February 2008

TRAVEL+LEISURE SOUTHEAST ASIA Singapore • Hong Kong • Thailand • Indonesia • Malaysia • Vietnam • Macau • Philippines • Burma • Cambodia • Brunei • Laos

SPA SPECIAL

80

LUXURY RETREATS YOU LOVE

Andamans

Untamed, unspoiled, undiscovered

Hong Kong Taking a walk on the wild side

FE BRUARY 200 8

travelandleisuresea.com SINGAPORE SG$6.90 ● HONG KONG HK$39 THAILAND THB160 ● INDONESIA IDR45,000 MALAYSIA MYR15 ● VIETNAM VND80,000 MACAU MOP40 ● PHILIPPINES PHP220 BURMA MMK32 ● CAMBODIA KHR20,000 BRUNEI BND6.90 ● LAOS LAK48,000

FASHION EXCLUSIVE Inside the region’s hottest new resort

+

BUYER’S GUIDE TO TROPICAL PROPERTIES

(Destinations)02.08 Beijing 26,124

Taiwan 96 Hua Hin 22, 118

Andamans 106

Flinders Ranges 45

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

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Issue Index Mai Rim, Thailand 142 Malaysia 32, 33 Philippines 33 Phuket 26, 30 Sabah, Malaysia 49 Siem Reap 26, 41, 47 Singapore 42, 48, 52, 73 Thailand 33 Vietnam 30, 47, 134

ASIA Beijing 26, 124 Japan 38, 100 Shanghai 48, 71, 73 Shikoku Island, Japan 92 Taiwan 96 AUSTRALIA Flinders Ranges 45

Melbourne 71 Yarra Valley, Victoria 36 EUROPE Austria 89 Czech Republic 89 France 89 Italy 89 Seville 72

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

(SGD)

(HKD)

(BT)

(RP)

1.43

7.78

33

9,428

(RM)

(VND)

3.26

15,985

(MOP)

(P)

(MMK)

8

40.6

6.36

(KHR)

3,920

(BND)

(LAK)

1.43

9,218

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

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

SOUTHEAST ASIA Andaman Islands 106 Bali 22, 26, 31, 70 Bangkok 26, 40 Cambodia 32 Cha-am, Thailand 56 Hong Kong 26, 40, 64, 71, 72, 81 Hua Hin 22, 118 Kep, Cambodia 50

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(Contents)02.08

> 124 A corner tower in the Forbidden City, Beijing.

105-134 Features

GUIDE AND MAP 116 10

124 Beijing Rebuilt The Chinese capital is remaking itself at full tilt.

Yet even as neighborhoods are dismantled and skyscrapers rise, MICHAEL Z. WISE finds an awareness of the value of historical preservation. Photographed by

DEAN KAUFMAN GUIDE AND MAP 133

F E B RUA RY 2 0 0 8| T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E S E A . C O M

● World’s Best Spas 75 Our readers make their choices. ● Bath Time 85 Europe’s best spa towns. ● The Big Deep 92 Underwater wellness in Japan. ● Hua Hin Havens 118 Thailand’s capital of pampering. ● Relaxing the Rules 134 Vietnam catches up.

DEAN KAUFMAN

106 Islands Apart Governed by India—but much closer to Southeast Asia—the Andamans possess untouched beaches and spooky colonial remnants that make them worth discovering. By JOE YOGERST. Photographed

by R. IAN LLOYD

Spa Special

(Contents)02.08

FEBRUARY 2008

SPA SPECIAL

80

LUXURY RETREATS YOU LOVE

Andamans

Untamed, unspoiled, undiscovered

FASHION EXCLUSIVE

Hong Kong Taking a walk on the wild side

Departments 16 20 22 26 28 142

Inside the region’s hottest new resort

travelandleisuresea.com SINGAPORE SG$6.90 ● HONG KONG HK$39 THAILAND THB160 ● INDONESIA IDR45,000 MALAYSIA MYR15 ● VIETNAM VND80,000 MACAU MOP40 ● PHILIPPINES PHP220 BURMA MMK32 ● CAMBODIA KHR20,000 BRUNEI BND6.90 ● LAOS LAK48,000

Editor’s Note Contributors Ask T+L Best Deals Strategies My Favorite Place

+

BUYER’S GUIDE TO TROPICAL PROPERTIES

Cover > 70

At the Alila Cha-Am. Photographed by Kornit Jiapinidnan. Styled by Kampol Likitkanjanakul. Makeup by Natamol Jitthong. Hair by Piboon Jenjaratvan.

Model: Elise Broomfield/Red. Coat by Celine, belt by Fendi, bikini bottom by Emilio Pucci, shoes by Christian Dior.

> 47

55–74 Stylish Traveler

> 81

Ray-Ban Wayfarers, the epitome of cool. BY JOSH PATNER 56 Fashion

35–52 Insider 36 NewsFlash

Aussie wines, the world’s new culinary capital and more.

42 Room Report

Singapore hotel sets a new benchmark for elegance. BY JENNIFER CHEN 44 Books

Asian authors set to take on the world’s literary scene. BY JUNE LEE

True colors at the Alila Cha-Am, Thailand. PLUS: Into the night in Hong Kong.

70 Spotlight

Bamboo gets big in Bali.

BY ELIZABETH WOODSON 71 On the Road

Traveling with hotel entrepreneur Yenn Wong.

74 Beauty

Multitasking products that do double duty. BY NIC SCREWS & ELIZABETH WOODSON

45 Adventure

A luxury stay in South Australia’s rugged outback. BY ADAM BAER

81 Outdoors

Take a hike through Hong Kong’s countryside. BY CHRIS KUCWAY

47 Check-in

Hotel help for your viewing pleasure.

BY SANA BUTLER 49 Five Ways

Mountains, corals and orangutans in Sabah. BY PHIL MACDONALD 50 Where Next

A seaside resort in Cambodia rediscovered. BY RON GLUCKMAN 52 Eat

New additions to Singapore’s culinary scene. BY JENNIFER CHEN 12

81–100 T+L Journal 90 Obsessions

> 96

Why does bad shopping happen to good travelers?

BY LYNN YAEGER 96 Reflections

A family finally finds its way home.

BY JENNIFER CHEN 100 Inns

Ryokans: a changing image to meet modern demands.

BY ALAN BROWN

C L O C K W I S E F R O M FA R L E F T : C O U R T E S Y O F N E W M A J E S T I C H O T E L ; D AV I E S + S TA R R ; G E R H A R D J O R E N ; C O U R T E S Y O F J E N N I F E R C H E N

55 Icon

(Editor’s Note) 02.08

S

PAS HAVE COME A LONG WAY in a short time. No longer just a room set

aside for a backrub, they now come with a range of wellness treatments as well as guidance on everything from nutrition to nurturing your inner self. In this issue, we’ve devoted 28 pages throughout the magazine to this booming tourism niche, leading with Travel + Leisure’s reader survey on the best retreats in the world. It should come as no surprise that Southeast Asia figures highly in the results.

According to research company Intelligent Spas, Thailand—the leader of the pack—boasts close to 600 facilities, while Indonesia has nearly 400. Elsewhere in the magazine, you can read about the historical spa towns of Europe (“Bath Time,” page 85), deep-sea water treatments (“The Big Deep,” page 92), the wellness capital of Thailand (“Hua Hin Havens,” page 118) and the flourishing spa industry

in Vietnam (“Relaxing the Rules,” page 134).

If you’re looking for more challenging ways to unwind, you’ll enjoy our exploration of Hong Kong’s hidden countryside (“Wild Walks,” page 81). This hyper-crowded city encompasses 23 country parks, all offering a chance to escape the bustle. Even further off the beaten track are the Andaman Islands (“Islands Apart,” page 106), which offer a beguiling mix of colonial history, pristine nature and some of the most unspoiled beaches in the region. If you want to go one step further and own a private holiday retreat, then dip into our property buying guide (“A Slice of Paradise,” page 28) for some top T+L tips.

We’re also proud to present our first Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia exclusive.

The Alila resort in Cha-am, Thailand, was a natural choice as a backdrop to our stunning fashion shoot. We were thrilled to be the first magazine in the region to

E-MAIL T+L Send your letters to

tleditor@mediatransasia.com and let us know your thoughts on recent stories or new places to visit in Southeast Asia. Letters chosen may be edited for clarity and space.

16

this exclusive—you can certainly expect more throughout 2008.—MATT LEPPARD TRAVEL + L EISURE EDITORS, WRITERS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS ARE THE INDUSTRY’S MOST RELIABLE SOURCES. WHILE ON ASSIGNMENT, THEY TRAVEL INCOGNITO WHENEVER POSSIBLE AND DO NOT TAKE PRESS TRIPS OR ACCEPT FREE TRAVEL OF ANY KIND.

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C H E N P O VA N O N T

✉

get a sneak peek at this ambitious, design-driven luxury property. I hope you enjoy

IEKJ>;7IJ 7I?7

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF EDITOR-AT-LARGE ART DIRECTOR FEATURES EDITORS

ASSISTANT EDITOR EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Matt Leppard Paul Ehrlich Fah Sakharet Jennifer Chen Phil Macdonald Ellie Brannan Wannapha Nawayon Napamon Roongwitoo Wasinee Chantakorn

CHAIRMAN PRESIDENT PUBLISHING DIRECTOR

J.S. Uberoi Egasith Chotpakditrakul Rasina Uberoi

DESIGNERS

PUBLISHER VICE PRESIDENT / ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGERS CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER PRODUCTION MANAGER PRODUCTION

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Ed Kelly Mark V. Stanich Paul B. Francis Nancy Novogrod Jean-Paul Kyrillos Cara S. David Mark Orwoll Thomas D. Storms Lawrence Chesler

TRAVEL+LEISURE SOUTHEAST ASIA VOL. 2, ISSUE 2 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.

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(Contributors) 02.08

“

Michael Z. Wise Leisa Tyler “Hua Hin is Chris Kucway For the “Beijing is entering a more refi ned than other past 18 years, Kucway, crucial phase,” says the Thai beach resorts,” says a keen hiker, has lived T+L contributing editor Tyler. “The beach is on Hong Kong’s rural (“Beijing Rebuilt,” page lined with rambling Lantau Island. So he 124). “The Chinese are wooden houses built by was the ideal person to constructing a modern Bangkok’s elite.” Tyler tackle the formidable checked out the best spas hills of the SAR’s country landscape while simultaneously trying to the seaside town has to parks (“Wild Walks,” maintain historic offer (“Hua Hin Havens,” page 81). Kucway, from buildings. It will be page 118). AustralianCanada, writes about interesting to see how the born Tyler has lived in and photographs the two efforts balance out.”

Southeast Asia for nine Asia-Pacific, most Wise lives in New York years, contributing to recently as the editor of and writes for The New many publications, Sawasdee, Thai Airways’ York Times. including Travel + Leisure. infl ight magazine.

A B OV E , F RO M TO P : R. I A N L LOY D ; CO U RT ESY O F R. I A N L LOY D ; CO U RT ESY O F J O E YO G E R ST B E L O W, F R O M FA R L E F T : C O U R T E S Y O F L E I S A T Y L E R ; C O U R T E S Y O F C H R I S K U C W AY ; C O U R T E S Y O F M I C H A E L Z . W I S E

It’s like the South Pacific with an Unloading the day’s Indian touch— catch, in the Andamans. cows wandering along an empty beach, a Hindu mystic sitting under a palm tree—mixed metaphors everywhere,” says Joe Yogerst (left) of India’s Andaman Islands (“Islands Apart,” page 106).

Yogerst is back in his native California, after eight years in Asia, writing for National Geographic and the International Herald Tribune. Photographer R. Ian Lloyd found the islands inspiring. “Photographing the Andaman Islands was, by far, my most challenging assignment, but despite my worries, the photographs turned out to be some of my all-time favorites,” says Canadian-born Lloyd, who lived in Asia for more than 25 years before relocating to Sydney in 2003.

His work has appeared in National Geographic, Fortune and TIME.

WHICH SOUTHEAST ASIAN COUNTRIES ARE THE BEST FOR SINGLE WOMEN TO TRAVEL SOLO? —CHARMAINE WAI, SINGAPORE

A:

Southeast Asia is one of the safest places for solo female tourists, says Sarah Wintle, a Melbourne-based Lonely Planet contributor who has traveled extensively on her own. She singles out Laos and Thailand as being particularly welcoming. “It helps that Buddhism is the predominant religion in these countries,” she says.

Still, she has several key tips for women on their own: travel during the day; dress appropriately (i.e., no short shorts or skimpy tops); carry a flashlight in your backpack; check in with family and friends; do your research and avoid places where the sex industry is pervasive (male tourists pose as much of a threat as locals); know when to team up with other women travelers; and above all, be confident.

Where in Southeast Asia is malaria endemic and what’s the best antimalarial drug?

—BETTINA LEE, HONG KONG

With the exception of Singapore and Brunei, malaria—a mosquito-borne disease—is endemic throughout Southeast Asia. That said, it’s not a real risk in Thailand, Malaysia (except for Sabah on Borneo) and major regional cities. But if you’re traveling to the hinterlands of Indonesia, Laos, Burma and Cambodia, starting a course of prophylactics before your holiday is recommended. There isn’t a simple answer as to which antimalarial is best.

But keep in mind that many of these areas have reported strains of malaria that are resistant to chloroquine. Check out the U.S. Centers for Disease Control website for detailed advice on antimalarials (wwwn.cdc.gov). And remember to slather yourself with bug repellant, especially during the day, since dengue fever—a disease transmitted by daytime mosquitoes that thrive in urban environments—is on the rise throughout the region.

What are some of the best-value boutique hotels in the region?

—WILLIAM HOLT, KUALA LUMPUR

In the past five years, there’s been an explosion of boutique hotels throughout Southeast Asia—some of which charge a premium just for being “boutique.”

Still, good deals can be had. Among our favorites is the whimsically named Brassiere Beach, just south of the Thai resort town of Hua Hin (210, Moo 5,

22

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Tamboon Samroiyod, Prachuap Khiri Khan; 66-32/630-555; www.brassierebeach.com; doubles from Bt3,800). It’s a laid-back Mediterranean-inspired hotel (with only nine rooms) on a secluded beach. Also high on our list is the Desa Seni in Bali (13 Jl. Kayu Putih, Pantai Berawa, Canggu; 62-361/844-6392; www.desaseni.com; villas from US$150). Just 10 minutes north of Seminyak, it feels like a whole different world. Surrounded by rice fields, this tranquil resort features 10 refurbished old wooden houses from all over Indonesia, which are laid out like a typical Balinese village.

Where are the cheapest places in Southeast Asia to go and take advantage of the decline in the U.S. dollar?

—ANNE-MARIE SNOPES, BANGKOK

Most currencies in the region have strengthened as the U.S. dollar has weakened, so there is no real gain to be made with a weak greenback. The exceptions are places with currencies pegged to the U.S. dollar. In Southeast Asia, the Hong Kong dollar is the only one (and the Macau pataca, by default, as it is pegged to the Hong Kong dollar). In Cambodia, the greenback circulates freely and prices are often quoted in that currency, so you may have an advantage there.

Also, there are many hotels in Southeast Asia that quote room rates in U.S. dollars, so if you are booking from another country using U.S. dollars, then it may be cheaper than paying in the local currency. ✚

E-MAIL T+L SEND YOUR QUESTIONS TO TLEDITOR @ MEDIATRANSASIA.COM. QUESTIONS CHOSEN FOR PUBLICATION MAY BE EDITED FOR CLARITY AND SPACE .

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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

Q:

(Ask T+L)02.08

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Now, the newest addition to the brand, Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia, is inspiring its readers to experience the world. In each issue, readers can find stunning adventures, cutting-edge style and fashion, sensational hotels, innovative restaurants and the lavish spas that everyone is talking about.

The magazine is an indispensible guide to Southeast Asia. And with award-winning features covering destinations across the globe, from Paris to Patagonia, it is the mustread for today’s cosmopolitan and sophisticated traveler.

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*Terms and conditions: Room nights only for any hotel from the Leading Hotels of the World. Travel to and from the property is not included. Subscriptions need to be submitted before March 31, 2008. Winner will be notiďŹ ed after April 1, 2008 and must use hotel prize before September 30, 2008. Property selected by winner may be different from properties shown. No cash alternative will be given.

(Best Deals) 02.08

The Amandari in Ubud, Bali.

Looking for a few days of indulgence?

Here are six great getaways in Asia ■ INDONESIA The Aman Bali Experience at Amanusa, Amandari and/or Amankila (65/6883-2555; www.amanresorts.com). What’s Included Seven nights at two of the Amanresorts’ Bali hotels; and one specially tailored activity per day, including a morning cruise, a cultural tour, a cooking class or a sunset visit to a Balinese temple. Cost US$4,200, double, through March 31. Savings Up to 28 percent.

■ CHINA The Peking Posh package at The Regent Beijing (86-10/8522-1888; www.regenthotels.com). What’s Included Round-trip airport transfer; an aromatherapy bath; an in-room traditional Chinese massage; a guided tour of the China Red Sandalwood Museum; Regent Lounge privileges, including complimentary afternoon tea, cocktails and hors d’oeuvres; and butler service. Cost US$265, double, through February 28 (three-night minimum stay). Savings Up to 40 percent.

■ CAMBODIA Adventure package at Victoria Angkor Resort & Spa (85-5/6376-0428; www.victoriahotels-asia.com).

What’s Included Two nights’ accommodation; round-trip airport transfer; a welcome lunch; a 26

candlelit dinner; a 30-minute massage per person; and excursions to Angkor Wat and Tonle Sap Lake.

Cost US$262 per person, double, through September 30. Savings Up to 33 percent.

■ HONG KONG The Winter Escapes package at The Peninsula (852/2910-1628; hongkong.peninsula.com). What’s Included A HK$300 gift certificate at The Peninsula Spa; daily fruit basket; complimentary local calls; for rooms, a choice of either an upgrade to a superior suite, a set dinner for two at The Lobby or a 50-minute massage for two at the spa; and for suites, a choice of either an upgrade to a harbor view suite, dinner for two at Gaddi’s or an 80minute massage for two at the spa. Cost HK$4,500 per night, minimum two nights’ stay, double, through February 29. Savings Up to 28 percent.

■ THAILAND Executive Package at the Conrad Bangkok (662/690-9000; conradhotels1.hilton.com). What’s Included Round-trip airport transfer; late checkout; Executive Floor benefits, including afternoon tea and evening cocktails; and complimentary pressing service. Cost Bt8,787, double, through March 31 (minimum two weekend nights). Savings Up to 36 percent.—NAPAMON ROONGWITOO

F E B RUA RY 2 0 0 8| T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E S E A . C O M

THAILAND Suite Dreams package at Le Méridien Phuket Beach Resort (66-76/370-100; www.lemeridien.com/ phuketbeachresort).

What’s Included 50 percent discount on a massage and spa treatment at Le Spa; round-trip airport transfer; and US$200 credit for the resort per stay.

Cost US$239, double, through October 31 (five-night minimum stay). Savings Up to 53 percent.

Le Méridien Phuket’s pool.

F RO M TO P : CO U RT ESY O F A M A N R ES O RTS ; CO U RT ESY O F L E M É R I D I E N P H U K E T B E AC H R ES O RT

DEAL OF THE MONTH

(Strategies) 02.08

The future site of Song Saa Island Resort, Cambodia.

A Slice of Paradise HEN HONG KONG RESIDENT Ian Pollack was looking to buy a holiday villa last year, he found Phuket, Thailand, had some serious advantages: a track record in tourism, good restaurants and infrastructure that was superior to other beach destinations in the region. But, at the end of the day, the British banker was drawn to Vietnam—so much so that he ended up buying two villas in one of Asia’s fastestgrowing economies.

W 28

F E B RUA RY 2 0 0 8| T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E S E A . C O M

Pollack is just one of an increasing number of investors from the West and Asia who are buying into luxury villa complexes being built on oceanfront property across Southeast Asia. In Phuket and Ko Samui, the two largest villa markets in the region, land prices have jumped at least four-fold since the late 1990’s, according to real estate agency Colliers. And the boom in construction—which is happening despite concerns about land ownership laws in the region—isn’t just confined to established markets. »

CO U RT ESY O F B RO CO N G RO U P

Over-the-top villa developments are popping up along Southeast Asia’s coastlines, but which ones are the best bets? DANIEL TEN KATE scopes out the splashiest projects being built. PLUS: How to buy your own private island

strategies | property As Pollack discovered, buyers now enjoy a choice. They can stick to Phuket, or they can park their money in emerging but less-developed locations that offer a more rustic feel and the potential for far greater returns, like Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and even Cambodia.

A bedroom in one of the villas at Cape Yamu.

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F E B RUA RY 2 0 0 8| T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E S E A . C O M

A private view of the sea at a villa in Cape Yamu.

2008 or 2009. “There is probably US$500 million worth of resort housing under construction,” says Rick Mayo-Smith, managing director of Indochina Capital, a Saigon-based property development firm that was behind The Nam Hai. “It’s a whole brand-new market.”

PHUKET While Danang is certainly the fastest-growing luxury housing market in the region, it still has a long way to go to catch up with Phuket. “Phuket is the pinnacle of the [beach villa] market in Southeast Asia,” says David Simister, chairman of property consultant CB Richard Ellis Thailand. “That position is pretty much unassailable.”

There’s plenty of evidence to back Simister’s view: more and more high-end projects are being built in Phuket, and developers are expanding to nearby areas like Phang Nga province to the north and Krabi to the south. Among the high-profile villa projects in Phuket to be completed in the next few years are the super-luxury Raffles Resort Phang Nga, Taj Exotica by the Indian luxury hotel chain, Jumeirah Private Island from the Dubai-based hotel and resort group, and, finally, Cape Yamu, Zecha’s latest project that has Philippe Starck on board as the interior designer.

Thailand’s premier resort destination did lose some of its luster after the army staged a coup in September 2006 and installed a provisional government that quickly tried to tighten the country’s foreign ownership laws. Legally, foreigners aren’t allowed to own land in Thailand, but many have gotten around that rule by buying land through a

C O U R T E S Y O F C A M P B E L L K A N E ( T H A I L A N D ) LT D . ( 2 )

VIETNAM Vietnam has been attracting a great deal of interest from those seeking second homes, partly because of the untouched beauty of its beaches and mountains, but also because of the excitement surrounding the Vietnamese economy. Pollack believes his decision to buy there was a financially savvy one. “The upside of Phuket is less than Vietnam,” he says. “From an investor’s point of view, Vietnam’s growth story has been well written.” He reckons his new villa on China Beach in Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage site in central Vietnam, could bring in rental returns of 5 to 7 percent per year, plus capital appreciation that is two to five times that of villas in Phuket.

Pollack’s bullishness has some basis. For starters, his new villa is part of The Nam Hai resort, which also contains Vietnam’s first luxury private villa complex. The development has an impressive pedigree: it was designed

by French architect Reda Amalou and Indonesian interior designer Jaya Ibrahim (who also designed The Chedi Milan), and is managed by Amanresorts founder Adrian Zecha. The government is also actively courting the international market for holiday homes; it recently loosened foreign investment laws on property, though foreigners still can’t directly own land. Officials also have big plans for Vietnam’s coastline, particularly in Danang province, which neighbors Hoi An. With government blessing, five major international hotel chains—Raffles, Four Seasons, InterContinental, Sofitel and Hyatt—all have projects under construction in the province.

Both the Raffles and Hyatt resorts will include private holiday villas. Elsewhere in Vietnam, other luxury villa developments are planned for Nha Trang, Ho Tram and Phu Quoc Island, most of which will be completed in late

nominally Thai-owned company. The political uncertainty has all but ended freehold villa sales to foreigners; now nearly all sales are leasehold.

BALI Many countries in Southeast Asia forbid outright foreign ownership of land—restrictions that real estate developers soften with long-term leases. In Thailand, villa buyers can secure 30-year renewable leases, while Vietnam offers renewable 50-year leases. And though it’s long played host to foreigners, Bali for years was notorious for its shaky property

ownership rules; lease agreements between landowners and foreigners are not officially recognized, which often leads to tangled disputes. Still, recognizing the potential windfall from the mushrooming holiday villa market, the Indonesian government is trying to make it easier for foreigners to own property. Villas at two projects under construction, Wabi Umalas and LIV Bali on Jimbaran Bay, can be bought using a government-sanctioned title that effectively gives foreigners 100-year leases. So far, the approach seems to be working.

