SOUTHEAST ASIA JUNE 2019

BORACAY IS BACK

SINGAPORE S$7.90 / HONG KONG HK$43 A REST IN THREE NEW TWO-WHEELING THB175 / IDR50,000 MALAYSIA MYR18 / VIETNAM VND85,000 MACAU MOP44 / PHP240 BURMA MMK35 / CAMBODIA KHR22,000 RURAL JAPAN STOPS IN VIETNAM CAMBODIA BRUNEI BND7.90 / LAOS LAK52,000 Thrills don’t stop in Riau Islands

Stretching from east of Sumatra, past Singapore and northeast into the South China Sea towards Borneo, the Riau Islands are a sprawling Indonesian province full of natural beauty just waiting to be enjoyed. Sail, ferry or fly into this lovely archipelago for one of the many exciting annual events being hosted in Anambas, Bintan and Batam this month.

06ADV_IndoTourism.indd 2 5/9/2562 BE 11:34 AM ADVERTORIAL

SAIL ANAMBAS TO NATUNA Between Borneo and the Bay of Malaysia lie the Anambas and the Natuna 1Islands, facing the open sea and ofering fantastic blue and green panoramas. The Anambas are globally recognized for some of the most amazing dive spots, with colorful underwater life, and rows of coconut trees protecting soft white- sand beaches. Join the international regattas that begin in New Zealand, enter Indonesia through North Maluku Regency, and stop at these northerly archipelagos. You’ll be entertained with regional art performances while dining, your visit is hassle-free. The soundtrack enjoy diving and snorkeling at Penjalin of dulcet jazz over ocean waves is sure to Island, tour Tarempa City, and be inspire. Bintan, June 22–23. introduced to the Anambas’ cuisine and Whether you are an avid sailor handicrafts. Nantua, June 6–12. SSG who delights in the INTERNATIONAL expansiveness of the open seas, JAZZ ON THE AMATEUR a jazz aficionado excited to enjoy BEACH CHAMPIONSHIP mood music on one of Pristine Lagoi Beach Overlooking a picturesque Indonesia’s most beloved stretches for 3.5 kilometers 3bay north of Batam, Tering Bay Golf & beaches, a talented golfer in the heart of Bintan Country Club is a coveted destination looking for a challenge on a 2Resorts. To draw fresh faces, bring for lovers of the links. Crafted by Greg world-renowned course amid an amazing setting, or a cycler culture and creativity to the island, and Norman, the challenging par 72 course wanting to go for a spin with up the luxury quotient, a jazz festival is rolls across 167 hectares of undulating other likeminded athletes on a held on exclusive Lagoi Beach. Listen to hills and lush tropical greenery, dotted picturesque isle, the Riau Islands international artists play timeless music by pristine lakes—which provide have an event for you. Come for in this perfect setting. And, while you’re centerpieces for many of the holes, the occasion; stay for the here, how about some adventure? Jet-ski, rewarding challenges for intrepid, adventure and beauty above and kayak and snorkel, play volleyball or talented golfers. Pack your clubs for this below the water. build sandcastles. With baggage-drop three-round international competition, facilities, showers and changing rooms, which is organized by the Society of Singapore Golfers and included in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR). Batam, June 30–July 3.

NONGSA CHALLENGE Cycling can be leisurely or athletic, challenging or meditative. It can also be a 4thrilling way to see lush Nongsa, with its eye-catching waterways and wonderful culture. Join this annual 182-kilometer race, which has 175 meters of climbing per 12 kilometer loop and is divided into four competitive categories. Your ferry ride from Singapore includes transport for your bike, so gather your team of road warriors and let’s hit the pavement! Batam, June 30–July 3.

For more information, please visit : www.indonesia.travel FAREWELL JOSÉ CARRERAS WEDNESDAY 23 OCTOBER 2019 (7.30pm) THAILAND CULTURAL CENTRE ONE PERFORMANCE ONLY

Tickets at Baht 12,000 / 9,000 FOR THE BEST SEATS PURCHASE TICKETS IN ADVANCE +662-2042370 Ext.101, +662-2042392 or email: [email protected] Supported by the Embassy of Ireland

DAVID GIMÉNEZ CELINE BYRNE GLOBALLY ACCLAIMED CONDUCTOR WORLD RENOWNED SOPRANO CONTENTS

June features 66 Return to Paradise Boracay is back, cleaner and greener than ever. Stephanie Zubiri returns to see if this Philippine island can preserve its soul along with its shores. Photographed by Francisco Guerrero 76 Three for the History Books New resorts in remote places show off Vietnam’s diverse natural beauty while always keeping sight of its layered history and culture. By Eloise 76 66 Basuki. Photographed

S by Leigh Griffiths 88 96 ENA 88 E TÉZE

S In Their Own Time ROI

B A new generation of

AM oddball entrepreneurs N; N; in France aims to keep LLE A

E Languedoc’s eccentric

INN spirit alive. By Joshua R Levine. Photographed by Ambroise Tézenas ERRERO; CO GU CO

S 96

NCI Southern Pride, Southern Promise ; FRA; On a road trip, Kevin THS

FI West finds Alabama’s RIF G

residents reckoning H with its legacy and EIG L :

T defining what it means F to be Alabaman. OP LE OP

T Photographed by

M Rinne Allen E FROE S WI K CLOC

ON THE COVER Catching golden-hour rays at Sirena, in Shangri-La’s Boracay Resort and Spa. Photographed by Francisco Guerrero TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 5 CONTENTS

IN EVERY ISSUE T+L Digital 8 Contributors 10 The Conversation 11 Editor’s Note 12 Deals 62 Wish You Were Here 106

17 Reasons To Travel Now A cool 38 Where the Wild Meets High Guide sunset spot in Nusa Lembongan; Style Pair your big-game safari 50 Shopping in Paris It’s time to a sleek boutique for Siem Reap; sightings with a side of serious bring home some of the French and Hong Kong’s latest hub. luxury at camps in Botswana. capital’s legendary chic. From 21 A House for All Seasons A new 40 Getting Hip to Anchorage the venerable grands magasins address in Japan stirs creativity Alaska’s largest city has and flea markets to the newest with sustainable design and a developed a character unlike any purveyors of street style, our dose of daily calm. other: down-to-earth, welcoming experts will lead you to that 26 Khmer Connection Cambodia’s and ardently committed to essential outfit or objet you smoother roads inspire this embracing its untamed side. won’t find anywhere else. intrepid trip around Banlung, in 42 A Taste of the Baltics Forward- the charming northeast. thinking chefs and food Upgrade 30 Welcome to Chinoy-town producers in Lithuania are 57 Mile High Club Here’s how to fly Discover the fascinating blended turning their attention back in ultimate style: Private-jet cultural identity of the Filipino- home—with delicious results. tours are taking well-heeled Chinese on a walking tour of A New Day for Dominica After 46 travelers for the most luxurious ’s Chinatown. the devastation of Hurricane cross-cultural exchanges. 36 By the Water’s Edge Bangkok’s Maria, this island is in Chao Phraya River has a flash recovery mode thanks to new mall in a suburb with a long community-minded hotels. history of Sino-Siamese culture. KS WL FO M O T ; TT OE DEWI OE ; N ; T DRIC ARNOLD; CELINE CLANE CELINE ARNOLD; DRIC : CE : T LEF M 36 50 46 40 FRO

6 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM FROM LEFT: CEDRIC ARNOLD; CELINE CLANET; NOE DEWITT; TO M FOWLKS www.silavadeeresort.com high level of personal services. And that is what makes Silavadee special. perfect The combination of all. it the from magnificent land-sea drive and skyscape a short with only our yet renowned, world busy the from away Tucked island. on Samui beach exclusive beauteous, most the beach, on Nan Laem Located Silavadee embraces a natural elegance that comes with a stunning scenery. with aBreathtakingView The MostLuxuriousHideaway T+L DIGITAL

+LOOKOUT These Philippine- designed products are what you need for your next beach getaway; this beach resort in China is a THIS MONTH ON TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM lesson in luxury; Hong MAKE AN ECO-STOP AUSTRALIA’S SECRET KUALA LUMPUR’S Kong’s fine-dining IN THE MERGUI SHORELINES NEW ERA vegetarian scene offers Largely uninhabited and With more than 60,000 In the wake of political food for thought; the absurdly beautiful, these kilometers of coast, Australia change, the Malaysian capital latest travel deals untouched islands off the has plenty of beaches to is also experiencing an uptick southern coast of Burma have explore where you won’t have in exceptional dining and and much more. new hotels with a green focus. to share the sand. high-end stays. travelandleisureasia.com S TH RIFF G H EIG E; L E; S OU H CYON CYON AL H Y OF Y S E T DOWNLOAD US FOLLOW US KEEP UP WITH US

T+L TABLET EDITIONS TWITTER.COM/ Sign up for our newsletter Available on iOS, Android, TRAVLEISUREASIA for monthly highlights Win 8 and Zinio Desktop FACEBOOK.COM/ and offers from TRAVELLEISUREASIA T+L Southeast Asia. Reader. WOODWARD;. COUR PINTEREST.COM/ A TANDL.ASIA/NEWSLETTER TT

TRAVLEISUREASIA CO S : INSTAGRAM.COM/ CONTACT US T EF

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA L TLEDITOR@ M

f MEDIATRANSASIA.COM FRO

8 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM FROM LEFT: S COTT A. WOODWARD; COURT ES Y OF H ALCYON H OUS E; LEIGH GRIFFTHS CMY CY MY CM K Y M C Travel+Leisure_Advert_203.2x266.7mm_Apr2019_01.pdf 124/4/201910:26 CONTRIBUTORS

1 2 Nate Leigh Clark Grifths WRITER AND PHOTOGRAPHER PHOTOGRAPHER “Khmer Connection” “Three for the History Page 26 Books” — Page 76 “I’ve been to Cambodia seven — times in the last 10 years,” “Despite it being the least 1 says the journalist, based in beautiful time of year in Sapa, Pai, Thailand. “The last trip the mountaintop views were was solo, on my motorbike. incredible,” says Grifths, While looking for a place to who traversed Vietnam. “Quy tune up, I met a paraplegic Nhon like an escape—no man who’s turned his repair other tourists in sight. I loved shop into a mechanic’s school the Vietnamese martial arts for underprivileged youth. master at Anantara, which His selflessness humbled shined. In Con Dao, hearing me. The best meal was a the horrible history of the delicious soup I prisons was hard. Contrasting had roadside with an elderly that to the beautiful island man who insisted I watch and its happy people made for muay Thai fights with him a very humbling experience. and hold his infant grandson The assistant manager at on my lap. Motorcycle road Poulo Condor recommended RERO trips give time to think and we visit her family’s blue-crab UER G get to know myself. Riding is noodle soup shop in town. I CO 2 like a meditation for me.” will be back one day for more.” S

