russian hypnotist, spending hours talking to my Freudian analyst about the cause of my fear,

wearing a virtual-reality flying helmet on East 90th Street, meditation, drugs (Inderal for curing the symptoms of a panic attack and Valium for fun before I got sober, but neither worked), hypnosis, flying school. There was only one “cure” I didn’t ever take and it was going to some doctor in Westchester, New York, and being given an IV filled with sodium thiopental. That just seemed too far-fetched even for me. Then I happened on exposure therapy. Exposure therapy is as terrifying as it sounds. It means just what you think it would mean. You are exposed to what scares you. I went to see Dr. Martin Seif, in New York City. I was dreading it. Dr. Seif saw me twice and he impressed upon me that I was using anything I could to avoid

WHAT ABOUT THAT STRANGE RINGING SOUND? IS AN ALARM GOING OFF SOMEWHERE ON THE PLANE? DOES IT MEAN WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE?

feeling fear (avoidant behavior) and so all of my avoidant behavior (my rituals, or only flying in the a.m., or not flying at all, obsessing about the weather, constantly checking the Weather Channel, checking turbulence maps) were ways of reinforcing my anxiety. He also explained that the chances of dying in a plane crash were infinitesimal (which of course I knew). But in my experience fear is not solved by knowledge. Even so, almost every fear-of-flying program has a component of flight education, which, I assume, is strictly to cover the easy stuff. I myself have been lectured more than a few times by pilots on the safety and mechanics of flight. And while this is charming, I’m phobic, not stupid. I know the chances of being killed in a plane crash are 1 in 11 million. One is more likely to be killed by lightning, a tornado, smoking, a car accident, biking, cardiovascular disease, an ➔

Radar electrical current, accidental gunfire, medical complications, inhaling or ingesting objects, drowning or being crushed to death by a pig. That said, being crushed by a pig wasn’t, in my dysfunctional mind, as scary as being packed into a metal tuna tin hurtling through space 9,000 meters in the air at 1,000 kilometers an hour. So after two sessions it was time for EXPOSURE! The first thing I did was go to Westchester County Airport to try out a flight simulator that looked like a plane. I wasn’t scared at all—but I was also not in the air. The pilot let me fly the simulator and while I had fun, it seemed sort of irrelevant. I wasn’t afraid; in fact I crashed into the control tower (I’m not a great driver). But a few weeks later it was time to try the real thing. On April 7, 2013, I flew the Delta Shuttle from LaGuardia to Washington Reagan. I hadn’t flown since August of 2003, just short of a

decade earlier. It was a quick flight, about an hour. I was scared, but I remembered to do some of the things Dr. Seif told me to do. I focused on breathing, and on the idea that I was only afraid of the fear itself. I texted him, I told myself this was about practicing being afraid. I read some of the PDF’s he sent me about managing anxiety. I was nervous but understood the fact that flying was safe and that I was the problem. Flying home I cried the entire way. But I emerged a new person. I went back to the doctor and he said, “Book another flight.” In May, my husband and I flew to Toronto (I cried on that flight too). In June I took my daughter to London (I was totally fine). In August my husband and I went to L.A. (I didn’t even feel nervous when the pilot turned on the fasten seat belts sign and mused about very rough air). On the flight home I cried but for a totally different reason: I cried because I was so proud of myself. Having been on

this planet for 35 years, I know how hard it is to change one’s own life. So this was one of the most exciting things that had ever happened to me. In November I went with my mom to Miami for the Miami Book Fair. In February I flew with my youngest son to Boston and in March I went back to Los Angeles. In June I will go to London, Paris and Venice. I am a person who flies now. I am a person who can go anywhere. Do I still get nervous on airplanes? The answer is, sort of. I have learned a lot about myself and about managing my anxiety. I am a person who is recovering from my phobia, so I have to be careful. I have to actively not obsess about the flight. I try to never check the weather. I embrace my anxiety. I don’t love turbulence but I see it as an opportunity for overcoming my fear. I am so thrilled with my new life, but ultimately one of the greatest gifts of my getting over the fear is that I never have to ride Amtrak again. ✚

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DINE WITH ME

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 B O I N N O V AT I O N ; C O U R T E S Y O F S H I N Z O ; C O U R T E S Y O F S M I T H ( 2 ) ; C O U R T E S Y O F S H I N Z O

Chefs across the region are flexing their culinary chops with boundary pushing, multicourse meals at their exclusive tables. By Diana Hubbell

Clockwise from top: Expect the unexpected at Bo Innovation; sashimi set from Shinzo; Smith’s chefs plate with care; a meaty main at Smith; chef Lawrence Chia prepares omakase at Shinzo.

The latest craze in fine dining requires a leap of faith—you have to entrust the fate of your meal to the whims of the experts. Southeast Asia’s big-name chefs are offering intimate tables with unconventional set menus to satisfy both the bold and the indecisive. Sashimi masters have been hosting chef’s tables for ages with omakase, that carefully choreographed parade of Lilliputian dishes. One of the best new places on the scene is Singapore’s Shinzo (17 Carpenter St.; 65/6438-2921; shinzo.com.sg; S$138 per person), a spartan, blonde-wood temple to all things piscine. Opened last year, sushi veteran Lawrence Chia offers a seasonally influenced omakase that has all the elegance of a kaiseki menu without the austerity. + Tradition is left at the door at Bo Innovation (60 Johnston Rd.; 852/2850-8371; boinnovation.com; chef’s table HK$2,380 per person) where Alvin Leung Jr., nicknamed “The Demon Chef” for his clever reinterpretations of Cantonese cuisine, takes the classic dim sum for a molecular-gastro spin. With taste bud-teasing dishes like lobster with a Sichuan-inflected hollandaise, and foie gras with sea urchin and Korean miso, it is no wonder this Hong Kong restaurant has three Michelin stars. + Thailand’s chefs are no slouches when it comes to inventive eats, and private chef’s tables are popping up all over Bangkok. At Smith (Sukhumvit Soi 49; 66-2/261-0515; smith-restaurant.com; chef’s table from Bt3,800 per person), a reclaimed warehouse with an ambitious nose-to-tail menu, Ian Kittichai and his two co-chefs show off their house-made charcuterie. It might be a splurge, but if you brave the leap, the pros promise to serve you up a plateful of paradise. ✚ 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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Radar Modern art and design inside Transit Shed No. 1.

noticed

CHANGING TIDES An artistic revolution is taking place on the docks of the Rangoon River. By Fiona McGregor The Rangoon River jetty is the setting of a new creative hub.

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At first glance, it’s an unlikely setting for Rangoon’s newest creative mainstay. Transit Shed No. 1, known as TS1, is a 350-square-meter warehouse made of paintchipped concrete and timeworn corrugated metal sheets. Boat horns blare as a steady stream of raggedshirted porters unload heavy cargo from ships that line the banks of the Rangoon River. But step inside, and you find a building transformed into what the creators hope will be the start of a cultural rejuvenation of the Rangoon port. Architect Dominic Leong embraced the gritty industrial surroundings of the docks with the

building’s exterior, but the interior is clean and modern. Angular crisp white walls are the showcase for pop-up art gallery displays by Burmese contemporary artists like Phyoe Kyi, while the warehouse space houses a rotating program of local stores, like the Myanmar Made brand, all celebrating the high-end possibilities of Burma’s design culture. TS1, which opened this spring, represents a distinctive new turn for Rangoon, tapping into what its founders say was a demand for a stylish location where people can view, purchase and experience innovative arts, crafts and foods from Burma and ➔ P HOTOG R A P H ED BY G REG HOL L A N D

Radar beyond. In a nation just opening up after years under an oppressive regime, the re-emerging arts scene is appearing in different forms. While TS1 is clearly more about style than subversion, it represents a growing confidence in the marketability and high quality of Burmese arts. The idea, according to founder Ivan Pun, the Oxford-educated son of well-known Burmese real-estate magnate Serge Pun, is that culture, commerce and cuisine are the three anchors in a space where events, retailers and menus change regularly. “It shows you don’t have to journey out of the country to get [internationalstandard] art and crafts,” says Nathalie Johnston, director of exhibitions. As well as the main exhibitions, which revolve every six to eight weeks, TS1 also hosts one-off evening events promoting the work of emerging artists including music nights and performance art events. Something of a local secret for now, it is undoubtedly more popular with resident expats and Burmese people than tourists and holidaymakers. It attracts a clientele that runs the gamut from wealthy expats to the trendsetting offspring of Burma’s renowned business elite, all flocking to see young creative types showing off their talents. The goods on sale vary as widely as the crowd it draws and visitors can spend anywhere from US$20 on trinkets to thousands of dollars on hand-crafted furniture and paintings, 54

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depending on which retailer is operating from the space at any given time. Meanwhile, TS1 owners are preparing for the final stage of their cultural triumvirate with the official launch of Port Autonomy, the bistro-cum-bar in an adjoining building. It will offer a modern take on the traditional Burmese teashop during the day with classic dishes such as mohingya fish noodle soup served along with experimental fare from guest chefs, while evenings will focus on wines and ales. The eatery is slated to open this month, promising a marriage of cuisine, culture and cold beer. TS1 will host a series of talks with international and local artists and curators from September 26 to 28, titled “Contemporary Dialogues”. A new group show of contemporary Burmese artists will also be on display starting September 26. Transit Shed No. 1; Lanthit Jetty, Rangoon; 95-1/248-908; ts1yangon.com. ✚

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Artist Phyoe Kyi.

Pun + Projects, the team behind TS1.

The exterior of Transit Shed No. 1 belies the space within.

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debut

LOCO FOR COCO

There’s a new jewel sparkling in the Maldivian crown of 1,900 coral islands. Opened this spring, Coco Privé Kuda Hithi, a private island residence featuring avant-garde design from Singaporebased sustainability guru Guz Wilkinson, is

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revving up the glamour of luxury travel. Set in North Malé Atoll, a 30-minute speedboat ride away from the airport, this upscale 1.4-hectare property houses five stunning villas and one master residence; two private beaches; an infinity pool;

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and an on-call staff of 26, including personal chefs, a master masseuse, sommelier and dive instructor. Not content with your average hotel emissary, Privé went a step further, hiring a former senior footman to the Queen of England as its general manager.

The main villa, a splitfloor state-of -the-art affair, complete with Jacuzzi, plunge pool, bar, wine cellar, glass-andpolished-concrete dining room and library, sleeps two in dream-inducing plush bedding, but who needs dreams when life’s this sweet? — cain nunns

Coco Prive North Malé Atoll; cocoprive.com; the property must be rented in its entirety with prices ranging from US$8,000 per night for two people during low season (May-July) to US$32,500 per night for 12 guests during the high season (November-January).

COURTESY OF COCO PRIVÉ KUDA HITHI

Pull out your snazziest swim trunks and best flip flops for a weekend at this flash new private island retreat, located somewhere between the Indian Ocean and the lap of luxury.

Radar Bali’s sweetest newcomer. Below: A locavore dessert.

desserts

Craving dessert for dinner? Acclaimed U.S. pastry chef Will Goldfarb has just the thing to sate your sweet tooth. Room 4 Dessert (Jln. Raya Sanggingan, Kedewatan, Ubud; room4dessert.asia; cocktail tasting menu for two Rp490,000) is Goldfarb’s tropical take on his now-shuttered, same-named New York restaurant, offering a locally sourced desserts-only menu to satisfy Bali’s sugar fiends. Dishes are full of native flavors that parry and surprise: mangosteen bitters, lemon basil and rosella are among the sweet star ingredients. Pull up a chair at the bar and watch Goldfarb and his team at work in their down-tobusiness kitchen, where the most sophisticated equipment is likely to be the blender. “It’s more high technique but less high technology,” says Goldfarb of his cooking style here, where each dessert is served on a specially crafted ceramic plate. Cocktails also receive great attention to detail—the aged Negroni is poured over a single sphere of distilled-water ice so it’s smooth to the final sip. No need for parsimony, either; there’s a cocktails-with-desserts tasting menu for a sample of pretty much everything. —holly mcdona ld

COURTESY OF ROOM 4 DESSERT (2)

BALI BRULEE

A mesmerising evening of Verdi, Puccini and Rossini classics.

SYMPHONY CONCERT NOVA AMADEUS ORCHESTRA ROME, ITALY

Tuesday 16 September 7.30pm

Baht 3,000 / 2,500 / 2,000 / 1,500 / 800 Supported by Embassy of Italy

“A ballet that is contemporary and, at the same time, romantic.” The Prague Post

SNOW WHITE BALLET PRELJOCAJ, FRANCE

Wednesday 24 September 7.30pm

Baht 3,000 / 2,500 / 2,000 / 1,500 / 800 Supported by Embassy of France and BNP Paribas

Hotline 02 262 3191 www.thaiticketmajor.com (24 hrs)

www.bangkokfestivals.com

VENUE: Thailand Cultural Centre. Free shuttle from MRT station Thailand Cultural Centre, Exit 1, during 5.30-7.00pm

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field notes

FASHIONABLE ESCAPES The best way to decompress? Designer Michael Kors, in his inaugural column for T+L, says it’s visiting a time-tested destination— preferably one without cell service. As a city person, when I really want to get away, I find nothing beats those locations that combine natural beauty with a bit of luxury. The dream is to unplug from the world and recharge my batteries, with a little time in the sun. Here, three places I go to refuel. phuket The Thai island has long been one of my favorites. Amanpuri (amanresorts.com; doubles from US$550) is dramatic and lush, with remarkable views of the Andaman Sea. You must rent a boat—the water is like liquid jade—and go over to breathtaking James Bond Island. I never leave Phuket without seeing a

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performance at Phuket Simon Cabaret (phuket-simoncabaret.com), an over-the-top drag show. big sur This stretch of the California coast is my obsession of the moment, as you can see in my Fall 2014 collection. I love that there’s beauty everywhere, but it’s also very laid-back. The best part? There’s almost no cell reception. My perfect day includes a morning massage at Post Ranch Inn & Spa (postranchinn.com; doubles from US$775), brunch at Deetjen’s (deetjens.com), and an afternoon at Pfeiffer Beach, followed by a sunset drink at Nepenthe (nepenthebigsur.

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com). If I could, I’d commute from Big Sur every day. capri I usually visit in the fall and spring, when the island is at its most peaceful. The simple pleasures of life there are abundant—the sun, the sea, the unforgettable pasta. The Grand Hotel Quisisana (quisisana.com; doubles from €300) has a glamorous history—Jackie Onassis used to stay there. Of course, I shop in Capri, too: Da Costanzo (39-081/837-8077) and Canfora (canfora.com) sell handmade sandals, while Carthusia (carthusia.it) stocks divine lemon soap. And I never leave without a few Borsalino hats. ✚

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

Clockwise from left: Designer Michael Kors on vacation in Capri; Post Ranch Inn, in Big Sur, California; James Bond Island, in Thailand’s Phang Nga Bay, near Phuket; Amanpuri resort, in Phuket; a Big Sur–inspired runway look from Kors’s Fall 2014 collection (michaelkors.com).

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

FIREWORKS AND MUSIC FILL THE AIR Fireworks and music events in September and October will make you enjoy Macau even more

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

From street level, historical Macau is visible at every turn and makes for a great day out. In the coming months, two annual events—a fireworks competition and music festival—are on offer to provide an exclamation point for your trip. But first, head to Macau Fisherman’s Wharf for the start of an enjoyable 150-minute tour of the enclave where, not only East meets West, but where the historic and modern mix. Dining and souvenir shopping are the rage at the start of this tour, before it quickly heads to a trio of fascinating stops: the Macau Cultural Centre—a key venue for the upcoming music festival—Macau Museum of Art and Handover Gifts Museum of Macau. Each offers a solid background to this fascinating destination. Next stop, the Macau Science Centre and then the Kun Iam Ecumenical Centre. Walk on to the 338-meter Macau Tower before stepping back in time with a tour of A-Ma Temple, which is dedicated to seafarers and is Macau’s oldest temple. It’s on the unesco World Heritage List, which gives you some idea of its importance to Macau. By now, it’s time for the festivities centered in this neighborhood. Find a great spot to relax and be sure to look up to take in the 26th Macau International Fireworks Display Contest. The popular event takes place in front of the Macau Tower from September 8—the Chinese mid-Autumn Festival—to October 1 and involves 10 teams from around the world. Making this a truly East meets West event, these aren’t just any pyrotechnic

teams but groups who have won top honors at global fireworks competitions. Each of the firework displays will be accompanied by both music and laser-light projections to enhance the audience’s experience with a more fascinating sound-and-light show. Spectators can view live television broadcasts of each of the fireworks shows but the modern displays are best seen amongst the old world charms of Macau, lending credence to Macau’s claim of where Monaco meets Las Vegas. Among the teams this year are representatives from as far afield as Taiwan, China, France, Italy, Korea, Portugal, Australia, Croatia, Poland and Spain. From October 3 to November 1, the 28th Macau International Music Festival raises its curtain on an event that will excite all music lovers. The festival has become a stage for showcasing musicians from around the globe and for Macau itself. This year, invitees include renowned ensembles and artists of different musical genres, school and styles. In all, there are 25 programs to choose from, sure to please all types of audiences. Yet the festival is more than just a series of performances. Also included for music lovers are master classes, workshops and artistic appreciation activities. These are designed to go beyond the performance halls and enter the community as a whole, enriching daily life, cultivating new fans and broadening the musical spirit of any who attend.

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events

NEED FOR SPEED You don’t need to be in the grandstands for a killer view of Formula 1’s motor-racing mayhem. Here, a few of our favorite spots to take in the action. com; Thrill of Speed package, doubles from S$5,300) and

The heart-pounding reverb as a Ferrari blurs by and the hot scent of burning asphalt are well worth a front-row ticket. But those sell out fast. If you can’t get your hands on one in time for the September 21 Formula 1

Ritz-Carlton, Millenia

(ritzcarlton.com; Club Deluxe room from S$1,800 per night), each with near 360-degree aerial views for race rubbernecking, from the Pit Grandstand near Singapore Flyer to the hairpin Turn 13 near the Merlion. Harbour View rooms at both

Singapore Grand Prix

(singaporegp.sg), there’s no need to fret—you can still get your fleetness fix with panoramic views of the floodlit street circuit over cocktails and hors d’oeuvre, by checking into a club room at one of the towering hotels along Marina Bay’s skyline. On Turn 6, Pan Pacific Singapore (panpacific.com; Pacific Club offer, doubles from S$3,870) grants exclusive access to its 38th-floor Club lounge for

Winning Formula Get in the Formula 1 spirits at Caffé B (The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands; caffeb.com. sg; 65/6887-3311; drinks for two S$40). Try the Fuel in A Formula, a full-bodied cherry brandy mixed with cranberry juice and Malibu rum; perfect to get you revved up. Closer to the action, The Fullerton Bay Hotel’s rooftop bar Lantern (fullertonbayhotel.com; 65/6597-5299; drinks for two S$45) faces Turn 13. Sample the Singapore Grand Prix cocktails like the Fullerton Hairpin: a mix of vodka, Midori, peach, strawberry, pineapple juice and cranberry juice.

Swissôtel The Stamford

sunset drinks and canapés with live Formula 1 screening. Across the street, sandwiched between the tracks on Raffles Boulevard and Raffles Avenue, are club lounges at the Mandarin Oriental (mandarinoriental.

(swissotel.com; track-facing Grand Prix package, doubles from S$1,400) and Fairmont (fairmont.com; track-facing Grand Prix package, doubles from S$1,150) on Turn 9 overlook the track, so you can take in the high-velocity thrills from the coziest spot on your featherbed. —monsicha hoonsuwan

Cars from the Bars If you can’t score a room with a view, there’s a slew of watering holes near the racetracks where patrons can goggle the telecast over a cold cocktail, with the live sounds of cars roaring within earshot. Treetops (ritzcarlton.com; 65/6434-5288; special Louis Roederer champagnes for two S$40), the al fresco area at Chihuly Lounge, is our pick for bar bites and champagne, while beer-lovers should join the cheering fans at Harry’s (8 Raffles Ave, 01-05/07, Esplanade Mall; harrys.com.sg; 65/6334-0132; beers for two S$25) for a pint of their adrenaline-cooling deep-gold premium lager.