Australian Russell McDonald, who just bought a fourbedroom villa at Wabi Umalas, says the legal process »

Asia’s Best Villas PROPERTY

PEDIGREE

SPECS

PRICE TAG

Cape Yamu, Phuket, www.capeyamu.com

Designed by Philippe Starck and Jean-Michel Gathy

32 villas on the island’s east coast; expected to be finished by early 2009

US$2–US$2.5 million

Raffles Phang Nga, Phuket, www.phuket.raffles.com

Built by Kingdom Hotel Investments, controlled by Prince Al-Walid of the Saudi royal family

24 residential villas on the Andaman Sea along with a 120room resort that features an 80,000-square-meter freshwater lake; expected to open in 2009

US$3 million and up

Jumeirah Private Island,

Global hotel and resort firm Jumeirah

105 deluxe pool villas, 19 residential estates, 30 private residences and a 101-berth marina on a small island in Phang Nga Bay; to be completed in 2009

US$3 million and up

Six Senses Hideaway Con Dao, Con Son Island, Vietnam,

Managed by Six Senses, which operates resorts and spas in Thailand, Maldives and Vietnam

16 luxury villas set in a national park, 180 kilometers off the coast of southeast Vietnam on the largest island of the Con Dao archipelago; expected to be completed in December 2008

US$1.5–US$2.5 million

Sanctuary, Ho Tram, Vietnam

Built by Refico, a Vietnamese boutique property developer

Located between Vung Tao and Phan Tiet on the South China Sea, about 135 kilometers from Ho Chi Minh City, this development features a boutique resort and 67 luxury villas with waterfront views; 20 more villas will be completed in 2010

US$500,000–US$1.6 million

Wabi Umalas, Bali,

Designed by Bali-based Gfab Architects, which designed the Foreign Correspondents Club in Siem Reap

9 luxury villas set in the rice fields of Bali’s Umalas district with sweeping views of nearby volcanoes, 15-meter pools and full resort services; to be completed in early 2009

US$425,000–US$575,000

The 8, Sabah, Malaysia,

Funded by Malaysian developer Alan Wong

11 one-story beachfront villas, 8 two-story beach-view villas and 4 ocean-view penthouses accompanying a high-end boutique hotel; to be completed in early 2010

US$200,000 and up; 70 percent financing for foreigners

Song Saa Island Resort,

Developed by an Australian-run company; negotiations with a major resort brand to manage the property are under way

5 private villas in the Gulf of Thailand, next to a luxury hotel; to be completed in 2009

US$2.5–US$3 million

Phuket, www.tgr-asia.com

www.sixsenses.com

www.sanctuary.com.vn

www.thewabi.com

www.clairebrownrealty.com

Sihanoukville, Cambodia, www.brocongroup.com

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strategies | property

MALAYSIA Malaysia is one of the few countries in the region that does allow foreign land ownership. It also sweetens deals by offering foreign buyers local financing and 10-year visas after a fixed deposit of up to RM300,000. While buyers have so far only trickled into Malaysia, several new projects in Borneo could spark a surge of interest. The Kudat Rivieria, The 8 and Nexus Residence offer high-end villas in Sabah State, all located about 30 minutes from Kota Kinabalu airport. Since local authorities tightly control development, the area will remain pristine, says Claire Brown, founder of Claire Brown Realty, which is marketing the Kudat Rivieria and The 8. “If you want to build an ugly, low-class, nasty development, you won’t be able to,” she says.

CAMBODIA If you’re looking for something really different, consider Cambodia. Last year, the government began offering concessions for developers to build on islands off the port of Sihanoukville. Brocon Group, a developer, plans to build Song Saa Island Resort,

spanning two small islands, which will feature five three-bedroom villas for about US$3 million each.

Brocon has a 99-year concession from the government, and investors can then sublease the villas from the company, making the investment as secure as anywhere.

“A villa in Phuket won’t be much different from where a buyer just left from,” says Rory Hunter, Brocon’s CEO. “Cambodia is more adventurous, more remote, but with the same luxury.”

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Solitude for Sale Richard Branson and Mel Gibson are just a few of the rich and famous who own private islands.

But these days, you don’t have to be a maverick entrepreneur or even a big spender to rule your own little realm. By CARMEN ROBERTS Temptation Island, off Phuket.

O YOU’VE GOT THE LUXURY YACHT , fleet of convertible sports cars and holiday villa in the Caribbean. But before blowing your money on the latest big-ticket gadget or “It’” bag, have you ever thought about buying your own private tropical island?

Once viewed as the privilege of eccentric, wealthy recluses (think Marlon Brando cavorting on his island in French Polynesia), the solitude and tranquility of island life is something that’s appealing to an increasing number of Asian investors—in spite of often tricky legal terrains. “The market in the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand has experienced massive growth in the last 10 years,” says Southeast Asian island broker, Cheyenne Morrison from Coldwell Banker Private Islands.

Indeed, these days, you don’t have to be a multimillionaire to lay claim to your own island paradise. Despite listing Middle East crown princes, Hollywood actors and Fortune 500 CEO’s among his clientele, Morrison notes that the majority of buyers are simply shrewd investors. “I once sold three islands in the Philippines for less than US$200,000 to an American restaurant critic,” he recalls.

Morrison, however, urges prospective buyers to do their homework first. Most Asian countries have strict regulations on foreign ownership and development. As a general rule, foreigners can only invest in islands through a long-term lease or by forming a corporation. Many brokers will also recommend renting an island first. That way, potential buyers can get a real feel for the environment. ✚

S

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F R O M T O P : C O U R T E S Y O F C O L D W E L L B A N K E R P R I VAT E I S L A N D S ; C O U R T E S Y O F B R O C O N G R O U P

was relatively straightforward. “Actually, I didn’t find it too much more complicated than Australia,” he adds.

Isles on the Block Q PHILIPPINES What’s for sale Romblon Island, a 4.5-

hectare island that is a 90-minute boat ride from Boracay.

Price tag US$900,000 Selling points Romblon Island has a house with a separate guesthouse; both have power and sewage.

Drawbacks There’s no desalination plant, though there are two rainwater storage tanks that provide up to four months’ supply of water.

Q MALAYSIA What’s for sale Pulau Rusukan Besar,

C O U R T E S Y O F C O L D W E L L B A N K E R P R I VAT E I S L A N D S

2 kilometers off the island of Labuan; Pulau Montukod located off Sabah State, on Borneo.

Price tag Pulau Rusukan Besar, RM10 million; Pulau Montukod, RM35 million.

Selling points There are four shipwrecks off the coast of Pulau Rusukan Besar, making it ideal for a dive resort. Pulau Montukod has

CHECKLIST FOR PROSPECTIVE ISLAND BUYERS

majestic views of the Kota Kinabalu.

Drawbacks Pulau Rusukan Besar doesn’t have any buildings or desalination facilities. Also, you can’t buy a freehold for Pulau Montukod.

1 The island must not be too far from the mainland or other

Q THAILAND What’s for sale Temptation Island,

populated islands.

just off the coast of Phuket; a property consisting of two islands off the coast of Ko Samui and a piece of land on Ko Samui, directly opposite the two islands.

Price tag Temptation Island, US$23 million; Ko Samui property, US$9 million.

Selling points Temptation Island houses a three-star resort.

Drawbacks The resort on Temptation Island needs renovation and upgrading, including a desalination plant. The islands off Ko Samui aren’t all that private: you can walk to them from the mainland during low tide.

ownership is clearly determined

2 Ensure that property and recorded with the country’s land registry office.

3 Drinking water must be available on the island.

4 Ensure that the island is suitable for development.

Desalination plants can often cost as much as the island itself. Electricity is another priority and even if you do get electricity installed, you aren’t guaranteed a reliable supply.

5 The host country must be politically stable.

Source: Vladi Private Islands

Source: Coldwell Banker Private Islands

The resort on Temptation Island, off Phuket.

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INDULGE YOURSELF

FEBRUARY 2008

SPA SPECIAL

80

LUXURY RETREATS YOU LOVE

Andamans

Untamed, unspoiled, undiscovered

Hong Kong Taking a walk on the wild side

travelandleisuresea.com SINGAPORE SG$6.90 ● HONG KONG HK$39 THAILAND THB160 ● INDONESIA IDR45,000 MALAYSIA MYR15 ● VIETNAM VND80,000 MACAU MOP40 ● PHILIPPINES PHP220 BURMA MMK32 ● CAMBODIA KHR20,000 BRUNEI BND6.90 ● LAOS LAK48,000

FASHION EXCLUSIVE Inside the region’s hottest new resort

+

BUYER’S GUIDE TO TROPICAL PROPERTIES

NOW IN SOUTHEAST ASIA THE WORLD’S LEADING TRAVEL MAGAZINE www.travelandleisuresea.com/subscribe

Dining out in Singapore.

Our guide to the best new restaurants in the Lion City <(page 52)

Asia’s Riviera.

A onceforgotten beach town is revived in Cambodia (page 50) >

Toast of the town: an exclusive look at the new St. Regis <(page 42)

+

• Hong Kong’s premier arts festival • Tailor-made tours by four hotels • Asian novelists on the rise

(Insider) Photo credit by tktktk

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

Off the beaten track. Take a break at a luxury eco-resort in Australia <(page 45)

Where to GoWhat to EatWhere to StayWhat to Buy

FEB MROUNATRHY 2 0 0 7 | T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M

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insider

| newsflash WINE

Australia’s Next Wine Country

The Yarra Valley, 48 kilometers northeast of Melbourne, is to that city what the Hunter Valley is to Sydney: a highly touted oenophile’s paradise—known for its top-of-the-class Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs— that’s a favored day-trip destination. Here are three noteworthy stops in and around Healesville, Yarra’s unofficial capital.

EAT AND DRINK Sample local vintages at Giant Steps/Innocent Bystander Winery (336 Maroondah Hwy., Healesville; 61-3/5962-6111), a new, modern wine-making operation complete with in-house bakery and restaurant. Unexpected global dishes— Tastes of Yarra Clockwise tagine of whole chicken with pearl barley and from above: Fresh bread on offer; Giant Steps/Innocent pomegranate—are paired with well-balanced wines Bystander Winery; wines at produced from grapes grown on the surrounding the tasting counter.

335-meter-high slopes.

EXPLORE Take a mini-safari: head to the Healesville Sanctuary (Badger Creek Rd.; 613/5957-2800) to view dingoes, koalas and kangaroos in their natural habitat.

VISIT Admire the early Modernist paintings at the TarraWarra Museum of Art (311 Healesville–Yarra Glen Rd.; 61-3/5957-3100).

The canvases are hung between floor-toceiling windows with sweeping views of the adjoining vineyards.—REBECCA ROKE

Media storage devices serve as portable digital storage bins for photographers faced with full memory cards. These pocketsized gadgets siphon images from your memory card for later transfer to a PC. At TECH around US$1,000, the Canon M80 is for gadget buffs or pros. Its 80-gigabyte hard drive means you’ll never run out of space. It’s compact (14 centimeters by 8 centimeters by 3.3 centimeters) and weighs 370 grams, giving it an assured

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sturdiness. The device supports JPEG, TIFF and Canon RAW picture files, displayed on an exceptionally sharp, 9-centimeter LCD. A lot more utilitarian—and at around US$180, a lot less expensive—is the SmartDisk PhotoBank.

No bells and whistles here: the device’s LCD is a simple status indicator.

This means

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you can’t view, edit or categorize your stored images. Still, it has a healthy 40 gigabytes of memory encased in a strong, 262-gram, palm-sized (11.5 centimeters by 7.8 centimeters by 2.5 centimeters) package. It’s also simple to use, making it an attractive and affordable alternative to carrying a load of extra memory cards.—PHIL MACDONALD

F RO M TO P : E A R L CA RT E R ( 3 ) ; CO U RT ESY O F CA N O N

THANKS FOR THE MEMORY

insider

| newsflash

E AT

Opulence in The Hotel Book: Great Escapes Asia.

BOOKS

The Stuff of Dreams Most journeys take time, but The Hotel Book: Great Escapes Asia (Taschen; £24.99) can transport you instantly to your chosen destination.

This gorgeous picture book of some of the most spectacular getaways in Asia would tempt even the most jaded traveler. The unique interiors and stunning surroundings look almost like Hollywood sets: a 19th-century marble-inlaid palace with individually furnished Art Deco rooms; a luxury lodge 25 meters above the rain-forest floor; a private tropical island paradise.

The book isn’t just a repository for daydreams—prices, contact information and directions are also provided. And because reading and retreats go together, books are suggested for each destination. Shakespeare, who never ventured far except in his imagination, once wrote: “When I was home, I was in a better place; but travelers must be content.” Had he read this book, he might have been persuaded to call his travel agent.—PAUL EHRLICH 38

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The results are in: Tokyo—not Paris—is the fine-dining capital of the world.

That’s according to the notoriously finicky Michelin Guides, the French gastronomic guidebook series, which unveiled its new Tokyo edition late last year. Michelin’s team of five undercover inspectors—three Europeans and two Japanese—awarded a total of 191 stars to 150 Tokyo establishments, almost three times as many as Paris. Indeed, there is such an abundance of great restaurants in the Japanese capital that every eatery included in the guide has earned at least one star—a first among the cities that Michelin covers. What’s the secret behind Tokyo’s culinary achievements?

According to Jean-Luc Naret, the director of the Michelin Guides, it’s the ranks of homegrown gourmands who demand excellence: “[Tokyo is] a city where fine dining is an integral part of the culture.”

There’s something to Naret’s point: within 48 hours, 90,000 copies of the Japaneselanguage edition of the guide were sold in Tokyo. Michelin plans to anoint a second Asian city worthy of its own guidebook sometime this year.

Restaurant Joël Robuchon, one of Michelin’s top picks.

L E F T C O L U M N : C O U R T E SY O F TA S C H E N ( 2 ) . R I G H T C O L U M N : C O U R T E SY O F R E S TA U R A N T J O Ë L R O B U C H O N

The World’s New Culinary Capital

insider

| newsflash Pina Bausch’s dancers.

Below: Ornette Coleman.

FESTIVAL

Performing arts festivals are increasingly popular in Asia, but this year’s Hong Kong Arts Festival (February 14 to March 16; www.hk.artsfestival.org; tickets from HK$80) has the lineup to beat.

Eclectic and wide-ranging, the program promises appearances by legendary performers such as American jazzman Ornette Coleman, British–Hungarian classical pianist András Schiff and German modern dance revolutionary Pina Bausch (her work was memorably featured in Pedro Almodóvar’s 2002 film, Talk to Her). Classical music fans can also enjoy concerts with two of the world’s best orchestras: the New York Philharmonic led by Lorin Mazel and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with its newly appointed principal conductor, Vladimir Jurowski—a 34-year-old Russian known for his bold, imaginative interpretations of Tchaikovsky and

WHEELS

Shostakovich. Theater buffs, meanwhile, will rejoice over the plays on offer, including visionary British director Peter Brooks’ staging of five short pieces by Samuel Beckett and Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder performed in Mandarin. For a more local flavor, check out the performances of classical Chinese opera by the Peking Opera House and Hong Kong composer Ng Cheuk-yin’s modern renderings of traditional melodies.

Reserve tickets now—with such world-class artists on offer, shows are guaranteed to sell out.

Born to be Wild

Need to get somewhere in a hurry in Bangkok? Any local will tell you to give cabs and tuk-tuks a miss and get on the back of one of the city’s ubiquitous motorcycle taxis. Though one of the zippiest ways to get around traffic-plagued Bangkok, a ride on a motorcycle taxi can be hair-raising, to say the least.

If heart palpitations don’t appeal but you still need to get somewhere fast, the Conrad Bangkok (87 Wireless Road; 66-2/690-9999; conradhotels1.hilton.com) now offers to ferry its guests on one of its two new, gleaming scooters (playfully called the Easy Riders)—helmets and cautious drivers included. Trips start at Bt30.

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

Music, Maestro

HOTEL

CO U RT ESY O F LOV E N RA M OS

Be Yourself Two years ago, American hotelier Martin Dishman introduced the concept of a one-room hotel to Siem Reap with The One Hotel Angkor. He’s back, this time with three rooms in the just-opened Hotel Be (The Passage in the Old Market Area, Siem Reap; 415/992-5431 or 855-12/755-311; www.hotelbeangkor. com; doubles from US$95). Right next door to The One, the new property is located in a three-story shophouse. Guest rooms, which average 37 square meters, take up the second and third floors; two of the rooms include private rooftop terraces. As with The One, a great deal of attention has been paid to design, with an emphasis on natural materials. Each guest room also showcases a different local artist. Make sure to check out

A guest room at Hotel Be.

the Bamboo Room, which features the work of Cambodian–American artist Sopheap Pich, who creates beguiling sculptures out of rattan and bamboo. In fact, Hotel Be makes up what is perhaps the most stylish corner in Siem Reap:

the Hotel de la Paix’s new restaurant/wine bar is on the ground floor; the male-oriented Linga Spa occupies part of the second floor; and next door, photographer John McDermott has unveiled a new art gallery.

insider | room report

Talk of the Town. The first major international hotel in Singapore to open in more than a decade, the St. Regis seeks to set new standards in service and luxury. JENNIFER CHEN checks in to see if it lives up to its legendary name

Singapore’s Finest Clockwise from top left: Tasty offerings from the St. Regis; a sculpture by artist Li Chen outside of the hotel; a marbled bathroom; the hotel’s pool; a St. Regis guest room.

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THE OVERVIEW Even before it opened late last December, the St. Regis Hotel, Singapore was one of Asia’s most talked about hotels. The first St. Regis in Southeast Asia—and the 14th in the world—this property is part of Starwood’s push to expand its super-luxury brand internationally; over the next three years, 14 more hotels under the St. Regis banner are expected to open, including properties in Bangkok, Bali, Macau, Osaka and Lhasa. With its monied, Old World atmosphere and emphasis on bespoke service,

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the 299-room St. Regis seriously raises the stakes in this city’s already crowded luxury accomodations market. The hotel is also a pioneer in other ways: some of its rooms are specially designed for wheelchair-bound guests, making the hotel a praiseworthy exception in a continent that’s inhospitable to the disabled.

29 Tanglin Rd.; 65/6506-6888; www.stregis.com/ singapore; doubles from S$680.

THE AREA Located on Tanglin Road, the St. Regis is close enough to Orchard Road—

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

SINGAPORE

Singapore’s most famous shopping district—to make it a pleasant 10-minute stroll to the MRT station and some of the city’s sleekest malls. But it’s also far enough away from the crowds of shoppers who flock to Orchard Road on the weekends.

THE DESIGN Outside, the St. Regis is the picture of modernity with its metal-clad rotunda and gleaming glass towers. But the interiors—designed by acclaimed Dallasbased firm Wilson & Associates—hark back to the opulence of the original Beaux Arts St. Regis in New York. The lobby is filled with Chinoiserie and glittering hand-cut crystal chandeliers from the Czech Republic. While decorated with Regency-style chairs, handpainted silk panels and plenty of French marble, the rooms display more modern flourishes, such as Philippe Starck–like plexiglass tables. But the overall feeling is very haute bourgeois—somewhere between an Upper East Side townhouse and the set of one of Luis Buñuel’s films from the 1970’s.

C O U R T E S Y O F S T. R E G I S , S I N G A P O R E

THE EXECUTIVE DELUXE SUITE At 75 square meters, the Executive Deluxe Suite provides plenty of space for a couple. Its European décor makes for a refreshing change from the usual Asian minimalism overload, while the king-sized Sealy Posturepedic bed ensures a good night’s sleep. The suite also abounds with thoughtful touches: an electrical outlet in the safe so guests can charge their laptops; a potpourri sachet in the closet; two different types of bathrobes for each guest; and a well-stocked drinks cabinet with an assortment of glasses (including brandy snifters and champagne flutes). By the bed is a master panel for the lights (the bathroom light glows blue at night); there’s also a remote control for the curtains.

THE BATHROOM Generously sized, the bathroom boasts marble floors and sinks, fixtures imported from France, a large soaking tub with a caddy and flat-screen television adjacent, and a separate shower room with a variety of options (rain, Swedish and power). Toiletries are all sourced from the hotel’s Remède Spa. We initially thought there were a few too many mirrors for our taste, until we noticed they were heated—a

welcome relief from the chilly marble. In our suite, there was also a separate washroom.

The living room of the Executive Deluxe Suite at the St. Regis.

THE SERVICE The St. Regis prides itself on service that goes above and beyond the call of duty. We certainly witnessed that philosophy in action. Each floor has an around-the-clock butler service with impeccably trained butlers who speak a variety of languages, including French, Spanish, Japanese, Malay and Mandarin. Throughout the hotel, the staff is helpful and informative. Staffers have also been trained in the art of magically anticipating your needs. Our night butler—at his own volition—delivered two lens cleaners for our eyeglasses. At breakfast the next morning, after we requested two more cappuccinos, our server replied, “We’re making them for you right now.”

THE AMENITIES All the facilities expected from a super-luxury hotel are accounted for: an outdoor swimming pool; a well-equipped gym; an indoor tennis court; three restaurants and two bars; and, finally, a stateof-the-art spa with seven treatment rooms, a Vichy shower room, a cedarwood sauna and a marble-filled steam chamber. Extra services include babysitters, secretaries, and computer and mobile phone rental. Besides a fleet of Mercedes sedans, the hotel also has three Bentley limousines to ferry guests around in style.

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

T+L TIP The hotel has an impressive art collection, including paintings

by Joan Miró, Fernand Léger and Marc Chagall as well as a sculpture

by Colombian Fernando Botero.

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| bookshelf

Voices from Asia. Coming to a bookstore near you, four authors from the region are poised to take the international literary scene by storm.

By JUNE LEE

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ORN AND RAISED IN THE SMALL MALAYSIAN TOWN OF TAMPIN, Chiew-siah

B

Tei, 44, is poised to nab the limelight with Little Hut of Leaping Fishes (Picador Asia, June), a lavish historical tale of sibling rivalry set in late 19th-century China. Tei is also an accomplished prose stylist in Chinese and a playwright; the new book will be her first in English. Q Causing a serious buzz among the literati in London and New York is Paris-based Guo Xiaolu’s 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth (Chatto and Windus, January), which charts the trials and travails of a fi lm extra in modern Beijing. Raised in a fishing village in southern China, Guo, 34, moved to London in 2002 to pursue her career as a fi lmmaker, but found her true forte in fiction. A previous novel—the sharply written comedy, A Concise Chinese–English Dictionary for Lovers—was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2007. Q London-based Tash Aw’s debut novel, Harmony Silk Factory (Fourth Estate), proved to be a critical and commercial hit when it was published in 2005. The 34-year-old Malaysia-reared author—who displayed a gift for mimicry in his first book—is now working on a sophomore effort, expected in 2008. Given the anticipation, Aw, as of press time, was reluctant to reveal much about the novel, including its title and publisher. Q Though older than the others, Jiang Rong—the nom de plume of a 61-year-old publicity-shy political scientist—became a literary sensation when his debut novel, Wolf Totem (Penguin, March), was first published in 2004. Set in Inner Mongolia and partly based on Jiang’s own experiences in the Elun grasslands during the Cultural Revolution, the novel tells the story of a young Chinese intellectual’s time among the region’s nomadic herdsmen, and the social and environmental devastation wrought by China’s ethnic Han majority. The original Chinese version, which won the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize, sold 2 million legitimate copies (and millions more pirated ones), while New Zealand fi lmmaker Peter Jackson bought the movie rights to the book. ✚

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F R O M L E F T: C O U R T E SY O F P I C A D O R A S I A , C H AT T O A N D W I N D U S , H A R P E R P E R E N N I A L , P E N G U I N

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adventure | Q WHAT IT IS Just a few hours north of Adelaide, the 950-square-kilometer Flinders Ranges National Park encompasses 1,118-meter-high peaks, cavernous gorges of craggy mudstone and shale, and wildlifespotted plains. In the center of the park, 650-million-year-old fossils can be found in Wilpena Pound, a 8,093hectare quartzite amphitheater. This is an ideal outback escape for the adventurous: real Earth, untarnished.

Q THE HOME BASE In 2006, Tony Smith, whose grandfather farmed here in the 19th century, opened a luxury eco-retreat within Rawnsley Park Station (61-8/8648-0030; www.rawnsleypark.

com, doubles from US$280), a former sheep-shearing outpost that’s now a 3,035-hectare natural playground.

Constructed with recycled timber, the four freestanding villas blend seamlessly into the sunrise-hued mountains. And there’s no need to rough it to experience the heart of bush country: guest rooms have Aboriginal paintings, flat-screen TV’s and retractable canvas ceilings that open to starry skies. At the Woolshed Restaurant (61-8/8648-0126; dinner for two US$70), be sure to try a redkangaroo steak, paired with a Shiraz from the nearby Barossa Valley.

Q THE BEST THRILLS FOR BEGINNERS Hike Seven marked trails, with routes

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that take from 30 minutes to five hours, start at Rawnsley Park Station.

The resort’s helpful staff is on hand with trail advice and detailed maps for your walkabout. The 2½-hour Pine Caves loop leads up a moderately steep path, across shallow Kangaroo Creek, and through thick pockets of native pine, before reaching a rocky hollow at the top of the Ulowdna Range. Look for giant red kangaroos, euros (a squat, stocky ’roo), Western Greys hopping upright and the famously quick emus. At Akaroo Rock (a two-hour trek from Rawnsley), you’ll find Aboriginal cave drawings in ochre and charcoal that depict the creation of Wilpena Pound.

Fly For sweeping views of Lake Eyre (Australia’s largest salt lake) and »

Flinders Keepers. A luxury retreat in South Australia’s outback lets eco-adventurers—of all levels and abilities—get off the grid in style. By ADAM BAER Wilpena Pound in Flinders Ranges National Park.

CO U RT ESY O F T H E S O U T H AU ST RA L I A N TO U R I S M CO M M I SS I O N

AUSTRALIA

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| adventure

Brachina Gorge (the backbone of Flinders) from 1,676 meters, book a 20-minute, six-seater plane trip with Central Air Services (reserve through Rawnsley Park Station; from US$85).

Down Under the Radar Clockwise from left: A bedroom inside Rawnsley Park Station; a rock climber tackles Moonarie Gap; a villa in the eco-retreat.

FOR MIDDLEWEIGHTS Ride Rawnsley’s experienced guides will help you saddle up (from US$50) on one of the station’s 10 horses.

Diesel, the big bay lead gelding, is a gentle and reliable steed. Or go desert-style with a saddleswaying camel ride from Pichi Richi Camel Tours (61-8/86486640; www.pichirichicameltours.com; from US$23).

Bike With more than 800 kilometers of backroads and forest tracks, the Mawson Trail stretches from the Flinders Ranges into the Barossa wine valley. At Wilpena Pound, the trail becomes especially scenic and challenging—a blend of viscous bitumen and short-but-steep dirt portions. You’ll need a good map—Bicycle SA has the most comprehensive (www.bikesa.asn.au).

Mountain bikes are available

for hire at Rawnsley Park (half-day rentals US$30).

FOR ADRENALINE JUNKIES Drive Indiana Jones types with a hankering to get off-road can go on a four-wheeler tour along river gumlined creeks, bluebush plains and travertine walls with Wallaby Track Adventure Tours (61-8/8648-6655; full days US$119). At Bunyeroo, see Ediacaran fossils of the first marine animals.