Instagram: @nateclarkstreet. Instagram: @leighgrifthslens. NCI RA F OF Y S E 3 4 T I; COUR I;

Stephanie Francisco IR Zubiri Guerrero B WRITER PHOTOGRAPHER ZU IE AN “Return to Paradise” “Return to Paradise” H EP T

Page 66 Page 66 S

— — OF Y S

“I’ve been going to Boracay “The most significant change E T regularly since the 1990s,” to Boracay upon its reopening OUR

says the Manila native who is the silence. We Filipinos C ; was impressed by many of love music, and that’s a great S TH the eco changes on the island, thing, but there came a point IFFI

including “no smoking and where every restaurant and GR drinking on the beach. While bar had taken over the sand H 3 I’ll miss noisy sundowners by and was blasting music all OF LEIG

the shore, I saw how bad the day. Now that the scene has Y S E

environment got, covered in been pushed back away from T

litter. I love the quiet of the the tree line, things are much OUR ; C ;

electric trikes and the ban on quieter and more relaxing. K of daybeds and crazy parties Now, once again, nothing LAR

on White Beach. You can beats White Beach at sunset,” C E actually see the sand again. says the Manila-based T

Spend all day lounging by the photographer, who also OF NA Y S

sea, only leaving for lunch at suggests going farther off the E Crust at The Lind and dinner beaten track to the Linapacan T at Mosaic. Find time for Chi Islands in Palawan. “The place

Spa and check out if there’s a is what all Philippine beaches COUR OP: T

party at Lazy Dog at night.” were 30 years ago.” M

Instagram: @stephaniezubiri. Instagram: @studioguerrero. FRO

10 4 THE CONVERSATION

One of the most difcult parts of visiting a new place is often the simplest: talking. Basic requests can turn into ridiculous games of charades; the act of buying a train ticket can feel like trying to solve an algebraic equation written by Rain Man. Of course, the tech world has been homing in on this problem for years now, and a handful of translation devices are now refined enough to be actually useful. As charming as communication via hand gestures can be, here is some of the new technology we’re excited about to get the conversation really flowing.

IFLYTEK 2.0 SMART ELECTRONIC GOOGLE TRANSLATE & PIXEL VOICE LANGUAGE TRANSLATOR The Internet giant’s free camera translation This one is for Chinese travelers or software has saved us when it comes to menus and visitors to the country; the device signs, but their Pixel Buds earphones go further— directly translates 51 languages into interpreting your speech into 40 different languages Mandarin, Cantonese and other and connecting to any Android phone as a speaker. Chinese dialects, and vice versa. The store.google.com; from US$159. real bonus—it can do it offline, too. iflytek.com; from US$428.

WAVERLY LAB’S AMBASSADOR POCKETALK Famous for its Pilot This palm-sized translation earbuds, machine can the yet-to-be-released translate 74 Ambassador wireless languages and over-ear device will up adapts to each the quality and allows user, learning their multiple devices to pronunciation to connect together, so make translations groups can talk in more accurate. different languages in pocketalk.; real time. waverlylabs. from US$249. com; price not listed at time of print.

IT TAKES A SPECIAL EYE TO STAND OUT WHILE BLENDING IN. HERE ARE SOME OF #TLASIA OUR FAVORITE PORTRAITS WITH SHOW-STOPPING BACKDROPS.

Painted pillars at Jaipur’s Following the Pink Panther’s Colorful culture queens in Kuala Lumpur’s history can ethereal Patrika Gate. trail to Shanghai. Singapore’s Little India. be found on the walls. By @suitcaseandi. By @chubbychinesegirleats. By @miraslaval. By @dalasava.

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TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 11 EDITOR’S NOTE

Valencia’s tranquil exchange, La Lonja.

AVE YOU EVER BOOKED into a hotel room FROM MY TRAVELS and realized, almost immediately, that If there’s a room that’s you do not want to leave? Even if travel grabbed my attention of late is meant to remove us from our comfort and not let go, it’s the zones, or surprise us in ways we never Transactions Hall at La Lonja imagined, some guestrooms simply hit every button. The same holds in Valencia. Having made an all-too-brief stop there years true with other spaces. Instead of a hotel room, you might turn a city ago, I knew I would return on corner on a first-time visit or veer down a dirt path to an undiscovered a visit to Spain’s third city. I beach, and the scene will steal away all your expectations. knew the light early on a This month, features editor Eloise Basuki ventures around always- cloudy day would be perfect. I knew the orange trees popular Vietnam to uncover a trio of such spots (“Three for the History outside the soaring windows Books,” page 76). In Quy Nhon, she falls under the spell of her villa, no would be weighed down with doubt lured by a personal wine cellar and her own pool, but come fruit. And I knew the eight lunch, convinces Anantara’s executive chef to teach her how to make stone columns spiraling to banh xeo, the savory crepes known to central Vietnam. Two other stops the vaulted ceiling would still astonish me. on the map, Sapa and Con Dao, offer up similar memories of a place that stops you in your tracks, so do read the piece. I had my own such moment in Japan (“A House for All Seasons,” page 21), when I stayed at an out-of-the-way inn, one that marries an architecturally marvelous indoors with the outside WAY UC surroundings. In that moment when K ER ER everything aligned as the architect H OP

intended, I really did not want to leave. ST RI H E; C E; DE T AR M AN SA AN RF I : T EF

@CKucway L M

[email protected] FRO

12 J UNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM FROM LEFT: IRFAN SAM ART DEE; CH RISTOPH ER K U C WAY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Christopher Kucway ART DIRECTOR Wannapha Nawayon DEPUTY EDITOR Jeninne Lee-St. John FEATURES EDITOR Eloise Basuki SENIOR DESIGNER Chotika Sopitarchasak DIGITAL MEDIA EDITOR Veronica Inveen

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS / PHOTOGRAPHERS Cedric Arnold, Kit Yeng Chan, Marco Ferrarese, Duncan Forgan, Jenny Hewett, Lauryn Ishak, Grace Ma, Morgan Ommer, Aaron Joel Santos, Scott A. Woodward, Stephanie Zubiri

CHAIRMAN J.S. Uberoi PRESIDENT Egasith Chotpakditrakul PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Rasina Uberoi-Bajaj

PUBLISHER Robert Fernhout DIGITAL MEDIA MANAGER Pichayanee Kitsanayothin TRAFFIC MANAGER / DEPUTY DIGITAL MEDIA MANAGER Varin Kongmeng SALES DIRECTOR SINGAPORE, MALAYSIA Kin Kamarulzaman SALES DIRECTOR HONG KONG, MACAU, INDONESIA, PHILIPPINES Leigha Proctor REGIONAL MANAGER THAILAND, VIETNAM, Paul Adams CAMBODIA, BURMA, MALDIVES CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Gaurav Kumar PRODUCTION MANAGER Nuttha Tangpetch CIRCULATION ASSISTANT Yupadee Saebea

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WORLD PREMIER IN BANGKOK GRAND NEW PRODUCTION STARRING CHINA’S NATIONAL TREASURE LI YUGANG

by LI YUGANG 5 & 6 October 2019 (7.30 pm)

INTERNATIONAL AWARDS & HONORS 2018 National Art Lifetime Achievement Award 2017 Outstanding Asian Artist Award 2016 Lotus, the 11th Top Ten Best Album Award 2015 Gold Song Award/ Best Lyrics Award 2014 Most Infuential Art Performer Award

Tickets at Baht 4,500 / 3,500 FOR THE BEST SEATS PURCHASE TICKETS IN ADVANCE +662-2042370 Ext.101, +662-2042392 or email: [email protected]

THAILAND CULTURAL CENTRE Free shuttle from MRT station (Thailand Cultural Centre) Exit 1, during 5.30 - 7.00 pm COURT ES Y OF OH ANA’S a O S REASONS nd at nd snacks undowners undowners hana ’s.

T + L ’s monthly selection of trip-worthy places, experiences and events. events. and experiences places, trip-worthy of selection monthly ’s TO TRAVEL NOW JUNE 2019 A chic new beach bar and boutiqueand bar beachnew chic A hotel on rustic Nusa Lembongan is Lembongan Nusa rustic on hotel The first beach lounge of its caliber on Bali’s sister sister onBali’s caliber of its lounge beach first The unprecedented air of cool to one of Indonesia’s of Indonesia’s one to of cool air unprecedented island of Nusa Lembongan, Ohana’s brings an an brings Ohana’s Lembongan, of Nusa island making waves with surfers. surfers. with waves making most laidback ocean escapes. escapes. ocean laidback most TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM no.

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>> / J UNE 2019

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COURTESY OF THE MILLS (5) DESIGN

A House for All Seasons On the way to Nagano and far from the metropolis that is Tokyo, there’s a new address that’s meant to stir your creative juices. At the very least, it will calm your day. STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTOPHER KUCWAY

The welcoming Library at Shishi-Iwa House.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 21 DESIGN

FROM LEFT: Architect Shuntaro Sano, who oversaw the project; the outdoor deck awaits springtime.

THERE ARE FEW THINGS more three or four guest rooms, and I was day, a bookish art and food junkie by Japanese than a long, hot soak in a staying in one of two rooms a floor night—came up with the idea of an bath, especially one with a forest above a common area with a architectural retreat in Japan. In his view. Entering my modest compact kitchen and living room. mind’s eye, he had the art and guestroom at Shishi-Iwa House, that From here, there is access to the hospitality ideals down, but needed became my immediate goal on a curvilinear exterior of the building someone strong on the development two-day stay. The snaking, 10-room aside a small forest, and in the side of things. Enter engineering design gem about 80 minutes by opposing direction to an area partner Philip Wang. Together, their Shinkansen from Tokyo Station is a accessible from every part of the plan was to involve someone who place full of unforgettable angles— house. It’s this sweep of a room could bring a strong design element on a blueprint, there are 38 grid lines where guests are expected to mingle to their idea; a blueprint for along the length of the house—and around the fireplace or the one-piece something rarely seen before. With a that view of a forest just starting to wood table, facing retractable glass Pritzker Prize under his belt and bud its way into the Japanese spring walls with views out to a small bringing Japanese sensibility to the was one. It’s a long way from Ginza. Japanese forest. project, Shigeru Ban took on the My room was compact by most Yet, these are merely the nuts and overall design. standards, and while I had arrived bolts, and tell little of the thought Wait, stop right there. Before you armed with the idea of not spending that has gone into Shishi-Iwa get the wrong idea, Shishi-Iwa is not too much time there—I would make House’s design by innovative a ryokan, in fact, it’s not meant to be an exception for the bath—the architect Shigeru Ban. Japanese at all aside from the fact intriguing wood design more than that it is located in the country. Nor overcomes any space limitations. FIVE YEARS AGO, Huy Hoang—a is it meant to be a hotel in the usual Shishi-Iwa has three sections of well-traveled investment banker by sense of the word. More than half of