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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 S I N G A P O R E G P ; C O U R T E S Y O F S W I S S Ô T E L T H E S TA M F O R D ; C O U R T E S Y O F T H E F U L L E R T O N B AY H O T E L ; C O U R T E S Y O F T H E R I T Z C A R LT O N , M I L L E N I A

Clockwise from left: Last year’s rip-roaring night race; view the floodlit circuit of the Singapore Grand Prix from Swissôtel The Stamford; special revved-up cocktails at Lantern bar; watch the Formula 1 telecast over champagne at Treetops.

“Absolutely Brilliant! That really put me in a good mood.” Simon Cowell

THE JIVE ACES

UK’S NUMBER ONE JIVE AND SWING BAND, UNITED KINGDOM

Friday 26 September 7.30pm

Baht 2,000 / 1,600 / 1,200 / 1,000 / 800

“Mr. Rushton knows how to make things happen” The New York Times

BLACK DIAMOND

CONTEMPORARY BALLET, DANISH DANCE THEATRE, DENMARK

Thursday 9 October 7.30pm

Baht 2,000 / 1,600 / 1,200 / 1,000 / 800 Supported by Embassy of Denmark, PANDORA and DZ Card

Hotline 02 262 3191 www.thaiticketmajor.com (24 hrs)

www.bangkokfestivals.com

VENUE: Thailand Cultural Centre. Free shuttle from MRT station Thailand Cultural Centre, Exit 1, during 5.30-7.00pm

your travel dilemmas solved ➔ t h e t r u t h a b o u t c o d e s h a r e s 69 … o u r g l o b a l g u i d e t o t h e t o p t r av e l s p e c i a l i s t s 70 … t + l ’ s fav o r i t e n e w h e a d p h o n e s 82 … b e s t r a i n y s e a s o n r e t r e a t s 83 … w h a t t o pa c k f o r a n i t a l i a n h o n e y m o o n 84 … t h i s m o n t h ’ s t o p t r av e l d e a l s 86

Trip Doctor

by Amy Farley

PLUS

THE

LIST

Our annual roundup of the best travel advisors PAGE 7O

Q+A

WHY USE A TRAVEL AGENT? The rise of online booking and DIY travel resources such as Airbnb and Uber has, in many respects, made travel easier. We can compare fares, book hotel rooms at the last minute via an app, and find local guides—all on our own. But here are four ways that a travel professional can still save you time and money (not to mention a lot of heartache) on your next trip. →

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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

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Trip Doctor

The Fix

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by the numbers

160

The amount in US dollars of food and beverage credit you receive with a $200-a-night room at the Four Seasons Resort Whistler, in Canada, if you book with a Virtuoso travel advisor.

I was reminded of this a few months ago when I (travel editor that I am) foolishly tried arranging my own flights in Africa before a safari. After consulting with an advisor late in the game, I learned I was about to book with an airline that was notorious for last-minute, safari-ruining cancellations. Lesson learned. Even if you’re not planning a particularly complicated or exotic trip, it’s worth considering the additional

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value of professional advice. Much of the travel industry is built on relationships, both formal and informal, and if your advisor has the right ones, it can pay off—literally—for you.

WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM? MY AIRPLANE SEAT IS BROKEN!

Do...

VIP Treatment

Many of our A-List advisors are part of large consortia that leverage their members’ collective buying power to deliver guaranteed rates as well as perks for their clients. What that may mean for you: if you book a night in a luxury hotel through the right person, you can get an upgrade, daily breakfast for two, a US$100 restaurant credit and late checkout, along with a welcome amenity of wine and treats. On a seven-night cruise, it could be a cabin upgrade and US$500 of shipboard credit. And since the advisor is making a commission off the booking, you won’t be charged a markup. The largest luxury travel consortia, Virtuoso (virtuoso.com) and Signature Travel Network (signaturetravel network.com), each contract with more than 1,000 luxury hotels, cruise lines and tour operators. (American Express Platinum and Centurion cardholders have access to a similar program through Fine Hotels & Resorts.) Advisors who do a lot of business with a particular company may have additional preferred status, which translates into even more perks for clients. And then there are the informal relationships that top advisors cultivate with hotel general managers around the world. So chances are, if you’re looking to book with a ➔

Speak up.

Even when the problem seems minor. A single loose screw could become a major safety concern.

Don’t...

Despair. Flight attendants may have a solution (e.g., a portable DVD player to replace a broken seatback system).

Do...

Prepare for delays. If the seat is deemed unsafe, maintenance must be called and you may be bumped.

Don’t...

Walk away empty-handed. When inconvenienced, ask for compensatory miles—or at least a free drink.

I L L U S T R AT I O N S , F R O M L E F T: J A V I E R J A É N ; B E N W I S E M A N (4)

There’s a reason we use the term advisor to describe the members of our annual A-List, the top travel specialists in the business (page 70). These experts offer much more than booking services. First and foremost, says Wendy Perrin, TripAdvisor’s Travel Advocate and founder of WendyPerrin. com, they can help you decide where to go by walking you through the pros and cons of destinations based on the varying interests (and ages) of the people in your group. Not only that, they’ll deliver insider insights and access. They can tell you how to avoid the crowds at major sights and where the locals eat. They can even pair you with designers and architects who moonlight as walking-tour guides, get a local artist to open his studio to you, and direct you to hidden corners of a city. And they also, crucially, know how to put together a seamless itinerary.

Have a question for T+L’s Trip Doctor? Send it to tripdoctor@ travelandleisureasia.com. Follow @TravLeisureAsia on Twitter.

major company, there’s someone who can get you more bang for your buck. Go ahead, Perrin says, ask an advisor where he or she has connections and what benefits they confer. Lower Rates and Fares

The most affordable rates and fares aren’t always found online, especially when it comes to luxury travel. Hotels and cruise lines that don’t drop their prices for online travel agencies often offer special deals and promotions to members of their partner consortia—who, in turn, alert their clients. These can be everything from four nights for the price of three to an upgrade to business-class tickets on an airfare-cruise package. Similarly, fares for first- and business-class seats on international carriers can vary widely, depending on who is looking for them. Travel advisors frequently have access to lower prices than those available to the public, usually as a result of consortium contracts. Finding Rooms

That sold-out hotel that you waited too long to book? It’s not always sold out. Many properties will hold inventory in reserve. Other rooms may

by the numbers

Share (in US dollars) of cruise bookings that are arranged by travel agents. SOURCE: “U.S. ONLINE TR AVEL OVERVIEW, 13 TH EDITION,” PHOCUSWRIGHT INC.

be in the hands of local tour operators who dole them out to partner travel companies. For Amalfi in August, Danube cruises in September, or Hawaii over the holidays, top advisors are known for clearing out space for their clients. They’re also skilled at putting travelers in the right rooms, avoiding the misleadingly named “Garden Views” that overlook parking lots or cruise cabins set right below the fitness room. (Beware the early morning step class.) Troubleshooting

Every trip has its share of hiccups. The small ones can be fun (or at least instructive) to navigate. The big ones—a missed cruise connection; a cloud of volcanic ash—can be a nightmare. Last winter, a succession of brutal storms

helped log a record 126,000 cancellations on U.S.-operated flights that originated in the United States. In situations such as these, the value of travel advisors really kicks in. They’ll rebook your flights (sometimes via a VIP phone line with the airline, sometimes sitting on hold for hours), either finding seats on planes that appear to be full or springing you to the top of waiting lists for ones that indeed are. They can also get you last-minute hotel rooms and file insurance claims on your behalf. Lost luggage? They’ll track your bags and have even been known to keep a local store open late so you can buy replacement clothes in the meantime. Ask an advisor about his or her after-hours service before you book.

THE FINAL SAY

WHAT DO HOTELS DO WITH MY HALF-USED SHAMPOO?

Most hotels discard leftover amenities, which is good for hygiene, but not so much for the environment. Today, an increasing number of properties worldwide donate their extra products for recycling and reuse, thanks to nonprofits such as Clean the World. Since 2009, the organization has collected and sterilized more than 17 million bars of soap and 1.2 million liters of shampoo and conditioner and distributed them to those in need—eliminating hundreds of tons of waste in the process.

WHAT IS A CODE SHARE? If a carrier issues you a ticket for a flight operated by a different airline, that’s the result of a code-share agreement. This happens frequently between international alliance partners (SkyTeam; Oneworld; Star Alliance), but is not restricted to them. Be advised: not all code-share flights are equal in the eyes of your frequentflier program; some may not count toward elite- qualifying miles or segments. Small, regional carriers frequently operate short-haul flights on behalf of larger airlines. Sometimes they fly under their own names, but often they carry the brand of their domestic partner. The catch? The service, as well as on-time arrival and even safety records, of these regional airlines may not match those of the carrier with which you booked. The U.S. Department of Transportation is considering new rules that will make it easier to see who exactly is operating your flight. Until then, look for the small “Operated by” notice when you search.

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Trip Doctor

Strategies Ponte Sant’Angelo, in Rome.

Painting classes in an Italian artist’s studio, a sail down the Brazilian coast on a private yacht or an African safari led by a documentary filmmaker: a top travel advisor can help you turn your next vacation into the experience of a lifetime. In T+L’s annual A-List, we showcase the best specialists in the business—those who can book you into sold-out hotels, introduce you to the most keyed-in local guides and much more.

LIST

Our 133 Top Travel Specialists Edited by Amy Farley and Brooke Porter Katz. Reported by Stirling Kelso

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THE

Triple Nights Delight by Dusit Stay two nights and receive the third night free! For reservations, visit

or call +66 (0) 2636 3333.

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Trip Doctor

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LIST

cooking or playing an instrument. Lisa Lindblad Travel Design, New York City; 1-212/876-2554; lisa@lisalindblad.com.

Mary Ann Ramsey ✓

Super-Agents These are the travel-industry all-stars, with the knowledge and connections to make any dream trip a reality.

Maita Barrenechea With three decades of on-theground travel-management experience in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, Barrenechea has the friends and the industry connections to arrange entrée into Buenos Aires’s fashion circles, an equestrian getaway at a Patagonia estancia or a high-roller beach weekend on the Uruguayan coast. She’s happy to see that travelers are showing increasing interest in lesser-known cities (including Rosario, Argentina, with its beautiful Art Deco architecture) and in nature reserves such as Puerto Valle, where Argentinean ostriches and alligators roam. Trend watch A handful of new hotels and resorts are set to attract luxury travelers to overlooked destinations in Chile. The 22-suite Viña Vik is opening in October on an 4,500-hectare vineyard in central Millahue. Later this

year in the heart of downtown, Santiago welcomes the highdesign Singular, sister property to the lodge in Patagonia. Mai10, Buenos Aires; 54-11/43143390; maita@mai10.com.ar.

Jack S. Ezon ✓ Along with bespoke trips for individuals, Ezon plans nearly 30 celebrations around the world every year. To pull off these events, he has a party-planning department with unparalleled global connections. Though Ezon himself remains heavily involved in the details, picking out birthday venues in London, wedding bands in Punta Mita and tasting menus at Cape Town restaurants. A former lawyer, he is an expert at negotiating on behalf of his clients and has a team that is skilled at keeping up with the demanding— and often last-minute—planning pace of today’s travelers.

Trend watch Ibiza, Spain, a legendary party destination, is growing up, Ezon says, thanks to hotel openings such as Destino by Pacha and Ushuaïa Beach Hotel. “It’s becoming an alternative to St.-Tropez.” He’s also looking forward to new ultraluxury cruise options in the Galápagos, including Silversea’s Silver Galápagos. Ovation Vacations, New York City; jezon@ ovationtravel.com.

Lisa Lindblad Lindblad’s background in anthropology is reflected in her itineraries, which often include neighborhood and cultural tours led by historians and in-the-know locals. All of her recommendations are the result of in-depth research done on behalf of clients. When one recently expressed interest in visiting the Dominican Republic’s northern coast, Lindblad flew there to scout hotels, houses, guides and restaurants. She thinks of every journey as an opportunity for cultural exchange, and hopes her clients end each day with a story to tell. Trend watch “Trips are becoming multivocational,” Lindblad says, noting the ways people are engaging with their travels—making videos and learning new skills, such as

Guy Rubin When Rubin moved to China in 1994, he was surprised to find a dearth of resources for discerning travelers in a country so rich in cultural heritage and natural beauty. He and his wife and partner, Nancy Kim, set out to change that, and now lead China’s most ambitious luxury tour operator. To keep up with the country’s rapid transformation, Rubin is constantly inspecting hotels—Beijing has seen the arrival of a Waldorf Astoria; a Rosewood and another Mandarin Oriental are still to come—and developing new experiences. In Hangzhou, he can set up a tour of a pharmacy and museum with a practitioner of Chinese medicine; in Shanghai, he’ll arrange a nightlife tour of the jazz scene. Trend watch Rubin has seen increased interest in Chengdu, which is home to the giant panda, the heart of Sichuan cuisine, and the jumping-off point for a visit to the ancient archaeological site of Sanxingdui. A Ritz-Carlton recently opened; Temple House

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ANDRE W HETHERINGTON

A view of Es Vedrà, a rock formation off Ibiza, Spain.

Ramsey approaches her work with the mind-set of a financial planner, meeting with clients to discuss their long-term travel objectives and develop an execution plan. She maintains a master list of their goals and dream trips, and uses her frequent travels to vet destinations and experiences. Ramsey cruises regularly, and creating personalized shore excursions is one of her specialties. She also makes a point of flying various airlines to stay on top of new cabin layouts and designs. Trend watch Scandinavia is becoming even more popular by both land and boat. “The scenery is spectacular, whether you are sailing through the Stockholm Archipelago or taking the Flåm Railway to hike Norway’s Nærøyfjord, a unesco World Heritage site.” Betty Maclean Travel, Naples, Florida; 1-239/513-0333; maryann@ bettymacleantravel.com.

Trip Doctor

Strategies

and a Six Senses are up next. Imperial Tours, Beijing; 86-10/ 8440-7162; guy@imperialtours.net.

Anne Morgan Scully ✓ Scully’s clients can expect seamless trips that are full of surprises, from airport transfers in luxury cars to thoughtful amenities, such as a bottle of champagne, as they check in to their hotel rooms. She stresses the importance of well educated guides who are fantastic storytellers and local tastemakers who can enrich a trip. Having watched the cruise industry develop over the past 30 years, Scully is also an expert on luxury ships, from ocean liners to private yachts. She recently became the godmother to Ingvi, a new Viking River Cruise ship. Trend watch River cruising in Europe is booming, as Uniworld, Tauck and Viking create more itineraries along the Rhône. Scully also notes an increased interest in U.S. national parks (Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon) among families looking for exclusive, skip-theline trips. McCabe World Travel, McLean, Virginia; 1-703/762-5055; anne@mccabeworld.com.

Pallavi Shah When Shah evaluates a destination, she goes beyond simply checking out hotels and restaurants. She dives into its history and cultural background. She is especially drawn to experiences that connect travelers with locals. In India, for example, she asks her favorite designers and craftspeople to open up their houses and studios and show guests the artistic process behind their textiles, clothes and jewelry. Trend watch A renewed desire to visit wellness destinations, ranging from sybaritic resorts such as CastaDiva, on Lake Como, in Italy, to top-notch medical spas in Italy, Turkey and India. Our Personal Guest, New York City; 1-646/284-2454; opgny@ ourpersonalguest.com.

NOE DEWITT

Jim Strong ✓ & Nancy Strong Attention to detail from the first meeting, accessibility (as a rule, their phone is answered on the first ring) and a contagious

passion for travel define this mother-and-son team. They arm clients with both paper and digital copies of itineraries loaded with confirmation numbers and names, plus who to call for assistance at any hour. Proof of Jim’s passion for his industry? He recently produced an off-Broadway play, Craving for Travel, about the trials and rewards of being an advisor. Trend watch More high-budget clients are requesting “wheels-up to wheels-down” assistance to facilitate travel every step of the way. Guides not only reconfirm pickups and flight schedules, but even scout restaurants before a meal, selecting the best table and informing the chef of food allergies. Strong Travel Services, Dallas; 1-214/361-0027; jim@ strongtravel.com and nstrong@ strongtravel.com.

and network of well-connected locals sustain the business, which grew out of Zack’s own curiosity and expertise as an architect and historic preservationist. “We focus on people perhaps even more than place,” he says of his guides. They can open doors to experiences ranging from visiting a bullfighter’s private farm in Spain to leading a boys’ soccer workshop in a South African township.

Trend watch Interest in experiential travel continues to grow, Zack says. “Few travelers start the process by telling us their hotel likes and dislikes. They want to find the ways a destination addresses their passion, whether that’s art, music or sports.” Heritage Tours Private Travel, New York City; 1-212/206-8400; joel@htprivatetravel.com.

U.S. & Canada

Valerie Ann Wilson Wilson is an industry influencer with 16 offices around the U.S. and more than 30 years of experience. She’s chairman emeritus of Virtuoso’s advisory board and a valued advisor for half a dozen luxury hotels and travel brands. She’s also written two travel books and is on the road for more than a third of every year. Wilson and the staff of her top-notch agency (now also under the leadership of her daughters, T+L A-Listers Jennifer Wilson-Buttigieg and Kimberly Wilson Wetty) are well traveled and highly organized. But they still enjoy the collaborative nature of trip planning with clients. “Part of the fun is hearing their ideas and vicariously traveling through each customer,” Wilson says. Trend watch The growth of multigenerational travel is staggering—and Wilson is part of the movement herself. This year, she is taking Seabourn’s Baltic cruise with her children and grandchildren, where they’ll trace her own mother’s Swedish roots. Valerie Wilson Travel, New York City; 1-212/5323400; valeriew@vwti.com.

Joel A. Zack Concentrating on a small piece of the world—Portugal, Morocco, South Africa, Spain and Turkey—and knowing these destinations inside and out gives Zack his edge. A dedicated team

Outside Lafayette, a French bistro in New York City. HAWAII

Carolyne Brandon Years as agent 32. Other specialty Cruises. Altour American Express Travel, Cupertino, California; 1-650/248-2344; carolyne. brandon@altour.com.

Marilyn Clark « Years as agent 13. Other specialty French Polynesia. Lighthouse Travel, Huntington Beach, California; marilyn@ lighthousetravel.net.

Ed Phillips ✓ Years as agent 25. Other specialty Alaska. Frosch Travel, Burlingame, California; trvaler@gmail.com. NAPA VALLEY

Michelle Murré Years as agent 10. Other specialty Personalized travel throughout Italy. Azurine, San Francisco;

1-415/796-3869; michelle@ azurinetravel.com. NEW YORK

Lia Batkin « Years as agent 8. Other specialty Luxury travel. In the Know Experiences, New York City; 1-212/776-1784; lia@intheknowexperiences.com. PACIFIC NORTHWEST

Sheri Doyle «

Years as agent 23. Other specialty Canadian Rockies. Pacific Northwest Journeys, Seattle; 1-206/935-9730; info@pnwjourneys.com. WESTERN U.S.

Harold Jenkins Years as agent 26. Other specialty Skiing. American Express Corporate Vacations, Lake Forest, Illinois; 1-615/714-9917; harold. jenkins@corpvacations.com.

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WildChina, Beijing; 86-10/64656602; mei.zhang@wildchina.com. HONG KONG

Laura Woo

INDIA

Jonny Bealby Years as agent 12. Other specialty Central Asia. Wild Frontiers, London; 44-20/7736-3968; jonny@wildfrontiers.co.uk.

Pallavi Shah See Super-Agents. INDIA AND SRI LANKA

Carole A. Cambata Years as agent 33. Other specialty Bhutan. Greaves Tours, Highland Park, Illinois; ccambata@greavestvl.com.