Climb Experienced rock climbers cling to the 152-meter orange sandstone face at Moonarie, on the southeastern rim of the Pound,

a 10-minute drive from Rawnsley.

Pick up gear in Adelaide at Paddy Pallin (61-8/8232-3155; www. paddypallin.com), and talk to the pros at the South Australia Climbing Club (www. climbingclubsouthaustralia.asn.au) for tips on the best spots to clip in. ✚

GUIDE TO FLINDERS RANGES DESTINATION: Rawnsley Park Station, Flinders Ranges, South Australia GO FROM: Adelaide TRAVEL TIME: Driving takes 4 1/2 hours (430 kilometers).

GETTING THERE: Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines fly direct to Adelaide.

Qantas and Malaysian Airlines offer flights through Sydney. Rent a car at the airport, or take a one-hour chartered flight from Adelaide to Rawnsley with Central Air Services (reserve through Rawnsley Park Station; from US$3,378).

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C L O C K W I S E F R O M B O T T O M : C O U R T E SY O F R AW N S L E Y PA R K S TAT I O N ( 2 ) ; C O U R T E SY O F T H E S O U T H A U S T R A L I A N T O U R I S M C O M M I S S I O N

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check-in | insider

Private Viewing. Sightseeing in Asia often means huge crowds and long queues. Here are four hotels in the region that help you beat daily mob scenes by arranging private performances and tours of museums and galleries. By SANA BUTLER

F RO M L E F T: CO U RT ESY O F A M A N R ES O RTS ; CO U RT ESY O F S O F I T E L M E T RO P O L E

Bespoke Angkor Above: The Sofitel Metropole, in Hanoi.

Left: A picnic among Angkor’s ruins.

AMANSARA, SIEM REAP Nearby the Angkor temples, the government stores more than 6,000 priceless statues and other relics for safekeeping and research in a separate building that is usually off-limits to the public. Fewer than 200 scholars and visitors a year are allowed access—and you can be one of them, thanks to the Amansara. Like a scene out of the Indiana Jones movies, a private guide escorts Amansara guests into the warehouse for a close-up view of the sandstone inscriptions and sculptures from the 12th-century ruins. And if you’re really eager to experience the full majesty of the temples in private,

the hotel can organize an exclusive tour with an archaeologist followed by dinner under the towering edifices— long after the roughly 5,000 visitors who flock to Angkor daily have gone home. Advance booking for both is essential. Road to Angkor; 855-63/760333; www.amansara.com; suites from US$700; warehouse tour for free, custom tours of Angkor with dinner US$85 per person.

SOFITEL METROPOLE, HANOI A perennial favorite, the show at the Thang Long Water Puppet Theater always draws admiring and bewildered gasps from the audience.

During the show, intricately carved life-size puppets emerge from a pool of water—the surface acts as a stage—to depict 10th-century folktales. With the Sofitel Metropole, you can learn the ancient trade secrets of the puppetry techniques. It’s well known that the wooden dolls are controlled by wet suit–clad puppeteers, who stand in waist-deep water behind the curtains and use submerged rods and wires.

But how they manipulate the puppets was once a fiercely guarded secret.

With one of the 14 puppeteers as a guide, you can pick your favorite doll from the storage room and try your hand at the intricate maneuvers »

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of this age-old craft. 15 Ngo Quyen St.; 84-4/826-6919; www.accorhotels.com; doubles from US$350; backstage passes US$55 per person.

NEW MAJESTIC HOTEL, SINGAPORE Get in touch with your inner child and spend the night with more than 50,000 toys housed inside Singapore’s first toy museum, the Moment of Imagination and Nostalgia with Toys Museum (MINT). The equally

A guest room at New Majestic Hotel.

com; doubles from US$150; dinner from US$88 per person, floor rental from US$2,200 per floor for 3½ hours or from US$4,000 for the entire museum for the night.

ST. REGIS, SHANGHAI Shanghai’s art scene is fast challenging Beijing’s supremacy in China’s contemporary art world. If you’re keen to explore the city’s art scene, the expertly trained butlers at the St. Regis can arrange and escort you to galleries and museums, such as the landmark ShanghART, after hours or to advance previews of upcoming exhibits at the city’s first contemporary art and design museum, Shanghai MOCA. The Chinese Shanghai Surprise Clockwise from right: The St. Regis in Shanghai at dusk; inside the St. Regis; art on the walls of New Majestic Hotel in Singapore; Betty Boop at MINT.

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Painting Academy, a fine arts institute

of highly acclaimed master painters and rising new stars, is off-limits to the public but opens its doors to the hotel for shows long before works appear in public. With more than 100 artists in its little black book, the hotel can also send you images of the type of artwork you might be interested in and take you to artists’ homes for private viewings.

889 Dong Fang Rd., Pudong; 86-21/50504567; www.stregis.com/shanghai; doubles from US$445; service is free.

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 N E W M A J E S T I C H O T E L ; C O U R T E S Y O F S T. R E G I S , S H A N G H A I ( 2 ) ; C O U R T E S Y O F N E W M A J E S T I C H O T E L ; C O U R T E S Y O F M I N T

quirky and charming New Majestic Hotel has launched a new dining program that features after-hours access to the five-story treasure trove of vintage playthings. The museum is the brainchild of a local toy fanatic who amassed his collection, valued at US$5 million, from some 25 countries.

Children can roam free as nostalgic parents take a tour led by the museum’s curator. Dinner for adults is served by candlelight on the fourth floor, among the action figures, while children chow on chicken fingers on the fifth floor, where the robots are found. Serious toy mavens also have the option of renting a floor or the entire museum for the night. 31–37 Bukit Pasoh Rd.; 65/6511-4700; www.newmajestichotel.

five ways | insider

Borneo Bound. In Sabah, you can climb Southeast Asia’s highest mountain, go diving off legendary Sidapan Island and have a one-of-kind encounter with orangutans. By PHIL MACDONALD MALAYSIA

1 ADVENTURE Climbing Mount Kinabalu.

Trek to the summit of Southeast Asia’s tallest mountain, the 4,095meter Mount Kinabalu, the towering centerpiece of UNESCO World Heritage site, Kinabalu National Park, which is renowned for its stunning ecological diversity. You’ll need to stay on the mountain for at least one night, and a guide and permit are needed. Arrange the trip through Sutera Sanctuary Lodges. Ground floor, Lot G15, Wisma Sabah, Kota Kinabalu; 60-88/243-629; www.suterasanctuarylodges.com.my.

C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P : C O U R T E SY O F S A B A H T O U R I S M B O A R D ( 3 ) ; C O U R T E SY O F S H A N G R I - L A TA N J U N G A R U R E S O R T

5 LUXURY

2 WILDLIFE

On the outskirts of the capital Kota Kinabalu, the Shangri-La Tanjung Aru Resort offers city convenience in a resort setting. It’s nestled at the end of a sweeping bay and set in landscaped gardens, with a carp pond and private beach. If that’s not tranquil enough, book a villa at the spa, located on the resort’s private island of Pulau Bayu, for some pampering. 20 Jln. Aru, Tanjung Aru; 60-88/327-888; www. shangri-la.com; doubles from RM550.

Get close up with orangutans in their natural habitat at Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre (Batu 14, Jln. Labuk, Sandakan; 60-89/531180; www.sabah.gov.my/jhl) in the lush 4,300-hectare Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve—one of the few places that allows you this privilege. A boardwalk leads you past the apes.

A young orangutan in Sepilok.

The Shangri-La Tanjung Aru.

3 DIVING 4 SHOPPING In Sabah’s agreeable capital, Kota Kinabalu, head to the waterfront Handicraft Market (Jln. Tun Fuad Stephens, 7:30 A.M. to 7:30 P.M.), for some fullon souvenir shopping. Stalls selling batik, jewelry, woodcrafts, masks, trinkets and more are scattered around this atmospheric market. At night, the waterfront shifts a gear into a lively nightlife haunt with food stalls, bars, clubs and restaurants.

Plunge into the aquamarine wonderland off famed Sipadan, the place Jacques Costeau called an “untouched piece of art ... a jewel”—for some of the best diving in the world. Fringed with sandy beaches, this tropical isle defines the term “island paradise.” There is no accommodation on Sipadan, but you can stay on Diving off Sipadan. nearby Mabul Island at the Sipadan Water Village, with its luxury timber cottages standing over shallow coral beds. Mabul Island, Semporna; 60-89/784-227; www. swvresort.com; cottages from US$425 per person twin share; diving package, US$105 a day.

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| where to go next

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Kep. A new generation of sun-seekers is CAMBODIA

discovering this easygoing seaside resort, once the playground of Cambodia’s royalty and French colonialists. By RON GLUCKMAN

OMETIMES LIKENED TO A SIA’S

S

Riviera, Cambodia’s southern coast is an unspoiled stretch of seashore on the cusp of a boom. While most attention is currently focused on Sihanoukville and the bustling beaches around the country’s only deep-water port, the smart set is flocking to the sleepy seaside town of Kep. Long before former Cambodian king Norodom Sihanouk directed the building of a road linking the capital to the beach town that took his name, Kep was the getaway of choice for sun and sea lovers in this laid-back part of Indochina. Originally called La Perle de la Côte d’Agathe, this was unquestionably the country’s classiest resort area right through the 1960’s.

You can still spy ample reminders of that era in beach villas with curved stairways, porthole windows and other Art Deco–inspired features. Kep’s serenity was smashed by decades of Cambodian fighting (many abandoned villas still bear mortar holes), but some of the old estates have recently been reborn as smart resorts, and the central promenade and main beach have been restored to their heyday of half a century ago.

WHEN TO GO The ideal time to visit is during the dry season, November through February.

Temperatures rise through April; May 50

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and June are especially hot and humid.

The rainy season follows and continues until October.

GETTING THERE Kep is about a three-hour drive from Phnom Penh (taxis from US$30). It is only a 20-minute drive from the riverside town of Kampot (taxis from US$5), and a new border crossing allows land travel from the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.

WHERE TO STAY With its stunning Modernist architecture, Knai Bang Chatt (Phum Thmey Sangkat Prey, Thom Khan Kep; 855-12/879-486; www.knaibangchatt. com; doubles from US$146) has become the hippest boutique hotel in

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Cambodia. Originally launched by Belgians Jef Moons and Boris Vervoordt as an exclusive residence, the 11 rooms are outfitted with furniture fashioned out of rough-hewn wood. The hotel recently added a sailing club and an over-the-water restaurant in a traditional wooden house on stilts.

Restoration has returned La Villa de Thomas (Central Beach; 85512/170-2648; reservation@lavillakep.com; bungalows from US$25), a 1920’s estate, to much of its former grandeur, with an unbeatable location on 1.2 wooded hectares above Kep’s central beach.

Newly built bungalows dot the premises; a bar and restaurant have just opened inside the original threestory brick mansion.

Photographed by JOHN MCDERMOTT

A front-row view of the sea at Knai Bang Chatt.

WHAT TO DO Kep was designed for peaceful contemplation. There is still not much to do except walk the shoreline, soaking up dreamy views of nearby islands. The biggest is Phu Quoc, Vietnam’s holiday isle of choice, soon to be accessible by ferry from Cambodia, according to a deal signed in late 2007. In the meantime, day trips can be arranged to nearby Ko Tonsay (Rabbit Island), where lunch is served on the beach while you snorkel in clear, blue waters. Kampot is a tranquil river town, with a smattering of colonial architecture testifying to its role as former provincial capital. From there, four-wheel-drive tours rattle up the rugged road carved through the jungle to Bokor, where an amazing ghost town containing the relics of a

1930’s resort stands. Tours can also be arranged to Kampot’s pepper plantations, which put Cambodia on gourmet maps nearly a century ago.

WHERE TO EAT Knai Bang Chatt provides set meals, but make sure to reserve lunch and dinner in advance. The Veranda Natural Resort (Kep Mountain Hillside Rd.; 855-12/888-619; www.verandaresort.com), a hillside property offering stone cottages and tree-house rooms, has panoramic coastal views and the most extensive wine cellar in town. For local flavor, head to the waterside shacks near Knai Bang Chatt for heaping platters of Kep’s famous crab, paired with a lemony sauce awash in green peppercorns from the nearby plantations (US$6–8 per dish).

Tropical Modernism Clockwise from right: The picturesque ruins of a villa in the beach town of Kep; a glimpse of Bokor Mountain from Kep's shoreline; one of the restored Modernist bungalows at Knai Bang Chatt resort.

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insider | eat Pasta at Gunther’s.

From left: The interior of Wine Garage; chef Thomas Mayr of Les Amis; inside Wacha.

The Lion City’s Hottest New Tables. In Southeast Asia’s most dynamic restaurant scene, here are four noteworthy additions. PLUS: Where to go for dessert. By JENNIFER CHEN GUNTHER’S Helmed by Belgian chef Gunther Hubrechsen, who once served as Alain Passard’s sous chef at the Michelin three-star L’Arpège in Paris, this eponymous restaurant is proudly and emphatically French. In fact, stepping into this six-month-old spot, you might suffer a temporary moment of geographical confusion and forget that you’re in the tropics. Swathed in charcoal grey, the 25-seat dining room conjures up images of Europe— specifically the 16th Arrondissement 52

in Paris—with its heavy drapes, oxblood-leather chairs and finely wrought Murano crystal wall lamps.

It’s perfect for an intimate rendezvous—or the hushed appreciation of haute cuisine.

Hubrechsen delivers impeccable French food, but with a light, restrained touch that allows the quality of each individual ingredient to shine through. THE HIGHS Cold angel’s hair pasta with oscietra caviar; lamb with ratatouille; and apple tart. The restaurant’s freshly baked ficelle with

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its fine crackling crust is alone worth a trip. THE LOWS While friendly and accommodating, the staff is not as well versed with the food or the wine list as you’d expect from an establishment of this caliber. 36 Purvis St.; 65/63388955; lunch for two with wine S$180.

LES AMIS After undergoing a S$2.5 million makeover and acquiring a new chef (whose predecessor was, coincidentally, Gunther Hubrechsen), this deeply venerated establishment reopened to

F R O M FA R L E F T : C O U R T E SY O F W I N E G A R A G E ; C O U R T E SY O F G U N T H E R ’ S ; C O U R T E SY O F L E S A M I S ; C O U R T E SY O F WA C H A

SINGAPORE

F RO M L E F T: CO U RT ESY O F CA N E L É ; CO U RT ESY O F W I N E GA RAG E ; CO U RT ESY O F G U N T H E R ’S ; CO U RT ESY O F L ES A M I S

Choice Eateries From left: Pang Kok Keon, the pastry mastermind at Canelé; a burger at Wine Garage; the dining room at Gunther’s; Les Amis restaurant.

much fanfare last September. Gone is the restaurant’s former stately décor. In its place is a much lighter—though discreetly opulent—look: burgundy walls, marble floors and Venetian chandeliers. Chef Thomas Mayr has worked with the likes of gastronomic giants Charlie Trotter and David Bouley. Hailing from the Germanspeaking region of South Tyrol in northern Italy, Mayr freely borrows from his native cuisine as well as gastronomic traditions closer to the neighborhood, as displayed in a delightful amuse-bouche that consisted of a thin crepe rolled into a cone and filled with ikura (salmon roe), toro and horseradish mousse. THE HIGHS Chilean sea bass with fennel, swimming in its own stock (entrée and soup, rolled into one); Maine lobster with cherry tomatoes and haricot

verts; and champagne soup with elderflower essence and berries that was somewhere between a liquid and a jelly. But the restaurant’s real glory lies in its 101-page wine list, which has whole pages devoted to Bordeaux Premier Cru and Chateau d’Yquem.

THE LOWS The ravioli with mushrooms and butter lettuce were leaden despite the chef’s Italian origins. No. 02-16, Shaw Centre, 1 Scotts Rd.; 65/6733-2225; lunch for two with wine S$311.

WACHA This recently opened sliver of a store devoted to selling exquisite Japanese ceramics, lacquerware and textiles isn’t technically a restaurant. But on weekdays, owner Maya Takahashi dishes out Japanese comfort food.

Sunday is the real treat, as she hands

over the space to Danny Chu, a former foreign currency trader turned caterer, who turns the space into a private kitchen focused on shojin ryoroi, or Zen Buddhist cuisine. Chu, an endearingly beatific presence, has been studying under Zen masters in Japan for the past four years, absorbing the techniques and philosophy behind this spiritual fare.

Given the restrictions (no meat, dairy, eggs, garlic or onion and limited use of seasonings), his cooking features surprisingly forceful flavors. THE HIGHS Eggplant with sesame; goma (arrowroot and sesame) tofu with wasabi; and miso soup with daikon.

You also eat from gorgeous bowls produced by Fukagawa, porcelain producers who’ve been supplying the Imperial family since 1910. THE LOWS Zen food isn’t for everyone, »

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especially committed carnivores. 14 Ann Siang Road; 65/6438-1553; reservations are a must for Chu’s private kitchen; lunch for two with tea S$101.

Sweet or Savory?

From above left: Macaroons from Canelé; chevre at La Fromagerie; Canelé’s tempting pastry case. Below: Wine Garage.

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WINE GARAGE The latest venture by the team behind the wildly successful microbrewery Brewerkz, this restaurant, which opened in late 2006, touts a more sophisticated menu and sleeker surroundings. The long, narrow dining room is kitted up in silver chrome and wood; rows of wine bottles suspended in metal racks line one side, while on the other are enormous chalk boards with amusing quotes about wine (including one from the comically misanthropic hotelier in the British comedy Fawlty Towers). But the place to sit is outdoors, where you can take in the view of the restored shophouses that line Robertson Quay.

New Hampshire–born Travis Masiero runs the kitchen, which excels at simple, hearty dishes. THE HIGHS Hot smoked Scottish salmon with aioli, herbs and toast; the burger with aged cheddar and hand-cut fries; and gnocchi with market greens. THE LOWS The service is sometimes

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scattershot. Avoid the menu’s more ambitious offerings: the veal cheeks with polenta, fava beans and gremolata arrived overcooked, and the flavors were muddied. Pick your wine carefully; the cheaper bottles can disappoint. No. 01-07, Riverside Point, 30 Merchant Rd.; 65/6533-3188; dinner for two with wine S$183.

TWO FOR DESSERT With two popular outlets under its belt, Canelé Pâtisserie Chocolaterie has opened a third (No. 81–82, B1, Raffles City Shopping Centre; 252 North Bridge Rd.; 65/6334-7377; dessert and coffee for two S$23), giving you more opportunities to indulge in pastry chef Pang Kok Keon’s creations. Don’t miss his salty caramel macarons (S$1.80 each)—the perfect union of sweet and savory, crisp and gooey. If you want to end a meal with a cheese plate, visit to La Fromagerie (5 Mohamed Sultan Rd.; 65/6732-6269; cheese plate S$14). With around 150 cheeses, the shop boasts one of the region’s largest collections. Try the pecorino with black truffles and the Soumaintrain, a pungent, rich cheese from Burgundy.

F RO M A BOV E L E F T: CO U RT ESY O F CA N E L É ; CO U RT ESY O F L A F RO M AG E R I E ; CO U RT ESY O F CA N E L É . BOT TO M : CO U RT ESY O F W I N E GA RAG E

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StylishTraveler F

Optic Nerve Ray-Ban’s polarized Wayfarer sunglasses, US$130.

EW SUNGLASSES

scream rock and roll better than the Ray-Ban Wayfarer. It’s not just that nearly every icon of cool—Ray Charles, Johnny Cash and the Blues Brothers, to name a few— has been photographed wearing them. Nor that since their birth in 1952, they’ve been adopted by every generation since, from greasers in leather jackets to New Wave preppies in turned-up polos, who wore them in hot pink, orange and electric blue. As with all classics, it’s about the impeccable design: the shatter-resistant lenses and spring hinges (a first), flamboyant curves that undulate like waves and, of course, those diamond-like grommets that flash in the sun. Ray-Ban is taking the shades back to their roots with a look that echoes the original. Wherever your travels take you, sporting a pair is never risky business.—JOSH PATNER

Catch a ray Trendsetters from the get-go, Wayfarer sunglasses remain the epitome of all things cool. Photographed by NIGEL COX T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E S E A

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stylish traveler

| fashion

The

bold and the

beautiful

Cast off this season’s somber tones and monochromatic looks, and reveal your true colors with swimwear in striking patterns and brilliant hues. Photographed by KORNKIT JIAPINIDNAN. Styled by KAMPOL LIKITKANJANAKUL

THE NEWLY OPENED ALILA CHA-AM (115 Moo 7, Tambon Bangkao; 66-32/709-555; www.alilahotels.com) was designed by acclaimed Thai architect Duangrit Bunnag, whose previous work includes the coolly minimalist Costa Lanta. The Alila Cha-Am boasts an elegant, innovative design that will surely appeal to its guests. That’s why our team chose this location for our spring fashion shoot, a first peek exclusively for T+L Southeast Asia readers.

Makeup Natamol Jitthong. Hair Piboon Jenjaratvan. Model Elise Broomfield/Red.

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Silk jacket, Christian Dior; bikini bottom, La Perla; belt, stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

Silk jacket, Prada; bikini, Emilio Pucci; sunglasses, Kate Spade; bracelet, stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own. Opposite: Silk top, Emilio Pucci; belt, Celine; bikini bottom, La Perla; shoes, Jimmy Choo; bag, Kate Spade; earrings, H&M.

Swimsuit, Emilio Pucci; accessories, H&M. Opposite: Bikini top, Emilio Pucci; silk printed skirt, Prada; bag, Kate Spade; shoes, Todâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s; bracelet, stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

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000

Bikini top, La Perla; skirt, Emilio Pucci; sunglasses, Fendi; shoes, Jimmy Choo; accessories, H&M. Opposite: Silk printed top, Emilio Pucci; bikini bottom, La Perla; belt, Celine; shoes, Prada; bracelets, stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

STOCKISTS Celine www.celine.com Christian Dior www.dior.com Emilio Pucci www.emiliopucci.com Fendi www.fendi.com H&M www.hm.com Prada www.prada.com Jimmy Choo www.jimmychoo.com Kate Spade www.katespade.com La Perla www.laperla.com

000

Celebrate the Lunar New Year with these sophisticated looks by four Chinese fashion stars.

Photographed by TIMON WEHRLI. Styled by KAMPOL LIKITKANJANAKUL

Into the

n覺ght

Silk printed top, Anna Sui; earrings, H&M. Opposite: Silk top with silk mesh skirt, Vera Wang; belt and bag, Todâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s; gold bracelet, H&M.

Cotton dress, Vivienne Tam; shoes, Todâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s; belt and bracelet, H&M. Opposite: Silk top, 3.1 Phillip Lim; trousers, modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own; earrings, H&M.

Silk printed dress and cardigan, Shanghai Tang; bag and red bracelet, Todâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s; belt and silver bracelet, H&M. Hair and makeup: Denise Toms.

Model: Natasha Wilson/Model Genesis.

Shot on location in Hong Kong.

STOCKISTS 3.1 Phillip Lim www.31philliplim.com Anna Sui www.annasui.com Vivienne Tam www.viviennetam.com Todâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s www.tods.com Vera Wang www.verawang.com H&M www.hm.com

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Bali Bamboo

Designer John Hardy has a plan to reforest the world, one island at a time.

By ELIZABETH WOODSON

Eco-Chic Top right: John Hardy’s bambooinspired sterling silver bracelet.

From above: One of four teak guesthouses at Bambu Indah; Hardy with his wife, Cynthia; a guest room at the hotel; Bambu Indah’s rustic feel; Hardy’s all-bamboo factory, under construction.

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INDONESIA

OU CAN LOOK GOOD AND STILL feel good,” says jewelry designer John Hardy, who has become a major player in the world of sustainable luxury.

The Canadian-born designer moved to Bali more than 30 years ago to study local silversmithing and eventually created a multimillion-dollar business. His intricate pieces are made largely from recycled metals and are created at the John Hardy Workshop (Br. Baturning, Mambal Abiansemal, Badung; 62-361/469-888; www.johnhardy.com) near Ubud, where every day more than 600 workers, plus guests from local hotels, sit down for a communal lunch harvested from the on-site organic farm.

The designer’s latest obsession is bamboo, and visitors to the workshop can explore his all-bamboo buildings, including a showroom where his designs are on display. Hardy believes that bamboo offers an instant solution. “If you’re 57 and want to do something for the earth, plant a forest of bamboo,” he explains. “By the time you’re 60, you’ll have a sustainable lumberyard.”

Last August, Hardy opened a hotel nearby called Bambu Indah (Br. Baung, Desa Sayan, Ubud; 62-361/975-124; www. bambuindah.com; doubles from US$250), which means “beautiful bamboo” in Balinese. He transplanted four 150-year-old teak houses to the site, ensuring rain-forest trees were left intact, and decorated them using Indonesian antiques. Guests can swim in the natural pool, walk in the surrounding rice paddies and dine by candlelight at the Ayung River’s edge.

Hardy has also created a collection of recycled sterling silver bracelets that resemble the plant. For every piece sold, he plants more bamboo on Nusa Penida, an almost deforested neighboring island. Each bracelet is engraved with the specific number of stalks planted. And that’s just the beginning: he’s also using bamboo for his new furniture collection, launched last year, and for a factory that will be the world’s largest all-bamboo structure. ✚

on the road | stylish traveler

C LO C KW I S E F RO M TO P L E F T: CO U RT ESY O F Y E N N WO N G ; CO U RT ESY O F J I A S H A N G H A I ( 2 ) ; CO U RT ESY O F RO C K P O O L ; CO U RT ESY O F S CA N L A N A N D T H EO D O R E

JIA SHANGHAI “If we can find something that has a lot of heritage and culture to it, it’s a big plus point for us. We like to have buildings with a lot of history that we can gut and do something fun inside. It gives a place a lot of character.”