22 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM its space consists of public areas for guests to mingle, explains Hoang, which is definitely not something that any hotel moneyman who, guided solely in terms of revenue per available room, would ever consider. Instead, the idea is for guests to experience a house created by a top architect, an address available to everyone; high design, yes, but also relatable. And it’s not a template for other projects even though, Hoang hints, there are some in the works. Instead, the design intends to have a soothing effect, one meant to inspire creativity. Simplicity is key but everything is in place for a reason. The and amenities are chosen both because they fit the narrative and they’re some of the best from around the world. Says Hoang: “You have to design something that is iconic, something that is truly you.” Looking back, Grant Suzuki, the FROM TOP: Rooms director at Shigeru Ban Architects dwell on simplicity and comfort; as a who oversaw the project, smiles whole, the house is when he thinks of the blank-slate meant to blend beginnings, a job without a site, one into the landscape; lacking in any plans—definitely not yes, the Hinoki a corporate undertaking. Nearing wooden bath. the end of 2015, with two options, Ban recommended this location over one deeper in the mountains outside the resort town of Karuizawa. Now that all is said and done, slightly off- putting is that the front door pretty much spills out onto a two-lane road.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 23 DESIGN

THE CONNECT BETWEEN INDOOR AND OUT, THAT FLEXIBLE USE OF SPACE, IS VERY MUCH A JAPANESE IDEAL

Yet Hoang argues the landscape, the evergreens, cherry trees and both natural and man-made, Japanese maples number more than counters that road, offering different 250—a palette of a small forest that looks throughout the year. changes with the seasons. With the location chosen, the next On arrival, guests enter the step was to maneuver around the Library, which acts as the reception setting, changing as little as area—remember, this is a house not possible. That resulted in the a hotel—a high-ceiling room lined serpentine nature of the structure as with books along a second-level it winds its way around existing walkway, and with a hidden wet bar trees. Less noticeable to the casual on ground level stocked with local eye is the undulating roof that starts craft wine, whisky, sake and beer. off at a sharp acute angle at the From there to the guestrooms, it’s entrance that slowly becomes less out a side door for a winding stroll pronounced along the length of the along a heated sidewalk. house. Ban kept at the idea of Rooms are designed to give a shrinking the building, making it sit sense of relaxation and restore on the earth. Western and Japanese energy, so the initial guest list cedar, humble building materials, consists of creative types but it’s are used throughout to exude easy to see the appeal extends to warmth and blend into the natural anyone looking to recharge. My environment. Like an oversized room has a beyond-comfortable puzzle, prefab timber frames were queen-sized bed; and a writing desk, FROM TOP: Comfort in cardboard tubes, a chair by transported to the site and then compact outdoor deck for two and Shigeru Ban; nearby Mount assembled, conserving as much of that bath, each with a tree-lined Asama; a splash of color. the natural foliage as possible. Now, view. The only splash of color is a

24 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM comfortable to sit on for any length of time—alongside several armchairs that are the creation of Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. The towels and robes are by Ploh, and bathroom amenities are biodegradable products from Germany’s Stop The Water While Using Me! Central to the Grand Room is a fireplace, perfect for an area meant to gather minds. There’s also a catering kitchen just off to one FROM TOP: Reading side—local roasts from Karuizawa material in the Coffee Co. are always available— Grand Room; a fix where guest chefs prepare pre- at Karuizawa Coffee Co. in town. planned meals. My first night, we ventured into town, to Musaian Ikeda for a French-Japanese meal vibrant rug stitched together from with each other and take in the that included a wonderful pâté and old Iranian saddlebags. I’m design of the building. some Japanese root vegetables; the surprised to see exposed nails in my Even views out the long narrow following evening, the husband-and- room. Suzuki explains: “It shows the windows aren’t meant as a peek into wife team from MoriQ put together a true nature of the structure, there the outdoors; it’s more that the dinner to linger over at Shishi-Iwa are no additional surfaces.” scenes on either side of the walls are using local, seasonal ingredients. Over Ban’s initial sketches, merging into one. A short hike away This was more of a traditional Suzuki takes me through the design is Sengataki Falls yet, from indoors, Japanese meal, including local process: “The hotel he wanted to the greenery often looks like art. Wagyu with organic vegetables, and create is supposed to feel like a There’s plenty of original artwork red snapper in a cherry blossom cottage, somewhere guests can chosen by Hoang, including a vivid broth that tinged the dish pink and interact with each other.” As much acrylic by Günther Förg in the gave it the aroma of a rainy spring as I love working at the desk in my Library, a Hiroshi Sugimoto print in day. With all that in mind, I was room, the overall design does propel the Grand Room and several works thinking of another visit. Next time, me to the Grand Room and, once the in oil by Masaka Yamada. If these I’m requesting the room at the end of spring rain ends, outside. Every names don’t register, they will by the the building, the one with the corner of the house is time you check out. custom-made Hinoki wooden bath comfortable—I find myself testing Ban was responsible for the that stares into the forest. chairs and sofas to prove the point. interior design, which explains the In an architectural mindset, presence of his own chairs made shishiiwahouse.jp; Karuizawa, Japan; Shishi-Iwa House is divided into a from cardboard tubes—surprisingly doubles from ¥40,000. hierarchy of spaces. Each has its own level of privacy, from individual rooms all the way to the outdoors. “At any given moment, this could be an outdoor space,” Suzuki tells me. The connect between indoor and out, that flexible use of space, is very much a Japanese ideal. Each of the three living rooms flow into the common Grand Room, which in turn can open up to an expansive outdoor deck as can the Library next to it— connecting humans with both nature and the architecture. The public areas are meant to be just that; spaces where guests can mingle ROAD TRIP

ahead of schedule. I won’t go to the temple until at least 4 p.m., when the light is best for photography. I hit the hotel pool but I can’t Khmer relax. All I can think about is riding. I head to my room to grab helmet and keys and soon I’m back in the green countryside, waving at monks Connection and looking out for wild elephants. Ten years ago, locals jokingly referred to Newly paved roads in Cambodia’s northeast make exploring Cambodia’s highway system as “The Dancing via motorbike easier than ever. An intrepid solo trip around Way,” because the uneven grades and deep Banlung leads to natural discoveries and tasty local eateries potholes forced you to “dance” for the entire and, best of all, that warm Khmer hospitality. journey. Once a seven-hour mission on terrain STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY NATE CLARK resembling a dry riverbed, the bus-ride from the Thai border to Siem Reap is now just a painless three-hour run thanks to a massive IT’S ONLY 10 A.M. but I’ve already arrived at international effort to improve the country’s today’s destination: the tiny village of Sra Em in roads in the mid-2000s. Since then, Cambodia’s northern Cambodia, just 30 kilometers from highway system has made a quantum leap the Thai border. Sra Em is known mostly for its forward, especially in less-traveled regions like 11th-century Preah Vihear temple complex, a Ratanakiri. Perfect for a motorcycle trip. massive, sloping series of Angkor-style temples A year ago, I passed through Banlung on my built to resemble the mythical Mount Meru— way to Cambodia’s southern beaches but only home to the Hindu gods and center of the stayed a night—something I always regretted spiritual universe. For me it’s just a pit stop. I’m after experiencing the roads and landscapes. riding much further east, to the rarely visited When a three-week window opened up in my city of Banlung in Ratanakiri Province— schedule in January, I rented a motorbike and Cambodia’s real life Heart of Darkness. headed east again, this time with no itinerary. Today’s 200-kilometer ride from Siem Reap on my rented 110cc Kawasaki motorbike was a THE NEXT DAY, after a glorious morning ride straight shot, almost too easy, and now I’m from Sra Em, I enter Banlung for the second

26 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM eruption. Its fairytale beauty is mind-boggling. CLOCKWISE FROM The Khmer Loeu, eastern Cambodia’s FAR LEFT: Hitting the road in indigenous peoples, consider the lake home to Cambodia’s enormous spiritual beings who protect the land. northeast; The completion of the eastern road to fish amok in Banlung resulted in a massive jolt to the local Mondulkiri, just economy. No longer dependent on cross-border south of Banlung; the Preah Vihear imports from nearby Laos or Vietnam, the city temple near Sra of 20,000 residents now enjoys its own thriving Em; peak hour in downtown core featuring a modern, air- Banlung; a new conditioned supermarket, trendy cafés, high- addition to the Roka Kandal quality clothing shops and even a popular complex. nightclub where Banlung’s youth rock out to high-decibel Khmer pop. Banlung’s up-and-coming resort and restaurant scene centers on the shores of time. I choose a room at Banlung Balcony, a picturesque Kan Seng Lake, just a 10-minute mostly wooden, lakeside affair with large, airy walk from town. At night, travelers gather here spaces and a pool. From here, I’m in daytrip to exchange stories, sip ice-cold Angkor beers heaven. I use it as a base for six days easily filled and devour curried amok on one of the breezy by riding out to villages, hiking to all five lakeside patios. I spend most of my evenings on nearby waterfalls and diving into the crystal the wooden veranda of Banlung Balcony, clear waters of one of Asia’s best swimming chatting with the gregarious French chef- holes: the sacred Yeak Lom, a perfectly circular owner Franck Burlet as he prepares the crater lake formed 4,000 years ago by a volcanic handmade, stone-oven that have made

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 27 ROAD TRIP

him famous among Banlung’s small Kandal fishing community—truly a place from community of expats. another time. Outside the village’s modest After so many days spent riding in and out temple, the 200-year-old Wat Roka Kandal, a of Banlung on my motorcycle, I fill my last in family invites me to their stilted house on the town napping by the hotel pool. It feels strange, river’s edge. As I approach the small cluster of just letting the bike sit in the parking lot on wooden residences, life begins to slow down. such a fine afternoon. After only a week back in Small children play games under the shade of the saddle, I already miss riding. I think I’m banana trees while shirtless fishermen prepare starting to understand the way cowboys feel their nets for tomorrow’s catch. One of Kratie’s about horses. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. legendary sunsets is in its early stages. Soon, glasses of homemade whisky are passed NEARBY KRATIE IS a nature lover’s paradise. around, and a paper plate heaped with delicious Most travelers come here to paddle the Mekong fish and is placed in front of me. I’m in kayaks, cycle the rural trails of nearby Koh overwhelmed. Cambodians know hospitality. Trong Island, or to catch a glimpse of the I wonder, if the situation were reversed, and endangered Mekong Irrawaddy Dolphin. From a strange-looking foreigner suddenly appeared CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Banlung's Banlung, the last 30 kilometers of the journey on my doorstep in Canada, how long it would Kachanh waterfall to Kratie is sublime—riding on the riverbanks take me to have dinner on the table? is a 10-minute ride through tiny Muslim fishing villages where life from the city; a has remained unchanged for decades. THE FINAL 150-KILOMETER stretch back to Siem room at Yeak Lom Hotel & Spa; diving I ride south along Kratie’s stunning Reap is the least scenic part of the journey, and into the Yeak Lom riverfront promenade. Eventually the concrete as the serene rural roads begin to widen it crater lake. gives way to the red dirt lanes of the Roka dawns on me that my adventure is about to end.