Ashish Sanghrajka Years as agent 13. Other specialty Kenya. Big Five Tours & Expeditions, Stuart, Florida; ashish@big five.com. INDONESIA

Jarrod Hobson Years as agent 19. Other specialty Southeast Asia. Asia Transpacific Journeys, Boulder, Colorado; 1-303/443-6789; jarrod@ asiatranspacific.com. JAPAN

Noriko Townsend Banteay Srei, a 10th-century Khmer temple outside Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Years as agent 19. Other specialty Southeast Asia. Altour American Express Travel/Japan In Style, Fort Collins, Colorado; noriko. townsend@altour.com.

Duff Trimble

Asia BURMA

CHINA

Rebecca Mazzaro

Stan Godwyn

Years as agent 16. Other specialty India. Asia Transpacific Journeys, Boulder, Colorado; 1-303/443-6789; rebecca@ asiatranspacific.com.

Years as agent 20. Other specialty Asia. TravelStore, Sacramento, California; 1-916/830-5511; stan.g@ travelstore.com.

CAMBODIA

See Super-Agents.

Andy Booth « Years as agent 9. ABOUTAsia Travel, Siem Reap, Cambodia; 855-12/338-872; a.booth@ aboutasiatravel.com.

Guy Rubin CHINA AND TIBET

Mei Zhang

Years as agent 14. Other specialties Southeast Asia and North Korea.

Years as agent 13. Wabi-Sabi Japan, Toronto; 1-647/477-1711; duff@wabi-sabijapan.com. MALDIVES

Justin Parkinson « Years as agent 8. Other specialty United Arab Emirates. Linara Travel, Eagle, Idaho; 1-208/3921445; justin@linaratravel.com.

EMERGING ASIA New hotels and experiences are taking travelers off the beaten path in Asia. Near the city of Dali, in China’s Yunnan province, a recently completed road circles the alpine Er Hai Lake, below the towering Cangshan Mountain. T+L A-List specialist Mei Zhang plans trips to the area that include bike rides around the lake and stays at the waterside Windoo Resort (windoo.taobao.com). According to Southeast Asia expert Catherine Heald, the 130-millionyear-old rain forests of Borneo are increasingly popular on both the Malaysian and Indonesian sides. “The native orangutan and the gigantic rafflesia flower can’t be seen anywhere else in the world,” she says. Try the Borneo Rainforest Lodge (borneonaturetours. com), in Sabah, Malaysia, which has added luxe, glass-walled suites. Disconnect at India’s new safari-style Jawai Leopard Camp (sujanluxury.com), an ideal stop between Udaipur and Jodhpur, says Carole A. Cambata. The eight tents are comfortable and stylish; guests take two leopard drives a day.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

Catherine Heald Years as agent 9. Other specialty Asia. Remote Lands, New York City; 1-646/415-8092; catherine. heald@remotelands.com.

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Years as agent 32. Other specialties Hawaii and Macao. West University Travel, Houston; woo@ hal-pc.org.

Trip Doctor

Strategies THE

LIST

Europe Years as agent 17. Other specialty Western Europe. Protravel International, New York City; 1-212/409-9562; nathalie.nagy@ protravelinc.com.

Ellison Poe Years as agent 28. Other specialty India. Poe Travel, Little Rock, Arkansas; 1-501/376-4171; epoe@ poetravel.com. FRANCE

Murielle Blanchard Years as agent 30. Other specialty Italy. Black Pearl Luxury Services, Salt Lake City; 1-801/483-6533; murielle@blackpearlservices.com.

Bob Preston Years as agent 8. Other specialties Italy and Switzerland. EuroPanache, New York City; bob.preston@europanache.com. GERMANY

Virginia Giordano

Turkey and Italy. TrueGreece, Maroussi, Greece; 44-203/026-1176; christos@truegreece.com.

Petros Zissimos Years as agent 10. Other specialty Turkey. Hellenic Holidays, New York City; 1-212/944-8288; pzissimos@hellenicholidays.com. IRELAND

Carol Cornell Years as agent 30. Covington Travel, Fort Wayne, Indiana; 1-260/402-6789; carolc@covington travelinc.com. ITALY

Joyce Falcone Years as agent 19. The Italian Concierge, Far Hills, New Jersey; 1-970/5443799; info@italianconcierge.com.

Emily FitzRoy Years as agent 17. Bellini Travel, London; 44-20/7602-7602; emily@bellinitravel.com.

Andrea Grisdale

Years as agent 20. Culture Trip Germany, Berlin; 49-30/305-3890; info@culturetrip.de.

Years as agent 22. IC Bellagio, Bellagio, Italy; 39-031/952-059; andrea@icbellagio.com.

GREECE

Uri Harash

Mina Agnos Years as agent 13. Other specialties Turkey, Spain and Italy. Travelive, Bloomfield, New Jersey; 1-973/7833610; mina@travelive.com.

Christos Stergiou Years as agent 10. Other specialties

Years as agent 15. Perfetto Traveler, Rome; 39-345/040-6396; info@perfettotraveler.com.

Beth Rubin « Years as agent 14. Select Italy, Chicago; 1-312/664-4200; beth@selectitaly.com.

The Mirror Room restaurant at the Rosewood London.

Marjorie Shaw Years as agent 25. Other specialty Family travel in Italy. Insider’s Italy, Rome; 1-914/4701612; info@insidersitaly.com. PARIS

Yaron Yarimi Years as agent 20. Other specialty Italy. Frosch, New York City; 1-212/784-0391; yaron.yarimi@ frosch.com. RUSSIA

Greg Tepper Years as agent 20. Other specialty Eastern Europe. Exeter International, Tampa, Florida; 1-813/251-5355 ; greg@exeter international.com. SCANDINAVIA

Tor Jensen

THE LOCAL TAKE A quest for insider access in Europe has advisors digging deep into their little black books to create one-of-a-kind experiences that include face time with locals. In Italy, Perfetto Traveler’s Uri Harash set up a private workshop with a painting restorer, who let the client assist on a piece by Renaissance artist Tintoretto. In Russia, this could mean spending an afternoon with a top curator at the State Hermitage, care of A-Lister Greg Tepper. And Virginia Giordano of Culture Trip Germany planned a dinner with the former head of the East German Secret Police for clients interested in the Cold War.

Years as agent 21. Other specialty Southeast Asia. Jensen World Travel, Wilmette, Illinois; 1-847/256-5550; tor@jensenworldtravel.com. SCOTLAND

Claire Schoeder Years as agent 22. Other specialty England explorations. Century Travel, Atlanta; 1-404/478-8888; claire@centurytvl.com.

Madrid; 34/91-448-7275; virginia@madeforspain.com. SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

Joel A. Zack

See Super-Agents. SWITZERLAND

Ilene Koenig Years as agent 29. Let’s Travel (a division of Plaza Travel), Santa Monica, California; 1-310/451-5805; ilene@letstravel-sm.com. UNITED KINGDOM

Ellen LeCompte Years as agent 23. Other specialty Paris. Brownell Travel, Richmond, Virginia; 1-804/353-0075; ellenl@brownelltravel.com.

Linda M. Raymer Years as agent 30. Other specialties Switzerland and Italy. Travelink, American Express Travel, Nashville; 1-615/277-5146; linda.raymer@travelink.com.

Susie Worthy Years as agent 28. Other specialty Paris. NoteWorthy Events, London; 44-20/3051-5165; susie@noteworthy.co.uk. WESTERN EUROPE

Anne Morgan Scully ✓

SPAIN

See Super-Agents.

Years as agent 16. Other specialty Food and wine. Made for Spain,

See Super-Agents.

Virginia Irurita

Jim Strong ✓ & Nancy Strong

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J A M E S M E R R E L L . I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y C L A R E M A L L I S O N

CENTRAL EUROPE

Nathalie Nagy

key happiness Fairmont Peace Hotel, Shanghai

Fairmont Singapore

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Fairmont Makati

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Trip Doctor

Strategies THE

LIST

Caribbean Years as agent 20. Other specialty Destination weddings. Andavo Travel, Birmingham, Alabama; 1-205/623-2217; margie.hand@ andavotravel.com.

Janet McLaughlin Years as agent 25. Other specialty

Italy. Provident Travel, Cincinnati; 1-513/533-7867; jmclaughlin@ providenttravel.com.

Liz Sadie Sutton ✓ Years as agent 37. Alabama World Travel/Sutton & Associates, Montgomery, Alabama; 1-334/2602482; liz@awtinc.com.

The pool at Casas del XVI, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Africa + the Middle East AFRICA

Sandy Cunningham Years as agent 19. Other specialties Luxury and family travel. Outside Go, Santa Fe, New Mexico; sandy@ outsidego.com.

Africa Adventure Company, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; 1-954/491-8877; safari@ africanadventure.com.

Kent Redding «

See Super-Agents.

Years as agent 13. Africa Adventure Consultants, Denver; kent@ adventuresinafrica.com.

Michael Lorentz «

Jackie Rush

Lisa Lindblad

Years as agent 29. Passage to Africa, Cape Town; 27-82/895-8527; ml@passagetoafrica.com.

Dana Welch Years as agent 22. Other specialty Adventure travel. The Travel Society, Denver; 1-303/563-6225; dana@travelsociety.com. BOTSWANA, ZIMBABWE AND ZAMBIA

Craig Beal

Years as agent 9. Other specialty South Africa. Travel Beyond, Wayzata, Minnesota; craigb@travelbeyond.com. EASTERN AND SOUTHERN AFRICA

Dan Achber

Years as agent 6. Trufflepig, Toronto; 1-416/628-1272; dan@trufflepig.com.

Elizabeth Gordon « Years as agent 6. Extraordinary Journeys, New York City; 1-212/226-7331; elizabeth@ ejafrica.com.

Tim Lapage Years as agent 33. Other specialties Peru and the Galápagos. Safari Experts, Park City, Utah; 1-435/649-4655; safari@ safariexperts.com.

Mark William Nolting Years as agent 28. Other specialties Madagascar and the Seychelles.

Years as agent 38. Other specialty Jordan. Frosch, Washington, D.C.; 1-202/966-4111; jackie.rush@ frosch.com.

Sunit Sanghrajka Years as agent 21. Alluring Africa, Winter Park, Florida; 1-772/291– 7585; sunit@alluringafrica.com. EGYPT

Malaka Hilton Years as agent 20. Other specialties Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. Admiral Travel International, Sarasota, Florida; 1-941/951-1801; malaka@ admiraltravel.com. FAMILY SAFARIS

Leora Rothschild « Years as agent 23. Other specialty Honeymoon safaris. Rothschild Safaris, Denver; 1-303/756-2525; leora@rothschildsafaris.com. ISRAEL

MIDDLE EAST

Jean Newman Glock Years as agent 3. JNG Worldwide, Washington, D.C.; 1-703/314-9595; jean@jngworldwide.com. MOROCCO

Michael Diamond Years as agent 13. Other specialty Turkey. Heritage Tours Private Travel, New York City; 1-212/206-8400. michael@htprivatetravel.com. NAMIBIA

Chris Liebenberg « Years as agent 5. Other specialty Botswana. Piper & Heath Travel, San Diego; chris@ piperandheath.com. SOUTH AFRICA

Tamsyn Fricker « Years as agent 6. Other specialty Southern Africa. Travel Artistry Africa, Houston; 1-281/974-3662; tamsyn@ travelartistryafrica.com. SOUTHERN AFRICA

Cherri Briggs

Years as agent 20. Other specialties The Seychelles and Indian Ocean islands. Explore, Inc., Steamboat Springs, Colorado; 1-970/871-0065; cherri@exploreafrica.net.

Rachel Epstein

Julian Harrison

Years as agent 32. Other specialties Spain and group travel. Frosch, New York City; 1-212/404-6300; rachel.epstein@frosch.com.

Years as agent 28. Other specialties East and central Africa. Premier Tours, Philadelphia; julianh@ premiertours.com.

KENYA AND TANZANIA

Teresa Sullivan «

Years as agent 28. Other specialty South Africa. Big Five Tours & Expeditions, Stuart, Florida; volker@big five.com.

Years as agent 15. Other specialties East Africa and Indian Ocean islands. Mango African Safaris, Portland, Oregon; 1-503/282-9009; info@mangosafari.com.

Volker Altvater

AFRICA’S NEW CLASSICS What are the camps and lodges that safari specialists have their eyes on? Dan Achber, of Trufflepig, is excited about Chinzombo (normancarr safaris.com), in Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park: “It’s beautiful and impeccably finished—the complete package.” Cherri Briggs cites the new Anabezi Luxury Tented Camp (anabezi.com), in the country’s Lower Zambezi National Park, for its untouched landscape and abundance of wildlife. Teresa Sullivan recommends the Selinda Explorers Camp (greatplainsconservation. com), set in a prime Botswana concession: “The guiding and the privacy are the same as at the concession’s luxe sister camp, but at a fraction of the price.” In Tanzania, Kent Redding likes Kwihala Camp (asiliaafrica.com), set in the up-and-coming Ruaha National Park. And Volker Altvater says Richard Branson’s Mahali Mzuri (mahalimzuri.virgin.com) camp in the Masai Mara brings new levels of comfort to Kenya’s premier wildlife area.

« NEW TO LIST ✓ T+L’S ADVISORY BOARD

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C O U R T E S Y O F C A S A S D E L X V I . I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y C L A R E M A L L I S O N

Margie Hand

Paragon Shopping and Medical Centre

Tangs Orchard Lucky Plaza

Knightsbridge

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Robinsons

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Takashimaya Shopping Centre

Orchard MRT

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Mandarin Gallery Orchard Link

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Bideford Road

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Cathay Cineleisure Orchard

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Trip Doctor

Strategies

Australia, New Zealand + the South Pacific Susanne Hamer

Years as agent 8. Other specialty New Zealand. Camelback Odyssey Travel, Phoenix; 1-602/889-5902; cassandrab@camelbacktravel.com.

Years as agent 18. Other specialties Maldives and the Seychelles. TravelStore, Los Angeles; 1-310/689-5411; susanne.h@travelstoreusa.com.

Suzy Mercien-Ferol Years as agent 20. Other specialty New Zealand. Touring Treasures, Brighton, Australia; 61-7/3102-3252; suzy.mercien@touringtreasures.com. FRENCH POLYNESIA

Robin Turner

Years as agent 28. Other specialty Maldivian islands. American Express Travel, Chicago; robin.l.turner@aexp.com.

NEW ZEALAND

Jean-Michel Jefferson Years as agent 13. Ahipara Luxury Travel, Central Otago, New Zealand; 64-3/447-3558; jean-michel@ahipara.com.

Donna Thomas Years as agent 43. Other specialty Australia. New Zealand Travel, Langhorne, Pennsylvania; nztravel@aol.com.

Biking at the new Brando resort, on Tetiaroa Island, in French Polynesia.

DIVING

Robert Becker Years as agent 28. Other specialty Adventure. Protravel International/Beckersphere, New York City; 1-212/755-4550; robert. becker@protravelinc.com. FLY-FISHING

Special Interest ADVENTURE

BUSINESS TRAVEL

Years as agent 23. Other specialty Adventure. Camelback Odyssey Travel, Phoenix; 1-602/266-4000; betsyd@camelbacktravel.com.

Betty Jo Currie

Steve Orens « ✓

Mollie Fitzgerald

Years as agent 21. Other specialty Africa. Currie & Co. Travels Unlimited, Atlanta; 1-404/335-0286; bettyjo@curriecotravels.com.

Years as agent 24. Other specialties Family travel and the Hawaiian islands. Plaza Travel, Encino, California; 1-818/990-4053; steve@ plazatravel.com.

Years as agent 29. Other specialties India and Southeast Asia. Frontiers International Travel, Gibsonia, Pennsylvania; 1-724/9351577; mollie@frontierstravel.com.

Jennifer WilsonButtigieg

FOOD AND WINE

Brooke Garnett Years as agent 9. Other specialty Australia. Absolute Travel, New York City; 1-212/627-1950; bgarnett@absolutetravel.com.

Tom Marchant « ✓ Years as agent 8. Black Tomato, London; 1-646/558-3644; tom@blacktomato.com.

Susan Sparks Years as agent 27. Points of Interest Travel, Aspen, Colorado; 1-970/ 925-5855; susan@poitraveler.com.

Doris White Years as agent 26. Other specialty Europe. Cadence Travel, La Jolla, California; 1-858/551-4560; doris@doristrips.com. AIR TRAVEL

Michael Holtz Years as agent 24. Other specialty Australia and Asia. SmartFlyer, New York City; 1-212/268-9088; michael@smartflyer.com.

Betsy Donley ✓

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Years as agent 23. Other specialty Family travel. Valerie Wilson Travel, New York City; 1-212/5921210; jenniferwb@vwti.com. CULTURE/ EDUCATION

Margery Hunter Years as agent 30. Other specialty Europe. Rudi Steele Travel, Dallas; 1-214/522-2782; margery@ rudisteele.com. DESTINATION CELEBRATIONS

John Clifford

Lynda Turley Garrett Years as agent 34. Other specialties Australia and New Zealand. Alpine Travel of Saratoga, Saratoga, California; 1-408/3793853; lyndat@alpine-travel.com. GAY AND LESBIAN TRAVEL

David Rubin

Years as agent 18. Other specialty Destination celebrations. DavidTravel, Corona del Mar, California; 1-949/427-0199; david@davidtravel.com. GOLF

Years as agent 29. Other specialty Gay and lesbian travel. International Travel Management, San Diego; 1-619/299-2359; john@international travelmanagement.com.

Jani Miller ✓

Jack S. Ezon ✓

HOTELS

See Super-Agents.

T R AV E L A N D L E I S U R E A S I A .C O M

Years as agent 34. Other specialty Adventure. Central Travel, Toledo, Ohio; 1-419/471-2800; jani@ centraltravel.com.

Peter S. Carideo « Years as agent 34. Other specialty

Multigenerational travel. CRC Travel, Chicago; 1-773/5253800, ext. 22; peter@crctravel.com.

Valerie Ann Wilson See Super-Agents.

Bobby Zur Years as agent 13. Other specialty Southern Africa. Travel Artistry, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey; 1-201/848-4113; bobby@ travelartistry.com. LUXURY TRAVEL

David Lowy ✓ Years as agent 28. Other specialty Private jet travel. Renshaw Travel, Vancouver; 1-604/733-1010 dlowy@renshawtravel.com. SPAS AND WELLNESS

Karen Benson

Years as agent 31. Other specialty Adventure. Camelback Odyssey Travel, Phoenix; 1-602/266-4000 karenb@camelbacktravel.com. VALUE/AFFORDABLE TRAVEL

Kathleen O’Connell « Years as agent 3. Other specialty Multigenerational travel. Frosch, Deerfield, Illinois; 1-847/948-5300; kathleen.oconnell@frosch.com. WEDDINGS AND HONEYMOONS

Harlan DeBell & Kara Bebell

Years as agent 17. The Travel Siblings at Tzell Travel Group, New York City; harland@tzell.com and karab@tzell.com.

Peter Lloyd Years as agent 22. Other specialties Italy and cruises. Century Travel, Atlanta; 1-404/478-8888; peter@centurytvl.com.

COURTESY OF THE BR ANDO

AUSTRALIA

Cassandra Bookholder

THE

LIST

Mexico + Central + South America ARGENTINA, CHILE AND URUGUAY

Colchagua Camp, in Chile’s Colchagua Valley.

Maita Barrenechea See Super-Agents. ARGENTINA AND CHILE

Jordan Harvey

Years as agent 5. Knowmad Adventures, Minneapolis; jordan@knowmadadventures.com. BRAZIL

Martin Frankenberg Years as agent 14. Matueté, São Paulo, Brazil; 55-11/3071-4515; martin@matuete.com.