Boutique Rules From far left: Hotelier Yenn Wong; the playful décor in JIA Shanghai, one of Wong’s properties; a guest room at JIA Shanghai.

A YENN FOR TRAVEL With two hotels to her name, Singaporean entrepreneur Yenn Wong lives out of her suitcase. By CHEN ZHIJUN OT ALL BOUTIQUE HOTELS ARE born equal, and Yenn Wong’s properties JIA Hong Kong (1–5 Irving St.; 852/3196-9000; www. jiahongkong.com) and JIA Shanghai (931 West Nanjing Rd.; 8621/6217-9000; www.jiashanghai.com) began life with plenty of advantages.

For starters, Wong hired some of the world’s most innovative designers— Philippe Starck and Australian design firm Hecker Phelan & Guthrie—to create her hotels’ interiors. In the case of JIA Shanghai, she had the luck of refurbishing an Art Deco building—increasingly a rarity in the ultramodern Chinese city. Although she professes to have fickle tastes, Wong has proven to have a keen eye for design, which feeds into the hotels’ appealingly offbeat but lavish looks (think Alice in Wonderland interpreted

by John Galliano). “I like to play with different materials and designs,” says the 28-year-old, who also has two restaurants in Singapore. “So while the experience you have with the service might be the same for every JIA, aesthetically they’re very different, so it’s always refreshing whenever you walk in.” Look out for that sensibility in JIA Krabi, expected to open in early 2009. Here, she reveals some of her favorite addresses.

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Aussie Finds Above: Rockpool restaurant in Melbourne. Left: A dress

by Australian label Scanlan and Theodore.

TOP SHOP “[In Melbourne] I love Scanlan and Theodore (285 Little Collins St.; 61-3/9650-6195; www. scanlanandtheodore.com. au). They have so many very pretty dresses.”

O CITY OF THE MOMENT “Right now, my favorite city is Melbourne, for

so many reasons: because it has a lot of beautiful architecture, old and new, the weather is fantastic, and it really has a great balance in terms of design, hotels, cafés and restaurants ... I would definitely eat at Vue de Monde » T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E S E A

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FASHION STAPLES “My tastes change according to season,” says Wong. “I’m not very loyal.”

But she does confess to being faithful to one designer: Stella McCartney, who opened her first boutique in Southeast Asia last November in Singapore (No. 02–12 Ngee Ann City; 65/6738-0537).

(430 Little Collins St.; 61-3/9691-3888; www.vuedemonde.com. au) … It’s just amazing, every dish is so perfect.” Wong’s other favorite restaurant is celebrity chef Neil Perry’s Rockpool (Crowne Complex; 61-3/8648-1900; www. rockpoolmelbourne.com): “They have an open-kitchen concept, so it’s great to watch.”

O TRAVEL ESSENTIALS “I’m addicted to lip gloss,” says

Wong. Her brand of choice is Biotherm. She also always travels with her silk quilt from Hong Kong–based fashion and homeware label Blanc De Chine (No. 201–203A, Pedder Building, 12 Pedder St., Central; 852/2524-7875; www. blancdechine.com; HK$2,200 per travel blanket). “It has a very thin layer of down in between so you can roll it up and use it as a pillow.” And as with every modern traveler, Wong can’t leave home without her iPod: “It’s not even about the plane, it’s about the waiting time, when you’re sitting in the airport or you’re in the car.”

O BEST HOTEL MEMORY Wong raves about Seville’s La

Casa del Maestro (5 Calle Niño Ricardo; 34-954/500-007; www.lacasadelmaestro.com), an 11-room hotel in a 19thcentury house that was once the residence of guitar legend Niño Ricardo. She was captivated by the hotel’s oldfashioned details, such as the lace-trimmed linen and convivial atmosphere. “It was very heart-warming and quaint, and the moment you walk out of the hotel, you have 72

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Around the World Clockwise from above: Le Platane in Shanghai; a travel blanket from Blanc de Chine; Stella McCartney’s shop in Singapore; spring/summer 2008 looks from McCartney; La Casa del Maestro hotel, Seville.

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 D E S I G N R E P U B L I C ( 2 ) ; C O U R T E S Y O F G . O . D . ; I N G A P O W I L L E I T ; C O U R T E S Y O F H AY O N S T U D I O

DESIGN FOR ALL While Wong is on first-name basis with top-notch furniture designers, she still loves checking out up-and-coming names in design shops throughout the world. First among her picks in Asia is the flagship store of Shanghai design company Design Republic (1st floor, 5 Zhongshan Dongyi Rd.; 86-21/6329-3123; www.thedesignrepublic.com), which showcases cutting-edge, international designs. “There are a lot of people trying to bring in new design into China. It’s exciting to see a shop that is so well done and so tastefully done.” In Hong Kong, she likes dropping into G.O.D. (48 Hollywood Rd.; 852/2805-1876; god.com.hk), which produces quirky interpretations of iconic Chinese images from the 1950’s and 60’s.

all these neighbors talking to each other out on the street and they greet you as well. It was such a lovely experience—something you don’t get in a big hotel.”

O SHANGHAI EATS With JIA Shanghai, which opened in August 2007, Wong finds herself frequently traveling to China’s hyperkinetic financial capital. A self-professed foodie, she urges visitors to check out two local establishments for an authentic Shanghainese dining experience: Xin Jishi (28 Taojiang Rd.; 86-21/6445-0068) and Jiajia Tangbao (90 Huanghe Rd.; 86-21/6327-6878) for xiaolong bao, the city’s famous soup dumplings. “It’s very dingy, and don’t even look at the steamers. But it’s really, really good,” says Wong, who recommends the dumplings with hairy crab and egg yolk. Wong also recommends Le Platane (73 Huangpi South Rd.; 86-21/5383-2998), the latest restaurant by her talented fellow Singaporean Justin Quek.

O 24 HOURS IN SINGAPORE When it comes to her native city, Wong’s advice is clear and simple: “Singapore is all about the food … Go to the hawker stands and eat—chicken rice, laksa, rojak, satay. Just enjoy the local food because you can’t get it anywhere else.”

Choice Designs Clockwise from right: A chair by Marcel Wanders at Hotel on Rivington in New York City; a rocker in the guise of a chicken by Jaime Hayon; inside Design Republic in Shanghai; Design Republic’s exterior; teapots from G.O.D.

FURNITURE FAN Two furniture designers that rate highly in Wong’s estimation (and give ample hint to her eclectic tastes) are Dutchman Marcel Wanders (www.marcelwanders.nl), best known for the clean, functional designs, and Spanish surrealist Jaime Hayon (www. hayonstudio.com).

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LIGHTEN UP! This new generation of multitasking products does double duty on the road

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makeup kit doesn’t have to weigh down your trip. “Companies are creating dual-purpose products that are perfect for travelers,” says New York–based celebrity makeup artist Kristofer Buckle. Here are our picks for globe-trotting beauty. MOISTURIZER This sheer tinted Laura Mercier (2) (US$42) takes the place of a day cream, sunscreen and foundation—and covers imperfections. BRONZER Look for a product with several distinct colors. You can wear the individual shades on your eyes and cheeks—even your lips, if you put a balm or clear gloss over it. The Coral compact from Chantecaille (1) (US$69) works on many different skin tones. The Lancaster (3) Sunlight Palette (US$35), with its ve browns, is equally versatile. EYES To go from day to night with the same product, try the Paula Dorf (5) 2+1 for Eyes (US$24), which comes with a shadow, a contouring shade and a liner.

LIPS AND CHEEKS Your lip and cheek color can also hit a dual note. Stains provide a natural, ushed look and are ideal for hot weather, because they are sweatproof. This one from Jemma Kidd (4) (US$37.50) makes application easy with its user-friendly roller ball. If you want more color, the Benefit (6) Rush Hour crayon (US$20) has a richer look and a hydrating cream base.—NIC SCREWS & ELIZABETH WOODSON ARRYING A COMPLETE

WORLD’S BEST SPAS

MAX KIM-BEE

A waterfall-filled oasis in the middle of a city, in-house yogis, hands-on service—it takes a lot for a spa to be named one of the best in the world. Here, the spas that earned readers’ votes in Travel + Leisure’s annual World’s Best Awards.

Poolside at Esperanza, in Los Cabos, voted the No. 1 hotel spa in Mexico, and Central and South America by T+L readers.

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readers’ poll

| world’s best spas Healthy Views Clockwise from far left: The lush Miraval Resort, Tucson, Arizona; Adler Thermae Spa Resort, Tuscany; the Casita suites set in the desert at Mii Amo, Sedona, Arizona; the swimming pool at Mii Amo.

TREND

TOP 15 DESTINATION SPAS 1 2 2 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

MII AMO, A DESTINATION SPA AT ENCHANTMENT

Sedona, Arizona 86.86*

LES SOURCES DE CAUDALIE Bordeaux-Martillac, France 85.59 ADLER THERMAE SPA RESORT Siena, Tuscany 85.59

Tucson, Arizona 85.26 Tucson, Arizona 84.80

MIRAVAL RESORT CANYON RANCH

Hua Hin, Thailand 84.75 Hong Kong 83.24 GREEN VALLEY SPA & RESORT St. George, Utah 83.00 LAKE AUSTIN SPA RESORT Austin, Texas 82.67 RANCHO LA PUERTA Tecate, Mexico 82.25 CANYON RANCH Lenox, Massachusetts 82.23 MAYFLOWER INN & SPA Washington, Connecticut 82.02 LODGE AT WOODLOCH Hawley, Pennsylvania 80.75 MAYA TULUM Tulum, Mexico 79.49 GOLDEN DOOR Escondido, California 78.59 CHIVA-SOM INTERNATIONAL HEALTH RESORT PLATEAU AT GRAND HYATT

*Throughout the World’s Best Awards, scores are rounded to the nearest hundredth of a point; in the event of an exact tie, properties share the same ranking.

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Controlled, conscious breathing techniques are the basis of pranayama, a yoga practice that helps relieve tension, increase metabolism and calm the mind for deep meditation. This passive therapy is part of a private consultation on Vedic philosophy with Dr. Saraswati Dwarakanat, held in a tranquil lagoon pavilion at Parrot Cay’s Como Shambhala spa (1-649/9467788; www.parrotcay.como.bz), in the Turks and Caicos. Pranayama is also taught by yogis at Ananda Spa (91-1378/227-500; www.anandaspa. com), near Rishikesh, India, in the Himalayas, and the Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Kuda Huraa (1800/819-5053; www.fourseasons.com).

The Bliss Spa (1-310/443-8228; www.blissworld.com), in western Los Angeles, has an 85-minute triple-oxygen facial for those who only have time for a quick breath of fresh air.—SHANE MITCHELL

C L O C K W I S E F R O M FA R L E F T : C O U R T E S Y O F M I R AVA L R E S O R T ; C O U R T E S Y O F A D L E R T H E R M A E S PA R E S O R T ; C O U R T E S Y O F M I I A M O ( 2 )

Yogic Breathing Therapy

Rest Stop Clockwise from far left: Pool cabanas at the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea, Hawaii; an outdoor bath at the Mauna Lani Resort & Bungalows, Hawaii; the spa lounge at the Four Seasons Resort, Jackson Hole, Wyoming; the fountain pool at sunset at the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea.

TREND

C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P R I G H T: J O H N C . R U S S E L L ; C O U R T E SY O F M A U N A L A N I R E S O R T & B U N G A L O W S ; P E T E R V I TA L E ; J A I N E A R D I L E S A R C E

A Good Night’s Sleep

TOP 10 HOTEL SPAS Continental U.S.and Canada 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Jackson Hole, Wyoming 91.76 SANCTUARY AT KIAWAH ISLAND GOLF RESORT South Carolina 91.02 ENCHANTMENT RESORT, MII AMO Sedona, Arizona 90.85 LODGE AT PEBBLE BEACH California 90.49 HOTEL CRESCENT COURT, A ROSEWOOD HOTEL Dallas 90.44 MANDARIN ORIENTAL New York 90.28 RITZ-CARLTON, HUNTINGTON HOTEL & SPA Pasadena, California 90.13 MANDARIN ORIENTAL Miami 90.07 THE EQUINOX Manchester, Vermont 89.87 THE PENINSULA Beverly Hills 89.49 FOUR SEASONS RESORT

TOP 10 HOTEL SPAS Hawaii 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Trouble catching 40 winks? Spas across the United States are countering sleep disorders with natural therapies designed to induce untroubled slumber. At the Mayflower Inn & Spa (1-860/8689466; www.mayflowerinn.com), in Connecticut, the Sleep Better, Sleep Well program teaches healthy sleeping habits through self-induced hypnotherapy, dream analysis, “sweet surrender” massage and asanas (yoga positions) that release tension. The Ritz-Carlton Spa Naples (1-800/241-3333; www.ritzcarlton. com) has a “drift to sleep” ritual for deep snoozing: Saint John’s wort tea, lavender body scrub, milk bath and a polarity massage, followed by a 30-minute power nap under a down-filled duvet. At Miraval Resort, in Tucson (1-800/232-3969; www. miravalresort.com), resident sleep expert Dr. Rubin Naiman conducts an informal “dream circle” to help you interpret unconscious musings.

If all you need for counting sheep is a comfy pair of PJ’s, New York’s Lowell hotel (1-800/221-4444; www. lowellhotel.com) supplies guests with custom-embroidered, pure-cotton sleepwear (US$130).—S.M.

FOUR SEASONS RESORT HUALALAI Hawaii 92.89 HALEKULANI

Hawaii 92.19

Hawaii 90.07 FOUR SEASONS RESORT MAUI AT WAILEA 87.50 GRAND WAILEA RESORT HOTEL & SPA Maui 87.08 GRAND HYATT KAUAI ESORT & SPA 86.15 RITZ-CARLTON KAPALUA Maui 85.91 FAIRMONT KEA LANI Maui 85.16 FAIRMONT ORCHID Hawaii 85.00 JW MARRIOTT IHILANI RESORT & SPA Oahu 84.51 MAUNA LANI RESORT & BUNGALOWS

Ritz-Carlton Spa, Naples.

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| world’s best spas Water Views From left: Rosewood Little Dix Bay, Virgin Gorda; the Four Seasons Resort Bali at Jimbaran Bay; the Royal Hideaway Playacar, Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

TOP 5 HOTEL SPAS Europe 1

FOUR SEASONS HOTEL GEORGE V

2 LE SIRENUSE Positano, Italy 88.13 3 VILLA D’ESTE Cernobbio, Italy 82.14 4 BRENNER’S PARK-HOTEL & SPA Baden-Baden, Germany 80.15 5 WESTIN EXCELSIOR Rome 75.00

TOP 10 HOTEL SPAS Mexico and Central and South America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

ESPERANZA Los Cabos, Mexico 89.29 FOUR SEASONS RESORT COSTA RICA AT PENINSULA PAPAGAYO ROYAL HIDEAWAY PLAYACAR Playa del Carmen, Mexico 87.50 FOUR SEASONS RESORT PUNTA MITA Mexico 86.22 FOUR SEASONS HOTEL Buenos Aires 86.14 LAS VENTANAS AL PARAÍSO Los Cabos, Mexico 85.68

Los Cabos, Mexico 84.26 Cancún 84.13 PUEBLO BONITO Los Cabos, Mexico 83.63 RITZ-CARLTON Cancún 81.99 ONE & ONLY PALMILLA PARADISUS RIVIERA

TOP 10 HOTEL SPAS Asia-Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 78

FOUR SEASONS RESORT CHIANG MAI Thailand 95.51 THE ORIENTAL Bangkok 94.06

Thailand 93.75 FOUR SEASONS RESORT BALI AT JIMBARAN BAY 90.94 THE PENINSULA Bangkok 90.44 OBEROI AMARVILAS Agra, India 90.06 RITZ-CARLTON BALI RESORT & SPA 89.93 SHANGRI-LA HOTEL Bangkok 88.82 CAPE GRACE Cape Town 87.13 INTERCONTINENTAL Hong Kong 81.48 JW MARRIOTT PHUKET RESORT & SPA

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TOP 10 HOTEL SPAS The Caribbean, Bermuda and the Bahamas 1 COUPLES NEGRIL Jamaica 89.88 2 PARROT CAY Turks and Caicos 89.82 3 ROSEWOOD LITTLE DIX BAY Virgin Gorda 88.99 4 ONE & ONLY OCEAN CLUB Paradise Island, Bahamas 87.28 5 ROUND HILL HOTEL & VILLAS Montego Bay, Jamaica 87.15 6 FOUR SEASONS RESORT Nevis 86.35 7 RITZ-CARLTON Grand Cayman 86.14 8 COUPLES SANS SOUCI Ocho Rios, Jamaica 84.72 9 CUISINART RESORT & SPA Anguilla 83.87 10 RITZ-CARLTON GOLF & SPA RESORT Rose Hall, Jamaica 82.84

F R O M FA R L E F T : C O U R T E S Y O F R O S E W O O D L I T T L E D I X B AY ; C O U R T E S Y O F F O U R S E A S O N S R E S O R T B A L I ; C O U R T E S Y O F R O YA L H I D E A W AY P L AYA C A R

Paris 89.02

Herbal Remedies Left, from top: Linden Spa, Maryland; Spa by Espa at The Peninsula Tokyo; the Six Senses Erawan, Phuket. Right: The RitzCarlton St. Thomas.

F R O M T O P, F A R L E F T :

CO U RT E SY O F L I N D E N S PA ; CO U RT E SY O F T H E P E N I N S U L A TO KYO ;

C O U R T E S Y O F S I X S E N S E S E R A W A N . T O P R I G H T : C O U R T E S Y O F R I T Z - C A R LT O N S T. T H O M A S

10 TO WATCH In order to be eligible for the World’s Best Awards, spas on our list must receive not only high marks but also a minimum number of reader evaluations. Here, new properties that haven’t yet reached the required threshold but that our editors expect to see on T+L’s lists in the future.

• LINDEN SPA AT THE INN AT PERRY CABIN ST. MICHAELS, MARYLAND

Herbal remedies to the rescue at this resort spa on the Chesapeake. Expect local botanicals such as linden blossom, verbena and black birch in treatments based on the traditions of colonial apothecaries.

• SPA BY THE SEA AT THE WAUWINET NANTUCKET

Spa treatments get a New England twist with an Atlantic-seaweed wrap and cranberry-crush scrub at this sun-and-sand addition to a classic Massachusetts resort.

• SPA SOLAGE AT SOLAGE CALISTOGA RESORT NAPA VALLEY

Belly up to the Mud Bar & Bathhouse for full-body mud “cocktails” and soaks in mineralrich geothermal pools. Top it off with a hydrating facial with products from renowned skincare expert Kate Somerville.

• PRADA BEAUTY EXPERIENCE AT THE RITZ-CARLTON ST. THOMAS

At this newly renovated Caribbean spa, two pink and smoke-gray treatment rooms are devoted to designer replenishing body treatments by Prada Beauty skin care.

• AQUAPURA DOURO VALLEY, PORTUGAL

Pampering therapies from Karin Herzog (a Swiss beauty specialist) and Ytsara (an organic Thai treatment line) complement the updated hydrotherapy circuit at this converted 19thcentury manor house in a remote wine region.

• FOUR SEASONS RESORT PROVENCE AT TERRE BLANCHE FRANCE

Lavish beauty rituals from Terraké, a French line of globally sourced botanicals, are performed in a garden of cypress and olive trees. “Med lite” cuisine follows at the Infusion spa café.

• SIX SENSES ERAWAN PHUKET, THAILAND

On a private island accessed by rice barges, this treatment center serves only fresh fish and organic produce and has healing experts to aid your tropical cure. Each of the spa villas has an ocean view and a plunge pool.

• SPA AT BULGARI BALI ULUWATU, INDONESIA

This hand-carved–teak sanctuary set on a cliff above the beach has rain showers, plunge pools, and both holistic Balinese and modern Italian beauty treatments. Practice your sun salutations in the yoga pavilion.

• SPA BY ESPA AT THE PENINSULA TOKYO

Outstanding high-rise views may distract you from a kiatsu massage in a Zen aerie of black marble, shoji screens and washi-paper lanterns. After your treatment, continue to unwind with a cup of specially selected tea.

• LODGE AT KAURI CLIFFS MATAURI BAY, NORTHLAND, NEW ZEALAND

Overlooking a fern glen and a winding stream, this totara-forest spa has fireplaces in its garden treatment spaces. The traditional local therapies are inspired by green jade, seashells and bloodstone crystals.—S.M. T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E S E A

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INDULGE YOURSELF

FEBRUARY 2008

SPA SPECIAL

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LUXURY RETREATS YOU LOVE

Andamans

Untamed, unspoiled, undiscovered

Hong Kong Taking a walk on the wild side

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FASHION EXCLUSIVE Inside the region’s hottest new resort

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~ T R E N D S ,

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T+L Journal SPAS 85 OBSESSIONS 90 MIND BODY 92 REFLECTIONS 96 INNS 100

HONG KONG

Wild

Walks

Mountain High Above: A trail leading to the 934-meter Lantau Peak on Hong Kong’s Lantau Island. Right: Well-marked paths are a feature of hiking trails in the SAR’s country parks.

Forget the forest of skyscrapers—if you really want to see a different side of the SAR, take to the hills, as CHRIS KUCWAY did. Photographed by GERHARD JOREN

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WENTY-THREE COUNTRY PARKS laced with hundreds of kilometers of hiking paths in a place that defines all things urban?

Correct. This invariably comes as a surprise to outsiders, but two-fifths of Hong Kong’s paltry 1,100 square kilometers of land area is given over to a network of country parks, all encompassing stunning scenery. Some are just a stone’s throw away from office towers, others an easy commute.

Just minutes from the touristy kitsch that The Peak on Hong Kong Island has become, I drop down into a trail shrouded in greenery, straight into the silent heart of Pok Fu Lam Country Park. I can’t help feeling guilty, as if I’ve called in sick from the working world.

Birdsong—not the grinding of truck gears—is in the air. Thin stands of bamboo scrape together in the wind.

Opposite, a postcard panorama of high-rise Hong Kong slides into view. I start my downhill trek into a natural slice of the island.

The first section of this 10-kilometer walk winds down to Pok Fu Lam Reservoir. Built in 1863, the reservoir was the first indication that the colony of Hong Kong had grown to a point when it could no longer depend upon the simple streams lining the flanks of the mountainside for its water supply.

The trail is quickly swallowed up by vegetation. At points, a green canopy shuts out the sky. A sharp right off the paved path follows the contours of the valley: the first section of the Hong Kong Trail—a 50-kilometer route that takes in most of the island’s length.

Here, spindly trees adopt a local attitude, taking root in any space available and at any angle. Once at the bottom of the reservoir, it’s time to head north. This slowly ascending path opens up onto a view of outlying islands such as Lamma, Peng Chau and, on clear days and without pollution, Lantau.

After skirting the west coast of Hong Kong Island, I turn back towards the city’s Central District, up a set of stone

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Hong Kong Island Just a short walk from the dramatic city vistas at The Peak, hikers enter a realm of lush greenery and shaded trails

Peak Condition Clockwise from top left: Lugard Road leads to the Pok Fu Lam Country Park trail; the trailhead at Pok Fu Lam; a steep path at Violet Hill; The Peak Tram.

stairs that leads to the base of High West, a 494-meter hill. Here sits a pillbox from World War II. Hong Kong’s only defense in this corner of the island, it consisted of three machine guns and seven soldiers. It wasn’t enough: the Japanese overran the island on Christmas Day, 1941.

Just as quickly as I escaped the city, I’m back in it. Along the single lane Lugard Road, I’m walking through a different tax bracket—an exclusive set of homes that clings to the rock face until the mountain drops off so

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severely that even Hong Kong’s most industrious engineers couldn’t cope with the grade. Towering India rubber trees shade the path, lending it an air of even more exclusivity. Eventually, the trees too abandon the hillside and the view opens up over that famous urban stand of skyscrapers. At this height, the trail is a shade below the top of the city’s tallest building, the 88-floor, 420-meter Two IFC. My walk at an end, I hop on The Peak Tram, and all too quickly I am back amid those towers.

outdoors | t+l journal KUNG IS HONG KONG at its cleanest. The air is fresh, the sea several shades of blue. A trek out to Sai Kung East Country Park also reveals some stunning coastline and a handful of peaks worth tackling.

Tai Long Wan, or Big Wave Bay, offers beaches that look as if they were plucked from a tropical island and dropped into China’s south coast. A circular, 18-kilometer hike along a section of the 100-kilometer MacLehose Trail, starting in Pak Tam Au, offers a look at the remote beauty

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of Sai Kung. The first stretch of 5 kilometers to Ham Tin offers little in the way of surprise, save for some macaques foraging in the forest. Not until I’m over the hump at Tai Long Au does the forest open up to reveal Ham Tim Wan, a white crescent of fine sand constantly pounded by rollers from the South China Sea. Sheer cliffs bookend the beach; the southern trail rises to 80 meters up and over to Sai Wan. Here is where the coast is most severe. Its eroded rock face plunges straight down into a swirl of white

Sai Kung Fresh air, beaches and panoramas await hikers along the trails in one of Hong Kong’s most attractive areas

water that looks ready to smash any and all comers to pieces.

One option is to retrace your footsteps for 8 kilometers back to Pak Tam Au. Instead, I head inland, off the main path and into a series of short, stiff climbs. The best views, of course, are at the top of each, with the intimidating Sharp Peak—only 468 meters high, but living up to its name, with the ascent covered in less than a kilometer—off to the north and the rugged coastline due east. Further inland, along the Luk Wu Country Trail, a series of valleys unfolds one after another into the distance like some giant ripple in the earth’s surface.

Any sign of the modern world is surely far away, yet the trail markers insist— correctly, as it turns out—that the Pak Tan Road and a minibus are only 30 minutes’ walk away. »

OTHER HIKES

Water Walks Clockwise from top left: A trail clings to a hillside; sea panoramas are a feature of Sai Kung; trails can get crowded on weekends; foliage frames a beach in Sai Kung.