Soon glasses of homemade whisky are passed around, and a plate heaped with fish and rice. Cambodians know hospitality

28 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM THAILAND Cambodia, however, still has one more LAOS experience to etch into memory: I see a hat fly from a small motorbike seconds after it passes me on the two-lane highway. The young rider Anlong Veng Sra Em doesn’t stop or look back. I slow the Kawasaki and pick up the frayed, blue baseball cap. I stuff Steung it into my coat and kick the bike into gear. Treng Banlung I pass through a tiny village and recognize the rider’s bright yellow jacket ahead. I follow him down a red dirt lane toward the river and Siem Reap pull up alongside him. I hold up the hat in triumph. He’s startled at first, but when he sees Kratie the cap he starts to laugh. Speaking some English, he introduces himself as Leem. He points to the hat and says, “My father.” Some locals approach and Leem says some words in Khmer. Hilarity ensues. Within minutes the Cambodia whole village has surrounded us and I’m shaking hands like crazy. I beam with pride. VIETNAM Mission successful. These unexpected connections are what motorcycle riding is all about. I fire up the bike one last time and begin my final push toward the city.

THE DETAILS

VISAS Siem Reap Scooter Rental temple complex. The hotel coffees, fresh baked bread Nationals of ASEAN countries (siemreapscooter rental.com; features big rooms with and locally sourced do not need visas, nationals small motorbikes from garden views, an outdoor ingredients; this is the place of most others can obtain US$10 per day) is the go-to pool and a games room. for breakfast in Banlung. a visa on arrival, but visit place for rentals in Siem evisa.gov.kh for information Reap. They rent by the day, Ratanakiri-Boutique Hotel French chef Franck Burlet at specific to your nationality. week or month. (ratanakiri-boutiquehotel. Banlung Balcony (fb.com/ com; doubles from US$32) is banlungbalcony; mains from TOURS AND RENTALS If you’re leaving from Phnom a French colonial property US$4; doubles from US$10) Cambodia Motorbike Penh, Sam Stretton and his with breezy, wood-furnished serves world-class pizzas; Adventures wife, Emily, from Cambodia rooms and balconies that his charming wife handles (cambodiamotorbike Motorcycle Adventures overlook Kan Seng Lake. the Khmer favorites. Come adventures.com; day-trips (cambodiamotorcycle early because this lakeside from US$70) is a respected adventures.com; tours from The tallest building in favorite fills up after 7 p.m. Siem Reap outfit that tailors US$95 per day), have been Banlung, Yeak Lom Hotel tours for riders of all skill guiding in Cambodia since and Spa (yeakloamhotel. The city’s real Khmer levels. Veteran guide Paul 2011. For added comfort, a com; doubles from US$60) eateries are on the streets Hay even takes newbies on support vehicle will drop has a rooftop bar that boasts surrounding the Banlung day-trips to nearby temples your bags at each hotel the city’s best views. A short Market. Tanam (855-97/557- before the real adventure. If before you arrive. walk from the restaurants at 8555; mains from US$1.50), you’re set on self-guiding, Kan Seng Lake, it’s a great just east of the market’s Paul also offers a “phone HOTELS base to organize your day main entrance, is popular for tour” where he stays on-call In the village of Sra Em, the trips. Their impressive spa is breakfast, while Mey Mey 24/7 to translate and answer modern Preah Vihear in a lush, tropical garden. Café (fb.com/meymeycoffee questions by telephone. Boutique Hotel (preahvihear shop; mains from US$1.50) is hotels .com; doubles from RESTAURANTS well known for its tasty Known for their well- US$45) serves as the Café Alee (855-89/473-767; barbecue. Try lap Khmer, a maintained bikes and jumping off point for visitors 78A Chey Chomneas Village; lime-marinated beef salad, friendly customer service, to the nearby Preah Vihear mains from US$4) features on most menus. — N.C.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 29 EXPLORE

Welcome to Chinoy-town A walk through Manila’s Chinatown reveals its blended cultural identity and the legacies—places of worship, dishes to worship—of the Chinese Filipinos. STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY LESTER V. LEDESMA

The basilica was founded in 1596 for Christian converts.

WITH ITS LOFTY DOME and high lines, the four-centuries- old church of , the Minor Basilica of St. Lorenzo Ruiz, seems no different from other Spanish colonial- era churches in Manila. However, look closely and its ethnic character becomes apparent. “The façade is that of an old church, and it’s got everything you’d expect from such a structure,” my guide Ivan Man Dy points out. “But notice the bell tower’s octagonal shape and red color—it’s like a Chinese temple. Spend some time in Binondo and you’ll realize it’s a melting pot of Filipino, Chinese and Spanish cultures.” You can credit this fusion to a long history of peaceful coexistence with the natives. When the Spanish first came to the Philippine islands in 1521, they found that xiang lei— Fujianese merchants from the southern Chinese coast—had been living and trading here for centuries. After Manila was made the capital of the Spanish East Indies in 1571, the sangleyes (as the Spaniards called them) were Christianized and relocated to the area of Binondo— thus starting what could arguably be the world’s oldest Chinatown. I am spending the day exploring this locale with Ivan, a prominent Binondo’s landmark cultural and historical guide who has church, Minor Basilica taken academics, Nobel laureates of St. Lorenzo Ruiz. and celebrities (among them the late

30 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM Anthony Bourdain) around his hometown in order to showcase its 4 BINONDO’S HERITAGE mixed heritage. TRAIL

THE HEART OF THE DISTRICT is Calle 1. Minor Basilica of St. Ongpin, a 900-meter-long stretch of Lorenzo Ruiz Dedicated to the grit and concrete marked by Catholic first Filipino saint (who happens churches on both ends. Ivan leads me to be a Chinoy), this church features a unique mix of into this street, passing by fruit stalls, Spanish, Chinese and Filipino sundry shops and noodle parlors. design elements. Plaza Lorenzo Some of these bear Chinese signage, 2 Ruiz; 63-2/242-4850. others a mix of Filipino and Spanish 2. Philippine Chinese Santiago names. Inside many stores, Taoist 3 1 Church Hidden on the rooftop deities and Catholic saints share little of a low-rise building, this Taoist altars bedecked with oranges and 5 temple was rebuilt from a circa- incense. At one alley, a dragonhead 1800s temple that stood on the prop sticks out from the back of a ground floor. The place hums with activity at all times, but jeepney. Ivan points to these as more so during religious evidence of the long cultural exchange festivals when kaoka—an between the Filipinos and the Chinese. even add to the local culture. We’re obscure form of ancient Chinese “As more sangleyes arrived into the Filipinos of Chinese descent.” opera—is performed. It’s a bit colony, they intermarried with the Near the corner of Ongpin and hard to find, but the locals know where it is. Kipuja Street. locals and bore the mestizo (mixed- Pinpin Street we stop at the Santo race) bloodline of today’s Chinese Cristo de Longos, a shrine that bears 3. Eng Bee Tin Deli Gerry Filipinos,” he says. “Some Pinoys an incense urn, a pair of divination Chua’s family business was assume we’re no different from blocks, and a large metal cross that floundering in the 1980s until his reinvented hopia Mainland Chinese. But that’s just not sits where the Taoist deity should be. became a local favorite. The true—four centuries is long enough for Later on, we enter a rather place has since grown from a Chinoys [short for the slang demonyms unremarkable-looking building with modest to the de facto ‘Chino’ and ‘Pinoy’] to assimilate and an intriguing feature: its rooftop pit stop for foodies and visitors in Chinatown. The ground floor is where the take-home goodies are, while the second floor hosts a restaurant. engbeetin.com; from P50.

4. Old Manila Walks Manila cultural and historical specialist Ivan Man Dy regularly does walking tours and foodie excursions to interesting spots in and around the Philippine capital. However, his Chinoy roots and cultural advocacies have all but cemented his name to that of his Binondo hometown. oldmanilawalks. com; tours from P1,400.

5. New Toho Food Center There’s nothing new about this eating house, which has stood on this spot since 1888. Manila’s oldest restaurant isn’t the swankiest place to dine, but what it lacks in atmosphere it makes up for with its classic Ongpin Street menu of comes alive during favorites. 422-424 Tomas Pinpin Chinese New Year. St.; 63-2/242-0294; mains from P100. — L.V.L.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 31 EXPLORE

hosts a temple dedicated to Kuan Philippine capital’s modern-day CBD Kong, the Taoist god of literature and (now located in the city of Makati, war. Interestingly, the locals call him some nine kilometers away), Santiago, after the Spanish patron commerce in Chinatown is now Saint James the Greater. “Chinese are mostly defined by small-scale, family- pragmatic,” Ivan whispers while we run businesses. watch devotees light candles and The action may have moved burn joss paper inside the temple elsewhere, but Binondo holds its known as the Philippine Chinese place as the symbolic hometown of Santiago Church. “Taoism doesn’t 1.35 million Filipinos of Chinese demand exclusivity so we don’t mind descent. This I ponder as we sample a mixing our gods. I was raised a uniquely Chinoy delicacy that sums Catholic, but sometimes I pray here up this district’s character. The hong just to stay in touch with my roots.” peah began as a flaky malt-filled pastry in Fujian province, but BINONDO HAS THE FEEL of an inner- evolved into the thicker and more city neighborhood, its gritty lanes host cakey hopia when it reached these an endless parade of pedestrians, shores. Gerry Chua, the owner of Eng clip-clopping kalesas (horse-drawn Bee Tin Deli, took it further and carriages) and automobiles. Its many came up with variants that pack aging structures, however, tell of a ingredients like taro as well as place that has been left behind by the decidedly un-Chinese coconut and At Eng Bee Tin Deli, changing times. The Chinese mestizos coffee. He realized his culinary owner Gerry Chua’s remain a driving force in the reinvention was a hit when overseas hopia are a hit. economy, but gone are the days when Chinoys started ordering it in droves. Binondo was the premier business “They said it reminded them of district, the seat of Manila’s first stock home—of course they were referring exchange and the base of the country’s to the Philippines,” he says, adding: major banks. Compared to the “You can’t find this in China.”