Paul Irvine Years as agent 11. Other specialty Argentina. Dehouche, Rio de Janeiro; 55-21/2512-3895; paul.irvine@dehouche.com. CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA

Emmanuel Burgio Years as agent 12. Other specialty Mediterranean. Blue Parallel, Potomac, Maryland; emmanuel@ blueparallel.com. CHILE

Brian Pearson « Years as agent 11. Other specialties Argentina and Uruguay. Santiago Adventures, Santiago, Chile; 56-2/2244-2750; bpearson@ santiagoadventures.com. GALÁPAGOS

Brian Morgan Years as agent 15. Other specialty Peru. Adventure Life, Missoula, Montana; 1-406/541-2677; brian. morgan@adventurelife.com.

MEXICO

Zachary Rabinor Years as agent 20. Other specialty Central America. Journey Mexico, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; 52-322/225-9821; zach@ journeymexico.com. PERU AND BOLIVIA

Marisol Mosquera Years as agent 17. Aracari Travel, Lima, Peru; 51-1/651-2424; marisol@ aracari.com. SOUTH AMERICA

Beth Jenkins Years as agent 5. Other specialty Honeymoons. McCabe World Travel, McLean, Virginia; 1-703/762-5048; beth@ mccabeworld.com.

Eric Sheets Years as agent 18. Other specialty Argentina. Latin Excursions, Aventura, Florida; 1-305/356-8488, ext. 100; eric@latinexcursions.com. SOUTH AMERICAN FOOD & WINE

Barkley Hickox «

Liz Caskey

Years as agent 4. Other specialty Italy. Indagare Travel, New York City; 1-212/988-2611; barkleyh@ indagare.com.

Years as agent 9. Other specialty Adventure. Liz Caskey Culinary & Wine Experiences, Santiago, Chile; 56-2/2632-1511; liz@lizcaskey.com.

SMALL AND LARGE SHIPS

Scott Kertes Years as agent 24. Other specialty Group cruising. Hartford Holidays Travel, Garden City, New York; 1-516/7466670; scott@hartfordholidays.com.

Paul Niskanen ✓ Years as agent 40. Other specialty Southern Africa. Cruise Masters/ Concierge Travel Advisors, Portland, Oregon; pauln@fine voyages.com.

Ruth Turpin Years as agent 35. Other specialty River cruises. Cruises Etc., Fort Worth, Texas; 1-817/732-6991; ruth@cruisesetctravel.com.

Family Travel COURTESY OF COLCHAGUA CAMP

Cruising

Mary Ann Ramsey ✓ See Super-Agents. SMALL SHIPS

Julia P. Douglas ✓

Sam McClure

Kathryn Sudeikis ✓

Betsy Patton

Years as agent 9. Other specialty Europe. Jet Set World Travel, Chicago; 1-312/574-1181; julia@ jetsetworldtravel.com.

Years as agent 15. Small World Travel, Austin, Texas; 1-512/495-9495; sam@small world.travel.

Years as agent 46. Other specialty India. Acendas, Mission, Kansas; 1-913/671-7700, ext. 325; ksudeikis@ acendas.com.

Years as agent 36. Hurley Travel Experts, Naples, Florida; 1-239/594-7400; betsy@ travelexperts.com.

Jessica Griscavage

Kara Slater «

Kimberly Wilson Wetty ✓

Marcella Rappoport

Years as agent 10. Other specialty Honeymoons. McCabe World Travel, McLean, Virginia; jessica@ mccabeworld.com.

Years as agent 5. Other specialty Honeymoons. SmartFlyer, Los Angeles; 1-310/493-5508; kara@ smartflyer.com.

Years as agent 19. Other specialty Cruises. Valerie Wilson Travel, New York City; 1-212/592-1218; kimberlyww@vwti.com.

Years as agent 32. Other specialty Private jet travel. Ovation Travel, New York City; 1-212/329-7260; mrappoport@ovationtravel.com. ✚

« NEW TO LIST ✓ T+L’S ADVISORY BOARD

Trip Doctor

Tech

Listen Up! Our five favorite new headphones, all sound-checked by T+L tech correspondent Tom Samiljan, deliver top-notch audio—and serious style points.

FOR THE AESTHETE Skullcandy Crusher Available in 10 colors and patterns, this overear model delivers on personality. But it’s not all about looks. A built-in amp lets you turn up the bass with a tiny dial, and twin drivers (designated speakers for high and low frequencies) keep sound balanced. US$100, skullcandy.com.

Best Buds

Two pocket-size options when space is at a premium. NAD Viso HP20 (near left) The venerable brand’s in-ear debut has a feature called RoomFeel, which offers such good sound separation, it rivals the full-size models above. US$169, nadelectronics.com. Monoprice Enhanced Active Noise Cancelling Earphones (far left) Affordable, powerful and effective against all sorts of noise pollution, they’ll last 50 hours on a single AA battery. US$80, monoprice.com.

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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

FOR THE ROAD WARRIOR V-Moda XS Made out of bendable Steelflex, V-Moda’s headband is virtually indestructible. (The same goes for the Kevlarreinforced, tangle-free cord.) As for your listening experience, expect a studio-worthy output that does justice to complex instrumentations. Bonus: This already-petite model collapses for maximum space efficiency. US$212, vmoda.com.

P HOTOG R A P H ED BY DA N N Y K IM

E A R B U D S , F R O M L E F T: C O U R T E S Y O F M O N O P R I C E ; C O U R T E S Y O F N A D

FOR THE TECH LOVER Beats Studio Wireless The best wireless headphones on the market, Beats connect via Bluetooth and offer active noise cancellation and powerful bass tones. A single USB charge lasts up to 12 hours, and control buttons on the frame make it easy to toggle between tracks. US$380, beatsbydre.com.

FOR THE AUDIOPHILE Bose SoundTrue Memory-foam liners maximize comfort, a fold-flat design makes for compact storage, and a built-in remote lets you switch between music and phone calls. And then, of course, there’s Bose’s signature full-bodied and well-defined audio. US$180, bose.com.

FOR THE SENSITIVE LISTENER Able Planet Linx Fusion With a state-of-the-art system that uses haptic technology, this pair channels sound not just through your ears but also via skin and bone. The big advantage? Music that’s just as robust and clear at decibel levels that are far lower than normal—a boon to your long-term hearing. US$350, ableplanet.com.

Trip Doctor

Planning by Diana Hubbell

Q+A

IS IT WORTH TAKING A VACATION IN SOUTHEAST ASIA DURING THE RAINY SEASON? WHAT IS THERE TO DO?

There’s a deluge of fun travel options across the region even during the soggier months of the year. Try one of these four trips to keep the green season from raining on your parade.

Nong Khiaw 100 Waterfalls Adventure Trail, in Laos.

Cabana pool bar at the Banyan Tree Macau.

F R O M L E F T: C O U R T E S Y O F B A N YA N T R E E , M A C A U ; C O U R T E S Y O F T I G E R T R A I L S

macau Casino-hop till you drop You’ll never notice a downpour amid the glitz and glitter of the Cotai Strip. Asia’s answer to Vegas has been booming to the tune of US$45 billion a year and all that cash keeps cropping up in wilder ways. In 2017, Zaha Hadid’s surreal creation for City of Dreams will open, as will the US$3.9 billion Lisboa Palace with a Karl Lagerfeld-designed hotel. In the meantime, never fear if the weather turns foul—you can stay warm and dry at the Banyan Tree Macau, where even the most affordable rooms offer sweeping views. banyantree.com; doubles from MOP3,099.

indonesia Embark on a spa journey Falling raindrops melt into soothing background music as masseuses gently knead away your tension over the course of three days. At the spa at The Chedi Sakala, a newly opened resort in one of Bali’s quietest havens, the products are organic and the surroundings are extra indulgent. Your retreat begins with a two-hour-plus combination of crystal body polish, bath ritual and facial, then continues on days two and three with Balinese, Himalayan stone and other muscle-melting massages. ghmhotels.com; three-day spa ritual package from Rp3,380,000.

the philippines Dive beneath the surface What’s a little extra water when you’re already wearing a full wetsuit? Plunge into the Bohol Sea for an exploration of at least seven reef-fringed islands such as marine sanctuary Apo Island and dark-sand Dauin, teeming with skeleton shrimp. Everything from frogfish to whale sharks to pygmy seahorses call this biological hot spot home. And since it can only be reached by liveaboard boats—like the S/Y Philippine Siren, a luxury vessel hand-crafted from iron and teak—there’s nary another tourist in sight. sirenfleet.com; six- to 10-night diving trips to Southern Visayas from €1,950, including all meals and equipment.

laos Go chasing waterfalls “Green season” isn’t a euphemism—during this time of year the jungles come alive in all possible shades of emerald. It’s perfect for trekking, particularly when you march past mighty waterfalls that swell spectacularly with the extra rainfall. On this journey from Tiger Trails, an eco-friendly tour operator that supports local Lao communities, you’ll climb along a series of increasingly impressive cascades, culminating in one spectacular 20-meter aquatic avalanche. Tiger Trails; laos-adventures.com; one-day Nong Khiaw - 100 Waterfalls adventure trail from US$74, inclusive of food and guide.

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Trip Doctor

Packing

by Mimi Lombardo

Q+A I’M TRAVELING TO THE ITALIAN LAKES IN MID-SEPTEMBER FOR MY HONEYMOON. ANY WARDROBE SUGGESTIONS?

A wool-blend dress from Diane von Furstenberg (US$498) is perfect for a night out.

catherine gluszek, via e-mail Fall in northern Italy calls for chic attire that transitions well from day to night. Opt for layering pieces that don’t skimp on style.

Versace’s leather handbag (US$3,895) is big enough to hold all your essentials, and the bold color is surprisingly versatile.

Wrinkles are part of the design of this Frank & Eileen Italian cotton shirt (US$178), so it can be worn with ease.

Channel fashion icon Sophia Loren with Isabel Marant par Oliver Peoples sunglasses (US$365).

Rebecca Taylor trousers (US$350) are a simple dinner staple, and the ponte stretch fabric will keep you cozy in-flight.

Manolo Blahnik embellished mules (price upon request) are a great accent to any ensemble.

W H E R E T O S TAY→ Villa d’Este (villadeste.com; doubles from €740) is a grande dame that has hosted everyone from Greta Garbo to George Clooney.

Enjoy a cocktail at the terrace bar after a dip in the “floating” pool, which sits on top of Lake Como. At the Grand Hotel Tremezzo (grandhoteltremezzo.com; doubles from €500), couples can treat themselves to Espa aromatherapy massages and fondue dinners at L’Escale wine bar’s cantina (cheese fondue for two €48). Book a recently remodeled rooftop suite with a private deck, Jacuzzi and 360-degree lake views.

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P HOTOG R A P H ED BY VIC TOR P R A DO

S T Y L I S T: B I L L L A U G H L I N

For a tailored approach to outerwear, try Lafayette 148’s lightweight jacket (US$468).

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Trip Doctor

Deals

T+L RE A D E R S PECI A LS

THIS MONTH’S BEST DEALS From a royal slumber to a body-sculpting massage, these offers designed to make you feel good both inside and out. sp ec i a l hong kong hk$13,880 p e r n igh t

A Silvermine suite at Hullett House, in Hong Kong.

HONG KONG A Royale Getaway from Hullett House (hulletthouse. com), a white-stucco heritage building on Canton Road. The Deal A stay in a Silvermine suite. The Highlight A reinvigorating royal repose on a Vispring’s Regal Superb mattress made of fine horsehair and British fleece wool, designed to improve sleep quality. Cost HK$13,880, double, through December 31. Savings 7 percent. SINGAPORE So Relaxing package from The Singapore Resort & Spa Sentosa

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(singaporeresortsentosa.com), where the world’s largest So SPA debuted in July in a 6,000-square-meter heritage building. The Deal A stay in a Luxury room. The Highlight A choice of any 60-minute massage per person from the à la carte treatment menu, including the signature bodytoning So Exhilarating massage. Cost From S$485, double, ongoing. Savings 51 percent. PHUKET Romantic Villa Getaway from Mövenpick Resort & Spa Karon Beach Phuket (moevenpick-hotels.com), 10 kilometers south of Patong. The

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S u pe r S ave r

SIEM REAP Destination Sojourn from Sojourn Boutique Villas (sojournsiemreap. com), a rice paddiesshrouded retreat. The Deal Two nights in an Apsara villa. The Highlight A private three-course Cambodian dinner for two. Cost US$279 (US$140 per night), double, through September 30. Savings 61 percent.

Deal Three nights in a Deluxe Garden villa. The Highlight A 150-minute Romantic Harmony spa package for two. Cost From US$1,500 (US$500 per night), double, through March 31, 2015. Savings 30 percent. CHINA Introductory rate from Shangri-La Hotel, Tianjin (shangri-la.com), with stunning views of the city’s colonial structure-lined riverbank. The Deal A stay in a Deluxe River View room. The Highlight Twenty percent savings on a spa treatment at CHI. Cost RMB988, double, book by December 31. Savings 30 percent.

COURTESY OF HULLET T HOUSE

Wellness

Trip Doctor

Deals beach overlooking Straits of Malacca. The Deal A stay in a Deluxe room. The Highlight Free meals from the kids menu for children up to 12 years old accompanied by a paying adult at The Eatery. Cost From RM280, double, through October 31. Savings 61 percent.

Active

Culture VIETNAM Summer Promotion 2014 from Au Co Cruises (aucocruises.com), exploring the picturesque Gulf of Tonkin, from the bays of Halong, Lan Ha and Bai Tu Long to Cat Ba Island. The Deal Two nights in a Deluxe Double cabin. The Highlight A complimentary night stay at Sofitel Legend Metropole or a full-day Hanoi city tour. Cost US$1,028 per person (US$514 per night), through September 30. Savings 24 percent. HONG KONG MAMMA MIA! FANtastic Hotel Stay from The Landmark Mandarin Oriental (mandarinoriental.com), a short walk from Hong Kong Airport Express station. The Deal Two nights in an L900 Landmark suite. The Highlights Two front-row tickets to MAMMA MIA! show; two backstage passes to go behind the scenes and meet the cast and crew, for those who stay through visitors-permitted Wednesday or Friday nights. Cost From HK$22,200 (from HK$11,100 per night), double,

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from September 26-October 26. Savings 40 percent.

Romance CHINA Romantic Getaway from Sheraton Huzhou Hot Spring Resort (sheraton.com), an iconic, ring-like hotel complex on the shore of Lake Tai, China’s third largest freshwater lake. The Deal A stay in a Studio suite. The Highlights RMB200 daily spa credits per person with access to a variety of hot spring pools for two. Cost RMB2,888, double, through December 31. Savings 30 percent. INDONESIA Colonial Romance from The Sanchaya (thesanchaya. com), a showcase of Southeast Asian cultures in Bintan. The Deal Two nights in a Lawan villa. The Highlights A 105-minute deep-tissue, pain-relieving Balinese massage for two; plus, a take-home massage oil set. Cost From US$980 (US$490 per night), double, through October 31. Savings 31 percent. THAILAND The Green Season Escape from Soneva Kiri (soneva.

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com), sporting Koh Kood’s only 14-inch Celestron telescope for a closer look at the clear night sky. The Deal Two nights in a Pool Villa suite. The Highlight Enjoy sweets with your sweet with complimentary handmade ice cream—available in over 60 locally inspired flavors—and delicious homemade chocolates, including Fiona Sciolti’s forest-foraged, locally sourced Botanical Chocolates. Cost From US$1,580 (US$790 per night), double, through October 31. Savings 27 percent.

Beach PATTAYA Introductory rate from Hotel Baraquda Pattaya (hotelbaraquda.com), a rebranded property with one of the city’s funkiest swimming pools. The Deal A stay in a Deluxe room. The Highlight Twenty percent discount on food and beverages. Cost Bt3,400, double, through October 31. Savings 10 percent. PENANG Our Weekday, Your Holiday from Four Points by Sheraton (starwoodhotels. com), on Penang’s secluded

MALAYSIA Stay and Play package from The Westin Langkawi Resort & Spa (westinlangkawi.com), earth-tone rooms and suites, with views of the Andaman Sea. The Deal Two nights in a Premium Garden View room. The Highlight Two nine-hole rounds of golf for two at 99 East Golf Club with green fees, buggy fees, insurance and transfers included. Cost From RM1,000 (RM500 per night), double, through December 31. Savings 35 percent. HONG KONG Summer au Feminin package from Hyatt Regency Hong Kong (hongkong. tsimshatsui.hyatt.com), set atop K11 Art Mall with access to two metro stations. The Deal A stay in a Standard room. The Highlight Exclusive shopping privileges at K11 Art Mall, including a Paul & Joe skincare sample, a crème brûlée upon HK$300 purchase at Paul Lafayet, and 20 percent discount on regular-priced handbags at ISCOV. Cost HK$2,000, double, through September 30. Savings 10 to 15 percent. ✚

COURTESY OF AU CO CRUISES

An iconic view of Vietnam from aboard an Au Co cruise.

SIEM REAP Luxury Fitness Retreat from Belmond La Résidence d’Angkor (belmond. com), near the Angkor temple complex. The Deal Seven nights in a Deluxe room. The Highlights Daily Angkor Wat International Half Marathon-prep, boot camp-style group fitness session at Siem Reap’s temples; and daily sore-muscle treatment at Kong Kea Spa. Cost From US$1,895 per person (US$271 per night), book by November 1 for a stay from November 30-December 7. Savings 35 percent.

A 24/7 ESCAPE. TRANQUIL BY DAY. ELECTRIC BY NIGHT. SITUATED BETWEEN MAENAM AND BO PHUT, IT HAS THE FINEST AND MOST PRISTINE BEACH LOCATION IN THAILAND, OVERLOOKING STUNNING BEACHES AND LUSH FORESTS, W RETREAT KOH SAMUI AWAKENS AS THE SUN GOES DOWN, IGNITING THE UNEXPECTED. ILLUMINATING.. ENVIRONS. TAKE IT EASY. SURROUNDED BY VERDANT FOLIAGE, EACH OF OUR 74 PRIVATE-POOL RETREATS BOASTS A PRIVATE OUTDOOR POOL AND INFINITE ISLAND VIEWS. INSIDE, PREMIER TECHNOLOGY MEETS W SIGNATURE BED, BLISS® SPA AMENITIES AND WHATEVER/WHENEVER® SERVICE. W RETREAT KOH SAMUI T 66 77 915 999 / F 66 77 915 998 EXPLORE WHAT’S NEW / NEXT WRETREATKOHSAMUI.COM WHOTELS.COM/KOHSAMUI

SUBSCRIBE NOW TO OUR DIGITAL EDITION Available at www.zinio.com 1 year / 12 issues for US$29.99.

Shop Like a La Maison Fenyadi, a concept store featuring ceramics in Marrakesh’s Industrial Zone (219 Z.I. Sidi Ghanem; 212-524/336-201).

LocaI

Finding an exquisite handmade souvenir, discovering the next young designer or unearthing a cooІ vintage store: it’s what we gІobaІ shoppers Іive (and Instagram) for. Here, T+L spotІights where to browse and bargain in six of the worІd’s most styІish cities—with in-the-know tastemakers as guides. By Patrizia Chen, David A. Keeps, Mark Lean, Shane A LV A R O L E I V A

MitcheІІ, Jane Szita and GiseІa WiІІiams. Edited by JacqueΙine Gifford and Katie James

Hong Kong Amsterda m New DeΙhi Marrakesh Buenos Aires Los Angeles

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Hong Kong #sho pl i ke aloca l

The Bling Ring Barney Cheng (barneycheng.com), sandwiched in his colorful creations.