Q Ma On Shan This 7-kilometer walk is listed as “strenuous” and it is. But the views from along the ridges are unbeatable on a clear day, as Sai Kung West Country Park spreads out before you.

Q Dragon’s Back Starting near Tai Tam Bay and ending at the village of Shek O, this easy walk offers the reward of a good meal on the beach in the southeast corner of Hong Kong Island.

Q Tai Mo Shan Definitely a hike for the “best of” crowd, climb Tai Mo Shan and you can boast that you’ve been to the highest point in Hong Kong. At 958 meters, everything in the city is downhill from here.

Q Mai Po One for bird lovers, these World Heritage–protected wetlands have a network of paths and boardwalks, offering glimpses of the 20,000 birds that pass through each year.

Q Hoi Ha Wan Marine Park At the top of Sai Kung, the park is known for its sheltered inlets and steep hillsides. What you cannot see on this 5-kilometer trek into Wan Tsai Country Park is the 39 types of coral found in the surrounding clean waters.

Q Plover Cove The 8-kilometer trek through the Sha Lo Tung Valley near the border with mainland China starts in a scrapyard. But it quickly makes amends, visiting undisturbed streams and a valley rich in plant and animal life.

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t+l journal | outdoors Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island to climb the concrete steps leading to the iconic Big Buddha—Lantau’s biggest attraction and the largest seated, outdoor image of its kind in the world. But another ascent, steeper and longer, lies a short stroll away in Lantau South Country Park. Part of the 70 kilometers of paths on the island that mark the western end of Hong Kong, the trail that snakes its way up to Lantau Peak (also known as Fung Wong Shan, or “phoenix mountain”), is simply lungbusting. It rolls out easily for a few hundred meters, but that is deceptive.

Before long, it begins to ascend sharply; a path of carefully placed stone steps zigzags up the slope. This vertical leap takes only 1 kilometer to reach a rocky shelf just below the summit of Hong Kong’s second-highest peak. Doubled over and breathless, I console myself with the thought that those who laid the path had a much tougher go of it.

Even halfway up, the reward is a bird’seye view of the enormous Big Buddha and adjoining monastery. The tour buses are in sight, but out of mind.

Back on the climb, the steps seem like they’ll never end. Every twist in the shallow brush brings only more of them until, that is, I look up to see nothing but blue sky. Atop a rocky spur, the view south takes in serrated hillsides clothed in vegetation, dropping sharply until they disappear into the South China Sea. As a stiff wind kicks up, I start out east for the final steep pitch to the top of Lantau Peak. Boulders the size of small houses litter this last stretch that ends at 934 meters, with a brilliant panorama of Lantau, Hong Kong’s largest island. It’s wildly green with a dash of modernity off to the north in the form of the expansive Hong Kong International Airport.

From here, it’s simply a matter of following the trail along rolling hills— enjoying the stunning scenery—back to a bus or train.

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Lantau Island This strenuous climb up one of Hong Kong’s tallest peaks rewards hikers with some stunning vistas

Stepping Up Clockwise from top left: Grand views along the Lantau Trail; the Lantau Country Park entrance; Shek Pik Reservoir from the Lantau Trail; a steep climb along the trail.

GUIDE TO HONG KONG COUNTRY PARKS WHEN TO GO

HOW TO GET THERE

The best time to hike is in the cooler months between October and March. At other times the heat and humidity can make walks arduous, but you can cover shorter hikes at this time as long as common sense is applied. Trails are clearly marked, signposted (with time and distances) and well-maintained.

Information: Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department. 5th floor, Cheung Sha Wan Government Offices, 303 Cheung Sha Wan Rd., Kowloon; 852/27088885; www.afcd.gov.hk.

Pok Fu Lam Take The Peak Tram in Central up to The Peak, then cross the road to the trailhead. Travel time: 20 minutes.

Sai Kung Take the MTR (subway) to Choi Hung station. Then, minibus No. 1 or No. 1A, to Sai Kung town. From here, take bus 94 to Wong Shek Pier. Get off at Pak Tam Au. Travel time: 90 to 120 minutes.

Lantau The Lantau Island ferry leaves from pier 7 in Central. From Mui Wo, take bus No. 2 to Ngong Ping and head south along a well-marked path to the beginning of the hike. Travel time: 75 minutes.

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spas | t+l journal spa resort of Marienbad the way you reach a destination in a dream or a fairy tale: through a dense, dark wood, on a long and narrow road that twists and doubles back on itself so often that you think you must be lost. Suddenly, the road, and with it the vague anxiety of the forest, comes to an end, and you emerge with some relief into the ordinary asphalt streets at the bottom of a small Central European town, which rises coyly away from you up a gentle hill.

Stout middle-aged couples stroll past, clutching their shopping bags. Outdated cars chuff along the narrow street between an enormous park and a restaurant-filled sidewalk, where ostentatiously patient waiters repeat, the way you repeat things to a child, the orders given by diners who almost certainly do not speak the same language as the people serving them.

Even so, you may wonder whether you’re still dreaming, still in a fable. The improbable colors of the buildings, for instance—pistachio, cappuccino, egg-yolk yellow, cinnamon— together with the icing-like rosettes and swags, give them the appearance of giant desserts. »

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Bath Time Famous European spa towns once drew the nobility and the masses alike. Today, DANIEL MENDELSOHN discovers, the bygone pleasures survive. Photographed by CHRISTIAN KERBER

Summer in Marienbad From left: The 1896 Spa Hotel Nové Lázneˇ (New Bath) in Marienbad; hotel housekeeper Alena Hovorková. Above: At the source: Marienbad’s Ferdinand Spring Pavilion.

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And the 19th-century hotels and spas and promenades themselves with the unmistakable, overwrought look of late-Hapsburg civic architecture, seem to be trying to metamorphose into living things. Under tiny balconies on small apartment buildings, grossly oversize male caryatids writhe, making it difficult to tell whether they’re supporting the balconies or trying to tear them down. Tritons and nymphs cavort on the façades of other buildings, while barebreasted female caryatids patiently hold up doorways.

The patience of the statuary reminds you that the mirage to which Marienbad belongs is the irrecoverable past. For a long time, people would go to places like this to “take the cure”—people who inhabited an empire that no longer exists but whose vast shape is still visible throughout Central and Eastern Europe. From the fraught and crowded cities of the Austrian Empire these people would flee every summer or during the various holidays. The aristocrats and the bourgeoisie and the workers, too; the Poles and Austrians and Croatians, the Serbs and Lithuanians and Russians, the Ruthenians and Jews and Germans, would descend on small and often isolated towns prized for their health-giving waters, towns whose very names—in which the German word “bad,” or bath, is almost always embedded—summon to mind vague associations with distant childhood pleasures.

They went to Baden-Baden, to Bad Gastein, to Bad

Only now do I realize that he was trying to LEAP back into his own past

Bathed in History From above: A rig for hire in Marienbad’s Kurpark; a hilltop view of Marienbad; Zámecky Dolny Spring’s fountain, in Karlsbad; Franzenbad’s Salt and Meadow Spring Colonnade.

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Hofgastein. They went to Baden bei Wien, the sleek resort outside of Vienna to which Mozart escaped to compose while his wife took the waters and gambled, and to Bad Ischl, the tiny town nestled in the Austrian subalpine region called the Salzkammergut, a place whose crystalline lakes and towering peaks seemed to represent the truest, most essential Austria, the pure kernel of the sprawling, polyglot empire. (It was for that reason, perhaps, that this was the resort where Franz Josef spent nearly every summer from 1853, the year of his betrothal, to his death in 1916.) And they went to Marienbad, Franzensbad and Karlsbad, too; three points of a small, almost equilateral triangle in the Bohemian forests in what is now the Czech Republic, where royalty and the haute bourgeoisie from Vienna and the great and small provincial cities would transform the towns into microcosms of the empire itself.

It’s hard not to think that those who go to these spas today are consciously trying to catapult across the decades of war and totalitarianism and decay to something that belongs more to the 19th century than to the 21st. When I myself went there, it was at least in part to get a glimpse of the lost way of life of my own family, solid Austro-Hungarian merchants who, like everyone else they knew, would go each year to “take the waters.” I went so I would be able to imagine the spa where my grandfather’s father, a prosperous

businessman who would bring to his meetings a bottle of Tokay “to sweeten the deal,” suddenly dropped dead one morning over his breakfast, aged 47, thereby plunging his family into the financial crisis that spurred them, ultimately, to come to America. I went, too, to see what it was that my grandfather was looking for, quite late into his old age and long after he had acquired forgivable reasons not to want to travel in German-speaking countries, when he would go each summer to Bad Gastein in Austria with his fourth wife (who had her own reasons) and take those chilly waters. Only now do I realize that he was trying to leap back into his own past, a past before a trip by a man such as he to a place such as that was fraught with symbolic meaning, loaded as it was with history and the shadow of grief.

The body, then, isn’t all that is restored and refreshed when you go to these places. It was more for the nurturing of a memory that I went myself, finally, to take the waters.

In Baden bei Wien, I immediately experienced the marvelous sense of relief that long-ago visitors must have had on arriving here; before I even got to the ultramodern Römertherme in the center of town to sit in jets, fountains, and showers of warm, cold or sulfurous waters, I felt almost physically relaxed by the sight of the unassumingly elegant, pale creamy-brown Neoclassical façades. In Bad Ischl, I learned that what really heals you in a spa town are the uneventful, unchanging rhythms of the routines—meals, strolls, meals, swims—which come to seem as natural as breathing. But the paradoxical insight that the best way to connect to the past in these old spas was by fully inhabiting the present came home to me most forcefully in Marienbad.

When you take the waters in Marienbad, you spend less time sitting in them than drinking them. There are bathing establishments here, of course, and in Marienbad’s nearby sister-spas; the tiny, jewel-like Neoclassical town of Franzensbad and the much larger Karlsbad (famous for its many visits from Goethe and for the hideous Soviet-era tower where an important annual international film festival now takes place). But the real point of coming to these places, now as in the past, is to imbibe the impressively varied waters that spring directly out of the ground: ice-cold and burning hot, smelly and tasteless, fizzy and flat. Around these springs a predictable profusion of classical temples, vaulted galleries and rustic grottoes has been constructed; next to a spring you’re likely to find a plaque noting the name, temperature and mineral content of that particular jet of water. On arrival here, people purchase a cheap ceramic spa-cup—a narrow, flattened mug whose handle ends in a drinking spout. Walking along the old streets of town, you see nearly everyone clutching one, ready to thrust it under whatever fountain they pass.

I had read about this rather odd custom and was eager to sample the famous water in Marienbad, to which every »

Past Pleasures From above: Spa Hotel Nové Lázneˇ’s Roman bath; the Royal Cabin at Spa Hotel Nové Lázneˇ; Krásna Královna Restaurant, in Karlsbad.

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Outdoor Pleasures From above: Karola pavilion, in Marienbad; dapper musicians in the town’s park, in Marienbad; Orea Hotel Palace Zvon, in Marienbad. Opposite: A caryatid on the New Colonnade, in Franzensbad.

I kept hoping to come across a GHOST. A dapper man in his early 70’s

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conceivable curative power has been attributed by the faithful. (“You’re going to Marienbad?” an aged friend of mine who was born a subject of Franz Josef inquired, with an amused if slightly dismissive grin. “That’s where women go when they want to conceive!”) But what I most wanted from Marienbad was to sense its famous, cosmopolitan past.

Even today, when a good many of the grim traces of the Communist years remain to be sloughed off, you can see—in the fantastical Belle Époque self-indulgences of the architecture, the whimsical colors, the sweep of the terraced gardens, the sheer enormity of the vaulted, glass-enclosed, crystal palace that is the Kolonada, the iconic central structure of the town—a yearning to be the pleasure-place of many people from many countries.

At first, perhaps rather typically, I failed to find what I wanted. Although Marienbad has clearly spruced itself up since 1989, the visitors often look overawed, like employees caught sneaking around the boss’s office. Many speak German and come in tour buses; a noticeable majority of the ones who stay at the more expensive places appear to be Russian. The couples who stroll in the Kurpark here aren’t chic in the way couples in Baden bei Wien are; many put you in mind of Soviet television announcers.

And so, during the days I spent ogling vast hotels, drinking endless mugs of odd, brownish water and waiting to see if I felt any healthier—and relaxing, it’s true, into a familiar routine of baths and walks and potato-laden Central European meals—I kept hoping to come across a ghost. A dapper man in his early 70’s, say; a hypochondriac, but one still amiably interested in your health problems as well as his, chatting with a somewhat stooped woman in German, or Polish or Hungarian. A person, in other words, like my grandfather, born a citizen of a country that stopped existing 90 years ago, perfectly at home in this world that right now still exists largely in the imagination.

But naturally he didn’t turn up. I looked for him in the sidewalk cafés, where signs advertised fees for hourly Internet usage; I looked for him in the Kolonada, where one afternoon I sat eating a tepid grilled cheese sandwich, trying to eavesdrop on the babble of German and Russian and Polish nearby, languages I’d grown up overhearing if not quite understanding; I searched in the Nostalgia Restaurant, where one night I had a surprisingly good goulash with a wonderful local wine served by a waiter whose crisply expert English put my attempts at even rudimentary Czech to shame. A bit glumly, I promenaded and bathed and strolled and ate during those days, relaxed but unfulfilled.

And then, on my last morning in Marienbad, I went down after a restless night to the enormous, empty breakfast room at the Hotel Esplanade for a final meal. I was, at that early hour, the only guest amid a little crowd of waiters and chefs and experienced the inevitable feeling of silliness that for middle-class people goes with being waited on hand and

foot. And yet it was precisely this tension between the grandeur of the setting and the slightly clownish emotion of the moment that jarred me into an imaginative leap that finally allowed me to reconcile the “new” reality of Marienbad with the old world I had been seeking.

As I looked at the six young waiters and chefs, with their Slavic pallor and high cheekbones, furtively adjusting the absurdly high toques and the blue neckerchiefs of their brand-new uniforms while they stood beneath the enormous flat-screen monitor hanging from the ceiling, it occurred to me that perhaps it had always been like this—had always been the case that when you were in these dreamlike places, you had to keep adjusting your fantasy to accommodate the reality of actual life. Perhaps you always wrinkled your nose at the clumpy tourists, rolled your eyes at the ostentatiously expensive clothes of the Russian nouveaux riches in the next room, breakfasted self-consciously while watching the waiters fidget with their collars and the maids suddenly spring into

action to clear dirty dishes and adjust a place setting when the manager walked by. Perhaps the music always struck you as too saccharine; perhaps, even then, the paint was too fresh and the carpet too bright. Perhaps it was never a generic, romanticized “then,” but always somebody’s quite ordinary “now”—my grandfather’s in 1971, my great-grandfather’s on a morning in 1912 when he, too, sat down to breakfast with nothing more on his mind than how to spend another blissfully monotonous day.

This, I now think, is the secret that these places were whispering to me, in their different ways. It is surely no accident that the element these spas so famously share is running water—always the same, yet always moving. This should have been my clue about the real value of the baths, which others before me surely discovered and which I came to appreciate rather late. Be careful of looking for the past: you may be so intent on the dreamy then that the now will vanish before your watchful eyes. ✚

GUIDE TO EUROPEAN SPAS FINDING THE RIGHT “CURE” Spas may claim treatment specialties but treat many disorders. Here, briefs on some famous medicinal springs and some of their best-known treatments.

AUSTRIA BADEN BEI WIEN The Water Fourteen sulfur springs range from 30 to 38 degrees.

The Cure Rheumatism. The Claims A 20- to 30-minute sulfur bath reverses sulfur deficiency in joints. Famous Visitors Czar Peter the Great, Beethoven, Napoleon I. Where to Stay Grand Hotel Sauerhof (432252/412-510; www.sauerhof.at; doubles from US$265, including breakfast). Spa Center Badener Kurzentrum (30 Pelzgasse; 43-2252/48580; www.kurhaus-baden.at).

BAD ISCHL The Water Three to 28 percent salt content, and some sulfur. The Cure Respiratory tract, cardiovascular and dermatological problems. The Claims A five-day respiratory tract therapy program — six saltwater inhalations, three saltwater baths, three sessions of breathing gymnastics and three 25-minute massages — improves breathing. Famous Visitors Emperor Franz Josef, Mozart.

Where to Stay KaiserthermeThermenhotel (43-6132/2-040; www.thermenhotel-badischl.at; doubles from US$230, including breakfast). Spa Center Kaisertherme (see Where to Stay).

CZECH REPUBLIC FRANZENSBAD (Františkovy ˇ ) The Water Twenty-six Lázne springs (average 11 degrees) with high carbon dioxide

content. The Cure Pain relief. The Claims Mud with high sulfur and iron content, heated to higher temperatures than are tolerable in a water bath, has antiinflammatory effects. Famous Visitor Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Where to Stay Spa Hotel Imperial (420-354/206600; www.frantiskovylazne.cz; doubles from US$137). Spa Center Spa Hotel Imperial (see Where to Stay).

KARLSBAD (Karlovy Vary) The Water Sixteen springs (39 to 72 degrees average) with sodium-bicarbonate-sulfate and carbon dioxide. The Cure Metabolic and gastrointestinal ailments. The Claims A specific ailment will determine whether you bathe or drink from colder or warmer waters. Famous Visitors Gregory Peck, Whoopi Goldberg. Where to Stay The Grandhotel Pupp (420-353/109-111; www.pupp.cz; doubles from US$362, including breakfast). Spa Center Castle Spa (1 Zámecký Vrch; 420-353/225-820; www.edengroup.cz).

MARIENBAD (Mariánské Lázne ˇ ) The Water About 40 cold (7 to 10 degrees) mineral springs (sulfate, sodium, magnesium, and calcium). The Cure Respiratory, metabolic, locomotive disorders. The Claims Most courses of treatment prescribe drinking 1.5 to 2 liters of mineral water a day. Different springs address different ailments: the Rudolph Spring (five-to-four magnesium to calcium ratio) is recommended for osteoporosis. Famous Visitors Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, Frédéric Chopin, Johann Strauss. Where to Stay Hotel Esplanade Spa & Golf Resort (420-354/676-111; www.esplanade-marienbad.cz; doubles

from US$400, including breakfast). Spa Center Spa Hotel Nové Lázneˇ (53 Reitenbergerova; 420-354/644-111; www. marienbad.cz).

ITALY MONTECATINI-TERME The Water Four 24- to 28-degree springs, designated “strong,” “medium-strong,” “medium,” or “light,” depending on salt content. The Cure Stress, high cholesterol. The Claims Drinking two to three glasses of mineral water before breakfast, plus walking and singing around the town, will soothe any ailment. Famous Visitors Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Prince Rainier. Where to Stay Grand Hotel & La Pace (39-0572/9240; www. grandhotellapace.it; doubles from US$324). Spa Center There are nine spas in Montecatini. Ask your hotel concierge for recommendations.

FRANCE VICHY The Water Six hot and cold carbonated springs (21.5 to 43 degrees).

The Cure Rheumatism and digestive disorders. The Claims The Hôpital Spring (high in carbon dioxide) treats intestinal problems; the Célestins Spring, with the lowest mineral content of all the springs, helps digestion. Famous Visitors Louis XIV, Marquise de Sévigné, Napoleon III. Where to Stay Sofitel Thalassa Vichy Les Célestins (33470/308-200; www.sofitel.com; doubles from US$325). Spa Center Centre Thermal des Dômes (1 Ave. Thermale; 338/00-30-00-63; www.destinationvichy. com). —JENNIFER WELBEL

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t+l journal | obsessions in Tokyo and I was exhausted—so tired that the town, always a little strange, seemed positively surreal—but what was the point of trying to sleep? Instead I headed directly to Loveless, which I had been told was the coolest of the hot stores in the Aoyama neighborhood. And indeed, with its magenta walls and massive chandeliers, its stacks of Goyard valises and racks of McQueen tutus, it was everything I dreamed shopping in Japan would be. Anxious to buy something, anything, I settled on a punk teddy bear, made of what appeared to be deconstructed nylon socks and rudely pierced with a collection of nails. He was charming in a disturbing sort of way; he seemed very Japanese; and his price, about US$74, made him just the sort of souvenir I was looking for.

At least, that’s what I thought. About a month later I got the shock of my

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Buyers’ Remorse Why does bad shopping happen to good travelers?

LYNN YAEGER ponders vacation-induced shopping anxiety. Illustrated by MATT COLLINS

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life. Casually opening bills in my kitchen, I saw that Teddy had cost not US$74, but US$740! Alas, a mistake had been made—jet lag coupled with extremely poor math skills had caused me to misplace a decimal.

When I told people about it they laughed, but with a little prodding they confessed to remarkably similar stories: the young starlet who bought US$100 worth of tea in Indonesia, thinking she was spending US$10; my own father, who many decades before had purchased an ice cream in Florence for US$15, not US$1.50.

But it isn’t only currency confusion that can lead to trouble. In fact, the more I probed, the more I came to realize that shopping while traveling resembles a high-stakes casino game—not only because this ostensibly pleasurable activity produces serious angst, but also because there are actual odds involved: you have a one-in-three chance of buying something you love.

The other two outcomes—you buy it and it’s not quite right, or you resist temptation and subsequently pine away for it for the rest of your shopping days—are, sad to say, far too common.

Actually, there’s a deeper reason why shopping on trips is so fraught: when you’re on foreign soil, you really do feel like another person—more cosmopolitan, or earthier, or more sophisticated or more spiritual. That’s the whole point of travel: to step outside ourselves and view the world through a wider lens than our everyday lives allow. With this enhanced perspective, we snap up items that suit our new personalities, only to fi nd upon returning home that the sophisticated person has vanished, replaced by the same old us, only now, as in the case of my friend B., freshly possessed of a pair of what we shall politely call bloomer shorts.

B., a fashion executive too mortified to let us reveal her name here, bought this hybrid garment

D AV I E S + S TA R R

(plain, perfectly reasonable shorts with ruffled bloomers peeking saggily from the hems) on the Rue du Faubourg St.-Honoré, at Colette, a shop whose seductive spell has caused shopping meltdowns in women far stronger than B. She went for the bloomer shorts because, she says sadly, she thought they would look “so avant-garde, so cute with heels,” but once home, they immediately joined the purple-leather Dolce & Gabbana pantsuit she purchased a few years before in Milan hanging in the never-worn-even-once section of the closet.

I have had similar experiences myself. In a tiny, enchanting shop near the Trevi Fountain, the specialty was carefully pleated, knee-skimming wool skirts. So convinced was I that such a garment, accompanied by a white shirt rakishly unbuttoned, tousled hair, high heels and kneesocks, would give me a naughty schoolgirl allure, I bought not one, but two of these impossibly dowdy items. As soon as I got back to New York, reality hit: I have a Buster Brown bob and I can barely stand up, let alone cross a room, in high heels.

Lest you think these fashion faux pas affl ict only women, rest assured that travel-shopping regrets are gender-blind. Antique jewelry dealer Ronald Kawitzky, a man brave enough to lend his name to this account, is still wondering why those red shoes he bought in Rome on the Via Condotti couldn’t make the stylistic leap across the Atlantic.

Everyone he saw in Italy was wearing goofy sneakers—yellow, peach pink— and he wore his new trainers for the rest of the trip, feeling like the kind of guy who has a closet full of candycolored cashmere and drives a Lamborghini. And now? “I wore them once or twice in New York,” he says, “and everybody gave me really funny looks.”

His story reminds me of my pal K.’s adventures in Barcelona. She

A month later I got the shock of my life: Teddy had cost not $74, but $740! waited outside the famous espadrille store in the Barri Gòtic until it reopened after the city’s interminable lunch hour, then spent hours deciding between wedge and flat, beribboned and slip-on, pale and bright. When K.’s trip was over she remembered that in summer she always wears Prada sandals to work and fl ip-flops when she’s off duty. Her espadrilles— all six pairs—have suffered the same fate as Ronnie’s scarlet sneakers.

But if they hadn’t bought those illfated shoes, would they be longing for them right now? Victoria Ashley, the director of communications at Celine, still thinks about the frankly fake giant-pearl necklace she encountered years ago in London. She balked then at its high drama but has wanted to retrace her steps ever since. On the other hand, she did buy a safari jacket

in South Africa—suede with some kind of furry lining—and while she adored her jacket in Africa, has it ever been worn for a shopping safari down Fifth Avenue? And then there was the Grecian-style dress, purchased in Melbourne. “The few times I’ve worn it, I felt like I was channeling the days of ancient disco rather than ancient Greece,” Ashley recounts mournfully.

Often it’s not ourselves but our homes that are the unhappy recipients of misguided travelshopping enthusiasm. A woman I used to know well visited China when that country fi rst opened up to tourism. She fell madly in love with a patterned pink rug and wanted it for her capacious living room. Trouble was, she didn’t know the exact dimensions of her salon. She bought the carpet in what she thought was the right size, but it turned out her parlor was not quite as grand as she imagined. For years afterward the rug graced the room with one end rolled up behind the furniture, a rare disharmonious note in an otherwise immaculately decorated abode.

But as bad as these debacles can be, it’s important to remember how life-changing travel shopping can be.

Many years ago in Europe as a college student attending a socialist rally (at the time, this was my idea of fun on summer vacation), I was stunned by the gorgeous women all around me. Back home, being a lefty meant overalls and Frye boots, but here you could man the barricades looking like Juliette Gréco in a silk dress and scarlet lipstick and patent pumps. I buried my jeans in the bottom of my suitcase, went to Galeries Lafayette, bought a Cacharel dress, and wore it practically every day for the remainder of the trip.

When I got home, I tossed my jeans in the garbage. And I’ve been dressing up ever since. ✚ Lynn Yaeger is a Travel + Leisure contributing editor.

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The

Big Deep

Pristine and mineral-rich, water from the ocean’s depths cures and rejuvenates, according to the late beauty maestro Shu Uemura, who opened the first deep-sea water spa on Japan’s remote Shikoku Island.