A shrine to Taoist Eng Bee Tin Deli god Kuan Kong at also serves dim the Philippine sum at its Chinese Santiago restaurant corner. Church.

32 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM FAR RIGHT: COURT ES Y OF OK M ANILA easier to appreciate. to appreciate. easier it helps make Chinoytown—that a there’s a Chinatown—no, thing Good in Philippines. the legacy it’s so to long their that overlook easy for have been around Chinese ethnic The meals. their into tucking locals as I of I myself crowd join the tell ground, hallowed is practically This in 1898. by Spaniards the execution his before spot on this dined Chinese Chinese a (himself hero Jose Rizal national The here. Philippine of explorations I end that my day fitting only seems it and restaurant, oldest Manila’s is This 1888. since have been doing ( pork asado (that’s Hokkien the time-honored ofup whip plates Center, chefs still At New the Toho Food district. heritage over this all nostalgia It’s easy to find pockets It’sof to pockets find easy mestizo char siew char kikiam ) was said to ) have said was ngoh hiang ngoh ), the way they ), way the they meat rolls meat rolls S M L t. ocal guide in ) and ) and M L or Basilica of or Basilica or an enzo D y at t

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Lawry’s The Prime Rib is our Grade-A favorite meal When you crave American classics with white-glove service, there’s only one choice for discerning diners in Singapore

What makes Lawry’s The Prime Rib unique? Lawry’s offers a grand dining experience. Start off with table-side showmanship of their Famous Original Bowl Salad. The main event is Signature Roasted USDA Prime Rib of Beef also carved table-side from gleaming silver carts. Additionally, you’ll be delighted by the unparalleled and personalised service.

House specialty Lawry’s Signature Roasted USDA Prime Rib of Beef: The Lawry’s Cut. At 285 grams, this is their most popular cut of prime rib. Each standing roast is aged for up to 28 days to heighten tenderness and then slowly roasted on beds of rock salt, a method that forces the juices inward and ensures uniformly juicy and flavourful meat.

Three must-try dishes 1) Signature Roasted USDA Prime Rib of Beef. At Lawry’s, you’ll find only the top 3 to 5% of all the beef raised in the United States, which qualifies for the highest USDA grade. The combination of cut (the place within the steer from which it comes), supreme quality and excellent proportion and distribution of fat to muscle is what makes USDA Prime-graded prime rib so highly prized. It is

06ADV_Amex.indd 34 5/8/2562 BE 2:13 PM meltingly tender and juicy, with a rich, uniquely satisfying flavor.

2) Atlantic Lobster Tails. Flown in from Nova Scotia, the broiled lobsters are a fan favorite and you can get them for an appetizer or a main course.

3) Traditional Lump Crab Cake. This classic meal opener full of tender, flaky chunks of crab meat, makes a great entree to your prime rib feast.

Why choose Lawry’s? Exceptional American cuisine with world-class service in a grand, luxurious setting. It’s perfect for celebrations, date nights and family gatherings.

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06ADV_Amex.indd 35 5/8/2562 BE 2:14 PM ON THE MAP

By the Water’s Edge A flashy new mall has lured more visitors over to the Thonburi side of Bangkok’s Chao Phraya river than ever before, but its Khlong San neighborhood has long been a local hub for Sino-Siamese eats and a lively social scene. BY ELOISE BASUKI. PHOTOGRAPHS BY CEDRIC ARNOLD

From the deck of the new shopping center , overlooking Bangkok’s skyline 36 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM and the Chao Phraya river. 2. KHLONG SAN PLAZA MARKET For a more local shopping experience, this market area popular with students sells clothing, shoes and accessories for a steal. The food center has plenty to amaze snap-happy tourists, with stalls hawking buckets of slithery eels, netted frogs, edible bugs and pyramids of tropical fruits. Thai are sought after here—try the rarely found bua loy khai kem, naturally colored balls served 3. LHONG 1919 The launch of this shopping, in a salty-sweet hot dining and event space solidified the riverside soup and topped with poached as an up-and-coming precinct. The eggs. Charoen Nakhon Road. refurbished complex of old Sino-Siamese warehouses retains its 19th-century charm with ink-painting murals and the ancient Mazu shrine, while modern restaurants, like 1. ICONSIAM seafood-focused Rong Si and Plearnwan Though many cross 3 Panich shop, offer high-end dining the river for the new 4 with water views. lhong1919.com. mall’s international debuts—the vast complex houses the country’s first Apple store and Takashimaya department store—we 6 come for the food. Sook Siam on the bottom floor channels old-time Thailand with local snacks like coconut ice cream (above) served floating market–style; Takashimaya’s 2 Hokkaido-inspired food court dishes up Sapporo ramen at Baikhokhen; and the “Alangkarn” dining zone has 17 restaurants among rice-paddy installations. iconsiam.com. 1

7

5

6. WALDEN HOME CAFE Vintage furniture, dark-wood floorboards, exposed brick walls and a 5. THE 14TH BARREL This craft-beer bar has a shelf packed with books and magazines gives this range of international labels and newcomers, like café a cozy vibe. Owner Dith Changsiricharoen the Bangkok-based Lamzing's Sticky pale brews coffee from beans sourced from Chiang Mai, ale and the Devanom range using hops. and has a menu featuring smoked-salmon spaghetti (Note: no drafts.) There are bar staples— and banana crumble pancakes. fb.com/waldenhome waffle fries, ribs or buffalo wings—as well as cafe; coffee from Bt65; mains from Bt120. pastas and salads. fb.com/thefourteenbarrel; drinks from Bt160; mains from Bt120.

7. SAVE OUR SOULS Head 4. THA DIN DAENG MARKET here for a rotating menu of Once a cargo port for ships heading German weizens, Thai IPAs to Ayutthaya, Din Daeng Pier is still Belgian blonds and more on an active hub. The cluster of food tap. Hard-to-find international stalls have given the district the bottles and limited release name “Little Chinatown.” It's a great cans also feature—look for place to try Thai-Chinese dishes like Orpheus sour ale with apricot rad na (gravy ), harn palo and Hong Kong’s Moonzen (braised goose), khanom pia ( range. A recent food pastries) and Hainanese bokkia collaboration with Bangkok (noodles, fruits and beans in an icy eatery Jim’s Burgers means syrup). While there’s a market in the you won't go hungry. fb.com/ morning, most food stalls come sosbeerbkk; drinks from alive at night. 163 Tha Din Daeng Rd. Bt220, mains from Bt150.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 37 DISCOVERY

FROM TOP: A sundowner in the bush at Belmond Savute Elephant Lodge; a lounge area at the property, which underwent a total renovation last year. OPPOSITE: Guests at the lodge, located in Botswana’s Chobe National Park, don’t need to leave camp to enjoy first- class animal viewing. Where the Wild Meets High Style Not everyone wants to rough it when they go on safari. If you prefer your big-game sightings served up with a side of serious luxury, Belmond’s Botswana camps offer the perfect solution. BY JANE BROUGHTON

I HAVE BEEN LUCKY ENOUGH to go on dozens of safaris in southern Africa, and on every trip there has been something thrilling to see, something new to learn. Singling out a favorite place seems unfair, but when pushed, I always settle on Botswana. It’s a country that delivers on so many fronts. Whether flooded or parched, its landscapes teem with animals. Because of its consistently low-impact, high-revenue approach to tourism, the country’s wild spaces have remained exclusive—the Okavango Delta, for instance, covers more than 5,000 square kilometers, yet has only about 1,700 lodge beds. First-time visitors or anyone who prefers high-level pampering will find few other destinations that can offer these kinds of top-notch wildlife experiences in such comfortable settings. On my most recent trip, I checked out two properties D

on the three-camp circuit offered by Belmond, the storied ON brand recently acquired by LVMH. I was curious to see M

how the operator, known for its European travel BELF Y O Y S

experiences, approaches the African wilderness, where E T long-established players like andBeyond and Wilderness R OU C Safaris have such a strong track record. / As with most high-end safaris, my trip kicked off with MS LIA

a light-aircraft flight. Often, the journey from the regional IL W

K

hub of Maun to the lodges of the Okavango Delta involves R

bouncing around in a tiny three-seater. On this trip, MA: S

however, my fellow guests and I were shown to the pristine GE A M leather interior of one of Mack Air’s new smooth-flying I LL LL

13-seat planes. A

38 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM Our first stop was Belmond Eagle Island Lodge, the jewel-bright birds, including kingfishers; iridescent group’s flagship Botswana property, which was dragonflies darting to and fro; and thumb-size Angolan refurbished three years ago. Set on a private island in a reed frogs clinging tenaciously to the vegetation. lagoon and shaded by giant gnarled jackalberry trees, the My second destination, Belmond Savute Elephant lodge has 12 elevated suites, each with a private plunge Lodge, is located in northern Botswana’s Chobe National pool. The design of the guest rooms, which have Park, an elephant-dense area where National Geographic traditional thatched roofs and are built from and has captured some of its best documentary footage. This wood (much of it recycled), feels elegant and fresh. In property recently had a total redesign, resulting in a look keeping with Botswana’s strict environmental policies, characterized by bleached wood, lots of basketry, and everything, from the hair dryers to the swimming-pool geometric African motifs. The camp’s 12 spacious tented pumps and the air-conditioning units, is solar-powered; suites are built on raised timber decks and, with their instead of plastic bottles of mineral water, guests are four-poster beds and indoor and outdoor showers, feel given flasks to refill with water filtered by reverse osmosis. like serene, air-conditioned sanctuaries. (Mine made a great gym accessory when I got back home.) Savute’s twice-daily game drives are all about tracking I visited in November—early summer in Botswana. To big cats, wild dogs and rare species like roan and sable reflect the season, the food was light and Mediterranean- antelopes. But for me the highlight was spending time inspired: chilled soups, crisp salads and grilled seafood around the camp’s water hole, just below the pool deck, and steak, all paired with excellent South African wines where many meals are served. Here, a steady stream of and served in scenic locations around the property. At elephants, buffalo and antelope come to drink at all hours sunset, we drank cocktails made with specialty gins from of the day and night. around the world in the stylish Fish-Eagle Bar, which As I breakfasted there on my last morning, elephants overlooks the lagoon. parading by, I came to understand the niche in the safari The intricate web of waterways, channels and islands market that Belmond fills. At the very least, the well- that make up the Okavango Delta have made Botswana a heeled travelers who visit will return home with bragging singular location for water-based game viewing. At Eagle rights and a few hair-raising tales to tell at their next Island Lodge, boat cruises are a daily treat, as long as dinner party; at best, the trip could ignite a passion for water levels are high enough. Though it was summer, I conservation that might help to ensure the future of was still able to take guided trips in a mokoro, or dugout Africa’s wild spaces. canoe, right in front of the camp—something very few properties in the delta can offer. The canoe’s position low belmond.com; doubles from US$2,140, all-inclusive, at all in the water revealed the hidden delights of the reedbeds: Botswana lodges. OND M Y OFBELY S E T OUR C / MS ILLIA W