Fashion designer Barney Cheng shares his secret list of bespoke shops. Menswear La dolce vita-inspired gentlemen’s wardrobe at Moustache (31 Aberdeen St.; moustachehongkong.com) comes lined in exquisite vintage silks. Great value silk chambray digitally printed scarves are top finds at MODELE de PRUDENCE (modeledeprudence.com.hk). I also like Mayer’s (Mandarin Oriental, 5 Connaught Rd.; 852/2524-3317) crocodile loafers and rainbowtoned crocodile business card holders. The Amoury’s (307 Pedder Bldg.; 12 Pedder St.; thearmoury. com) vast array of umbrellas, ties and bespoke suits adds intrigue to any ensemble. Browsing The best neighborhood for leisurely window-shopping is Tai Hang village. Pop into Feelsogood (4 Second Ln.) to peruse the vintage furniture, then stop by Lab Made Liquid

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COURTESY OF BARNEY CHENG

Nitrogen Ice Cream Laboratory

(6 Brown St.; labmade.com.hk) for a delicious nitro glacé. Jewelry Plan a morning trip to Jade Street, located on Canton Road, between Kansu Street and Jordan Road, for great deals on jade. I hear even style maven Joyce Ma shops there. Michelle Ong-Cheung at Carnet (10 Chater Rd.; carnet jewellery.com) is Hong Kong’s answer to Joel Arthur Rosenthal. I also like Prince Jewellery & Watch (23-25 Nathan Rd.; princejewellerywatch.com), where you can buy tasteful watches and Peonia cut diamonds by the armful, and Larry Jewelry (72 Queen’s Rd. Central; larryjewelry.com), which carries my own custom-designed pieces. Grooming Head to the wellappointed BruneBlonde (1 Harbour Rd.; bruneblonde.com) for expert shaves and intoxicating private label hair products. For the best organic beauty ranges from around the world, Joyce Beauty (joyce.com) has it all.

Amsterdam #sho pl i ke aloca l

At Home with Cok de Rooy

“Hutspot (4 Van Woustraat; hutspot amsterdam.com) is a hip concept store—I like the vibrant atmosphere and the on-site barbershop. You’ll discover pieces from emerging designers (plaid blankets by Flink; Veloretti bikes). Wonderwood (3 Rusland; wonderwood.nl) specializes in furniture from the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s. They have more than 100 styles of chairs—both vintage and new designs. Marcel Wanders is the biggest design star Holland has produced thus far. When you enter his showroom, Moooi (187 Westerstraat; moooi.com), you experience his world. It’s a must.”

Good Jeans Leave the Levi’s at home: the Dutch are known for their denim brands, making Amsterdam the perfect place to pick up a pair with a unique pedigree. Denham the Jeanmaker English expat Jason Denham’s high-end line combines premium Japanese selvage denim with a traditional approach to tailoring (leg darts; signature seven-point pockets). The flagship (8 Hobbemastraat; denhamthejeanmaker. com) has the largest selection.

G-Star Raw Famous for using unwashed, untreated fabric, G-Star Raw (24-28 P.C. Hooftstraat; g-star.com) produces boyfriends and skinnies that are practically indestructible. Also look out for their more grown-up Marc Newson and Correct Line ready-to- wear collections.

Kuyichi Sustainable organic cotton and all-natural indigo dyes are some of Kuyichi’s ethical trademarks—bonus points for the streetstyle cred. Find them at Maison de Bonneterie (140-142 Rokin; debonneterie.nl) and Nukuhiva (36 Haarlemmerstraat; nukuhiva.nl).

Kings of Indigo (K.O.I.) This edgy, hard-to-find label was started in an Amsterdam attic; jeans are made from organic and recycled materials and come with a repair kit. K.O.I. is sold at stores including Bendorff (99 Utrechtsestraat; bendorff.nl) and Sukha (110 Haarlemmerstraat; sukha-amsterdam.nl).

Hit the Street: Gerard Doustraat South of the city center, de Pijp is a hipster neighborhood filled with independent boutiques. Visit these standouts along one of the main avenues. Blond Amsterdam Load up on collectible ceramics in bright pastels with cheeky phrases. We especially like their twist on Delft blue pottery. 69 Gerard Doustraat; blond-amsterdam.nl.

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De Kinderfeestwinkel The European antidote to Toys “R” Us, this colorful spot stocks an eclectic mix of toys, costumes and games—everything you need to host a kids’ party. 65 Gerard Doustraat; kinderfeestwinkel.nl.

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Charlie & Mary Find eco-friendly fashion for men and women (L’Herbe Rouge; People Tree; Toms) at this airy store, which shares space with the Barrique café and rotating pop-up installations. 84 Gerard Doustraat; charliemary.com.

Anna & Nina Anna de Lanoy Meijer and Nina Poot’s boho bazaar is chock-full of wonderful curiosities: think silk kimonos, beetle-print stationery and pineapple-shaped centerpieces. 94 Gerard Doustraat; anna-nina.nl.

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 K I N G S O F I N D I G O ; M I Q U E L G O N Z A L E Z ; C O U R T E S Y O F C O K D E R O O Y; M I Q U E L G O N Z A L E Z (4)

The cofounder of interiors store the Frozen Fountain (645 Prinsengracht; frozenfountain.com) shares his design destinations.

From far left: Kings of Indigo (K.O.I.) jeans; Denham the Jeanmaker.

New DeІhi #sho pl i ke aloca l

Olivia Dar fuses the classic style of her native France with India’s vivid colors. Her macramé belts add flair to any L.B.D. 5H 1F, Jungi House, Shahpur Jat; US$59.

En Inde designer Anupama Sukh Lalvani creates

India’s capital is paradise for accessory maximalists— surprising materials and creative collaborations abound.

This handcrafted sheet-metal vanity case with leather straps from Nappa Dori reinterprets (and miniaturizes) the iconic steamer trunk. 21 Inner Ln.; nappadori.com; US$340.

scents of p l a ce

Nida Mahmood’s love of psychedelic street style influenced these Great Indian Bohemian Tamasha vinyl totes. 36 Shahpur Jat; nidamahmood.com; US$64.

fiercely bold pieces (such as these gold-plated cube bangles) that transition well from day to night. Lalvani—who cofounded the line with Sonal Sood in 2004—works with raw (not precious) materials, including leather, jute and steel. “Delhi is an old city with new blood coming in daily,” she says. “Whether they’re the Louboutin-clad or those in leather kolapuri sandals— both embrace our aesthetic.” What about India inspires her? “The crazy contrasts and belief systems, the geography and varying landscapes, the architecture of mosques and Hindu temples, women in sculpture and mythology— India caught between the past and the future.” 125/126 Meharchand Market, 1F; 91-11/4905-0832; US$100 each.

One of Code Deco’s “Detour” travel series fragrances, Thar in Pink is perfumer Gauri Garodia’s love song to the rugged terrain of Rajasthan. “I wanted to re-create the colors of the desert sunset—fuchsia, orange and amber—so the top note has the dry, spicy freshness of marigold,” Garodia says. “It settles into a golden glow, like a bronzer, on your skin.” Find it at Second Floor Studio (417 Shahpur Jat; 91-11/4142-0324; US$116), the creative playpen of Punit Jasuja, located in buzzy Shahpur Jat—an urban village of stylish boutiques, cafés and galleries.

PHILIP FRIEDMAN

Karma Chameleons

Our outrageous obsession: 18-karatgold-plated coral-andpearl “Gazelle” earrings by Delhi-based designer Manish Arora for famed jewelry atelier Amrapali. 39 Khan Market; amrapalijewels.com; US$1,029.

Marrakesh #s ho p likealocal

Outside Topolina, in Marrakesh.

One City, Three Enclaves

F R O M T O P : A LV A R O L E I V A ; R I C A R D O C A S E S

What’s trending in Morocco’s style capital? Fashionable insiders walk us through their favorite neighborhoods. Industrial Zone Maryam Montague, the guru behind cult design blog My Marrakesh, favors this evolving area, 20 minutes outside the city, for its designer ateliers. “Laurence Landon (294 Z.I. Sidi Ghanem; laurencelandon.com) creates custom chandeliers with 1920’s glamour,” Montague says. “I order my tagines at Loun Céramique (505 Z.I. Sidi Ghanem; lounmarrakech.com), a showroom that uses high-quality glaze. Be

sure to stock up on sleek leather goods at M’H (369 Z.I. Sidi Ghanem; martinehillen.com). Topolina (436 Z.I. Sidi Ghanem; 212-6/5134-5795; also at 134 Dar El Bacha, in the medina) sells ethnic-inspired dresses in classic silhouettes, coats with colorful linings, and loafers in a dizzying array of African fabrics.” Medina For Kamal Laftimi—restaurateur behind the famous Le Jardin des

Épices and the recently debuted Nomad—the dusty-pink ancient walls of the medina are home. “The streets and the people energize me,” he says. One of the places he frequents: Souk Cherifia (15 Sidi Abdelaziz; souk-cherifia.com), a mezzanine of charming tiny boutiques, all with a seasoned global sensibility. “There are the soft, handwoven towels at La Maison Bahira (No. 15); rattan sun hats and lanterns at Original Marrakech (No. 4, 1F); or the casual men’s wear at fashion photographer turned designer Randall Bachner’s new store, Marrakshi Life (No. 1),” Laftimi says. “Go with a guide to Souk Kebir Nerjjarine, where Stall 99 (no phone) sells herbal lotions, eucalyptus soaps and fragrant rose oils that will instantly transport you back to Morocco.”

Guéliz In contrast to the labyrinthine medina, this is a district of wide boulevards. “We walk everywhere,” say expats Samuel and Caitlin Dowe Sandes, founders of Popham Design, a tile studio. “Laetitia Trouillet is the city’s go-to personal shopper. Her atelier, Studio Lalla (5 Rue de Liberté; 212-6/6147-7228), showcases boho handbags along with jewelry by Parme Marin,” Caitlin says. “Make an appointment at Fennwerk (148 Ave. Abdelkrim El Khattabi #B4; fennwerk.com), to peruse Nicolas Carré’s tribal rugs and Midcentury furniture. Browse 33 Rue Majorelle (33 Rue Yves Saint Laurent; 33ruemajorelle.com) for cups and plates by Chabbi Chic and couture from Noureddine Amir—finish up at the little café for juice and a salad.”

Buenos Aires #shoplikealocal

Cabinet Óseo “On our site, we sell these conceptual metal pieces that mimic human anatomy—phalanx necklaces (shown), heart-shaped pendants, and fingerprint-etched bangles.” See cabinetoseo.com for store locations. From left: Sofía, Catalina and Lucía Sanchez Barrenechea.

Tramando “I’ve been wearing Martín Churba’s collections for years—he is a textile artist and genius when it comes to prints! He also recently added home décor to his flagship boutique in Recoleta.” 1973 Rodriguez Peña; tramando.com.

Sister Act Sofía, Catalina and Lucía Sanchez Barrenechea, founders of underoursky.com—an online mecca for Argentinean fashion and interiors— reveal their B.A. must-haves.

Sofía’s picks Lucía’s picks

Gil Antigüedades “For 30 years, Horacio and María Inés Gil have built an impressive arsenal of vintage clothing, jewelry, tablecloths, fans, parasols, figurines and more.” 412 Humberto 10, 1F; gilantiguedades.com.ar.

En el Nombre del Postre “In a land where medialunas (croissants) and alfajores once reigned, Argentines have developed an addiction to cupcakes and macarons. This pastry shop, in Palermo Hollywood, is one of my favorites.” 5547 Soler; enelnombre delpostre.com.ar.

Dance the Night Away

Patrizia Chen on why tango shoes are a fashionista’s best friend.

I’ll admit it: I’m guilty of hoarding. As a social tango dancer for many years, I carry an empty suitcase every time I fly to Buenos Aires, to be filled with dancing shoes. I wear them to weddings and cocktail parties—no more agony in tight stilettos, as these are made with balance and flexibility in mind. An added bonus: most are around US$100. Comme Il

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Celedonio “From his workshop in the hidden courtyard of an old residential building, Celedonio Lohidoy draws inspiration from nature and wildlife for his spectacular costume jewelry— accented with pearls, crystals and gems from northern Argentina.” 1223 Uruguay, apt. 8; celedonio.com.ar.

Aire del Sur “This is the ultimate place to buy wedding gifts. Marcelo Lucini designs beautiful furniture and home accessories, plus necklaces and cuffs that incorporate local wood, leather, deerhorn and semiprecious stones.” 1695 Vicente Lopez, 2F; airedelsur.com.

Faut (1239 Arenales, apt. M; commeilfaut. com.ar), located in Recoleta, is still the city’s most famous store. Founder Alicia Muñiz was the first to marry style with comfort, and her designs (shown) have the sexiness—plumage! sparkle!—of Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choos. I also love the trendy yet durable heels at Neo Tango (1938 Sarmiento; neotango

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shoes.com), in Balvanera, and the more traditional looks at Flabella (263 Suipacha; flabella.com), near the city center. Ready to watch real people dance real tango? Head to La Viruta (1366 Armenia; lavirutatango.com), a club in Palermo Soho where young and old are on their feet until five in the morning.

C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P L E F T: H A N N A H T H O M S O N ; C O U R T E S Y O F C A B I N E T Ó S E O ; C O U R T E S Y O F T R A M A N D O ; C O U R T E S Y O F A I R E D E L S U R ; C O U R T E S Y O F C O M M E I L F A U T; J A V I E R P I E R I N I ( 2 ) ; C O U R T E S Y O F G I L A N T I G U E D A D E S

CataІina’s picks

Los AngeІes

3 4

#shopl i ke a loca l

West vs. East A long-standing coastal rivalry is now playing out between L.A.’s top shopping districts. Here’s how two of-the-moment streets stack up. ROSE AVENUE, VENICE

C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P : D A N N Y K I M ; B R I D G E T P I Z Z O ; C O U R T E S Y O F M E & B L U E ; C O U R T E S Y O F T H E G O L D E N S TAT E S T O R E ; J E N N I F E R C A W L E Y; L I LY K I N G ; R E B E C C A J O H N S O N

As Abbot Kinney Boulevard hosts more designer brands, this two-block stretch keeps the funky spirit of Venice alive.

Clothing and furniture; speakeasies and cafés—York Boulevard is the edgy alternative to Silver Lake and Echo Park.

Matters of Space Founders P. J. Roden and Katerina Gabbro offer interior design services, plus custom furnishings and fine arts and crafts. 5005 York Blvd.; mattersofspace.com.

Concept Stores

Golden State Store You’ll find tops by Laguna Beach designer Kerry Cassill alongside decorative objects and gourmet snacks. 564 Rose Ave.; thegoldenstatestore.com.

Bughouse Art & Design A gallery, retail lab and event space by artists Rebecca Johnson and Jeff Klarin (his rock-inspired canvases are legendary). 5050 York Blvd.; bughouse.com.

Clothing

ME & Blue Owner M. E. Ster-Molnar specializes in wear-anywhere bohemian tunics and hand-dyed vintage slips. 566 Rose Ave.; meandblue.com.

YORK BOULEVARD, HIGHLAND PARK

Design Showrooms

Big Red Sun An innovative landscape architecture firm that also sells garden furniture, planters and succulent arrangements. 560 Rose Ave.; bigredsun.com.

Honeywood Vintage Nouveau hippies clamor for Vanessa Dingwell’s embroidered cotton dresses, serapes and Mexican folk-art textiles. 5117 York Blvd.; honeywoodvintage.com.

The CaІifornia Kitchen These locally made treats, found at farmers’ markets and gourmet groceries, offer both sweet and savory tastes of L.A. 1. RX Tonic Juicing fanatics down a blend of celery, lemon, ginger, turmeric and garlic to aid digestion. 317 S. Broadway; pressbrothers juicery.com; US$5. 2. DTLA Idyllwild Grate this aged, hard-pressed goatmilk cheese over everything. 317 S. Broadway; dtlacheese. com; US$18. 3. The Sweetness of Being Rose Goji Chocolate Handmade bars with stone-ground cacao, raw honey, goji berries, Himalayan sea salt, rose oil and a pinch of Mucuna pruriens. 564 Rose Ave., Venice; thesweetnessofbeing. com; US$5. 4. Saving the Season Lime Marmalade Cookbook author Kevin West crafts long-soak English marmalades with local lime and a hint of ginger. 317 S. Broadway; savingthe season.com; US$12. 5. Sqirl Seasonal Preserves Reinvent breakfast toast with a range of artisanal spreads by jam maker and restaurateur Jessica Koslow. Our favorite

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flavor: blackberry lemon verbena. 720 N. Virgil Ave.; sqirlla.com; US$12. 6. Malibu Honey We’re hooked on this pure, aromatic nectar produced by bees that feed on wildflowers and sage from Santa Monica and the San Gabriel Mountains. 564 Rose Ave., Venice; malibu honey.com; US$16. 7. Farmer Dave’s Roasted Hot Nuts Almonds—the official snack of Hollywood— fire-blasted with habanero, vinegar and tomato paste. 511 Rose Ave., Venice; farmerdavescher.com; US$12. 8. Chili-Covered Pineapple This dried-fruit treat delivers tiki taste with a Mexican kick—all in one bite. A&B Coffee, 317 S. Broadway; 1-626/ 716-0705; US$2.50. 9. Little Dom’s Pickled Green Tomatoes Bread-and-butter pickling and a hot jolt of crushed red pepper amp up a Southern specialty. 2128 Hillhurst Ave.; littledoms.com; US$8.

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Unmarried Kara tribeswomen, with ceremonial body paint, near Dus, in Ethiopiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Omo River Valley, page 126.

Features

DAV I D C H A N C E L L O R

102 Langkawi 114 Pingyao, China 116 Asiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s New Spa Specialists 122 Trendsetters on Travel 126 Ethiopia

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THE EMERALD CANOPY

Enchanting Langkawi, land of flying and mischievous monkeys, and million-year-old mountains, pulls M E R R I T T G U R L E Y in

and sends her skipping down the evolutionary brick road.

P H O T O G R A P H E D BY T H A R AT H O R N S I T T H I T H A M S T Y L I S T: T U N V A R D E E J U TA V A R A K U L . M O D E L : N I T H I P O R N L E R T N I T I W O N S A K U L . H A I R A N D M A K E U P : W I T T H AYA K A E O A I M . P H O T O G R A P H E R â&#x20AC;&#x2122; S A S S I S TA N T: TA N A W AT A S A S U TJ A R I T

Exploring the ancient jungle of Langkawi (swimsuit, Katarina; skirt, Emilio Pucci).

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Clockwise from above: Practice your swing between soft sands and rolling mountains at The Golf Club, Datai Bay; strolling poolside at The Andaman (dress, Halston Heritage); one of Langkawiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s many small wonders; marine biologist Dr. Gerry Goeden; spotting eagles on a mangrove tour; sail boats dock at Telaga Harbour; mischievious macaques plot their next move.

LUXURY MONKEYS.

B O T T O M R I G H T: C O U R T E S Y O F F O U R S E A S O N S

That’s how naturalist Nurhidayah Hussein describes the spectacled langurs and macaques that, though indigenous to Langkawi, have adapted perhaps too well to a certain invasive species: tourists. “These are five-star monkeys living in a five-star hotel”—namely, the Andaman Langkawi, where the little devils have conjured every trick in the book to break into guest suites and raid mini bars. “You hear a knock on the door. Room service? No! Monkey service!” Hussein warns. “They will send their cutest baby to knock at your balcony, asking for food. When you open the door to feed it, the whole family will sneak in behind you.” Why? “They will have a monkey party. Open your beers, drink your champagne, eat your chips, sit on the couch and watch your TV.”