SHANE MITCHELL tests the waters. Photographed by JUN TAKAGI

O, IT’S TRUE THAT STILL

waters run deep. At Japan’s isolated Cape Muroto, I watch the surface of the Pacific slosh against brown volcanic rocks, but I’m really thinking about the static bottom 3,500 meters below. Still, I didn’t fly around the world to contemplate the abyss; I intend to take the plunge.

In July 2006, Shu Uemura—the late makeup artist who favored rainbow palettes and fanciful false eyelashes—opened the 17-room Utoco Deep Sea Therapy Center & Hotel on the easternmost tip of subtropical Shikoku Island. His idea was to harness uncontaminated water from the ocean depths for its therapeutic value: it’s rich in potassium, calcium and magnesium, and has other trace elements missing from surface water. It can have positive effects on digestion and skin tone, according to Uemura, who died in December. “We come from the sea originally ... Deep-sea water contains all the elements our bodies need.” At Utoco, pools are filled with water pumped up from the ocean depths; many of the beauty products, treatments and even meals are infused with it. If this all sounds a bit far-out, that’s because this is the first spa of its kind, although similar experiments are taking place on coastlines from Norway to Tahiti.

The use of seawater for restorative purposes, or thalassotherapy, has been around since Hippocrates took his oath. But it wasn’t until the early 19th century that the Duchesse de Berry popularized seawater bathing by dipping her fashionable toes into the English Channel. Since then, the French have been the most ardent advocates of saltwater cures at resorts from Quiberon to Monte Carlo. These centers, however, utilize relatively shallow waters: at the Thermes Marins de Monte Carlo, the spa’s key resource is pumped from about 30 meters below, which still qualifies as surface water. By contrast, the true deep begins at 1,000 meters and plunges more than 10 kilometers. This water

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The use of seawater for restorative purposes has been around since HIPPOCRATES took his OATH

Water World Top: The Cape Muroto shore. Above: The hotel reception. Opposite: The exterior walkway of the hotel.

(which accounts for roughly 95 percent of the planet’s H2O) has a different composition and takes millennia to circulate in a worldwide “conveyor belt.” The lowest zones are intensely cold, densely pressurized and devoid of sunlight.

Uemura was fascinated with the potential healing properties of deep-sea water. A Japanese pharmacological study focused on its capacity to lower cholesterol; bottled water from Kona, Hawaii’s deep-sea water source, is a popular dietary supplement in Tokyo. Uemura claimed special sensitivity to water—he could tell its purity by touch—and posited that “where there is good water, there are many beautiful women.”

About 15 years ago, Uemura visited the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority, or NELHA, on Hawaii’s Big Island. He became fascinated by the water that was being pumped from the ocean off the Kona Coast. NELHA houses numerous aqua-tech start-ups that ship desalinated drinking water, sun-evaporated salt and nigari—a magnesium chloride powder used in tofu-making—to Japan.

Recognizing further potential applications for deep-sea water, he began using it at a cosmetic production facility and later at the therapy center. Both are on Shikoku, where deepsea water is drawn from an “upwelling zone.” (Japan has six places where this phenomenon occurs—a slow current pushes a lower layer of water closer to the surface—and one is in Kochi.)

By Tokyo standards, Cape Muroto is a real backwater.

During the Heian Period (794–1185), Kochi Prefecture was informally called Onru (meaning “to banish”). Still far from metropolitan areas, it’s an hour’s flight from Tokyo’s Haneda airport, plus a two-hour drive on winding coastal roads to reach the rugged headland. Before Uemura opened his spa, this sparsely populated peninsula was best known for its Shingon Buddhist pilgrimage circuit. Just up the road from Utoco is an enormous statue of Kobo Daishi, the ninth-century monk who first trekked the entire island in search of enlightenment.

To recover from my own journey, I sit for hours on a low couch, watching fishing boats navigate the bubbling brine.

The Tokyo- and Paris-based design firm Ciel Rouge devised the Modernist concrete-and-steel resort on an intertidal zone between the surf and a steep hillside. Built on pylons behind a breakwater, the single-level structure arcs horizontally along the shore so that wherever guests perch (on deck chaises, at dining tables or in bed) their views of the Pacific are unobstructed. “It’s as though you are living in the sea,” said Uemura. “You can listen, watch and breathe it.” He certainly eliminated terrestrial distractions: the plain white » T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E S E A

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I sit for HOURS on a low couch, watching fishing boats navigate the bubbling brine

rooms reflect the aesthetic of someone who knew that immersion doesn’t require turndown chocolates or pillow menus.

When I wander along Utoco’s sheltered deck, every curve reveals another intentionally framed scene.

The building even acts as a sounding board for the offshore breeze and ocean spray; at key points near reception and the spa, large embrasures allow both to whisper, shell-like, in my ear. The hotel’s seafood is brought in on boats that cruise past its breakwater. In the open-plan restaurant, big portholes look out at a shoreline that I seem to be leaving behind as the staff serves miso soup with aosa seaweed, grilled fish marinated in rice vinegar, crispy tempura shrimp and smoked tofu dipped in Muroto sea salt.

The next morning, walking into the ovoid spa at the far end of the complex, I’m immediately transported to the Riviera. Except no one speaks French. For that matter, the staff barely speaks English. It’s not difficult, though, to decipher the familiar ritual—jet baths, soaking pool and a sage-scented hammam (Turkish bath). But Uemura took thalassotherapy to a new extreme. The hotel boutique stocks Uemura’s “Depsea Moisture” skin-care products. Brushing with mineralized toothpaste (also made with the water) is odd for someone accustomed to saccharine American brands.

Ditto the slightly saline boutique water (packaged in a rippleeffect bottle designed by French artist Jean-Pierre Vitrac), which counters the dehydration I suffer after a transpacific crossing. Still, I suspect “Château du Tap” would likely have

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Sea Views Left: A breakfast of rice porridge. Opposite, from top: One of the patios at Shu Uemura’s Utoco Deep Sea Therapy Center & Hotel; Shu Uemura; the spa terrace.

the same effect. The spa menu is equally pared down to healthy essentials: algae and fango mud applied in the two body wraps are imported from France but blended with Cape Muroto waters. A moisturizing facial uses featherlight cleansers and creams from Uemura’s son Hiroshi’s Utowa skin-care line. It’s refreshing to experience a session without the fervent product up-selling that typically accompanies Western treatments. In fact, there is a distinct absence of hackneyed spa frills. No silly stone massages or flax-filled eye pillows here. But I can’t help laughing as one of the therapists leads me into an aerosol chamber to inhale misted seawater. A black light imbues my white cotton robe with a phosphorescent glow. Supposedly simulating the profound darkness at full fathom five, it’s a little too Disco Fever for me.

The similarities to thalassotherapy centers I’ve visited in France cease as soon as I dip into the indoor pool. The deep-sea water, heated to body temperature, has an effervescent quality that can’t be credited to the underwater jets bubbling at resting stations around the edge. Eventually,

The resort’s reading room.

I wind up monopolizing the outdoor whirlpool, on a sunny deck above the rocks where seabirds rest. The longer I steep, the less I am inclined to quit, especially after realizing that my fingers and toes don’t shrivel. This novel water certainly seems to improve the softness and tone of my travel-worn skin.

Thanks to robotic submarines and pumping systems, the abyssal zone is no longer a mysterious realm of giant squid and predators with glowing eyeballs. And Shu Uemura wasn’t the only fish in the sea convinced that this resource has curative potential.

Admittedly, his spa had initially seemed too minimal for me: just water, water everywhere. But during the next two days, after more long soaks in Utoco’s fizzy pools, I begin to notice a sea change of my own. Perhaps, at last, I’ve found my inner Nemo.

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

GUIDE TO DEEP-SEA WATER SPAS Utoco Deep Sea Therapy Center & Hotel 6969-1 Murotomisaki-cho, Muroto City, Kochi; 81-8/87221811; www.utocods.co.jp; doubles from US$260; treatments from US$100.

GETTING THERE JAL has four daily nonstop flights to Kochi from Tokyo’s

Haneda Airport. Utoco can arrange car service for the two-hour drive to Cape Muroto.

At the InterContinental Bora Bora in Tahiti, the environmentally sensitive hotel has discovered another healthconscious application at the newly opened Deep Ocean Spa

by Algotherm. In overwater ALSO

bungalows, thalassotherapy treatments pair pure water from the South Pacific seabed with Algotherm’s marine-based ingredients (algae extracts, salt, fango mud) from Brittany. 689/604900; www.boraboraspa. intercontinental.com; doubles from US$873; treatments from US$102.

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t+l journal | reflections

The author’s parents on their wedding day.

TAIWAN

Homeward Bound Traveling with her parents in eastern Taiwan, JENNIFER CHEN discovers where her family’s roots really lie

HE RAIN IS STARTING TO BEAT DOWN STEADILY one November morning in Taiwan. I’m aboard a southbound train headed from Taipei to the eastern town of Taidong, and though the downpour is obscuring the view, I find myself gazing raptly at the shifting scenery outside. It’s a revelation to me, someone who has only spent time in the urban confines of Taiwan’s buzzing capital.

Emerging out of Taipei’s main station, the train first snakes past cavernous warehouses and spewing factories—reminders of the manufacturing boom that drove the island’s headlong dash toward modernization in the 1980’s. Just beyond the city limits lie drab suburbs decked with gaudy neon signs. Gradually, though, the signs disappear and concrete buildings give way to lush fields, which later cede to gently sloped mountains blanketed in a thick tangle of forest, the mist curling through the trees. The train picks up speed and hurtles through a long tunnel. When we emerge, the mountains loom on our right, while on the left is the Pacific Ocean, startlingly blue-green, even in the autumn rain. It’s a majestic juxtaposition, and one that makes you appreciate why the Portuguese sailors who spied the island in the 16th century were moved to call it “Ilha Formosa”—the Beautiful Isle.

Sitting by my side, my mother quietly takes in the scenery, while my father presses up against the window,

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trying to find the best angle for a photograph. This is a journey that’s drenched with memories for my parents. After spending nearly four decades in the United States, they’re retracing the path they had taken together as a young couple for the first time since they left Taiwan. The last time my parents made this trip was in 1969, the year my father came back to Taiwan after three years of studying in the United States to escort his bride to the West. Before their departure, they went on a long-delayed honeymoon to Taiwan’s east coast, making stops in Taidong, where my father grew up, and my mother’s hometown of Hualien.

The fact that this journey is even taking place is somewhat unexpected. My father—a scientist and, hence, a supreme rationalist—possesses a robust skepticism of sentimentalism.

Besides, for my family, Taiwan was never meant to be home, the place where you took sentimental journeys such as this one. Family stories about a mythical homeland always revolved around China. My mother, Wendy, was born in Hong Kong to a mother who was a descendant of the last imperial dynasty. In 1945, her family went to Taiwan for a brief holiday, only to find themselves stranded on the island because of World War II. My father, Augustin, was born in Beijing. His family fled China in 1949 when Mao Zedong’s Communist army defeated Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces.

Eventually making their way to Taiwan—then a backwards, impoverished island—my paternal grandparents continuously dreamed of the day they would return to their ancestral home.

My parents, in turn, decided to settle in the United States.

And though they’d taken trips separately to Taiwan to see their ageing parents, it was clear that my mother and father no longer saw Taiwan as their home. So it was a surprise that when he retired in May last year, the first overseas trip my father announced was not one to a destination he’s long dreamed of, like Antarctica or Angkor Wat, but to Taiwan.

“It’s been 38 years since I went to Taidong,” he says as we map out the trip from our relatives’ house outside of Taipei.

“I might not recognize it anymore.”

He’s right. From the safety of a speeding train, the landscape looks immoveable, but up close, it’s a different story. The changes wrought by four decades are apparent the moment we pull into Taidong’s train station. In the intervening years since my father was last here, a new station was built on the outskirts of town. The old depot now temporarily hosts a contemporary art show, complete with pop art paintings and abstract sculptures.

Since the 1960’s, Taiwan has gone from being a military-ruled agrarian backwater to an Asian tiger economy, to a post-industrial society with increasingly sophisticated tastes—a »

CO U RT ESY O F J E N N I F E R C H E N

Yesterday’s Taiwan From left: The author’s father, Augustin Chen (right); by Taidong’s beach in the 1960’s; the author’s mother, Wendy Chen (right).

When we emerge, the mountains loom on our right, while on our left is the Pacific Ocean

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In his memory, Taidong is still a rural idyll with wide, dirt roads shaded by ancient banyan trees

transformation that’s caught my parents, who seldom ventured out of our relatives’ homes on previous visits, offguard. Urbanity abounds in Taiwan these days, even far beyond Taipei. Taiwan’s fast-forwarded maturity is such that even a town of 100,000 people such as Taidong (relatively small for this densely packed island) holds a contemporary art show in an artfully lit abandoned space. Taidong even has a Starbucks, housed in a minimalist slab of a building.

However, the changes come fast and hard for my father. In his memory, Taidong is still a rural idyll with wide, dirt roads shaded by ancient banyan and camphor trees. Today, its streets are paved and packed with restaurants, shops and businesses. Only its spectacular setting rescues it from bland anonymity; to the west are the forested peaks of Taiwan’s Coastal Mountain Range, while to the east are the clear blue waters of the Pacific. After renting a car, we start off in search of the two houses where his family lived—squat, onestory brick abodes with tiled roofs, called “Japanese-style” in Taiwan, which was a Japanese colony from 1895–1945. Both 98

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have long since disappeared and been replaced by drab concrete blocks.

Disappointed at the loss of his family homes, my father takes us to Lushan, a small public park in the heart of the town. But it’s no longer the tranquil oasis that he fondly recollects, and it’s certainly not the romantic spot where he had paraded his pretty wife in 1969. In the park’s center, a television hitched up to a karaoke machine has been set up under a red tarpaulin. A handful of locals lounge on metal folding chairs while a woman with a wiry perm warbles along to a Taiwanese ballad. Nearby is a more timeless tableau: a group of old men gather around a ferociously played match of Chinese chess, some consulting each other about the players’ strategies. But the woman’s uncertain soprano and the distorted tune from the karaoke contraption drown out their comments. Some things, thankfully, haven’t changed. Taidong still moves at a leisurely pace. At a busy intersection, an old man on a tricycle for grown-ups peddles diagonally across, snarling up traffic. But he lurches forth unhurriedly, gazing around him with self-complacency.

People’s friendliness, too, hasn’t diminished. Everywhere we turn, everyone—retirees, middle-aged security guards, young students dressed in the latest fashions—seems to greet us with a smile, a few curious questions, and upon learning of my father’s ties to Taidong, a genuinely felt, “Welcome home.” Later, my father looks up his best friend from high school—someone he hasn’t seen or spoken to in the 38 years since his last visit. “Where are you? We’ll go out for dinner!” his friend says immediately when my father calls. That night, over an impromptu banquet, the reminiscences, along with the beer, flow. Never once does his friend ask my father why he hasn’t kept in touch. This is Taiwan: you leave the island for four decades, you come back, you call an old friend, and

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

The Beautiful Isle From left: Taiwan’s scenic coastline; Wendy Chen (left) at her engagement party; a bus weaves through Taroko Gorge, near Hualien.

reflections | t+l journal what you get aren’t reprimands or awkward silence, but unquestioning camaraderie. This is the sort of treatment you expect when you come home. the train to Hualien. An elderly aboriginal couple—their wrinkled faces still sculpted and noble—settle into a pair of seats behind my mother and I, and start conversing in their native tongue, which is melodic and ornamented with trills. “That’s the language of the aborigines who live around here,” my mother whispers.

“I grew up listening to that language.”

Eastern Taiwan is home to many of the island’s aborigines, who are of Austronesian origins. Driven into the mountains by Chinese migrants in the 18th and 19th centuries, Taiwan’s aborigines have long been on the margins of the island’s economic and political life. Attempts to redress this didn’t begin in earnest until the late 1980’s.

But there’s still a long way to go. Though neatly dressed, the aboriginal couple is clearly less flush with cash than the middle-class Taiwanese onboard; the cuffs of their jackets are frayed and in lieu of luggage, they carry large plastic bags secured with string. The old woman confides to my mother that she’s traveling to Hualien to visit a charitable hospital that provides affordable medical treatment to Taiwan’s indigenous population.

We sit and listen to the couple talk cozily among themselves for a moment, and then my mother begins

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HE NEXT DAY, WE TAKE

telling me stories about her youth in Hualien. Some I’ve heard before, but many of them I’m hearing for the first time: stories of a happy childhood in the countryside, where no one had very much and nobody seemed to mind.

Listening to her, I realize that the place that shaped my parents, where our roots really lie, isn’t China—that fabled land of lost fortunes, ancient traditions and illustrious ancestors. After decades of war and Communism, that idealized China doesn’t exist anymore—and probably never did. It’s here, on this beautiful, green scrap of an island.

Taiwan was never meant to be our home, but it’s become just that. Late in the day, after a jaunt to the magnificent Taroko Gorge near Hualien, I watch my parents amble along the town’s black-sand beach. They’re gathering some of the unusually patterned volcanic rocks that litter the beach, just as my mother used to as a girl. From time to time, they stop and show each other their finds. They look at ease, at home, and I’m reminded of something my paternal grandmother said to me recently. After spending almost 50 years in Taiwan, she had returned to her birthplace of Kunming in southwestern China. As far back as I can remember, she’s regaled us with tales of the perfection of Kunming—its beauty, its agreeable climate, its refinement.

But when I saw her last, in her comfortable new apartment, I asked her whether she ever thought of Taiwan. “Of course. All the time,” she said, her octogenarian’s eyes widening for a moment. “It’s home.”

GUIDE TO TAIWAN

MARC GERRITSEN

GETTING THERE AND AROUND Most major Asian airlines have daily flights into Taoyuan International Airport, which is about an hour by bus or car to downtown Taipei. Taiwan also has an extensive and efficient railway network (www.railway.gov.tw), including a high-speed rail between Taipei and the southern city of Kaohsiung.

Augustin and Wendy Chen relax in a Taipei teahouse.

WHERE TO STAY Les Suites 135 Da-An Rd., Section 1, Taipei; 886-2/8773-3799; www.suitetpe.com; doubles from US$179.

The Lalu 142 Jungshing Rd., Nantou; 886-49/285-5311; www.thelalu.com.tw; doubles from US$741.

Formosan Naruwan 66 Lien Hang Rd., Taidong; 886-89/239666; www.naruwan-hotel.com.tw; doubles from US$98.

Parkview Hotel 1-1 Ling Yuan Rd., Hualien; 886-3/822-211; www.parkview-hotel.com; doubles from US$98.

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t+l journal | inns

JAPAN

Tea Time From right: A tea ceremony at Yoshi-ima in Kyoto; the ryokan’s new front entrance.

Rethinking the

Ryokan

Are Japan’s centuries-old inns, or ryokan, going the way of the geisha?

ALAN BROWN pays a visit and discovers an institution that’s recasting itself for a new generation. Photographed

by TETSUYA MIURA T IS EARLY EVENING IN KYOTO, and I am alone in my

I

room at Yoshi-ima ryokan, sitting cross-legged on the tatami, sipping sake, my skin still glowing from a hot bath. I am looking out at a jewel of a garden, where the bamboo, stirred by a breeze, shimmers. There’s a knock on my door. A maid enters, bowing, with a beautiful lacquer box, fi lled with seasonal delicacies like mountain potatoes, carved in the shape of leaves, bundles of mushrooms and grilled ginkgo nuts. I pick up my chopsticks, but I’m in no rush: I know from experience that this elaborate kaiseki dinner will go on for hours in a seemingly endless procession of courses.

When I first visited Japan more than 20 years ago, I shunned all things Western and stayed only in ryokan. From Sendai to Nagasaki, I donned yukata robes, contemplated

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indecipherable calligraphy scrolls and slept on futons and buckwheat husk–stuffed pillows. I was experiencing the “real” Japan.

Or at least the “traditional” Japan. Ryokan originated during the Nara period (710–784), when monks built free rest houses throughout the country to accommodate travelers. For much of the 20th century, visitors had no choice but to stay in them, given the paucity of Western hotels (in 1965, there were about 260). Ryokan are Japan’s country inns: intimate establishments, typically with breakfast and an extensive dinner included. As recently as a few decades ago, it wasn’t unheard of—particularly in rural areas—to share rooms with strangers. Privacy wasn’t an option anyway: room dividers were so thin you could hear every snore and sniffle; the baths were communal. During steamy summers, everyone slept with their doors and windows wide open to the breeze.

Recently, however, ryokan owners have been tinkering with time-honored tradition—lest they end up out of business. Lifestyle changes among the Japanese and competition from international hotels have led to a drop in the number of ryokan, declining from 80,000 in 1988 to fewer than 60,000 in 2005. So, to make rates more

Zen Palette Below: Soba noodles glazed with raw egg in the Daimaru restarant, near the inn.

Right: The dining area of the guest room.

Many ryokan have been tinkering with TRADITION—lest they end up out of business

competitive, some give guests a meals-free option. Others go out of their way to accommodate foreigners who, in the old days, were at best a nuisance: they didn’t speak the language, walked on the tatami in their shoes and used soap inside the communal bath. A group of 30 ryokan have formed “The Ryokan Collection” to market themselves as boutique inns, with designer flourishes, architectural details and, of course, cultural authenticity.

The ryokan of Kyoto, a former imperial city and a popular tourist destination, are among the first to have instituted modernizing touches—and with much flair and frills. English-speaking staff and Western-style breakfasts are now available even at the city’s legendary Hiiragiya and Tawaraya ryokan—both centuries-old and famed for their refined aesthetics, attention to detail and guest lists that have included royalty and Hollywood stars.

At Yoshi-ima, a lovely wooden 19th-century building in the Gion district, all rooms have locking doors, private toilets and tiny private baths (folding myself into mine required a yogi’s flexibility). The moment I slid open the front door, I was gathered up by a bevy of kimono-clad women and led down a narrow hallway to a spacious room.

I was handed an illustrated pamphlet in English that

covered every aspect of inn life, from bathing to footwear etiquette. There’s even a “foreigner specialist” on call, an amusingly earnest Mr. Kanda, who introduced himself with “it rhymes with panda,” and who was eager to act as my guide, interpreter and problem-solver.

Foreigners now make up more than a third of the guests.

In the hallway that evening, I bumped into three Seattle women who were returning from sightseeing, toting Starbucks takeout bags. They couldn’t have been happier with their ryokan experience, they said, sipping their lattes, but they had “tired of the endless cups of green tea.” I eyed their lattes, amused at how globalization had made its way into this old-world sanctum.

Even out in the countryside, changes are under way.

Tucked into the deep mountainous Kiso River valley outside Tsumago, Hanaya began life as an umayado, accommodating both people and horses—under the same roof! Isomura Isamu, Hanaya’s 72-year-old current owner, is the ninth generation of his family running the inn. In the 1960’s, when Tsumago’s ancient buildings were meticulously restored and the town was revived as an “Old Japan” attraction, Hanaya reopened after a decades-long hiatus. It got so busy that travelers often doubled up, Isomura » T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E S E A

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Country Inn Above: A kaiseki, or multicourse meal.

From right: The Oyado Kinenkan’s ancient wood hallways; a canal in the Gion district where the Yoshi-ima is located.

recalled. “People liked sharing rooms. They got to meet strangers and have interesting conversations.”

Everything changed with the opening—despite local efforts to stop it—of a 300-room modern hotel and spa in 1995, which siphoned guests away. So a few years ago, Isomura rebuilt Hanaya to accommodate changing tastes.

The new building lacks the charm of the old, but it has walls instead of sliding fusuma panels between the rooms, and real doors. “People expect locks nowadays,” Isomura told me. “We put in air conditioners, because guests aren’t comfortable sleeping with doors and windows open.”

They’ve also put coin-operated TV’s in the rooms and enlarged the bath. “If you have 10 guests, they have 10 different needs.”

Not every ryokan, though, has modernized, as I happily discovered when I reached Nagano, the next stop in my journey. The town, located in the relatively isolated foothills of the Japanese Alps, most recently came to international attention when it hosted the 1998 winter Olympics. There, I checked into Oyado Kinenkan, a centuries-old three-story structure on a quiet backstreet lined with mom-and-pop stores a few minutes’ walk from stately Zenkoji Temple.

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and daughter-in-law all live and work on the premises. It’s backbreaking work when the inn is full, which is rare now.

Before the games, this sleepy city was a three-hour train trip from Tokyo—far enough that visitors spent the night. For the Olympics, though, the government built a bullet-train line, reducing travel time to 90 minutes.

“There used to be about 40 inns. Now, there are only about eight,” Mrs. Watanabe told me, appearing with a plate of sweet-bean pastry. The perfect okami, or mistress of the inn, she perched at the edge of her seat, expectant, until I took a bite and smiled my approval. Only then would she continue: “These days, foreigners are the only ones interested in Old Japan.”

Even here, off the tour-bus circuit, concessions, however slight, have to be made. Today, the Watanabes (who have a son living in the United States) are brushing up on their English. Rates have been the same for some time (US$31 without meals; US$67 with dinner and breakfast), allowing guests a meal-free option. Oyado Kinenkan’s fiberglass tubs and vending machines—typical of modest inns all over Japan—can’t match the pampering service of a Kyoto inn.

But its ancient wood floors, polished to a sheen, and heavy wood beams that crisscross the ceilings are evocative of a

Past Perfect Left: A futon laid out in a guest room at Oyado Kinenkan. Below: Harue Watanabe, the mistress of Oyado Kinenkan, welcomes guests.

‘IN THE PAST, people liked sharing rooms,’ said one owner.

‘Nowadays, they expect locks’

Japan that is rapidly disappearing. It’ll survive simply because it offers a glimpse of a life you won’t see in hyperactive Tokyo or tourist-jammed Kyoto.