K : MAR: S AGE IM LL LL A WANDER

Back in the 1970s, when John McPhee wrote Coming into the Country, his book about the 49th state, he repeated what was by then already an old saw: that Alaska begins about 10 minutes outside of town. If Anchorage is the city, Alaska is the anti-city. But my wife and I happen to like cities and wilderness. Anchorage has wonderful versions of both, surrounded as it is by the mountainous Chugach State Park— at more than 200,000 hectares, the third-largest state park in the United States. Our hotel, the Lakefront Anchorage (millennium hotels.com; doubles from US$87), about five Getting Hip to minutes from the airport, looks out on a kind of airport of its own. The small lake it fronts is primarily used by Anchorage floatplanes, which I watched from the hotel’s back patio, drinking my Blessed by the wilderness at its doorstep, Alaska’s largest city morning coffee as they skimmed the has developed a character unlike any other: down-to-earth, water and scuttered to a halt. En route welcoming and ardently committed to embracing its untamed to the downtown area, we stopped in side. BY RYAN BRADLEY. PHOTOGRAPHS BY TOM FOWLKS at Spenard Roadhouse (spenard roadhouse.com; mains from US$17), a bright, airy, elevated diner, for beer- MY WIFE AND I told people we were going to battered fresh-caught halibut and a Alaska for five days. “On a cruise?” they asked. taste of one of a dozen local beers. “To see glaciers? Eagles? The wilderness?” Over the course of the weekend, I When we admitted that we would mostly be learned that I was partial to beers by staying in Anchorage, their faces fell. “That will Anchorage Brewing Company, but still be nice,” they said, but we sensed their pity. there’s also Midnight Sun, 49th State, FROM LEFT: The Lakefront Anchorage hotel, on Lake They assumed the city was the place you Resolution, King Street and Broken Spenard; the Fire Island Rustic quickly passed through before entering the real Tooth, among others. The options, Bakeshop in South Anchorage. Alaskan frontier. most fairly new, felt endless.

40 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM FROM LEFT: A sweet roll and eggs Benedict at Snow City Café; the craft-beer menu at Anchorage Brewing Company.

The recent boom in breweries and gastropubs cakes. The café was a short distance NEXT STOPS is more charming than the city’s first boom, in from the Crow’s Nest, a delightful After a few days in the 1970s. Back then, oil drove new arrivals and 1960s bar atop the Hotel Captain Anchorage, drive to one spurred the development that caused Cook (captaincook.com; doubles from of these great Alaskan Anchorage’s sprawl. Now there are bike paths, US$195), where, at the end of the day, destinations. farmers’ markets, food trucks and revamped we sipped martinis and took in the spaces like the Bear Tooth Theatrepub sweep of the bay, the port and the hours to Seward (beartooththeatre.net), a recently restored snowcapped Alaska Range. movie hall that specializes in art-house films, Between meals, there were the hours to documentaries and live music, with a dine- trails to conquer. On our first Kenai while-you-watch menu. If this all sounds like morning, in the foothills of the Portland—or Nashville or Pittsburgh or San Chugach on the Overlook Trail, we hours to Homer Diego or nearly any other city that has saw paragliders overhead and people undergone urban renewal—it is and it isn’t. walking with bells around their hours to Anchorage is undeniably Alaskan. It’s far away wrists (“To scare away bears,” one of Denali from everything except all that encompassing them explained). The next day, a bald National wilderness; what’s perceived as cool elsewhere is eagle swooped down and grabbed a Park & Preserve viewed from a great distance here. The result is a salmon in Prince William Sound as kind of authenticity that is hard to come by. we walked among endless lupines One morning, we went to the Fire Island and roses. We drove up the fordlike Rustic Bakeshop (fireislandbread.com), which Turnagain Arm, past mountain is run by Rachel Saul, who grew up in the city. goats, to a glacier, then stopped in the The Bakeshop now has three locations, but the ski town of Girdwood for a plate of original, in South Addition, a quiet Middle Eastern at the eclectic neighborhood next to downtown, is a hub of Jack Sprat (jacksprat.net; mains Anchorage life. As we picked out scones and from US$21). On our last day, we ancient-grain breads before hitting the trails, found an explosion of peonies at the Saul told us that the mayor was there. Everyone Alaska Botanical Garden (alaskabg. seemed to know one another. At Saul’s org). Did we see wilderness? Did we recommendation, we later tried the Snow City see Alaska? Did we see a moose Café (snowcitycafe.com; mains from US$11), for hanging out in someone’s front yard? eggs Benedict “Kodiak style”—with king crab Yes, yes and yes.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 41 PLACE SETTINGS

A Taste of the Baltics

In the years since the Cold War, Lithuania has been looking outward. Now, forward- S

thinking chefs and food producers in the capital of Vilnius are turning their attention NIU O; IL T V I back home—with delicious results. BY MEREDITH BETHUNE O H SK P

IN K P OC M T E K Y S Y EL EL M T O LA H A Z/ S O OR D OF GRAND ; V. V. ; Y S S E T NIU IL V I COUR SK E: T N I S PI M E PPO K . O . EL EL S T U O H AND M RAND RAND OF A Y S Y OF G OF Y E S T E T OUR UR ; C ; S : CO : T EL T EF HO OP L OP T IGN

S M E O D OF E FR E Y S S E WI T CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: A guest room at Grand Hotel Kempinski Vilnius; local at Halės Market, in Old Town; outside Hotel K CLOC Pacai; chef Deivydas Praspaliauskas prepping for the dinner crowd at Amandus. OPPOSITE: A colorful plate at Restaurant Telegrafas. COUR

42 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM THE LONG WOODEN TABLE at Būsi Trečias (busitrecias.lt; mains €4–€14), a rustic, family-owned brewpub in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, was cluttered with bar snacks: crisp fingers of fried rye bread called kepta duona served with a garlicky sauce; žirniai su spirgučiais, bowls of yellow split peas topped with crumbled . I prodded owner Romualdas Dacius for details about the lager we sipped, but he just shrugged. “I only brew beer that I like.” Then he regaled me with ghost stories about the 18th-century building the pub is housed in. A few days later, at a tasting-menu restaurant called Sweet Root (sweetroot.lt; tasting menu €74), I bit into the amuse-bouche, a pastry shell the size of a quarter bulging with green peas and crunchy specks of duck, and was reminded of the peas at Būsi Trečias. Both dishes are the fewer than 3 million has long beyond lackluster versions of stick- work of a new generation of chefs, struggled to preserve its national to-your-ribs dishes like cepelinai, the restaurateurs and artisans striving character. That includes its cuisine, meat-stuffed, sour-cream-

S to crystallize and elevate Lithuania’s which is ill-defined except for a few smothered served culinary identity. “We’re a little niche products. drink at touristy restaurants in Old Town. O ; ILNIU T V I O country and don’t have a clear, beer and kvass, a fermented rye But now, at last, that’s changing. SK PH Telegrafas K unified food heritage,” explained drink, like water and toast every I was sitting at (f.com/ PIN OC M T

E Sigitas Žemaitis, who co-owns milestone and special occasion with telegrafas; mains €23–€63), the K

Y S Y Sweet Root with his fiancée, a glass of mead. Fresh dairy restaurant inside the Grand Hotel EL EL M T O LA Agnė Marcinauskaitė. products, like cottage cheese and Kempinski Vilnius (kempinski.com; H A Z/

S Situated on the Baltic Sea and sour cream, are staples, and doubles from €280), and gazing at the

ORO surrounded, historically, by mushroom foraging rivals basketball Vilnius Cathedral when a white- D formidable powers—most notably as the national sport. Vilnius’s gloved waiter jolted me back to the ; V. V. ; Y OF GRANDOF Y S S E cuisine wasn’t known for much T the Russian Empire—this country of present with a cheese platter. There ILNIU

V was a crumbly English-style cheddar I SK E: COUR E: and a bold cow-milk cheese that T I S PIN reminded me of something nutty and M LATVIA E

K Alpine—Gruyère, or maybe Comté? . OPPO. EL EL S T Neither, it turned out. Telegrafas O H

ANDU sources all its cheese from the nearby M village of Dargužiai, which has

Y OF A OF Y become something of a dairy capital S Y OF GRANDOF Y E BALTIC SEA S T thanks to the efforts of local farmers. E T Later, at the neo-Gothic Halės Market ; COUR;

S (halesturgaviete.lt), I wove past : COUR: T EL

T vendors hawking spiky šakotis cakes Kaliningrad oblast Vilnius and buckets heaving with fermented OP LEF OP (Russian Territory) T IGN HO IGN BELARUS S

M Roots

E scapes, on my way to D (f.com/rootsvilnius), a bright and E FROE Y OF Y S S POLAND modern cheese shop run by Redita E WI T K Vadeike and her mother, Lolita CLOC COUR Strumylienė. Strumylienė told me

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 43 PL ACE SETTINGS

how, after Lithuania joined the European Union in 2004, local cheese makers brought back new techniques from sojourns in France and Italy. She handed me a sliver of a - style cheese, fruity and pungent. Chefs who left to work abroad 15 years ago have also returned to Lithuania with fresh inspiration. The seed for Sweet Root was planted when the owners spent a year on biodynamic farms in Italy. Chef Deivydas Praspaliauskas, often credited with bringing modern fine dining to the country, cooked for several years in Copenhagen. His restaurant, Amandus (amandus.lt; tasting menu €55), combines Lithuanian go-tos—green-pea purée, seeds—with ingredients from abroad, like sea scallops and ponzu. At the new Hotel Pacai (hotelpacai.com; doubles from €180), Noma alum Matas Paulinas helms the ambitious, 27-seat Nineteen18 (hotelpacai.com; tasting menu €89). Paulinas’s tasting menu, true to his training, is composed mainly of ingredients produced within 100 kilometers of Vilnius, resulting in dishes like grilled oyster mushrooms in a syrupy sauce of coastal fishing village that supplies Girta Bitė (5 Gedimino Prospektas; mint and elderberry capers. the restaurant, the first things 370/604-13363), a compact bar with Upon entering the dining room at I noticed were the plump fillets on dramatic crystal chandeliers, treats Šturmų Švyturys (sturmusvyturys.lt; display and the briny scent of fish mead with reverence. A bartender mains €16–€24), named for the stock simmering on the stove. poured me a glassful from the tap; it E AG Česlovas Žemaitis, who owns the was sweet and crisp, like a honeyed M Y I Y

restaurant with his wife, Asta, pilsner. The dim, vaguely steampunk TT explained how running their own Cocktail Bar Alchemikas (f.com/bar.