I S H O U L D B E C O N C E R N E D, but a monkey party sounds fun. Besides, macaques learning to pop champagne corks is just the tip of the evolutionary-oddity-iceberg in this collection of 99 tropical islands off the northwestern coast of peninsular Malaysia that includes some of the weirdest animals, from flying lemurs to walking fish, and oldest landforms known to man. “Ninety-nine magical islands? You’ve heard this slogan?” ecologist Farouk Omar asks me as we motor through the mangroves. I nod, ready to gush, but he goes on: “They aren’t islands; they’re sea stacks. Just rocks really, but I guess ‘ninetynine magical rocks’ doesn’t sound as good.” No, Farouk, it doesn’t. But if he’s trying to keep me grounded, he’s failing. The boat tour he’s leading is only gelling my impression that Langkawi is thoroughly enchanting. As we get further into the wetlands, the vines weave into an arch overhead and I can sense the age of the land. It even smells old; millions of years of life and death, flood and drought, growth and rot, have given the earth a rich zoetic cologne. In 2007, Langkawi was awarded World Geopark status by unesco and, according to their research, most of this archipelago rose to the surface 220 million years ago—though the island’s oldest geological formation, Mat Cincang Mountain, 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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may have risen from the seabed twice as long ago, following the breakup of the supercontinent Pangea. This would have been during Cambrian era, a period of great proliferation of life on Earth, and modern-day Langkawi still reflects that biodiversity, both in its wide range of topography and its miscellany of animals (there are 503 different species of butterflies alone). Naturally, there’s been an upsurge of luxury resorts that are designed, from architecture to operations, to dazzle visitors with this veritable petri-dish of earthly wonders. It was the mid 1800’s when evolutionary biologist Alfred Russel Wallace reflected, “The very finest field for an exploring and collecting naturalist was to be found in the great Malayan Archipelago.” I’m 150 years behind him, but I intend to bask in those same peculiarities of olden extant species. tells me pointing to the bark of a tree. Every rustle in the kelly tangle hides some furtive animal action. I squint in the direction she is indicating but, though I’ve spotted kingfishers, hornbills, otters and squirrels already in the past hour, now I can’t see a thing. In this dipterocarp jungle the trees fruit and flower at such towering heights that the forest floor is left dimly lit and sparsely populated. Every felled tree spawns a flurry of growth as saplings compete for the prized patch of light and climb eagerly towards the vacant spot in the vertiginous canopy. The whole ecosystem revolves around height, with animals forced to find their way into the treetops in search of food—one result of which is the abundance of more than 230 species of birds. Local folklore has it that the name Langkawi comes from a shortened version of the Malay word for eagle, helang, and kawi, which means reddish brown: Red Eagle Island. There are a few unexpected additions to the airborne family, as well—creatures that evolved the gift of glide. There’s the flying frog, whose wide webbed feet allow it to drift through the air. The flying lizard relies on an extra membrane around its throat, like a bullfrog, to launch from tree to tree. The flying snake winds up tree trunks, then hurls itself from high branches and flattens its body to catch the draft as it cruises towards its unsuspecting victims below. And what I’m blinking at? The enigmatic colugo, or flying lemur. For years nobody was able to classify this animal. It looks like a big squirrel, its long nails allow it to hang upside down like a bat, and it uses the extra flaps of skin between its legs to sail through the heights. In 2002, DNA testing shed some light on the mysterious mammal, revealing that it is, in fact, a primate. But that simple answer doesn’t satisfy everyone. “The DNA does not suit the behavior,” Hussein says. “A monkey does not look like this. A monkey does not fly.” Monkeys also don’t booze it up, but Hussein says, “I have seen them do it.” And, although snakes are not known to amuse themselves with playground equipment, there, back at the resort, is a giant king cobra slithering from a low-hanging tree down onto the kids’ waterslide. “I have chills,” a young American woman tells me as, in the relentless tropical heat, she tugs up her sleeve and wags her goose-pimply arm at me as proof. I give her a courtesy nod but, like everybody else in the thickening throng, my eyes are glued to the largest venomous snake in the world. Though it’s just a pipsqueak in king cobra terms, it is still thicker than my calf and at least 3 meters long. “Can you imagine being in the pool and having that thing come sliding right at you?” the woman asks me. “Surprise! It’s the Jungle Book, but for real and we’re all going to die.” 106

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E A G L E , M A N G R O V E A N D B O AT: C O U R T E S Y O F F O U R S E A S O N S

“ I T I S S L E E P I N G W I T H I T S E Y E S O P E N like a reptile,” Hussein

Clockwise from top left: Sunset from the comfort of a catamaran cruise (jumpsuit, Diane von Furstenberg); the name Langkawi comes from the Malay word for eagle, a bird that abounds on the island; an oxbow cuts through the verdant mangrove forest; weaving through limestone karsts; a cave ripe for kayaking; enjoying a morning walk on the beach.

On the bow of the Sea Falcon (dress, Halston Heritage; cuff, Chanel).

‘THERE IS JUST ONE

PIRATE STILL SAILING

THE MALACCA STRAITS,

AND YOU’RE WITH HIM’

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Clockwise from top left: Fishing buoys the island economy; a prehistoric rock formation pops out of the jungle; handling a slithering local; a spectacled langur monkey; dwarfed by giant leaves (dress and hat, Emilio Pucci). Opposite: Catching rays (swimsuit, Katarina; pants, Diane von Furstenberg; scarf, Bvlgari; sunglasses, Chanel).

F I S H E R M A N B O AT, M O U N TA I N A N D M O N K E Y: C O U R T E S Y O F F O U R S E A S O N S

Thanks, lady—now I have chills. I look to Hussein for reassurance. I know that she can’t offer much in the way of physical protection, but surely there’s some soothing factoid about the harmlessness of giant poisonous snakes that she can offer. “This is their house,” she shrugs. “We just rent the space from them.” While that’s one landlord I’d hate to tick off, there’s something life affirming and profound about an island where the divides between man and nature are still blurred, where the wilderness still reigns.

“ W E A R E B L E S S E D T O B E I N T H E M I D S T O F one of the world’s most incredible geological and ecological environments, yet so few tourists realize the extent of the nature that lies beyond Langkawi’s beaches,” says the Four Seasons’ senior naturalist, Aidi Abdullah. “There’s a lot of mind-blowing nature out there and we just want people to know about it.” To that end, the resort opened Geopark Discovery Centre earlier this year that features exhibition boards, interactive presentations and displays, which showcase Langkawi’s incredible environment. It’s a perfect setting for responsible adventure tourism—the Kilim Karst Geoforest Park, for example, is ideal for sailing. Rife with secret restaurants tucked in quiet corners of karst-sheltered sea, this limestone labrynth is a playground for sea dogs. The more aerially enamored can board the cable car that summits Mat Cincang mountain for a visual tease of all the captivating jungle below. No wonder backpackers have been wise to the many attractions of the “Jewel of Kedah” for ages. Now the whole vibe is flush with upscale options set to multiply over the next year. A Ritz-Carlton is slated to open in 2015, the luxe Vivanta by Taj is taking over Rebak Island, and there’s a St. Regis in the works, to name a few. Meanwhile stalwarts like the Andaman and the Four Seasons are tweaking their offerings to better highlight the natural surroundings, with scientists and preservationists on call to educate guests on the island’s ecology.

Malaysia has lost 90 percent of its natural fishing resources since the 1980’s, according to marine biologist Dr. Gerry Goeden, but new coral colonies could generate fresh life. The Andaman has launched a protection program to help rebuild the thousands of years of growth that was cleared in the 2004 tsunami and to offset the impacts of commercial fishing. Working with the National University of Malaysia, the resort is creating artificial reef modules designed to provide the right environment to protect fish eggs and small fish, a system that could lead to an extra 10,000 kilos of fish a year. Currently the Andaman has four modules anchored off its shore, and Goeden has an ambitious end goal of bumping it up to 5,000 by 2020. This would reinvigorate the aquatic ecosystem, as well as bolster the local fishing industry to help meet the increasing demand for seafood that comes with the influx of new resorts and hungry tourists. No island vacation is complete without at least one seafood feast, but responsible restaurants ban the purchase of adolescent fish, so they can grow to reproductive maturity and propagate before they are pulled from the sea. After the lesson on marine conservation, a short one-at-a-time snorkeling tour of the 10-by-20meter saltwater coral nursery enclosure is offered, for an up-close look at the colorful sea life. “One thousand kids a year visit and come away with a more sustainable life view,” Goeden 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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says. “These are children who come from a privileged background. In 15 years they will be in the position to make a difference.”

I F OC U S O N T H E B U L L S- E Y E and breathe in. As I exhale, I let my arrow fly. It breezes through the jungle and lands with a thump in the outermost ring of the target. I let out a triumphant whoop, though I can guess from my instructor’s expression that this is not an impressive achievement. Still, I stand proud, bow in hand. It is 2 p.m. and I’ve already swum in the hidden Lengarra Creek; biked through rice paddies and a fishing village; trekked through boscage; climbed a limestone cliff and abseiled down; and now become a master archer. I’m breathing thick jungle air, sweating out city life and feeling right at home as I tumble backwards into a prehistoric age. I’m caught in a paradox: the older my surroundings, the younger I feel. Maybe it’s that on an island where fish walk, snakes fly, and one bolt of lightening can change the course of a man’s life, anything seems possible. “In all works on natural history,” Wallace wrote, “we constantly find details of the marvelous adaptation of animals to their food, their habits, and the localities in which they are found.” Maybe I’m just evolving. ✚ 112

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SUNSET AND CR AB: COURTESY OF FOUR SEASONS

T H E C O R A L C O N FA B H A S M E L O N G I N G for a sojourn at sea. I board Captain Todd Fisher’s 14-meter luxury catamaran, the Gone Surfin’, for a sunset cruise. I listen to the wind cracking the sails taut as we breeze through shallow waves, and from my spot on the bow of the boat I have a front row view of Thailand edging nearer in the distance. “You need to bring your passport if you go swimming—you just may cross the international border,” Fisher tells me. I ask him how he ended up in Langkawi. “Sometimes lightning strikes,” he says. I chuckle. “No, literally: lightning struck my boat and it jammed all my equipment. I had to sail to the closest shore and that was that beach right there,” he points to Datai Bay. “That was several years ago and I keep coming back.” He’s not the first to get marooned in these waters. Fisher nods to Koh Tarutao: “That used to be an island of political prisoners.” There were more than 3,000 Thai convicts held captive there and, during World War II, the country ran out of supplies to feed them. “They all turned to piracy,” he says grimly. “Even the guards.” I ask if there are still pirates sailing the Malacca Straits. “Just one,” says Fisher, “and you’re with him.” There are more than a few medicine men in this region, however, and Shaaban Arshad is the resident healer at Kubang Badak, “buffalo wallow”, village. Arshad concocts tropical elixirs that he prescribes for everything from breast lumps to psoriasis. “He goes into the jungle behind his house,” local preservationist Irshad Mobarak tells me, pointing behind the lovely home where we are having lunch, “and that’s where he gathers the plants and spices that cure lung cancer.” Cure? “His father was a medicine man. His grandfather was a medicine man,” Mobarak explains. “This knowledge is passed down.” Arshad breaks into a long rant in Malay and Mobarak translates: “Medicine men act from the heart. Very passionate. His grandfather would paddle in a wooden boat across 30 kilometers of ocean every weekend just to see his girlfriend in Thailand.” “Why didn’t he just move to Thailand?” I ask. “Malaysia is between India and China and the herbs are among the oldest in the world,” Irshad says. “There are plants and animals here on Langkawi that you can’t find anywhere else on earth.”

T L Guide Getting There There are daily flights from Kuala Lumpur and Penang to Langkawi on AirAsia (airasia.com), Malaysian Airlines (malaysiaairlines.com) and Malindo Air (malindoair.com).

STAY Four Seasons Langkawi This sprawling seafront estate has an adults-only swimming pool and a thick 1.6-kilometer-long private beach for multiple lounge options. The concierge can arrange rock climbing and archery in the jungle playground behind their property. Jln. Tanjung Rhu, Mukim Ayer Hangat; 60-4/ 950-8888; fourseasons. com/langkawi; doubles from RM1,780. Meritus Pelangi Resort & Spa Designed in the style of a Malay village, this tropical resort has 352 guestrooms and suites peppered across 14 wellmanicured hectares of beachfront. Pantai Cenang; 60-4/952-8888; meritushotels.com; doubles from RM850. The Andaman, Langkawi Tucked between the jungle and Datai Bay, the recently refurbished rooms have floor-to-ceiling windows offering exceptional views. Jln. Teluk Datai; 60-4/9591088; theandaman.com; doubles from RM1,900.

Clockwise from top left: The sun says good morning; an enigmatic flying lemur; toes in the sand (swimsuit, Katarina; scarf, Bvlgari); one-at-atime snorkeling tours of The Andaman’s coral nursery; a clown fish in the sea anemone. Right: Fiddler crab.

EAT Privilege Restaurant and Bar A mix of modern and classic Malaysian gastronomy, located right on Telaga Harbour. B8, 1F Perdana Quay, Telaga Harbour Park, Pantai Kok; 60-4/956-1188; privilegerestaurant.com; dinner for two RM90. Kuah Town Seafood Far from fancy but brimming with local flavor, this restaurant is a sister enterprise of the community favorite

Wonderland Food Store and serves up the same high caliber of delicious and fresh dishes in a slightly more upscale setting. Bandar Baru Baron 33, Kuah; 60-12/470-7687; dinner for two RM100. Ikan-Ikan Restaurant Head to this charming beachfront eatery for the Monday Fisherman’s & Farmer’s Night, featuring delectable choose-yourown-ingredients noodle stations and a lively traditional dance show. Jln. Tanjung Rhu, Mukim Ayer Hangat; 60-4/950-8888; fourseasons.com/langkawi; buffet RM240 per person. Eagle Rock Wash down pub food like nachos and wings with a cold beer or killer kamikaze, while you rock out to live music. Block 5, GF, Awana Porto Malai Resort, Tanjung Malai; eaglerockcafe.com. my; drinks for two RM50. DO Jungle Walla Explore the secrets of the mangrove forest with naturalist Irshad Mobarak. jungle walla.com; unesco Geopark Cruise RM199 per person. Cable Car Board Langkawi’s famous cable car for a breathtaking 1,700-meter ride to the Top Station of ancient Mat Cincang Mountain. panoramalangkawi.com; RM35 per person. Coral Nursery Learn about marine conservation and coral preservation under the guidance of marine biologist Dr. Gerry Goeden. theandaman.com/ NA-coralnursery.

Looking toward the City Tower along Ming Qing Street, in Pingyao.

PHOTOGRAPHED BY TONY LAW

PURE CHINA You expect Marco Polo to round the corner at any moment. Pingyao is the very rare Chinese city, perhaps the last of the country’s great walled towns, to have escaped the successive waves of modernization that have swept China over the past 100 years—the 1911 Chinese Revolution, the 1949 Communist Revolution, the 1966–76 Cultural Revolution, and the rampant industrialization and globalization of the last generation. Its 72 watchtowers look out over a turbulent sea of tiled roofs, with curving eaves tipped with ceramic dragons. Red paper lanterns float over the pedestrian streets like so many autumn moons. The city is a time machine into the Chinese past and traditional Han culture. It’s all here, Pompeii before Vesuvius, a fine-grained, highly detailed, movie-set-perfect microcosm of traditional China, built during a seminal and flourishing period. The nearly 2.5-square-kilometer town includes the ornate, tiered, three-story City Tower and numerous large Confucian and Taoist temple complexes, all part of one of the world’s best-preserved ancient cities. —joseph giovannini Pingyao is 644 kilometers southwest of Beijing and accessible via train. The closest airport is Taiyuan. 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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License to Heal F I N G E R - DA N C I N G FAC I A L S, YO G A- F U E L E D C L E A N S E S, D O C T O R D E L I V E R E D P E D I C U R E S: J E N I N N E L E E-S T. J O H N P U T S H E R H E A LT H A N D B E AU T Y I N E X P E R T H A N D S. I L L U S T R AT E D BY WA S I N E E C H A N TA KO R N

SOMETIMES,

the most perfect pairings are hiding right under your nose… Or, for the sake of this discussion, your toes. We live in a region obsessed with and awash in wellness centers but, talented though many therapists are, rote techniques and repetitive menus can make it hard to distinguish among them. That’s why I suggest you take a careful reading of the spa offerings on your next fivestar getaway. Because some of them are calling on the credentialed to bring innovative techniques that will make you wonder, Why didn’t they think of that before? Now emerging in Asia: a wave of cross-disciplinary aestheticians, healers with unexpected, yet perfectly fitting, certifications tailoring their particular brand of expertise to methods of making you feel better, and look better too. I recently rode that wave right into an ergonomic leather recliner, with my legs propped up, and under the spotlight. It felt like a dentist’s chair, except the spotlight was not to inspect my teeth but my toes, and the questions from the assistant—How far back would you like to lie down? What type of tea do you take? How strong do you like your massage?—I’m pretty sure have never been asked by a dental hygienist. In a little Bill Bensley-designed mod hut mere steps from the South China Sea, the lapping of waves outside mingling with the room’s trance-y Apsara mood music, I settled in for my appointment with the podiatrist. I was there to get a pedicure, and the draw and unimpeachable logic of the Studio by Bastien Gonzalez pedicure—whether at its eight-monthold spot at the InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula in Vietnam, where I had it, or at the other Asia-Pacific locations in China, Maldives, Singapore, Thailand, and, breaking news, Australia—is that they are all conducted by actual foot doctors, whom you can trust to keep their tools clean and to prioritize health. Bien sûr it was a Frenchman who came up with this concept of the medical-beauty foot-love mélange. For this is no clinical consultation; caresses were involved, ladies.

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This is no clinical consult; caresses were involved, ladies

Though some of it was tough love.“Gel is making your nails too brittle,” the dashing Toulouse-born Dr. Benoît Perié told me gently but to my great dismay. After I stopped whining about the convenience of my tri-weekly manipedi, he continued, extolling the virtues of the dry pedicure: “Hydration makes it difficult to see the difference between dry skin and healthy skin.” Okay, so no pre-treatment soak. Rather than push back the cuticles (“that can weaken the matrix of the nail, and an injured cuticle is an open door to bacteria”), he used a blade to remove their protruding edges, and rather than a pumice stone, Perié pulled out a scalpel. He told me he was slicing micro-fine layers off my heel, but I had already looked away, laid back and put on my aromatherapy eye-mask. Meanwhile, his assistant was working on my manicure so dexterously that I started to think this so-called “Bastien’s Duo” could take any four-hands body massage—especially when she threw in an actual hand massage and Perié went to work reflexology-style on my feet and calves. The pièce de résistance of Bastien Gonzalez is the buff, in keeping with his major tenet that naked nails are beautiful. “Polish is like makeup for your nails,” Perié said. “You take off your make-up at night to let your skin breathe. You have to take off polish to let your nails breathe.” A two-day break every week should do the trick. But after a good rubbing from the chamois leather buffer and ground-pearl cream, my nails shined like they were sporting clear polish, and it lasted for six weeks. Who needs gel? Au naturel—that was also the premise of the Yogic Detox Intestinal Cleanse I tried under the guidance of Dorelal Singh Thakur, who has two master’s degrees in yoga, for science and philosophy, and is guiding the launch of new yoga retreats at Six Senses Spas across the region. Don’t call it an enema. (Well, you sort of can because it leads to the same, er, end result.) The deceptively simple process is thus: wake up early; drink two glasses of salt water; do five yogic poses meant to flush the water through your system, top to bottom, eight times each; repeat; and repeat again. That’s six glasses of salt water totaling almost two liters, and, I’ll say it, it’s gross. By the second glass, I was nauseated.