Not that more “updated” ryokan don’t have their place: Japan has long been a tantalizing jumble of tradition and innovation. Sumo and baseball, Sony and Kabuki. No country seems more adept at absorbing multicultural influences while holding to its identity. Personally, I hope they won’t adapt too much. I can get a latte almost

anywhere in the world, so I’m secretly grateful to ryokan owners for holding to a “No Internet” policy. Even after decades of traveling here, I still love leaving my shoes at the door and having the kimono-clad maids fuss over me. And nothing is as therapeutic as an evening soak in a hot bath, followed by good sake and a leisurely kaiseki meal. E-mail access, be damned. ✚ Alan Brown is a Travel + Leisure contributing editor.

M A P BY M A R I A E B B E TS

GUIDE TO RYOKAN PLANNING YOUR TRIP The Japan National Tourist Organization’s website (www. japantravelinfo.com) offers valuable information on ryokan.

Or you can go directly to the International Ryokan Association’s website (www. ryokan.or.jp), which represents about 1,400 of the country’s inns.

The association’s site provides English-language information, not only about individual inns but the

experience of staying in a ryokan.

Any travel agent who specializes in Japan can make your ryokan reservations.

WHERE TO STAY Oyado Kinenkan Ryokan 550 Nishi-machi, Nagano; 8126/234-2043; rates from US$35 without meals, US$74 with meals.

Yoshi-ima Ryokan Shinmonzen, Gion, Kyoto; 8175/561-2620; rates from US$151 with meals, rates without meals

available upon request.

Hanaya Ryokan Tsumagoshuku, Nagisomachi, Kiso-gun, Nagano; 81-26/457-3106; rates from US$62 without meals, US$88 with meals.

The high-end Ryokan Collection (www.ryokan collection.com/eng/ index.htm) includes some of Japan’s finest inns, as well as contemporary properties that combine the best of both East and West design and amenities.

F E B RUA RY 2 0 0 8| T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E . C O M

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UNLOADING FISH FROM A BOAT ON THE

ANDAMANS. PHOTOGRAPHED BY R. IAN LLOYD

106 The unspoiled islands of the ANDAMANS 118 Wellness havens abound in HUA HIN 124 BEIJING: building up for the Olympics 134 VIETNAM joins in Asia’s spa boom 105

A colorful house in the Andamans. Opposite: A fishing boat sails off South Andaman Island.

ISLANDS APART

Governed by India—but much closer to Southeast Asia—the unspoiled beaches and spooky colonial remnants make the Andamans worth discovering.

By JOE YOGERST. Photographed by R. IAN LLOYD

B

are working overtime as the ferry pulls out of Port Blair on South Andaman Island. It’s that mix of excitement and trepidation that comes whenever I head to a new place.

But it’s even more intense this time because the place I’m heading to—Havelock Island—is so far off the beaten track that most locals haven’t even been there, let alone foreign travelers such as myself.

Crowning a bluff on our right is the notorious Cellular Jail, where the British once dispatched not just killers and thieves, but also political prisoners from their various Asian possessions. Just beyond the harbor mouth is the jungle-smothered ruins of Ross Island, where the Brits played cricket and drank high tea, trying to pretend that they were back home rather than consigned to the most far-flung corner of the Empire—the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; a string of several hundred islands stretching between southern Burma and the tip of Sumatra, with the aquamarine Andaman Sea on one side, the turbulent Bay of Bengal on the other. That the islands are governed by India is more a quirk of colonial fate than anything else.

This remote part of Southeast Asia is geographically much closer to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur than New Delhi or Mumbai.

Hindu legend says the islands were named for Hanuman, the Monkey God of the Ramayana epic, who used them as steppingstones to Sri Lanka. It’s believed that Chinese and Japanese traders came here as early as the first century A.D., but for the most part seafarers steered clear, calling them Timai Thevu (“Islands of Impurity”) because the Andamans’ indigenous tribes were thought to crave human flesh. The islands became part of British India (and, subsequently, independent India) more by accident than design— nobody else really wanted them.

Tourism to the Andamans is increasing rapidly, but from a low base. The number of arrivals has risen from around 30,000 in 2005, to an estimated 100,000 in 2007. And there are those who envision a future in which the Andamans will become the Bali of the Bay of Bengal, with resorts stretching along coastlines. But that idea seems far-fetched. Around 85 percent of the Andamans remains wilderness and only 38 of the islands are inhabited. Owing to a combination of tribal homelands and military security, less than a dozen islands are open to foreign visitors, most of them within a 160-kilometer radius of Port Blair, the Andamans’ anachronistic capital and the place where my sojourn started a week earlier. More a cluster of villages than a city, Port Blair unfolds as a warren of colonial shophouses and bungalows strewn across a wooded peninsula between the open ocean and one of the largest natural harbors in Asia. Exploring » UTTERFLIES IN MY STOMACH

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Andaman Faces Above: A women heads to the market with fresh fish. Clockwise from left: An elderly man at Aerial Bay; fishermen with the day's catch; farmers tending vegetables; a proud home owner in Betapur; Hare Krishnas at the Chanting Festival in Govindapur; a child at the Chanting Festival; out for a walk on Havelock Island; a Muslim wedding in Port Blair. Opposite, from top: An elephant on the beach in Madhuban; palms shade dwellings in Dirgapur village; a cricket game at Mayabunder.

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the narrow lanes of Aberdeen Bazaar, the old market area, I’m overwhelmed by multifarious odors—tropical fruits and vegetables, incense and spices, and other aromas that I dare not identify. High-pitched Hindi music seems to escape from every crevice, competing with the shouts of merchants, who, in true Indian fashion, are not averse to pitching their wares in an assertive manner. Yet, being an island, there is a mellow edge—everything in moderation.

But the city hasn’t always been so gentle. Its most prominent landmark (and leading tourist attraction) is the infamous Cellular Jail, an everlasting reminder of the Andamans’ sinister roots and a shrine to those who died fighting for Indian independence. Completed in 1906, it was a massive engineering project by the standards of the time, with nearly 700 cells in seven wings. Three of the original wings remain, with one of them open to the public as a museum and memorial to the freedom fighters. Every night, the gallows and other anguished landmarks are bathed in an eerie glow, and a sound-and-light show recounts the Andamans’ penal history.

Many of those descended from colonial-era convicts live in Dugnabad, an old residential area just below Cellular Jail— men like Gauri Shanker Pandey, who proudly traces his roots through several generations of political prisoners. Over tea and biscuits in his living room, Pandey tells me about his family. “My great-grandfather became entangled in politics and was sent to Andaman in the 1870’s. The rule was that a convict who had good character for a certain period would be allowed to leave the prison and settle down here. And if he was in a position to support a family, he was allowed to marry a woman from the convict population.”

From the prison ramparts you can look across the harbor to the colonial ghost town on Ross Island, which functioned for nearly 100 years as the bastion of British power, culture and commerce in the Andamans.

As I explore the ruins the following day, I can’t help thinking that Ross Island would be an ideal place to film a horror movie. Roots and vines grow up and around brick buildings, in some cases buttressing walls and arches that would otherwise crumble. The steeple of the Presbyterian Church is coiled within the arms of a titanic tree that had broken through the roof on its skyward journey. The effect is creepy, almost surreal. It’s like stumbling upon a lost city in the Amazon. Rangers have erected signs and cleared paths of rubble, but otherwise left the ruins untouched in the hope that the sheer eccentricity of the place will attract visitors. »

I find myself thinking it would be wonderful ift 110

Market Day Below: A woman unloads fish from a boat in Port Blair. Opposite: Aberdeen Bazaar in Port Blair.

the ANDAMANS could remain like this forever 111

That the islands are GOVERNED by India is more a quirk of colonial fate 105

Elephants and handlers out for a stroll along the beach. Opposite: A lone motorcyclist makes his way along a palm-lined road.

There is, of course, much more to the Andamans than Port Blair. My original plan is to head north from the capital on the Andaman Trunk Road (ATR), a meandering two-lane highway that together with short ferry crossings links the archipelago’s three main islands (South, Middle and North Andaman). But my plans to travel the road by public bus are scuttled by the Jarawa, one of four indigenous tribes that still live in the Andamans.

Although the Jarawa and other indigenous peoples are protected within the confines of tribal reserves, their lands are under almost constant threat from agriculture, logging and other outside forces. They respond the only way they know how—attacking trespassers with bows and arrows.

The Jarawa had recently attacked a village on Middle Andaman Island and, as a result, transport along the ATR had been disrupted. At the Port Blair office of the Anthropological Survey of India, director Anstice Justin tells me the Jarawa normally only attack when provoked. “Settlers are interfering in tribal areas,” he explains. As long as nobody gets hurt, the incidents are largely overlooked. But a handful of poachers, farmers and public works employees have been killed over the past 20 years. The gruesome nature of the deaths—the bodies are mutilated and left in the jungle as a warning—spurred rumors of cannibalism similar to those of centuries ago. “We have no proof of that,”

says Justin. “The Jarawa have always mutilated the bodies of their enemies. Some people think it’s their way to prevent evil spirits from leaving the body.”

With no way to advance northward by land, I turn to waterborne transport and soon find myself staking claim to a section of rickety wooden bench on a ferryboat bound for Havelock Island—a trip that can take anywhere between 2½ to five hours from Port Blair, depending on the route and weather conditions. Seated beside me is a man in a black cassock, Father Peter Soares from Goa, on his way to tend to the spiritual needs of 80 Catholic families on Havelock. “I’ve been to Reno!” Father Soares blurts out when I reveal my nationality, before carefully explaining that his visit was actually part of a “religious tour” of the United States. Still, I have to ask the obvious question: “Father, did you gamble?” Shrugging off the question with a sly smile, he launches into a sermon on the trials and tribulations of being a Catholic priest in the Andamans. “Me and two other priests are responsible for more than 7,000 people in 27 parishes on three islands,” he explains.

We are both distracted by a commotion on deck as people gather around two Swedish backpackers trying to sell a watch to the ship’s engineer. The engineer offers 500 rupees (about US$20). The Swedes waiver and then accept the offer, stuffing the banknotes into their pockets. They » 113

Loading coconuts onto a boat. Opposite: Sari-clad women carrying heavy sacks of coconuts.

hold their poker faces until the engineer departs, and then grin. The watch is a fake purchased in Bangkok and the Swedes are paying for their travels by selling copy watches.

Havelock is soon on the horizon, nothing more than a line of green at first, but closer to shore you can notice the thick tangle of jungle that covers much of the island. There are chalk cliffs along the eastern shore, and from a perch on the palisades, a white-bellied eagle swoops low over the water to snatch a fish from the sea. The ferry chugs gently around one final bend and nuzzles up to Havelock Jetty.

Uninhabited until World War II and now populated mostly by Bengali peasants, Havelock is the only place besides Port Blair in the Andamans where visitors can stay overnight in any style. A handful of bungalows along Number Five Beach (so named because it’s 5 kilometers from Havelock jetty) offer a slice of comfort in the middle of nowhere.

Backpackers discovered this isolated place a decade ago, but they generally camp along Radhanagar Bay on the island’s western shore, cooking their own grub or eating at the openair stalls in the coconut grove behind the beach. The rest of Havelock remains untouched by the outside world, a little corner of Southeast Asia where elephants are still working animals rather than circus attractions, bikes (and feet) are still the most common transport, and there are beaches where the only footprints in the sand are likely to be your own.

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Everyone on Havelock is in a festive mood, getting ready for the Holi Festival—Lord Krishna’s annual holy day.

Bengali settlers at Number Five Beach invite me to join their celebrations that night, with all of us gathering in a makeshift hut fashioned from dry banana leaves. I am told the hut represents the home of the local she-demon, who will shortly be cast from the village. In order to accomplish that goal, the hut is torched—literally set on fire—with everyone inside.

One by one we dash through the doorway as the flimsy structure goes up in flames, morphing into a giant bonfire.

The last one to exit, a lanky teenage boy, is hailed by all as the bravest person in the village. As embers float into the full-moon sky, I join the villagers in a feast of steamed rice cut into neat squares that we eat off banana leaves, coconuts, papayas, bananas and other tropical fruits.

Wandering along Radhanagar Beach the next day, I come across a British woman who has been traveling in India for close to four months. “This is my last stop—two weeks on Havelock,” she says with a long sigh, almost as if she is talking about heaven. “Each day I find some little gem. A bay with a white sand beach, a new place to snorkel.” Wading into the surf later that day, I find myself thinking it would be wonderful if the Andamans could remain this way forever.

Then again, maybe they will. That’s how far out on the edge these islands are.

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GUIDE TO THE ANDAMAN ISLANDS WHEN TO GO In the tropics, the Andaman Islands are almost always hot and humid. The wet southwest monsoon is May to November when heavy rains are common and cyclones sometimes strike the islands. The dry “winter” months (December to April) are a much better time to visit — a season of blue skies and warm temperatures that make for perfect beach weather.

HOW TO GET THERE Plans were announced last June to introduce international flights from Bangkok, Singapore and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, but until such time, flying via India is the only way to reach the Andamans. Indian Airlines and Jet Airways offer daily services from both Kolkata and Chennai.

Those with hardy sea legs can opt for passenger ferry service from Kolkata or Chennai, a trip across the Bay of Bengal that takes 50 to 60 hours.

WHERE TO STAY PORT BLAIR Fortune Resort Bay Island This rambling wooden manse overlooks Port Blair Harbor and the north shore. Many rooms have sea views and private balconies. Its Mandalay Restaurant serves some of the island’s best seafood, as well as Indian and Chinese dishes. Marine Hill; 91-3192/234-101; www.fortunehotels. in/hotel_portblair.aspx; doubles from US$85.

Peerless Resort Located at Corbyn’s Cove on the eastern shore of South Andaman Island, this resort is a long-time favorite for scuba divers. The wandering cows add a touch of local color to the lovely palmshaded strand. 91-3192/229-311; www.peerlesshotels. com/portblair.html; doubles from US$98.

HAVELOCK The Wild Orchid Perched halfway down Havelock’s east coast, this outpost of rustic chic offers air conditioning, Ayurvedic spa treatments, a romantic thatched-roof eatery and an open-air bar. Vijaynagar; 91-3192/282-472; www.wildorchidandaman.com; doubles from US$76.

An elephant — a common sight in the Andamans — trundles down a road with its handler aboard.

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HUA HIN The countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first seaside resortâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;now home to a plethora of and a peaceful antidote to the hustle and bustle of Bangkok,

Viewing Comfort From above: The Living Room restaurant at the Six Senses Hideaway; the pool at Veranda Sky. Opposite: A maze of colorfully rendered passageways at The Barai.

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HAVENS

spa retreats—is more refined than other beach getaways, three hours north. Story and photographs by LEISA TYLER

T

HUA HIN BECAME FASHIONABLE IN the 1920’s after the British pushed a railway north through the jungle, linking Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. The rail line ran past this restful seaside town, making it an easy retreat for Bangkok’s elite, who built their holiday homes along Hua Hin’s shores. The royal summer palace, Klai Kangwon (meaning “far from worry”) was built here, and Thailand’s royal family still spend much of their time in the town. (The image of Thailand’s revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej is everywhere and hundreds of royal-yellow flags flutter by the sides of roads.)

Calmer than Thailand’s other beach resorts, Hua Hin is cashing in on its refined nature, reinventing itself as the Kingdom’s spa capital. Kick-starting this trend was ChivaSom, which opened in 1995. Luxurious, but rigid, with a ban on mobile phones, no fat or salt in the food and a minimum three-day check-in, Chiva-Som became a favored destination for celebrities. Meanwhile, perched over a silky smooth stretch of sand at Cha-am, 15 minutes north of Hua Hin, the industrial chic–style Veranda Resort and Spa recently opened an all-pool wing, called Veranda Sky. The brief given to this new edition is purely to pamper—something it achieves with distinction. Other resorts are going further, building facilities into rooms. At The Barai—a new private spa wing at the Hyatt Regency—guest rooms have not one, but four massage beds. There is also a steam room and an oversized bath.

While promising temples of tranquility and peace, not all spas cut it. With some charging up to US$100 for a massage, the spa is becoming the latest cash cow for some establishments, and it seems every hotel worth its soap must have one. By recruiting therapists with little more than a two-week crash course in massage, the quality of treatments in some places is lacking—often, you’ll get a better massage on the beach for just US$5.

So T+L sifted through all the hype and checked into three spa resorts in Hua Hin that deliver the goods. » HE TOWN OF

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THE BARAI RAISES THE BAR FOR THAI SPA DESIGN

Raising the Bar Clockwise from left: A spa treatment room; yoga at the Tranquility Court; the bathing and relaxation area in the spa treatment center; a welcome garland; a pool villa set amid lush gardens.

Opposite: The unusual entrance to The Barai.

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ITH A SUBLIME MAZE of pools, 18 chamber-style treatment rooms and dimly lit corridors doused in ocher red, The Barai pays homage to the Khmer temples of Angkor, but with hints of a Japanese garden and Arabian harem. Set over 1.8 hectares, it’s easy to get lost, but eventually all paths lead to the Tranquility Court, a serene courtyard dotted with 100-year-old tamarind trees and a 42meter lap pool. Designed by local architect Lek Bunnag, The Barai raised the bar for spa design in Thailand when it opened in March last year.

More indulgent than inventive, the eight guest suites attached to The Barai each take in a huge 126 square meters, with terrazzo floors, rich wood trimmings and a roof in the shape of ocean waves. Just as remarkable are the villa butlers.

The first time I checked into The Barai was for the U.S. edition of Travel + Leisure’s “It List.” Putting the staff to the test, I asked my butler, Apple, for a glass of dry, chilled, New World white wine, ASAP. Less than three minutes later she

was back with a bottle of Chilean Sauvignon Blanc poised delicately on a tray.

Also impressive is the breakfast at McFarlane House, a 19th-century building transformed into a breezy restaurant and bar by the beach. Think free-range eggs with wilted spinach and Brie with sun-cured beef.

The quality of The Barai’s spa treatments is a little hit and miss. My aromatherapy massage seemed straight out of a textbook, with the therapists regurgitating a pattern rather than feeling. However, the indigo compress—a Thai massage followed by Hmong-style poultice to draw toxins out of the skin—was superb.

When The Barai first opened, it offered an intimate spa getaway, with a daily massage and a personal in-house yoga instructor included in the rate. Both, unfortunately, have been scrapped; the yoga is now taught in group classes.

91 Hua Hin–Khao Takiap Rd.; 66-32/521-234; www.thebarai. com; doubles from US$575. » 121

HIDEAWAY IN STUNNING STYLE

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HEN, IN 2001, THE ACCLAIMED spa group Six Senses opened the Evason Hua Hin resort and started to grow its own organic herbs and leafy vegetables, compost waste, recycle water, build with recycled timbers and redirect a percentage of room rates to local charities, it became the vanguard for responsible and ecologically friendly resorts.

For its second take, Six Senses opened the Hideaway, with 55 pool villas, next door. The villas line wooden pathways where staff zip up and down on bicycles. The area is dotted with lotus ponds, and birds swoop in and out of trees. Villas are hidden behind rammed-earth walls, making them pleasurably private. There’s not a hint of disposable plastic in sight—from water bottles to shampoo containers.

Most villas come with facilities for spa treatments, but with one of the most stunning and unusual spas in Southeast Asia, there is no reason to stay in-room. The resort’s Earth Spa is housed in traditional “caves” built to replicate those found around villages in Northern Thailand. Huddled around lotus ponds and verdant gardens, they are earthy and rustic. Walls are built using mud and rice husks—some up to 80 centimeters thick—keeping the caves cool, even when the temperature reaches 35 degrees outside.

The spa only uses fresh vegetables and fruits in its products, believing that you shouldn’t put on your skin what you can’t eat (the most popular treatment is the honey, lime and cucumber facial). I chose the Six Senses signature Sensory Journey—a two-hour treatment, including a steam bath, dryskin brush and four-handed massage.

Unlike lomilomi from Hawaii, or Ayurveda’s purva karma, both traditional four-handed massages, the Earth Spa’s wasn’t synchronized. Both therapists used different pressure and I found their movements confusing to follow, although it was a delight when one therapist massaged my face, while the other massaged my feet.

At the Hideaway’s restaurant, the cuisine is unprocessed, organic and nutritious, using many ingredients from the Six Senses’ own garden.

The goat’s cheese praline with walnuts, pistachio and raspberry purée, teamed with Atlantic snow fish niçoise with a light truffle sauce and a glass of Margaret River organic white wine, is the perfect after-spa lunch.

9/22, Moo 5, Paknampran Beach, Pranburi; 66-32/618-200; www. sixsenses.com; villas from US$510.

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AN UPBEAT BUZZ AT CHIVA-SOM

C Sensory Delights Clockwise from above: Outdoors at Six Senses Hideaway; healing sound meditation on the beach at ChivaSom; the Earth Spa at the Hideaway; a bedroom in a villa at the Hideaway; grilled Atlantic snowfish niçoise with truffle essence at the Hideaway’s Living Room restaurant.

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

HIVA-SOM WAS BUILT

in 1995 by the late Boonchu Rojanastien, a former Thai deputy prime minister and the man credited with kick-starting Southeast Asia’s booming spa industry. It is, without a doubt, Thailand’s most famous spa. Even people who have never stepped foot inside know about its rules and quirks. They gasp and shake their heads when you tell them you’re going to stay there. ChivaSom is, after all, not everybody’s cup of tea. But those who do check-in usually find their way back—60 percent of guests are repeat clients, most staying for a week or more.

With six staff per guest room, more than 150 spa treatments to choose from, an exhaustive daily program (aqua aerobics, Bosu yoga, cardio kick, Pilates and so on) and a constant string of visiting psychotherapists and other such specialists, the resort buzzes with an upbeat, healthy—if not hippie—energy.

Intrigued, I booked a session with Emotional Freedom Technique “tapper” Paul Emery, who believes many of our aches are actually stress, fear and anxiety that have transmuted into pain. I was hoping he could drum away the knots in my shoulders, and after half an hour chanting positive words while being rapped on the head, I did feel slight relief, but it was possibly just the power of persuasion, as the knots were back two hours later.

I opted for a more traditional way of straightening out the lumps. Chiva-Som is renowned for its highly trained therapists and Khun Poungthong is no exception. Half my size but probably twice as strong, I didn’t have to tell her where my shoulders were knotted; she found them, along with half a dozen others, after two minutes on the table.

73/4 Petchkasem Rd.; 66-32/536-536; www.chivasom.com; threeday packages from US$1,095 per person, twin share, including all meals, scheduled classes and a daily massage.

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BEIJING

Tourists gather in the Forbidden City, which is now being extensively restored.

GEARING UP FOR THIS YEAR’S SUMMER OLYMPICS, BEIJING IS A CITY IN TRANSFORMATION, REMAKING ITSELF FOR THE 21ST CENTURY AT FULL TILT. YET EVEN AS ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOODS ARE DISMANTLED AND FUTURISTIC SKYSCRAPERS RISE, MICHAEL Z. WISE FINDS A GROWING AWARENESS OF THE VALUE OF HISTORICAL PRESERVATION. PHOTOGRAPHED BY DEAN KAUFMAN

REBUILT

T

HE HIGHLIGHT OF A VISIT TO THE NEW BEIJING

Planning Exhibition Hall is the extraordinarily detailed scale model of the city that projects what China’s capital will look like in the year 2020. English-speaking guides dressed in scarlet-and-black silk tunics offer assistance to foreign visitors as pulsating lights flash over the exuberant mock skyline. The government-operated urban planning museum is housed in a four-story building the size of a major department store, and the model—a testament to the city’s current explosive growth—covers some 300 square meters.

Just outside the museum, which is located in the heart of the capital near Tiananmen Square, construction proceeds at breakneck speed. Beijing’s latest transformation, driven by the turbocharged expansion of the Chinese economy and the city’s intense desire to present a new face for the 2008 Olympics, is producing a resounding clash between the past and the future. Although wall text in the museum proclaims a “perfect fusion” of the two, the rampant destruction of narrow lanes lined with courtyard houses dating back six centuries alarms many Beijingers who fear their heritage is on the auction block.

Yet amid the wide-scale demolition and new construction, some of the city’s most prominent historic landmarks—the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and the Temple of

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Heaven—are undergoing their most comprehensive restorations ever. These, too, have sparked controversy, with criticism coming from the UN agency that oversees world cultural heritage, concerned the makeovers will leave these centuries-old structures looking freshly minted.

In the same way that they have invited leading foreign architects to build skyscrapers and stadiums, Chinese authorities are now seeking assistance from foreign experts in restoring the Forbidden City. The World Monuments Fund, a nonprofit group based in New York, is guiding the renovation of some of the interiors in the 999-room former imperial residence and Italian conservationists are bringing their experience to bear on retooling the palace exterior.

“In China, the idea of preservation is quite new,” says Wei Wei Shannon, a spiky-haired Chinese architecture critic who intermittently text-messages on a red-and-white cell phone as we talk over dinner. “Walk through Rome and the city is like a museum where you can see the passage of time. But history in China has been rewritten over and over again. There’s a constant pushing forward.”

This is not the first time Beijing has undergone reinvention: successive dynasties have remade the city to their liking. Built on flat terrain in a grid pattern that gives it the feel of a

Beijing’s new National Grand Theater, designed by Paul Andreu, opened in December. Opposite: A corner tower of the Forbidden City.

checkerboard, with the emperor’s palace set in the middle, Beijing was made the imperial capital in the 15th century during the Ming dynasty. Until the 20th century, the city was surrounded by a massive wall with fortified tower gates. “Not one of our European capitals has been conceived and laid out with such unity and audacity,” a French naval officer observed after visiting imperial Beijing at the conclusion of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900.

When the Communist Party came to power in 1949, it ignored the pleas of Chinese architectural experts to create a new administrative center outside the historic core of Beijing and tore down the city wall to make way for a major road ringing the metropolis. Chairman Mao himself is said to have surveyed Beijing from atop the Gate of Heavenly Peace and announced he wanted “the sky to be filled with smokestacks.”