small port has allowed them to have alchemikas) takes a different UIJO/GE RQ

more exacting standards. The fish is approach: Žalgiris, a high-proof U

always wild, never flash-frozen, and distilled mead, is mixed with yellow GO IA the selection depends on whatever chartreuse and honey syrup for a T AN the sea offers that day—still unusual cocktail called, fittingly, Baltic O; S O; T

claims for a seafood restaurant in Courage. The bartender warned me O H P

Lithuania. I ordered the fearsome- to drink slowly. K OC

looking lamprey, which tasted mild The dessert at Sweet Root is the T Y S Y

when served with thinly sliced beets dish that has stayed with me the M LA

in a tangy, -spiked marinade. most. For his final act, Žemaitis A Ì/

Buttery salmon found its ideal presented me with a wafer-thin layer SS E companions in additions of lightly of leaf-shaped resting on D

pickled pumpkin and tart sea ice cream infused with porcini ELE RI B

buckthorn berries. mushrooms. I savored the earthy A G

FROM TOP: This palpable pride in all things sweetness, the contrast of crunchy OP:

Pilies Street, a main T

thoroughfare in Old Town, Vilnius; a taste Lithuanian is leaving a mark on and creamy. It tasted like Lithuania M

of the sea, salted freshwater whitefish. the city’s lively nightlife scene. on a plate. FRO

44 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM FROM TOP: GA B RIELE D ESSÌ/A LAM Y STOCK PHOTO; SANT IAGO URQUIJO/GETTY IM AGE 190429_Awaken_266.7mm(W)x203.2mm(H).indd 1

or email [email protected] To make or areservation enquiry, please call 26 +66 663 333 THB dining 2,500 credit, daily access to our healthy-life and pass. aone-day Skytrain BTS buffet and take advantage full of club lounge access and our 24-hour check-in policy. You’ll also enjoy Discover aworld wellness of and well-being. ablissful Book Bangkok break in our one of suites Perfect tranquillity in the heart of Bangkok. awaken

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movenpick.com Packages Packages 4/29/2562 BE1:43PM EXPERIENCE

A New Day for Dominica With the help of community-minded hotels and visitors eager to give back, this Caribbean island beloved by adventure seekers is making a rapid recovery from Hurricane Maria. BY GINA DECAPRIO VERCESI PHOTOGRAPHS BY NOE DEWITT

Villas at Secret Bay, a luxury resort on the island of Dominica with access to a secluded beach.

46 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM DOMINICA IS A WILD PLACE, but nothing in its wilds can hurt you. No venomous snakes lurk along the jungle trails. No deadly insects skitter beneath the layer of duff that carpets the rainforest floor. Instead of menacing critters, I saw gulf fritillaries open and close their wings atop fiery blossoms, territorial hummingbirds flit in an iridescent blur to ward off trespassers, and golden-armored land crabs stand at attention, pincers outstretched in mock threat. Unlike other spots in the West Indies, where the primary lure is lounging on a powder-white shore with a cocktail, travelers journey to Dominica, a volcanic island between Martinique and Guadeloupe, for adventure. Kilometers of rainforest trails lead to black- sand beaches fringed by coral reefs, to waterfalls that cascade into lagoons, and to a bubbling fumarole—a rift in the earth’s crust near a volcano—called Boiling Lake. One humid morning last December, I slogged up the Waitukubuli National Trail in the rain. On the last section of the slope, I dropped onto a log, where my guides, two young Dominicans named Dylan and Fabian, were taking a breather. They had come to clear debris left by Hurricane Maria, and I had come to lend a hand. Outdoor enthusiasts champion Dominica as an ecotourism destination, in part because of the 185-kilometer Waitukubuli, which stretches the length of the island. It’s divided into 14 segments, each of which can be hiked in a day. But the trail became impassable after Maria ripped through Dominica in 2017, bringing high winds and driving rains that also wiped out farmland and villages. Now, island hotels and guides have introduced post-hurricane My home base on Dominica was the newly FROM TOP: One of voluntourism projects, including trail reopened Secret Bay resort, six private villas on three honeymoon rehabilitation, for visitors who wish to assist in the northwestern coast. Through the resort’s villas at Secret Bay; the coastline the recovery. concierge, I connected with Annette Peyer of northern Loerner, a Swiss expat who owns the rustic Dominica. Tree Hotel with her husband, Stefan. After the hurricane, Annette adopted Segment 11 of the trail, taking responsibility for its clearing and maintenance. Since work began, Annette has cleared about one-third of the 12-kilometer stretch, part of which passes through Morne Diablotin National Park, home to the island’s tallest mountain. My day on the Waitukubuli began when I met up with Annette at the trailhead, where she was waiting with a few other volunteers. We set out along the cleared portion of Segment 11. After an hour of hiking, we reached the point

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 47 EXPERIENCE

where work had stopped. Fabian stepped into the dense undergrowth and pulled out power tools that had been concealed under a tarp. Annette opened a rucksack that held scythes, rakes and heavy gloves. As she doled out the equipment, Fabian fired up the chain saw. Up the trail, he cut fallen trunks and limbs that obstructed our path while Dylan whacked at a tangle of vines and razor grass. The rest of us followed behind, heaving logs and heaps of brush into the surrounding forest. When I wasn’t working, my bungalow at Secret Bay provided a plush refuge. Each morning I sipped coffee on the deck overlooking Cabrits National Park while bananaquits perched on the railing, eyeing my breakfast papaya. A wooden staircase wound down to Tibay Beach, where I snorkeled beside a rocky cliff, watching multicolored parrotfish munch on coral. Secret Bay’s owner, Gregor Nassief, has a passion for immersing his guests in the culture and natural beauty of the island. I drank a sorrel-and-ginger infusion and dined on invasive (and delicious) lionfish speared by Don Mitchell, the resort’s boat captain. I paddled the Indian River with Fire (born Patrickson Lockhart), a dreadlocked boatman who pointed The Emerald Pool, out native flora. And I searched the trees for in Morne Trois Pitons parrots on the Syndicate Nature Trail with National Park. local ornithologist Bertrand Jno Baptiste, otherwise known as Dr. Birdy. Despite the plywood-covered windows, headless coconut trees and sheets of galvanized roofing along the roadside, there were moments HELPING DOMINICA when I almost forgot Maria had been here. Every afternoon, gentle mountain rains mixed You can support the rebuilding At Secret Bay (secret bay. with sunlight to paint huge rainbows that arced of this Caribbean destination dm; doubles from US$909), over the shoreline. Hills that had been stripped just by visiting, but there are Fort Young’s sister property, many ways to add a service guests who participate in the bare burst with bright green foliage. Roads and component to your travels. resort’s “Nurture the Nature hotels had reopened. And the island’s rare, Maria’s winds scalped the Island” experience will venture endemic parrots, the sisserou and the jaco, jungle canopy, allowing along a portion of Segment 11 announced their presence with distinctive sunlight to reach formerly with the ornithologist Dr. Birdy, squawks, allaying fears that they had fled to shaded sections of the forest learning about and helping Guadeloupe—though they stayed hidden floor. Because of this, fresh with regrowth of native trees. during our morning mission on Segment 11. growth can swiftly reclaim Guests can also choose to help That afternoon I floated in the warm sea, cleared trails, so maintenance clear the beaches of the letting the salt water bathe the incisions the is crucial. The Fort Young hurricane debris that razor grass had made on my skin. Overhead, Hotel (fort young hotel.com; continues to wash up on them. doubles from US$244), in the New resorts promise to the daily rainbow began to take shape, along capital of Roseau, rehabilitated further aid the island. Cabrits with the glimmer of a twin, and I recalled that Segment 3 of the Waitukubuli Resort & Spa Kempinski a local woman I’d met at dinner the night before National Trail. Guests can (kempinski. com) is scheduled had told me there had been more double assist in keeping the to open in November, with a rainbows since Maria. 13-kilometer stretch weed- mission to sustain the “I think,” she said, “that it’s nature’s way free, while bathing at multiple surrounding Cabrits National of cheering us up.” hot springs along the way. Park. — G.D.V.

48 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM LET’S CONNECT

WWW.TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM TRAVELLEISUREASIA @TRAVLEISUREASIA @TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA T HE T+L GUIDE TO S HOPPING IN

Le Mont St. Michel’s boutique in the Marais neighborhood carries an array of Breton-stripe sweaters.

You’ve been to the Louvre, the Tuileries and the Eiffel Tower. Now it’s time to bring home some of the city’s legendary chic. From the venerable grands magasins and flea markets to the newest purveyors of street style, our experts will lead you to that essential outfit or objet you won’t find anywhere else.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CÉLINE CLANET

50 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM weekdays, go to the Ninth, where the basement level of the accessible, FROM LEFT: Les Puces often quirky auction house Drouot de St.-Ouen, one of the city’s famous flea (9 Rue Drouot; drouot.com) is loaded markets; vintage with antique medals, handbags and Louis Vuitton luggage enough wine to fell an army. These at the market. are less glamorous realms than curated boutiques like Montaigne Market (18 Ave. Matignon; montaigne market.com), in the Eighth, or the Broken Arm (12 Rue Perrée; the- broken-arm.com), in the Marais. But no one back home will have anything you walk away from Drouot with. Paris is a hobbyist’s dream. If you have a love of cooking or comics, you’ll find more here than you ever could on Amazon. E. Dehillerin (18-20 Rue Coquillière; edehillerin.fr), an exhaustive cooking supply store is your go-to for copper pots, though it displays only floor samples. Reading French helps if you want to take full advantage of the country’s graphic novels, called bandes dessinées or bédés, but the artistry of Bastien Vivès’s love stories, Riad Sattouf’s THE ENTHUSIAST’S memoirs and Manu Larcenet’s goofy odysseys have a pull beyond PARADISE language. Good selections are Paris lets you indulge your passions, no matter how out of the at Album (67 Blvd. St.-Germain; ordinary. Whether it’s antique maps, exotic spices or artful graphic album comics.com), in the Latin novels you seek, you’ll find it for sale here. BY ALEXANDRA MARSHALL Quarter, and Opéra BD (2 Rue des Tournelles; operabd.com), in the Marais. You can simply follow your nose at Épices Roellinger (51 bis Rue Ste.-Anne; epices-roellinger.com), the PEOPLE COME TO Paris for all the stop. While on the weekends spice of chef Olivier usual reasons: to explore museums, connoisseurs with cash to burn go Roellinger, whose roasted stroll the banks of the Seine, nibble north to Les Puces de St.-Ouen seeds, Madagascar vanilla and pastries and haunt bistros. But (marche aux puces-saint ouen.com), buckwheat butter cookies are some according to the informal polls I’ve where permanent stalls are filled of the easiest gifts to pack. conducted with visiting friends over with high-ticket antiques, stylish It would be a crime to leave the the dozen years I’ve lived in France’s bargain hunters head to Les Puces country without Breton stripes, capital, above all else they come to de Vanves (puces de vanves.fr), at which the French really do wear, shop. Who can blame them? Paris the southern edge of the 14th constantly. Marais boutique Le Mont has been producing world-class Arrondissement. It’s a proper St. Michel (96 Rue Vieille-du-Temple; design for centuries. Yes, many of the Saturday and Sunday flea market lemontsaintmichel.fr) uses heirloom city’s signature goods have become with a far less intimidating degree techniques to fashion pricy available outside France, but that just of specialization: a joyful jumble of Wes Andersonesque separates for means it’s now more of an adventure transferware by French producers men and women. But really, some of to sniff out unique city offerings. like Sarreguemines or Saint- the best sailor shirts in town are at Commit yourself to going local, Amand, fur coats, wartime maps Monoprix (multiple locations; one-of-a-kind, eccentric or nerdy— and stentorian oil portraits, all monoprix.fr), the local equivalent of qualities that Paris has in spades. from sellers eager to clear off their Target, where almost anyone can The flea markets are a natural first tables by morning’s end. On afford to bring back multiples.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 51 GUIDE SHOPPING