By the fifth glass, I was Dumbledore in the cave, begging Harry not to make him drink any more poison. Don’t make me do it! “You just have one more to go,” Dorelal said encouragingly. Right, I still have one more to go. Yes, salt water is poison. Salt water is not meant for human consumption. Salt water cannot be digested. That’s why this works. Imbibe it as quickly as possible, and wiggle it out fast, too—the second pose, swaying palm tree (tiryaka tadasana), for example, helps move water through the pyloric sphincter from the stomach to the duodenum, while the fourth, twisting cobra (tiryaka bhujangasana), stimulates movement in the small and large intestines, opening the right valves, or floodgates, if you will. Along the way, this poison acts as a magnet for all the other toxins hidden in nooks of your digestive tract, picking them up and whisking them out to not only cleanse your system, but also help you absorb the good nutrients you ingest afterward. After the least pleasant yoga class I’ve ever had, Dorelal sat me upright and, for about 45 minutes, amused me with the details of several other, less palatable, and certainly less printable, yogic cleanses that he had to do over and over at an ashram. I didn’t think I’d ever want to do even this one again, but it was true that after each set of poses, I felt better than before I’d started. For his part, Dorelal does this cleanse about once a month and, “It gets better,” he assured me. “The body learns that you’re trying to do something good for it”—which was my cue to retire to the loo. I’ll say precious little more here besides that the on-site Ayurvedic doctor, Ranjan Kapoor, had described the aftereffects as “a great lightness” and he was right. I felt weightless and pure for days. That morning, he prescribed a surprisingly palatable porridge of rice, lentils and ghee to ease me back into solid foods and to ensure my small intestine didn’t collapse, followed by a Nourishing Facial, partly based on his assessment of how those naughty toxins had been manifesting themselves physically and partly to rehydrate me after all that saline. A Western-style treatment ordered up by an Eastern-medicine doctor? The two philosophies absolutely can be reconcilable, says Taiwaneseborn, London-dwelling Su-Man Hsu. Hsu believes that oriental skincare wisdom focused

Dr. Kapoor was right: I felt weightless and pure for days

on prevention and reparative occidental cosmetic science work best in tandem. This onetime professional modern dancer with credentials in Pilates and shiatsu massage rolls all those talents into anti-aging facials for the celebrity likes of Juliette Binoche and Freida Pinto. “Clients have described my fingers as dancers,” Hsu said after her most recent tour of W Away Spas in Bali and Singapore, where she makes regular appearances. “I use my core and body weight in a very balanced way so I can transfer energy without force. I let my clients tell me what to do by what I see through my hands, as my hands are my second eyes.” Clients have also said she has the recipe for a facelift in an hour, with her combined use of massage, acupressure and proprietary cleansers and creams—based on the “crazy concoctions” she and her sisters whipped into beauty products as kids, using, for instance, the inner skin of watermelon as an astringent. “I lift tired and sagging muscles as well as open the energy channels in the face. This leaves skin looking sculpted,” she said. “I would argue that it’s better than Botox because the face remains expressive and relaxed rather than frozen and fixed.” Why not trust a dancer to improve your movement and expression? “Dance is instinctive but requires precision and performance,” Hsu said. “I need to be creative” in blurring and rethinking our common conceptions of spa treatments. Diet, balance, sleep-deprivation, pollution, stress: Most of our health problems are elastic and multidisciplinary, so shouldn’t the cure match the ailment? ✚

T L Guide PEDI:MANI:CURE Studio by Bastien Gonzalez Visit bastiengonzalez.com for information on all studio locations; InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula in Vietnam, danang. intercontinental.com, Bastien’s Duo VND3,200,000. Six Senses Yogic Detox Visit sixsenses.com for information on all spa

locations and their yogic offerings; Six Senses Yao Noi in Thailand, sixsenses. com/yaonoi, Yogic Detox programs from US$800 for five-night regimen. Su-Man’s Signature Facial Visit su-man.com for news and product information; W Retreat & Spa Bali-Seminyak, whotels.com, US$200 for 60-minute Su-Man’s Signature Facial.

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Four trendsetters reveal their travel essentials— and their favorite destinations. INTERVIEWS BY JERYL BRUNNER PHOTOGRAPHED BY ANDREAS LASZLO KONRATH STYLED BY MIMI LOMBARDO

SENSE OF ADVENTURE

PHIL WINSER Restaurateur and co-owner of N.Y.C. hot spots the Fat Radish, the East Pole and the Leadbelly

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My father used to organize expeditions for the Royal Geographical Society in London, taking scientists to remote places—caves in Brunei; Oman’s Wahiba Sands. I still use his Globe-Trotter suitcase. It

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reminds me of old-world travel, when exploration was at the forefront of excitement. RETURN TO RIO At seventeen, I spent a year in Brazil. I hadn’t been back until a recent trip to Rio to build a pop-up hotel and restaurant, Casa Fat Radish (casafat

radish.com). My partner and I collaborated with local artists, designers and musicians— there is such energy and passion in the Carioca way of life. NEXT TRIP I’d love to go to Havana, just to walk around and admire the architecture.

M A R K E T E D I T O R : C O U R T N E Y K E N E F I C K . H A I R A N D M A K E U P : B R I T C O C H R A N F O R L A N C Ô M E AT A R T D E P A R T M E N T ( W I N S E R , H A L L A N D C L E V E L A N D ) . L A U R A P R E P O N : H A I R B Y D O N A L D F R A N C I S . M A K E U P B Y L E Y D A Q U I N T E R O

THE WAY I TRAVEL

LAURA PREPON Actress, starring in the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black CABIN COMFORT This oversize Gucci cashmere shawl was one of my first big purchases after I started on That ’70s Show. I always carry it on to use as a blanket. I love it, because it brings me back to those days. GETTING LOCAL I’ve been to a lot of cities in Europe, and Stockholm is a favorite. I enjoy biking to South Island to discover more indie neighborhoods. The fish at Sturehof (sturehof.com) is unbelievable, and Gold Bar (nobishotel.se), at the Nobis Hotel, is the best place to grab a drink. NEXT TRIP I want to pass through the Sun Gate and finally see Machu Picchu.

Coat by Yigal Azrouël; shawl, Gucci (similar styles available); ring, Simon G. Jewelry. On Phil Winser: Suit by Ernest Alexander; shirt, Thomas Pink; shoes, Vans; bracelets, his own.

CARTER CLEVELAND Founder and CEO of Artsy, a next-generation online resource for contemporary art FUNCTIONAL FORM My Côte & Ciel Isar Rucksack is sturdy and durable, with compartments to organize my travel essentials: laptop, iPhone, Kindle, adapters and earplugs. UNFORGETTABLE JOURNEY

I recently traveled to Tel Aviv with a group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and met Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat. It was exciting to learn how they’ve made technology a critical part of their country’s success. I also visited the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (tamuseum. org.il), where I saw a comprehensive show by Brazilian artist Vik Muniz, plus works by some of my favorite artists—Shirin Neshat, Anselm Kiefer and Max Ernst. NEXT TRIP I’m heading to Istanbul soon for the first time.

Sweater and shirt by Salvatore Ferragamo; pants, A.P.C.; silicone “Fake Rolex” watch (by artist Shelter Serra), his own. On Lena Hall: Jacket by Zac Posen; pants, Troa; shoes, Hervé Léger by Max Azria; rings, David Yurman and Jennifer Meyer Jewelry.

LENA HALL Tony Award–winning performer in Hedwig and the Angry Inch; lead singer of the Deafening

PACKING HARMONY When I travel with my band, I use this vintage suitcase to carry props for the show. I bought it at a thrift shop and painted on our logo. When I’m really tired after playing, it makes a great seat. INSIDER’S FRANCE I booked

a spontaneous, two-week trip to Paris last October, when the air was cool and crisp. My parents were both professional ballet dancers, so I attended a performance by students of the Ballet School at the Paris Opera

(operadeparis.fr), where Janine Guiton, one of my father’s former partners, used to teach. As I watched, I kept imagining myself on that stage. NEXT TRIP We get asked to play in the U.K. all the time—I hope to make it a reality!

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On a trip through remote southern Ethiopia, GUY TREBAY encounters the last remaining tribes of the Omo River Valley— and the strange, powerful beauty of the unknown.

PHOTOGRAPHED BY DAVID CHANCELLOR

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Unmarried Nyangatom girls, with ornamental scars, in the Omo River Valley’s Lokulan village.

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“Up at first baboon,” the safari guide said brightly at dinner, though it’s not clear why he felt the need. When it comes to waking the dead, baboons are more reliable than cell phones, quartz clocks or a New York City garbage truck grinding its gears. Wide awake the next morning, well before the guide stopped by my fly tent to rouse me, I strapped on a headlamp, wrapped a towel around my waist, and scuffed through the dark to a wash tent for a cold shower. After dressing in the dark, I hurried to the boat landing to join our small assembly, at this hour a cluster of vague and indefinite shapes, for a voyage downriver. Daybreak creased the black horizon as the boatman cast off; in the growing light individual identities began to emerge. We were, it occurred to me, by any standards a motley assembly. There were the two safari outfitters, one a rough-hewn Kenyan, the other a well-upholstered South African with a plummy public-school accent. There was the Felliniesque Swiss-Italian daughter of an internationally celebrated pop diva. There was a handsome young hacker who’d recently cashed in on a spyware system for US$70 million, and also his father, a Dallas developer mellow enough to cast into doubt every stereotype one ever held about Texans. There was an empty-nest matron from northern California in the process of reinventing herself as a documentary photographer. Her subject specialty, she said when first introduced, was butchery. Before we convened in a hotel restaurant in Addis Ababa, I’d never laid eyes on most of these people; a week later they remained to me a cluster of implacable mysteries. Why was the Italian glamour-puss, whose natural habitat is the front row of Milan fashion shows, covered with tribal tattoos? What karmic debt schedule inspired the California housewife, liberated from mommying,

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Dassanech guarding grain in the lower Omo Valley.

to spend her days hauling around a pack mule’s burden of tripods, lenses and camera bags? How had that woman’s brother, our South African guide, transformed himself from a high-end caterer into a latter-day Denys Finch Hatton? Why, above all, had we found ourselves joined in adventure through one of the remotest regions of Africa, a place that until recently was reachable only by a weeks-long river journey or along bone-jarring washboard tracks optimistically referred to in Africa as roads? I assured myself that, like all travelers, we were seekers—of precisely what was not yet clear. And on that one point our South African guide was insistent: we were travelers and not mere tourists. It was a distinction that came to mean less the longer we were together, beyond the obvious truth that either group is equally adept at demonstrating limitless possibilities for cultural misunderstanding.

t was just past dawn when the boatman steered us toward a mudbank, disturbing a stately goliath heron. With a succession of creaky wingbeats, the auburn-topped great bird pressed off into the air, like a codger rousing himself from an easy chair. Beyond the bank a dense grove of scrub trees stood, with a path cut through it leading to a Kara village. There our group had an appointment to attend an orwak ceremony, a rare invitation from a village headman to witness soothsayers foretell the future by reading the entrails of a goat. “Life, life takes you,” a cabbie had murmured to me some days earlier in Addis Ababa, as he banged around the corrugated roads of the capital

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Unmarried Kara tribeswomen from Dus.

in a rusted Soviet Lada, a vehicular relic of another era, the grim days of military occupation known as the Derg. His youthful ambition to pursue medicine, the driver explained, had come to nothing, subsumed by the exigencies of remaining alive. Having survived the Derg, here he was now piloting an old jalopy in endless loops around a city best described as African Transitional: half glass-towered metropolis, half shantytown. At least, the driver said, he’d escaped being killed. Nothing about the current political situation in Ethiopia approaches the unfathomable darkness of that chapter, a time of socialist military rule and state-sanctioned torture. Yet plenty remains to trouble traveler or tourist, not least the multifarious forces threatening the survival of the very tribes we’d come to observe. Over the past 20 years, oil discoveries, government leasing of vast tracts of parkland to foreign agribusiness investors, and a hydroelectric dam under construction upriver from the last remaining tribal peoples of Omo have all conspired to uproot these farmers from their lands and imperil their centuries-old cultures and very existence.

Life takes you, I thought, as we left the tea-colored river led by a gaggle of laughing children. It struck me that life had led me on many a strange adventure, not least this one, to a region I’d subconsciously vowed to visit as a child. It was back then, poring over the pages of Réalités—an arty French magazine to which my parents unaccountably had a subscription—that I first encountered people who marked their bodies with ornamental patterns of scars, who cut and stretched their lips to accommodate clay plates that, while disfiguring to a Western eye, were emblems to the Suri and Mursi of elegance and wealth. We were here in southwestern Ethiopia to see those tribes and also the agriculturalist honey-gatherers known as the Kara; the statuesque pastoralists called the Nyangatom; and the Hamar, whose women daub themselves for hygiene with ocher and butterfat. We were here to seek out the Dassanech and the Kwegu, the latter a benighted group kept by stronger tribes in a state of semi-slavery. We had hopes, too, of encountering the reclusive Suri, some of whom inhabit mountainous redoubts so remote that fewer outsiders have seen them, our Kenyan guide claimed, than have set foot on the moon. In a short while we found ourselves in the Kara village of Dus, a dusty apron of land cleared from the bush along the Omo River. Huts rimmed the village perimeter; a parliament house of peeled logs stood at one end. Near the center hulked a cinder-block school building whose walls were ornamented with naïve paintings depicting local wildlife: The Elefant and The Girafe. Abruptly, out of nowhere, a conga line of women appeared, stomping in the dust and chanting and piercing their ululations with ear-shattering blasts on tin whistles. 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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Painted for the occasion with the daubed clay patterns that make these particular tribal people popular as postcard subjects, the village men also had whistles. They blew them fiercely and alternately shot off blanks from the rifles many shouldered. At each fresh report our group scattered, less from any sense of peril than from shock. It was barely six in the morning, a little early for fireworks. A sacrificial ram was to be slaughtered for the oracles and of its ordeal the less said the better. Receiving the carcass, the soothsayers spread its cleaned entrails across an upturned calabash. A great deal of muttered deliberation followed. Eventually the elders appeared to predict a good spate for the Omo River and another year of bountiful crops. What surprised me was not this news flash but the alacrity with which the villagers melted back into their daily lives once word was delivered. Maybe they were blasé. More likely they understood traditional ceremonies like this were soon enough to be supplanted by other and more pernicious forms of magic. Already Ethiopian telecommunications companies are erecting mobile-phone towers in the Omo River Valley for Turkish and Korean agribusiness. Likewise, British oil exploration has led to the construction of more new roads built with foreign financing. Motoring back to camp on the river we spotted a Pel’s fishing owl hunched on a branch of a skeletal thorn tree. “That’s a major tick” for African bird-watchers, said our Kenyan guide. This “tick” would have to serve as the Animal Planet highlight of our journey, since we would see little of the game for which sub-Saharan Africa is renowned. Well in advance of arrival we’d learned that once-abundant populations of large mammals in southern Ethiopia had been gunned out of existence—slaughtered as bush meat in the years since weapons began filtering across the border from Sudan. Though a decades-long civil war in that divided country visited untold atrocities on human populations, this was not the sole destructive legacy of the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Janjaweed. The elefants had been substantially wiped out; so, too, the girafes. Hippo populations that once crowded the waterways were decimated, leaving behind in the rivers those prehistoric horrors: crocodiles. Birds remain plentiful, as do certain simians. Yet none of us had traveled thousands of kilometers to look at monkeys. We were here with the uneasy common goal of visiting a human zoo. We were part of that growing wave of travelers riding a current of nostalgia for vanishing 130

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THE VILLAGERS LIKELY UNDERSTOOD THAT THEIR TRADITIONAL CEREMONIES WERE SOON TO BE SUPPLANTED BY OTHER AND MORE PERNICIOUS FORMS OF MAGIC

Hamar goats in Aremba village, near Turmi, Ethiopia.

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A Kara tribesman near Labuk village.

traditional cultures, the same atavistic search for fragments of a preindustrial planet that gives rise to neo-tribal gatherings like Burning Man. That we were willing to travel so far—by jet and bush plane and jeep and boat—to see certifiable “others” suggested, at the least, a growing cultural malady. As technology has pressed in on humanity in the West, the Irish novelist Robert McLiam Wilson wrote in an essay about wild-man cults of modern Europe, a longing has developed for contact with those who elude its clutches. “In order for there to be an ‘us,’ ” of the developed world, Wilson wrote, “we need a ‘not us.’” It was that “not us” photographers like Jimmy Nelson set out to record, compiling in his acclaimed 2013 book Before They Pass Away a lavish document of remote tribal groups around the planet. Among the places Nelson traveled first for a project that would eventually take him to the ends of the earth was the Omo River Valley. He was far from the only one inspired to make this particular journey. The National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry had already been here. Sebastião Salgado had, too, and Hans Silvester. That each came away with images less striking, to this observer’s eye, for singular vision 132

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than for a romanticized sameness is perhaps understandable. What’s more, the people of the Omo River Valley tend to the photogenic, and even when not possessed of beauty are so graceful of carriage you can hardly resist framing them as icons. There is something else: whether world-renowned photographer or rank tourist grabbing iPhone snaps, every visitor to the Omo Valley pays to take pictures. Even before lifting a camera one is obliged by custom to negotiate a transaction fee with potential subjects. It’s a ritual exchange since the going rate is known to all involved, a price of five Ethiopian birr, or about an American quarter. “You must never, ever,” said our Kenyan guide, “break the rule of five.” Luckily for me the need to barter was moot, because from the outset I’d been clear I would not be taking pictures. Partly I wanted to sidestep the image clichés. I also wanted a break from the tyranny of Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, the existential drain of tracking online “followers,” and “friends” with their winks and likes. In Africa, I figured, I’d try reviving the simple acts of direct observation, of looking and remembering. And it seems to have worked, since it is an easy pleasure now to summon up an interior camera roll: watchful adolescent Nyangatom goatherds perched on logs outside their village, hide skirts embroidered with beads made from melted shell casings, blankets wrapped snugly against a morning chill; tribal elders clustered on stools in the dust and slapping stone counters into gnarled hollows of an ancient board game called mbao; the fast-flowing Omo surging mud-red through striated cliffs; gargantuan, yellow-eyed crocodiles sunning on its banks.

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WE WERE PART OF THAT ATAVISTIC SEARCH FOR FRAGMENTS OF A PREINDUSTRIAL PLANET THAT GIVES RISE TO NEO-TRIBAL GATHERINGS LIKE BURNING MAN

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An unmarried Kara woman from Chelete.

I can conjure in my mind’s eye the coquetry of Barigi American, a 13-year-old Kara girl still free of the ornamental scars her older sister, Nani, displayed so proudly, flashing an insolent smile not a whit less beautiful for lacking the incisors that had been pulled as is the custom of her tribe. hat the others thought of our shared encounters I never did learn. Whether out of fear or alienation or exhaustion, with each passing day we Westerners retreated further from one another. Coming together at meals, and on boat and road trips, we remained, despite our many points of common reference, a random assembly of isolates. And while we were not moving about at the level of decadent luxury to which certain of the South African outfitter’s billionaire clients are accustomed—“There are the Haves,” he quipped over drinks one evening, “and there are the Have-Jets”—we were as cosseted as babies, served eggs cooked fresh by a Kenyan chef at breakfast, sweet corn soup for lunch, piquant meat curries, and aged Italian cheeses brought overland on a

weeklong haul by refrigerated truck. We were herded with great subtlety by the one person serving as a true and uncredited cicerone of our odd expedition, a quiet Kara tribesman educated by Swedish missionaries and fluent in a variety of tribal languages, including ours. Perhaps, too, my comrades shared a growing impatience with the trip organizers’ attitudinizing, the way one derided humankind as a cancer destined to destroy the planet while another simultaneously boasted of trips laid on for a fashion designer whose visit to Omo required five leased B3 Eurocopters and baby vegetables imported from France. “If you really want a toy box, we can give you a toy box,” the South African guide said one evening at drinks, referring to ultra-high-end safaris, as I pushed away from the table and walked to my tent. There I sat in a folding chair on a rectangle of canvas, shaded by a fig whose fingering branches raveled the river. I fumed as I watched the sunset reflect off the water and play chromatic tricks. Leaves that at noon appeared black and dense were now lit from beneath a bright metallic green. A troop of baboons swinging heavily through the canopy across the river suddenly lost all dimension, flattening into a cluster of inky cartoon silhouettes. Pulling from my pocket a photocopied sheet provided upon arrival, I read again this simple primer on local protocol: “It is essential politeness to greet people profusely: start learning!” The phrases consisted of basic greetings in Hamar and Nyangatom, Kara and Mursi, words which, having been dutifully practiced, we were encouraged to use at each new tribal village. What I found, though, after greetings had been exchanged in each new place, was that an inevitable glum silence settled and a chasm opened up between speakers, as on a blind date. It happened that in many villages we were greeted in the lingua franca of tour groups increasingly making their ways to this remote region. Landing after long passages in our open boat we often found ourselves greeted by village children waving their arms and excitedly calling out “Ciao!” While this detracted somewhat from the precontact fantasy we were all to a shameful degree indulging, the globally familiar Italian greeting was both a welcome and a corrective. There are limits, the lesson was, to the power that scraps of language 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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have to shim up a social structure so deeply uneven; being spoken to in a tongue I knew seemed to level the engagement. Thinking back on the Kara oracle, it suddenly occurred to me that the soothsayers understood all this and that each of our encounters—grisly goat sacrifice included—had been a bit of theater. Those village men saw exactly what was coming. The chants and whistles and hocus-pocus were a way of signaling that they’d seen the dismal future and it was us. ext morning we left camp and drove to an immaculately mowed landing strip belonging to the British oil exploration unit. Boarding a 10-seater plane, we lifted off for the mountains beyond the Mui River and the Suri tribe. From the air, the stark alterations to the landscape were clearly visible. The mystifying dark circles scattered at regular intervals below were giant ash heaps, our pilot explained, left behind by industrial crews razing the bush. As the plane’s toy shadow glided toward the angled crustal plates of the Great Rift Valley, we passed a place where an oxbow of the Omo River carved a giant question mark into the earth. Entering airspace above the vast Omo National Park, we were told that topi, gazelle, giraffe and herds of elephant still survived there, though who knew for how long? “The government never gazetted the national parkland,” our Kenyan guide said. Human development was already overtaking raw wilderness. Bumping through turbulent air, the pilot took aim at a landing strip that looked like a cricket pitch cut between giant anthills. As we approached, a lone figure casually sauntered onto the runway, causing the pilot to jerk upward, bank hard to port and circle for another go. Gliding down at last, we bumped to a halt. The pilot put the wheels in chocks as we deplaned and then issued strict instructions. Be back in two hours, said the only man in the region capable of acing that particular landing. Raising an arm, he pointed toward the armada of thunderheads moving in from the west.