A master plan for redeveloping Beijing as a socialist city was adopted along guidelines provided by comrades from the Soviet Union. Factories arose all over town, rapidly supplanting temples, gardens and teahouses.

Axial streets were widened into mammoth boulevards lined with bulky modern buildings. Still more national treasures were lost in the Cultural Revolution, launched in 1966 under the slogan, “Destroy the old to establish the new.” The Forbidden City itself barely escaped assault by the Red Guards before Prime Minister Zhou Enlai ordered the palace

gates sealed to thwart their rampages. Ever since reformist leaders proclaimed an Open Door policy in 1978, the arrival of global capitalism has wrought even more damage to the remnants of the urban treasure that was old Beijing. Four more, ever larger, concentric roads ringing the city have been built over the past 15 years and a fifth is planned. Daring architectural constructions are rising all over what is now a megalopolis of 15 million people, most notably the bubblelike National Theater complex by French architect Paul Andreu; an expansion of the Beijing airport, by Norman Foster; the new Chinese state television headquarters, designed by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren in the form of a gargantuan contorted arch; and a huge Olympic stadium,

by Herzog and de Meuron.

The television headquarters will be the second-largest building in the world after the Pentagon, and the architects have attributed at least part of the building’s dramatic form to the need to make it visible in the heavily polluted air hanging over Beijing. “It’s an environmental condition you have to be aware of when you design here,” Scheeren says.

“It’s not only bad for your health, it also makes all architecture look bad. I call it Beijing blur.”

Coming into clear focus despite the blur is the destruction of the traditional neighborhoods, known as hutong. In these areas, a pitched battle over the city’s past and future is being » 127

IN CHINA THE IDEA OF PRE waged daily, as Beijing rushes to modernize and adopt Western-style ways and standards of living.

A few minutes’ walk south of Tiananmen Square, I find the bustling Dazhalan neighborhood in an upheaval. A central road is being widened and large swaths of old houses and shops are being bulldozed to make way for new apartment buildings, including rebuilt contemporary versions of the traditional courtyard houses called siheyuan. Billboards advertising the new development show Pizza Hut and Starbucks among the new tenants.

Picking my way through the rubble, I spot several buildings of architectural merit, but here squalor often trumps charm.

In many of the courtyard houses, built around an open quadrangle, the central patio area was ruined—not always irreparably—when the Communists, facing a housing shortage, pushed for them to be subdivided and filled in with new buildings. Ramshackle renovations and additions mar the original beauty and grandeur. Beyond aesthetics, residents have no running water. Open drains in the alleyways are clogged with decaying food and refuse, and residents share public toilets and baths. “Many houses are not fit for modern life,” Wu Xiaoshan, who’s out walking his bulldog, tells me.

“It’s inconvenient and uncomfortable.”

I meet later with Zhu Jiaguang, a leading official in the urban planning bureau. “Preserving culture is important, but 128

so is improving quality of life—we must keep both in mind.

The majority of people want to move,” he says, explaining that “during the development process there are always going to be displaced residents.”

Still, many citizens are disoriented by their forced uprooting and disgruntled with both the compensation and the new housing developments—often well outside the city center— where they have been relocated. Rather than going quietly, some Beijingers are mobilizing public opinion and fomenting political activism. “The street has become a public space for common people to express views,” says Ou Ning, who has made a documentary film about the Dazhalan neighborhood.

“This is a great advance for China. This is a new beginning of citizenship here.”

Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the destruction, so far without success. “The heart of old Beijing is being wrecked,” says one such litigant, Hua Xinmin, who is trying to prevent development in the hutong where she was born.

But although the government has gotten its way so far, the space for public discussion of the issue has become far broader in recent years. In 2003, the authorities granted official recognition to a nongovernmental organization known as the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center, which is systematically documenting current conditions in the hutong.

City Makeover Above: SoHo, a residential development in Chaoyang’s Central Business District. Left: Figurines on exhibit at the Pudu Temple, near the Forbidden City. Opposite: Beijing’s new Olympic stadium, designed by architects Herzog and de Meuron.

RESERVATION IS QUITE NEW A master plan adopted by the city in 2002 sets aside 25 historic-preservation districts, and the group wants to ensure that these areas survive development pressures. There are only 1,500 alleyways left in Beijing, half the number that existed in the 1950’s. And fewer than 600 of those remaining are in designated historic districts, whose protected status is far from clear. Still, whereas just a few years ago hutong preservation was seen primarily as a foreign media obsession, Chinese authorities are increasingly aware of their value.

“The appearance and style of old Beijing is an important cultural resource and competitive advantage for the sustainable development of the modern city,” Liu Qi, general secretary of the Communist Party of Beijing, said. And an editorial in the official paper China Daily commented, “With better-preserved hutong, Beijing could attract more visitors and win greater applause.”

I

SEE HOW A HUTONG CAN BE PRESERVED AND UPGRADED

when I visit another area, north of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, near the 18th-century Bell Tower, where pedicabs ferry tourists on forays around the neighborhood. I am on foot, guided by Hu Xinyu, managing director of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center. We climb the tower to get a panoramic view of the labyrinthine passageways. Back at street level, Hu points out

a pair of stone stubs astride the entryway to one of the many courtyard houses, explaining that these are remnants of carved lion heads vandalized in the Cultural Revolution. As a peddler cycles slowly past us, his wicker baskets full of persimmons and tangerines, we peer into courtyards at heaps of coal bricks still used for heat. Cabbage and scallions hang out to dry in the brisk winter air. Hu suggests stopping in at the local mah-jongg parlor, where amid the click-clack of gaming tiles, a friendly player takes us aside to show off an assortment of pet crickets kept in tiny jars.

We pass by several blackboards affixed to façades, each covered with colorful, meticulous chalk calligraphy that explains the origins of the Olympic movement to area residents. Nearby, Nanlouguxiang Street is one of the few hutong passageways to become almost fully gentrified—it’s now lined with bars and restaurants aimed primarily at Western travelers. In the narrow lanes spilling off to the sides there are many grand courtyard houses undergoing comprehensive restoration, and two have already become hotels. Wealthy foreigners like media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the president of Airbus China are snapping up courtyard buildings of this type; high-end renovations are stoking fears that surviving hutong will become enclaves for the very rich or be degraded into tourist-only zones devoid of the close-knit communal life that made them so distinctive. “People » 129

long for what is being swept away physically,” Julius Song, a retired professor of sociology, says. “But even more there is longing for the intimate feeling of people who lived there for generations. They shared so much.”

In China’s booming economy, the market for expensive living quarters is white-hot. While old courtyard houses are being razed, new high-rise developments are going up all over town. Some of the most architecturally distinctive have names like SoHo and MOMA, contrived to evoke Manhattan glamour in the minds of potential buyers. I visited the showroom for an eight-tower complex drawn up

by American architect Steven Holl, billed as an environmentally path-breaking design featuring geothermal heating and cooling. “People are getting rich overnight and they want to live in a very good apartment,” Jiang Peng, deputy manager of the project, says as we walk through a model apartment designed to attract what the Chinese call golden-collar workers.

URING THIS FEVERED SPATE OF PRIVATE-SECTOR development, Chinese state authorities are overseeing construction for the 2008 Olympics and the restoration of key landmarks like the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven. The Olympic deadline is heavily influencing both

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the preservation of old buildings and the construction of new ones. The city government ordained that all new structures must be finished by the end of 2007, well before the Games begin.

The huge new stadium will be completed by March and the so-called Water Cube, a stunning new facility where the swimming competitions will be held, was completed in December. Even the International Olympic Committee, which agonized about the snail’s pace of Athens’ preparation for the 2004 games, has urged the Chinese to slow down, for fear the finished venues will sit empty for too long. The main stadium by Herzog and de Meuron already stands as a striking addition to the skyline, with its steel and concrete ribbing arrayed like a huge bird’s nest, or delicate basketweaving writ large.

Lest the major monuments of China’s glorious past be overshadowed by these contemporary landmarks, Deputy Prime Minister Li Lanqing issued a call four years ago for the Forbidden City to be thoroughly restored. “The ideas of party members are influencing the palace museum, but they are not educated in these matters,” says a Beijing conservation specialist who asked not to be named. Fang Zhiyuan, a professor at the China Academy of Arts who is descended from the Qing imperial line, voices similar criticism of the overall official approach to preservation. “The government

Billboards surround a construction site along Qianmen Dajie, displaying what’s in the works.

doesn’t consider historical value—decisions are made by political need,” he says. “Historic sites are being sectioned off for commercial purposes. Many people in Beijing are upset about this.”

UNESCO recently issued a statement expressing concern that restoration works at the palace and other major sites were being carried out “in a hasty manner” and without “clearly formulated principles.” When I raise these objections with the deputy director of the Palace Museum, Jin Hongkui, he responds, “The renovation being carried out right now is based upon careful study and discussions, rather than catering to the comment of a leader.”

The current restoration of the Forbidden City is the largest undertaken in generations and the most comprehensive ever.

With assistance from conservators provided by Italy’s Cultural Ministry, the exterior of the Hall of Supreme Harmony is being overhauled, many of the palace’s extensive yellowglazed roofs are being retiled and new wooden pillars are being erected in place of rotting supports.

At the northeast corner of the former imperial palace, away from the tourist hordes who swarm through the vast complex (there were 8 million visitors in 2006 alone), the World Monuments Fund is helping to restore a secluded area known as the Qianlong Garden. The garden, which includes two dozen pavilions, was created as a retirement retreat by

Emperor Qianlong, a patron of the arts and prolific poet who reigned from 1735 to 1799. Under his rule, the empire reached new heights in terms of power, geographic expanse, wealth and influence.

The lavish pavilion interiors, designed with an extraordinary refinement reflecting Chinese supremacy during Qianlong’s reign, have never been open to the public, and most have remained shuttered since the abdication of the last emperor early in the 20th century. Qianlong invited the Italian painter and Jesuit missionary Giuseppe Castiglione to help decorate the rooms with colorful trompe l’oeil silk murals that unite Western techniques with Asian themes. Set among intricately embroidered panels, they are juxtaposed with walls covered in bamboo-thread marquetry, carvings in red sandalwood and rare zitan rosewood, and jade ornamentation.

Much of the Forbidden City comprises vast open spaces that were the scene of imperial court ceremonies. But the Qianlong Garden is “one of the few places where you get a sense of the emperor’s private life,” Henry Tzu Ng, the World Monuments Fund’s executive vice president, says as museum watchmen open rusting padlocks to permit us entry into the long cloistered realm.

Once inside, we see how the retreat has suffered from neglect over decades of Communist rule, when haphazard alterations and slipshod repairs were made. Museum staff, » 131

inexperienced in working with delicate interiors, installed fire alarms with little thought given to their placement, often hammering nails through the delicate, 18th-century wallpaper. Strips of tattered wall coverings dangle in the dimly lit chambers, cracks cover the exposed wood beams, and layers of lacquer are peeling away. A thick coat of dust mutes the original precision of brocaded, carved and inlaid details.

One of the chief obstacles to restoring these opulent quarters is that many of the requisite craftsmen are no longer alive. But the Palace Museum has begun seeking out skilled artisans capable of replicating the fine kesi embroidery and reproducing the unusual lamps used to illuminate the rooms.

“It’s a great challenge, because a lot of the techniques have been lost completely. We’ve had to investigate how to bring them back,” Cao Jinglou, former head of the conservation department, says.

After a yearlong search, the museum located workers who could produce a durable, traditional mulberry-bark backing for the fragile silk paintings, locating them in the southeastern Anhui province. Another craftsman, who had special training in transforming dried goats’ horns into globular lamps such as those found in the Imperial Palace, was discovered near Nanjing. The elderly man, the third generation of his family to make the lamps—first for the palace and later for the museum established in the former imperial residence—was forced to abandon his craft in the 1960’s, during the Cultural Revolution, when Red Guards destroyed his tools. In subsequent decades, he worked in a cannery.

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The Palace Museum has pledged to help him recreate those tools and revive his craft, which dates to the seventhcentury Tang dynasty. “There are millions of people like him who had their lives destroyed,” says Ng, who traveled from Beijing with conservators to meet the Nanjing master. “This might help redeem not only his craft but also his dignity.”

In recent years, a broader reevaluation of the importance of China’s imperial heritage has brought about a new esteem for these incredible, long neglected rooms. Chinese landmark authorities recognize that their isolation from foreign influence under Mao prevented them from acquiring outside expertise. “They were in the refrigerator for many years and they’re desperate to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of conservation,” says John Stubbs, World Monuments Fund vice president for field projects. Through the World Monuments Fund, Western experts are now helping the Chinese learn modern conservation techniques, and a new conservation studio has been created within the Forbidden City. The Qianlong Garden paintings are being repaired here, and when I visit, I see a central silk panel that has been restored to stunning effect. It shows a life-size red-crowned crane—a symbol of longevity in Chinese tradition—peering out amid clusters of pink and white peonies. Here is a vivid result of importing Western conservation practices and awareness, and I consider whether this might also spur China to restore not just key relics and landmarks but also save a greater part of the capital’s historic fabric. I hope so.

In with the New Above: A scale model of the city at the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall.

Left: Rem Koolhaas’s state TV tower, under construction. Opposite: A courtyard house, or siheyuan, in the Jiaodaokou neighborhood.

GUIDE TO BEIJING GETTING THERE Major airlines offer direct flights from Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore and other Asian cities.

WHERE TO STAY Grand Hyatt 1 East Chang An Ave.; 86-10/85181234; www.hyatt.com; doubles from US$320.

Hotel Kapok 16 Donghuamen St.; 86-10/65259988; www.hotelkapok.com; doubles from US$174.

Southeast bank of Qian Hai; 86-10/6404-2259; dinner for two US$15.

WHAT TO SEE Beijing 2008 Olympic Park 267 Fourth Ring Rd.; 86-10/66699185; www.beijing2008.com.

Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall 20 E. Qianmen Ave., Chongwen; 86-10/6702-4559.

Bell Tower North End Dianmenwai Dajie; 86-10/6401-2674.

The Peninsula 8 Goldfish Lane, Wangfujing; 8610/8516-2888; www.peninsula. com; doubles from US$306.

China Central Television Headquarters Central Business District; www. cctv.com.

China World Hotel 1 Jianguomen Wai Dajie ; 8610/6505-2266; www.shangri-la. com; doubles from US$267.

Forbidden City 86-10/6513-2255; www.dpm.org.cn.

WHERE TO EAT Da Dong Roast Duck Restaurant The capital’s best place for the traditional duck dish.

22 Dongsishitiaolu, Dongcheng; 86-10/5169-0328; dinner for two US$53.

National Grand Theater 4 Shi Beihutong; 86-10/ 6606-4705; www.nationalgrandtheater.com.

Kejia Cai Moderately priced with excellent vegetarian options.

Temple of Heaven Park Tiantan Donglu; 86-10/67028866.

Gate of Heavenly Peace Tiananmen; 86-10/6512-3043.

Summer Palace 19 Xinjian Gongmen, Haidian; 86-10/6288-1144.

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CO U RT ESY O F S I X S E N S ES ( 2 )

The Presidential Villa at the Six Senses Hideaway in Ninh Van Bay, Nha Trang.

Opposite: Sea views from the deck at the Presidential Villa, the Six Senses Hideaway.

relaxingtherules A newfound fondness for pampering is fueling a boom in spas in Vietnam, with luxury treatments at exclusive beach resorts leading the way.

By Kay Johnson

T

HERE’S NO WAY TO PROVE it, but I’m pretty sure my first massage in Vietnam was in a bordello. It was my first visit to Hanoi in 2000 and, looking for relief from chronic shoulder tension, I followed a discreet sign promising “relaxation massage” into a small courtyard. I should have been suspicious at the strange looks the staff gave a woman asking for a massage.

Leading me into a fluorescent-lit cubicle, my “therapist” looked confused. Her technique, such as it was, involved some half-hearted muscle-pinching and circular rubbing on my back. Nothing untoward happened, but after an hour my shoulder was no better and I was probably more tense than when I walked in.

That’s how it was in the old Vietnam. For years, the country’s austere rules and regulations made luxurious relaxation hard to find. A friend explained that it was difficult to find a legitimate massage in Vietnam because the government had restricted massage, even in upscale hotels, considering the service a “social evil.” As for beauty treatments, there were a few hotel salons, but certainly nothing to write home about—and choice was limited.

Luckily, times have changed. Vietnam’s economic transformation and budding tourism industry—the country welcomed more than 4 million foreign visitors in 2007— has led to a proliferation of centers for spa treatments.

Calm Reflections Above: The reception area at the Six Senses Hideaway. Opposite, clockwise from top: A Pool Villa at The Nam Hai; a Beach Villa bedroom at the Six Senses Hideaway; the lagoon at The Nam Hai.

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Vietnamese clients have been leading the demand for beauty and relaxation and, in some neighborhoods, it seems like there’s a new spa on every corner.

That’s a trend Vietnamese officials are now happy to encourage. Nguyen Phuong Anh, deputy director of hotel management with the Vietnam Tourism Administration, admits that spas were viewed with suspicion until about seven years ago, but she now estimates that there are more than 150 nationwide. “The number of spas is growing rapidly,” Anh says. “These spas are not associated with social evils or prostitution because they are providing decent health treatments.”

While Vietnam is jumping on the spa bandwagon, this fast-changing country is still working on concepts of international-standard service. The fact that you can find a legitimate spa in Vietnam doesn’t always mean high-quality treatment. Some of the glitzier venues mask ill-trained staff, dingy changing rooms and cheap products. Still, for the weary traveler looking for a little pampering, Vietnam is now finally offering some acceptable options, both locally owned and attached to international hotel and resort brands. »

CO U RT ESY O F S I X S E N S ES. O P P OS I T E , C LO C KW I S E F RO M TO P : CO U RT ESY O F T H E N A M H A I ; CO U RT ESY O F S I X S E N S ES ; CO U RT ESY O F T H E N A M H A I

Vietnam is now finally offering some acceptable options,

both locally owned and attached to international resorts

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~HO CHI MINH CITY~

~HANOI~ In the capital, newly moneyed Vietnamese and expatriates unwind at Thu Cuc Exotical Spa, another Vietnamese-owned venue. This 10story urban relaxation center offers one of the best reflexology foot massages (US$12) in the capital—with a view.

The massage chairs on the top floor face a window overlooking both Truc Bach Lake and West Lake. It’s best to go at twilight, when the causeway linking the two lakes lights up with twinkling car and motorbike headlights.

Like many urban spas, there’s only a single elevator serving all the floors (ask for a bathrobe to go between the sauna and treatment floors or you’ll be wrapped in just a towel), but on the treatment floors, the relaxing décor includes pools, dark-wood replica antiques, soft lighting and bathtubs housed in dugout canoes. Skin-care treatments, using a wide variety of products, range from a basic facial (US$16), a Dead Sea–salt body scrub (US$25) to an oxygen-infusion facial (US$38). The staff is attentive and generally well trained, but few speak English. 57 Nguyen Khac Hieu St.; 84/4715-0316; thucucbeauty.com/vn.

~NHA TRANG~ Until recently, finding a reliable spa outside the main cities was a hit-or-miss affair, but with the mushrooming tourism industry, international spa resorts have set up shop. In the southern seaside town of Nha Trang, the Six Senses Spa is based across two locations: the Evason Ana Mandara resort and the more remote, rustic Six Senses » 138

F RO M TO P : CO U RT ESY O F T H E N A M H A I ; CO U RT ESY O F S I X S E N S ES. O P P OS I T E : CO U RT ESY O F S I X S E N S ES

Great Outdoors Right: The pool and beach at The Nam Hai. Below: An energy chair massage at the Six Senses Spa, Evason Ana Mandara, in Nha Trang. Opposite: A Beach Villa garden shower at the Six Senses Hideaway.

One of the pioneers of beauty treatments in Vietnam is the Anam QT chain of salons, founded in 1996 by Vietnamese entrepreneur Le Bich Thuy and lately expanded to four locations in Hanoi. In Ho Chi Minh City, Anam QT’s impressive 11-story complex has made it a mecca for spa treatments in the city.

It features a top-floor terrace bar and floors with sauna, steam bath and sunken Jacuzzis.

Stocked with silk plants, flowers and rock gardens, QT manages to create a soothing garden hideaway amid Ho Chi Minh City’s bustle— once you get past the tiny fluorescent-lit elevator.

There are 30 types of facials on offer, starting from US$22 for a basic treatment to US$40 for a collagen-infused “non-surgical facelift.”

Massages for men and women are usually high quality, especially the hot stone treatment (US$43). Most of the staff speak excellent English and are trained to refuse tips. 26–28 Dong Du St.; 84/8825-1250; www.anam-qtspa.com.vn.

Hideaway at Ninh Van Bay, reachable only by boat. Locally adapted treatments like the Vietnamese Green Tea Scrub (US$30) are a good entry, or you can splash out on the two-hour Algae Cocoon, consisting of paraffin wax and marine protein, while getting a manicure and pedicure (US$115). The Six Senses Hideaway is the ultimate getaway splurge and not ideal for day trips, but the resort’s cuisine—the sesame-encrusted fresh tuna is a must— might just make it worth the rates, which start at US$734 for a Beach Pool Villa. Ninh Van Bay, Ninh Hoa, Khanh Hoa; 84/5852-4268; www.sixsenses.com.

~HOI AN~ The Spa at Nam Hai, near the ancient port town of Hoi An, is a stunner. Built around a lotus pond, the eight treatment pavilions feature locally inspired décor by Indonesian interior designer Jaya Ibrahim, with eggshell-lacquer washing basins, smooth teak finishes and locally mined granite. Adjacent to the resort of the same name, The Spa at Nam Hai is a full-service day spa open to the public, but with prices that reflect its exclusive status. For the ultimate pampering, skip the waxing and pedicures and go straight for The Nam Hai massage (from US$130), in which two therapists employ a blend of five massage styles—Swedish, Shiatsu, Thai, Balinese and lomilomi. Or you can opt for the US$220 Heaven package—wrapped in a Neem and Gotu Kola Mask with a 90-minute Ayurvedic facial. Hamlet 1, Dien Duong Village, Dien Ban District, Quang Nam Province; 84/510-940-000; thenamhai.com; villas from US$550.

GUIDE TO VIETNAM WHEN TO GO Vietnam’s three major regions have varying climates. In Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang, the prime tourist season is between November and February, after the rainy season and when the temperature averages around 32 degrees. In central Hoi An, the best time to visit is from July to October, though tropical storms occasionally hit the coast during this time. The best time to visit northern Vietnam is late October to December, with low humidity, sunny days and temperatures of around 33 degrees.

Much of Vietnam shuts down around the Lunar New Year, which falls on February 7 this

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year. It’s best to avoid travel during this time, as transport is usually clogged with families traveling to their hometowns.

GETTING THERE Vietnam Airlines flies to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City from Bangkok and Hong Kong.

Thai Airways and Singapore Airlines fly to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City from their regional hubs, while budget

airlines Tiger Airways and AirAsia fly to Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Nok Air has a new service to Hanoi. Silk Air flies from Singapore to Danang, about an hour’s drive from Hoi An, four times a week.

WHERE TO STAY HANOI Sofitel Metropole 15 Ngo Quyen St.; 844/826-6919; www.sofitel.com; doubles from US$330.

InterContinental 1A Nghi Tam, Tay Ho; 84/4829-3939; www. intercontinental.com; doubles from US$300.

HO CHI MINH CITY Park Hyatt Saigon 2 Lam Son Sq., District 1; 84/8824-1234; saigon.park.hyatt.com; doubles from US$320.

C O U R T E SY O F S I X S E N S E S ( 2 ) ; M A P BY WA S I N E E C H A N TA KO R N . O P P O S I T E , C L O C K W I S E F RO M TO P : CO U RT ESY O F T H E N A M H A I ; CO U RT ESY O F S I X S E N S ES ( 2 )

Built around a lotus pond, the treatment pavilions feature

Beach villas at The Nam Hai. From bottom left: A deep soak tub in a Rock Villa at the Six Senses Hideaway; green views from a Beach Villa at the Six Senses Hideaway.

Opposite, from top: A Beach Villa pool at the Six Senses Spa Hideaway; the jetty at Evason Ana Mandara.

inspired dĂŠcor by Indonesian interior designer Jaya Ibrahim

(My Favorite Place) Bill Bensley at Mae Rim, near Chiang Mai.

THAILAND

kick back and enjoy myself is Mae Rim. I’ve been coming here for many years. North of—and a world away from—busy Chiang Mai, Mae Rim sits at the foot of a mountain range adjacent to Doi Suthep−Pui National Park. This sleepy farming village is home to some of the friendliest people in the world. When I jog in the morning through the orchards and rice fields, everyone stops and says, “Sawasdee!” Even farmers driving their pick-up trucks will slow down and greet me.

My partner and I stay with friends who have a beautiful Thai home here. We started designing it about six years

M

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Y FAVORITE PLACE TO

F E B RUA RY 2 0 0 8| T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E S E A . C O M

ago and the work is almost done. We have our own guesthouse, which is more like an estate. It’s surrounded by lush gardens, which I’m often digging up and replanting.

The air here is clean, the temperature is cool year-round, the food simple and tasty, and the antiques and artwork plentiful. I love going into Chiang Mai and rummaging through the furniture and ceramic shops. I often justify my shopping vice, saying it’s for work-related projects.

But most often the pieces wind up in our Bangkok home.

I also try to find time to visit what I think is the most beautiful temple in Thailand—Wat Pra That Lampang Luang, which is nearby.

CO U RT ESY O F B I L L B E N S L EY

Renowned architect Bill Bensley, who has designed awardwinning luxury resorts around the world, including the acclaimed Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle in Chiang Rai, tells PAUL EHRLICH where he finds his Eden