Ethiopia

ERITREA SUDAN

OMO RIV E R

ADDIS ABABA

SOMALIA

OMO SOUTH VA LLE Y SUDAN KENYA

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T L Guide TOUR OPERATOR The Cape Town–based company Passage to Africa arranged the author’s 10-day itinerary, led by CEO Michael Lorentz. passagetoafrica.com.

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A married Nyangatom woman, wearing a goatskin skirt and a belt made from melted bullets, near Lokulan.

A local guide appeared then and we clambered behind him up a slick mud trail. More lush here than the thorn scrub in the river valley, the highland vegetation was also less dense and menacing, a far fresher green. Our destination was a small village cut into a ridge, an insignificant collection of domed huts walled with vegetation and fenced to keep in the chickens and goats. When at last we reached the village, I realized suddenly that this was what I’d been waiting for all along. Regionally, the Suri are renowned for their beauty, hauteur and fierceness in battle; for reverencing in song and story the cattle that are their wealth; for growing cabbages, tobacco and yams; for trading in honey, leopard skins, gold and giraffe tails; for being a matriarchal culture whose males are confined to strict age-set groupings and who sometimes wait decades to become initiated as warriors. To the wider world, to me, the Suri are known for one thing. They are the lip-plate people, the ones I encountered so long ago in my parents’ living room. They were early proof of a world beyond my front door that was wondrous strange. To ready her for eventual marriage, a young Suri girl’s bottom teeth are removed, her lower lip pierced and stretched to allow for the insertion of clay lip plates. Over years the plates get larger and there are tales, perhaps apocryphal, of some having attained 40 centimeters in diameter. Extreme body modification lost much of its power to shock at about the time American teens started getting their nipples pierced at the mall. Where I live, in New York City, people routinely go about with earlobes that have been stretched to the size of portholes. And yet Nagunya Ologole—her lower lip distended to accommodate a plate so large she had to support it with her upturned hand, a gesture of unanticipated elegance—was not just an odd sight. She was all the strangeness of the world a traveler sets out in search of, the personification of the exotic “other” who in the end, in almost every case, is pretty much the same as you and me. ✚

“An impressive portrayal… beautifully made duets for the two leads.” Luke Jennings, The Guardian, UK

ONEGIN

ONEGIN STUTTGART BALLET, GERMANY Saturday 25 October 7.30pm & Sunday 26 October (2.30pm)

Baht 5,500 / 4,500 / 3,500 / 2,500 / 1,500 Supported by the Embassy of Germany, Bosch and Thai-German Cultural Foundation

Hotline 02 262 3191

www.thaiticketmajor.com (24 hrs)

www.bangkokfestivals.com

VENUE: Thailand Cultural Centre. Free shuttle from MRT station Thailand Cultural Centre, Exit 1, during 5.30-7.00pm

Phuket Our Definitive Guide to

Serenity-minded hoteliers and urbane entrepreneurs are helping Thailandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tropical playground usher in a cultural renaissance. Resident Simon N. Ostheimer takes the pulse of the island and its neighbors. Photographed by Pornsak Na Nakorn

Kata Beach, one of the best surf spots in Thailand.

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From left: The pool at Hyatt Regency Phuket Resort; it’s all mod at Point Yamu by COMO.

Lay of the Land Old Town This historical district’s century-old Chinese shop houses and tin-baron mansions house a variety of cafés, creative restaurants, cool bars and hip hotels. Patong Phuket’s party central needs little introduction, but beyond the dubious delights of Bangla Road, you’ll discover an emerging culinary scene and good tourist shopping. Chalong This waterfront is the main launching point for boats to the offshore islands. Grab a drink at one of the laidback bars that line the roads by the pier. Kathu Earmarked as the island’s new CBD, this area is booming with huge developments that will add more malls and attractions. Surin Of the half-dozen beach towns that line the sun-soaked west coast, Surin is the chicest, with boutique resorts, beach clubs and some of the island’s top-rated eateries. Getting Around Phuket’s many taxis and tuk-tuks are exorbitantly priced. Instead, rent a car or motorbike.

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Stay From tropical to trendy, here are seven of the island’s hottest retreats. THE NAKA PHUKET The 94 pool villas in this striking west coast resort sit on a hill overlooking a private beach. Thai architect Duangrit Bunnag embraced the topography by designing cantilevered buildings that seem to hang in the air. 1/18, 1/20 Moo 6, Kamala, Kathu; 66-76/337-999; thenakaphuket.com; Bt23,800.

HYATT REGENCY PHUKET RESORT Located at the start of “Millionaire’s Mile,” home to some of the island’s most expensive resorts and residences, the Hyatt offers luxurious lodgings, including 12 expansive Regency suites. 16/12 Moo 6, Kamala, Kathu;

66-76/231-234; phuket. regency.hyatt.com; Bt3,700.

INIALA This one-of-a-kind property is the brainchild of philanthropist Mark Weingard. Each of the 10 suites are the creation of different designers from across the globe. All guests have a driver, butler, chef and masseuse at their beck and call. 40/14 Moo 6, Baan Natai, Phang Nga; 66-76/451456; iniala.com; US$2,500.

POINT YAMU BY COMO The first top-flight resort set up in the island’s rural northeast is sleek and modern with star Italian designer Paola Navone’s interiors partly inspired by the waters of

the Andaman Sea. 225 Moo 7, Paklok, Thalang; 66-76/360-100; comohotels.com/ pointyamu; Bt9,000.

LE CORAL HIDEAWAY BEYOND PHUKET Picturesque Natai Beach is rapidly becoming the go-to destination for those in the know. This small, smart resort is the latest addition to the area’s upmarket offerings, featuring well-appointed rooms with beach-house touches like distressed wood furnishings. 9/9 Moo 8, Na Toey, Thai Muang; 66-76/679-888; coralhideaway.com; doubles from Bt17,500 for two nights.

ANANTARA PHUKET LAYAN RESORT & SPA The soft beach, shallow tide pool and offshore rock formations set a scene so serene you’ll have no idea you’re a stone’s throw from the lively Laguna complex. 168 Moo 6, Layan Beach Soi 4, Cherngtalay, Thalang; 66-76/317200; phuket-layan. anantara.com; Bt5,200.

U ZENMAYA PHUKET This Old Town-inspired property is the newest rollout for the überpersonalized Thailandbased U Hotels & Resorts. 6/181 Moo 6, Kamala, Kathu; 66-76/ 336-888; uzenmaya phuket.com; Bt2,299.

Hotel prices represent starting rates for double occupancy.

ONE TO WATCH Kata Rocks At this stunning, long-awaited, cliff-top resort, the villas are all heavy on Andaman views and the wellness bent is downright fun—think: sleep-pod napping therapy and an in-house expert at Feldenkrais, a practice focusing on the symbiotic relationship between movement and thought. Doors open in November. 186/22 Kok Tanode Rd., Karon, Muang; 66-76/370-777; katarocks.com.

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Shop

Three stylish stops for beach buys.

R E K Á TA : C O U R T E S Y O F R E K Á TA B E A C H C L U B AT B O AT H O U S E B Y M O N TA R A , P H U K E T ( 2 ) C H I N P R A C H A H O U S E : T H I T I TA N D A V A N I TJ

Lemongrass House This Phuket success story founded by a former film executive in the U.S., Bobby Duchowny, sells 100-percent handmade, natural spa products and teas in his scent-filled shop—and to top hotels around the world. 10/2 Moo 1, Srisoonthorn Rd., Cherngtalay, Thalang; lemongrasshouse.com.

Paul Ropp Another American, this designer displays his easy-breezy, wildly chromatic, handwoven, handembroidered cottons and silks at his eponymous shops across the island. Get decked out head-to-toe with his locally inspired clothes, shoes and accessories. Flagship shop at Surin Gallery, Moo 3, Cherngtalay, Thalang; paulropp.com.

From top: Handmade spa products at the fragrant Lemongrass House; tropical fashion at Re Ká Ta.

Re Ká Ta If you’re looking to make waves fashion-wise during your visit to the beach, visit the smart boutique inside this beach club on Kata Beach, where you can pick up Vilebrequin swimming trunks, Heidi Klein’s espadrilles and barely there swimwear by Princesse Tam Tam. 182-184 Koktanode Rd., Kata, Muang; rekataphuket.com.

See Do LARD YAI SUNDAY WALKING STREET

Chinpracha House. Patong Boxing Stadium.

This assembly of locally made handicrafts, traditional southern Thai snacks and cultural performances was launched in September last year. An excellent way to spend a Sunday evening, it also serves to highlight the historic charms of the revitalized Old Town. Thalang Rd., Old Town; every Sunday 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.

SOI DOG FOUNDATION Since it was founded in 2003 to tackle Phuket’s stray pup epidemic, this remarkable charity has sterilized more than 60,000 dogs and cats. Learn more about their worthy work and meet some friendly animals on a facility tour. 167/9 Moo 4, Soi Mai Khao 10, Mai Khao, Thalang; 66-81/788-4222; soidog.org.

There’s more to do than tan on these sunny shores.

SURF HOUSE

CHINPRACHA HOUSE

The island’s so-called low season (May through October) is the best time of year for surfers to visit, with a beach break at Kata rated the best in the country. But for days when the swell is flat there’s this artificial wave for non-stop body-surfing. 4 Pakbang Alley, Karon, Muang; 66-81/979-7737; surfhouse phuket.com; from Bt1,000.

Phuket was once known for tin mines, a hugely lucrative, if destructive, industry that led to the emergence of the island’s mining barons, who built grand mansions in their own honor. One of the best preserved is this century-old Sino-Colonial home in the Old Town. 98 Krabi Rd.; 6676/211-167; Bt200 entry, daily 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

PATONG BOXING STADIUM Organized by famous former muay Thai champion Num Noi Singpatong, the Saturday Fight Nights feature the best combatants to come out of his Patong gym—including Frenchman Damien Alamos, the top-ranked foreigner in the sport. 2/59 Sainamyen Rd., Patong, Kathu; 66-76/ 345-578; patongboxing stadium.com; from Bt1,300.

THE KIDS CLUB Sure, most top resorts boast children’s centers, but for a change of scene, this offsite romper room has a ball pit, playgrounds, painting, clowns, cartoons and superheroes—all the fun needed to wear out the wee ones. 2/F Promenade Mall Patong, 70/1 Bangla Rd., Patong; 66-76/341-310; thekids clubphuket.com; Bt150 per hour for kids older than one.

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Expect Basque flavors with Asian ingredients at Aziamendi. From left: Southern style curry at Nahmyaa; Mirror Mirror blends clever décor and French comfort food. Bottom: A tipple or two at Rendez-Vous.

Eat Where to dine in Phuket now. AZIAMENDI This groundbreaking restaurant is headed by Michelin three-starred chef Eneko Atxa, who has combined his Basque heritage with Asian ingredients to come up with dishes such as suckling pig with pumpkin noodles and dashi. 40/14 Moo 6, Baan Natai, Phang Nga; 66-93/779-2312; aziamendi.com; set menus from Bt5,000. MIRROR MIRROR Playing a big part in Old Town’s emergence as a dining destination, this Gallic-inflected spot has a woodpaneled, mirror-lined interior and a modernFrench, comfort-food menu—featuring, for example, whole rack of lamb—created by its

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Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef. 31 Dibuk Rd., Old Town, Muang; 66-76/ 355-914; mirrormirror phuket.com; Bt1,000. NAHMYAA Though yet to garner the fame of its sister restaurant—Nahm, at the Metropolitan by COMO in Bangkok— this koi-tiled, new addition to Phuket’s dining scene deserves some recognition. Under the expert eye of chefs Daniel Moran and Thirawut Na-udom, it serves up classy twists on southern Thai street food, such as an unbeatable steamed whole fish topped with catfish floss. 225 Moo 7, Paklok, Thalang; 6676/360-100; comohotels.com/ pointyamu; Bt2,500.

NIKKI BEACH PHUKET The newest branch of this glam global beach club chain sashayed up to the northern end of unspoiled Layan Beach earlier this year. Join the well-dressed crowd sipping champagne and knocking back oysters as the day fades to dusk. The raucous Sunday brunch is mustbook-ahead. 62/11 Moo 6, Cherngtalay, Thalang; 66-76/681161; nikkibeach.com/ phuket; Bt3,000. GALLERY CAFE BY PINKY Long a mainstay of expats in search of a sandwich, salad and smoothie, Pinky’s—as

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locals know it—recently moved into swanky Old Town digs, where the food and drinks are as good as ever. 19 Yaowarat Rd., Old Town, Muang; 66-83/1037000; gallerycafephuket.com; Bt500. 360° BAR & GRILL Wine and dine your date atop The Pavilions, an adults-only resort whose bar offers romantic views of the Andaman, creative tapas, and a range of “love potions” such as the Hex Appeal, an elixir of kaffir lime leaves and vodka. 31/1 Moo 6, Cherngtalay, Thalang; 66-76/317600; thepavilions resorts.com; Bt1,500.

Restaurant prices represent approximate cost for dinner for two, unless otherwise noted.

Meet up for a glass of red at Rendez-Vous (facebook. com/phuketrendezvous), with generous owner Khun Ae, before strolling up the road to The House (thehousephuket.com) for a Japanese Hitachino Nest beer. Next: longtime favorite Sanaeha (facebook.com/ sanaehaphukettown) for a little live jazz, before a short walk to Wonderland (wonderlandphuket.com), where waiters in top hats serve cocktails made with Phuket’s own Chalong Bay Rum. If you’re still standing, head due north to rock out the evening in style at Timber Hut (66-76/211839). Whisky mixers and a rollicking time—that’s why Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler partied here last year.

R I G H T: C O U R T E S Y O F A Z I A M E N D I . B O T T O M : C O U R T E S Y O F R E N D E Z-V O U S

Imbibe in Old Town

From left: The cove-sheltered Naiharn beach; deep fried soft-shell crab; Mr. Zen, the owner of Wua Art Gallery.

Local Take

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

Three insiders share their go-to places on the island.

TIM CAMPBELL

ALICE NA

Co-owner of Stand Up Projects

TAKUATUNG

LUCCHINI

TV host of Phuket News TV

Co-owner of Chalong Bay Rum

Phuket has many stunning beaches. My favorites are Naiharn, tucked in a cove with incredible surroundings, and Bangtao, where long and peaceful waves make it ideal for learning to surf at Skyla’s Surf & SUP Club (surf-sup.asia). I like to eat at Sunset (100 Cherngtalay Baadon Rd.), for delicious Thai served in a warm, simple setting. I’m also a huge fan of Flavor (facebook.com/ flavorphuket) in Phuket Town—its fresh ingredients are magically put together. For drinks, my favorite hangout is Ploenchit (facebook.com/ ploenchit.phuket), with its winning combo of retro kitsch and rustic vibe.

Island Hop

MARINE

My favorite spot to eat in Phuket is Bang Mud (66-81/273-2367) floating restaurant, for its deep fried soft-shell crab and clams with lemongrass. Adrift between the mainland and Coconut Island, it is a 10-minute boat ride from Laem Hin pier to the oceantop eatery. If you’re dining, the longtail taxi is free; visit around 4 p.m. so you can enjoy the sunset ride back to Phuket. For bars, my top choice would be Sanaeha (facebook.com/ sanaehaphukettown). When I’m not working, I often visit Ao Yon Beach near my home down Cape Panwa. All I need is a beach mat, a book and good company: it’s my own slice of paradise.

I love the 15-course Sunday brunch of fresh delicacies prepared by the chefs at Breeze (breezecapeyamu.com). I appreciate the caring service, the family atmosphere and the beautiful views of Phang Nga Bay. My favorite bar is Wonderland (wonderland phuket.com), where they serve amazing cocktails in a magical setting that conveys of the unexpected nature of Alice’s journey. During the day, I like to wander the streets of blooming Old Town, where there always are new places to discover, such as Mr. Zen’s Wua Art Gallery (wua-artgallery. com). This historic area is authentic, diverse and original.

While it may seem odd flying onto an island resort only to board a boat to yet another, the dozens of small isles dotted around Phuket are sure to beckon from the horizon. Just a 15-minute speedboat ride (or slightly longer by longtail) from Phuket, pay a visit to Koh Bon, where Brit Dawn Farrell (bonislandphuket.wordpress.com) serves up fresh seafood right on the beach, or to the mostly undeveloped Coral Island—also known as Koh Hae—which features pristine reefs for snorkeling and sandy beaches for sunning. To avoid the crowds, skip Long Beach and head to Banana Beach instead. Mainly rural Koh Yao Yai, where the locals still harvest rubber and coconuts, is off the east coast. Due to the infrequent ferries, it’s worth staying overnight, perhaps somewhere such as the Koh Yao Yai Village resort (kohyaoyaivillage.com). To really get away from it all, check into the Tenta Nakara (tentanakara.com) on Koh Naka Yai, where you can glamp it up at a resort that encourages skinny-dipping! Nothing like getting back to nature.

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Last Look

Photographed by Omar Havana

Cambodia

“Slaves of the God” At least 1,737 nymph carvings adorn the temples of Angkor, to which generations of dancers “belonged” from the 7th to 15th centuries. They were embodiments of life-creating energy sprung from a process for which the temples were metaphors.

Classical Apsara dancers Icons of the Angkorean period, royal dance troupes were kidnapped by the Siamese in 1431, and killed by the Khmer Rouge. These performers at Thomeanon Temple are helping usher in the art’s current revival.

Practice makes perfect

Earthly tributes to heaven The Royal Ballet of Cambodia is on the unesco Intangible Heritage list. Upon seeing them perform in France in 1906, Auguste Rodin said, “It is impossible to see human nature carried to such perfection.”

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Two dancers-in-training at a Siem Reap school are among hundreds across the country. Children as young as six are selected to study for their aptitude and flexibility. A good performer must have mastered some 4,500 basic gestures.

pattaya