PRINTED MATTERS In a city dedicated to providing aesthetic pleasure, it’s no FROM LEFT: Sennelier surprise that some of the best art-supply store; bookshops highlight art, linens embroidered by hand at Noël. fashion and photography. BY SARAH MOROZ

At Librairie Marian Goodman (66 Rue du Temple; marian goodman.com), a sleek and slender bookstore across the street from the influential Galerie Marian Goodman in the Marais, you’ll find monographs on such artists as Gerhard Richter and John Baldessari, as well as a smattering of limited-edition art objects, like a Maurizio Cattelan scarf. A few blocks away, Le Comptoir de l’Image (44 Rue de Sévigné) is overstuffed with teetering stacks of vintage issues of Vogue Italia, TRADITIONS The Face and other collector bait. The wooden shelves bow under the strain of fashion books, including out-of-print titles OF EXCELLENCE by such photographers as Louise Dahl- With their roots in earlier eras, these establishments don’t Wolfe, Herb Ritts and Walter Pfeiffer. break the mold—they made the mold. BY JOSHUA LEVINE The prestigious auction house Artcurial (7 Rond-Point des Champs- Élysées; artcurial.com), which occupies a stately 19th-century mansion, has its own bookshop, with titles on art, sculpture, ceramics and furniture, including ANY PARISIAN WHO Joseph-Christophe archives for its catalogues for current auctions. You’ll has put brush to , who opened exquisite collections. find a more cutting-edge sensibility at canvas has likely the world’s first shirt The 150,000 Le Bal Books (6 Impasse de la Défense; bought paints at store in 1838. Charvet woodblocks at Zuber lebalbooks.com), which adjoins an art Sennelier (3 Quai (28 Place Vendôme; & Cie.’s factory, in the space of the same name. The neatly edited Voltaire; magasin charvet.com) has Alsatian town of selection includes titles, many of them sennelier.net). Well, made shirts for such Rixheim, are signed, from independent presses, zines since 1887 anyway, notables as classified as from around the globe and rare editions. which is when Baudelaire, Churchill French historical chemist and colorist and Gary Cooper. monuments. The firm Librairie Marian Gustave Sennelier The Noël family has been using them Goodman, an art opened his shop just began embroidering since 1797 to print bookstore in the across from the linen in 1883. New panoramic Marais. Louvre. Former owners took over the landscapes— EY Noël S clients include house of (1 Ave. Brazilian jungles, AR Picasso, Cézanne Pierre Premier de Swiss mountains— P

and Degas. Serbie; noel-paris. on wallpaper. Stroll MAY Y B The word com) 110 years later, by the Paris ION ION chemisier, or but the shop still showroom (36 Rue T RA shirtmaker, was draws on the 13,000 Bonaparte; zuber.fr) to ST LLU coined for patterns in its pick up a roll or two. I

52 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM CRY

AN L Balibaris UE DE R

LE SEIL Q Medecine UAI DE VAL Douce Oxbow CANAL RUE DE MAR Hircus Centre Commercial M Y

R ST.-MARTIN UE Make My YV Lemonade Small, independent stores have been opening all over this bohemian E S quarter, transforming it into a dynamic shopping destination. TO UDIC

UEBEAUREPAIRE BY LINDSEY TRAMUTA R IEU D UE R

CENTRE COMMERCIAL MEDECINE DOUCE MAKE MY LEMONADE This multi-label boutique, At this boutique and atelier, With its pink-and-green founded by the owners of jeweler Marie Montaud crafts interior, this is the first brick- sustainable shoe brand Veja, an ever-rotating line of sleek and-mortar shop from specializes in colorful, casual accessories, from gold-plated designer Lisa Gachet, whose clothing for men and women, brass hoop earrings with penchant for vibrant prints and including labels like Saint chiseled metal beads to retro fashions has earned her a James, Roseanna and Common ultrathin rings in 18-karat gold following online. 61 Quai de Projects. 2 Rue de Marseille; dotted with diamonds or Valmy; makemy lemonade.com. centrecommercial.cc. precious stones. 10 Rue de Marseille; bijoux medecine OXBOW HIRCUS douce.com. France’s leading brand of surf Think of this as the Everlane of clothing now has a flagship, Paris: luxurious garments— BALIBARIS with wetsuits, swimsuits and THE INSIDER including grade-A Mongolian- With timeless cuts and well- accessories for stand-up DANIEL cashmere tops, sweaters and made fabrics, this menswear paddleboarders. 31 Rue BOULUD jackets for men and women— label straddles everyday Beaurepaire; oxbow shop.com. Chef and restaurant at reasonable prices, made apparel and business casual in owner using transparent production a subdued, classically Parisian methods. 29 Rue Beaurepaire; color palette. 14 Rue de MY WIFE loves tea. You hircus.fr. Marseille; balibaris.com. can find Mariage Frères in many places these days, but they have a unique blend at their salon in the Fourth Arrondissement (35 Rue du Bourg-Tibourg; mariage freres.com). We FROM LEFT: Make My bring hot from Lemonade, a new Angelina (226 Rue de clothing boutique; Rivoli; angelina-paris.fr) earrings from Medecine Douce. back to New York—our kids adore it. La Chambre aux Confitures (multiple locations; lachambre aux confitures.com) sells its own wonderful seasonal fruit jams, as well as honey and a range of chocolate spreads. EY

S La Bovida (36 Rue AR

P Montmartre; la bovida. Y com) is like a huge Y MAY

B supermarket for cooking N

IO supplies. It’s where I used T to go as a young chef RA

ST to see all the new LLU

I equipment.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 53 GUIDE SHOPPING

R

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Nose Christophe Robin M ontorgueil

R ue Rue Bachaumont M ontmartre De Marseille et d’Ailleurs QUARTIER Kiliwatch Paris Passage du G. Detou Grand-Cerf MONTORGUEIL Rue Tiquetonne The area near the Étienne Marcel Métro stop in the Second Étienne Marcel Rue Étienne Métro station Arrondissement has a number of small boutiques and a Marcel welcome lack of crowds. BY RACHEL FELDER

NOSE DE MARSEILLE ET KILIWATCH PARIS This perfumery offers D’AILLEURS A mainstay for more than 500 Located in a covered Parisian tastemakers scents—including arcade that evokes a looking for casual options from Aether, scene from a Balzac clothes, this concept FROM TOP: Miller et Bertaux, and novel, this fragrant store stocks pieces Some of the Heeley—but the boutique offers from French labels like many fragrances available at Nose assortment never handcrafted soaps Avoc and April 77, as perfumery; the seems overwhelming, as well as a small well as accessories boutique uses thanks to a clean layout selection of and vintage items. a library of and a knowledgeable personal-care and 64 Rue Tiquetonne; reference scents team. 20 Rue beauty products. kiliwatch.paris. to guide customer Bachaumont; nose.fr. 1 Passage du Grand- selections. Cerf; demarseille et CHRISTOPHE ROBIN dailleurs.com. This French hairstylist’s products are cult G. DETOU favorites. The shop at A favorite of his salon is grand yet gourmands since the inviting, with retro 1950s, this shop is furnishings and a packed with hard- welcoming staff. The to-find pantry items. focal point is a shell- Baking ingredients shaped sink that are a specialty, from resembles a silver dragées to Renaissance fountain, chocolate bars from where customers can heritage French have their hair washed brands like Voisin and and sample the wares. Weiss. 58 Rue 16 Rue Bachaumont; Tiquetonne; christophe-robin.com. 33-1/42-36-54-67.

I LOVE SHOPPING in the First Arrondissement in the area around my EY

store, Memo Paris (24 Rue Cambon; memoparis.com). There’s a fantastic S AR

lingerie brand, Cadolle (4 Rue Cambon; cadolle.com), run by the same P family for generations. I also like Fauré Le Page (21 Rue Cambon; Y Y MAY

faurelepage.com), which makes beautiful leather handbags. For clothes, B

THE INSIDER N

Le Bon Marché (24 Rue de Sèvres; 24sevres.com) is one of the go-to IO T

CLARA MOLLOY destinations in Paris. It has a great selection of on-trend designers. RA

Cofounder of Memo L’Écume des Pages (174 Blvd. St.-Germain; ecumedespages.com) is one ST LLU Paris fragrances of my favorite bookshops in Paris. I appreciate that it’s open late at night. I

54 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM The main atrium of Galeries Lafayette.

NOUVEAUX RICHES Sift through the latest fashions at Galeries Lafayette—and get up or its affiliates. of Marriott International, Inc., the trademarks and their logos St. Regis are All Rights Reserved. ©2019 Marriott International, Inc. Subject to availability. apply. dates may Black-out and conditions apply. Terms close to its centuries-old architecture. BY ELAINE SCIOLINO

GALERIES LAFAYETTE, the grand A more self-indulgent way to department store complex in enjoy the view is on the balcony at central Paris, is a must-visit, but not Kaspia, a branch of the restaurant just for shopping. It’s also an on Place de la . Caviar is architectural masterpiece: a neo- the specialty, though a plate of Byzantine dome designed by the tarama with a flute of champagne is school of Nancy early no less perfect. Head to the Ice Cube in the 20th century. Soaring 42 Bar on the rooftop terrace for meters above the topmost floor, the cocktails and arguably the best A Taste of Luxury stained glass metal frame is carved free-of-charge view of the city. with elaborate floral motifs. Galeries Lafayette carries 3,500 Your luxury break awaits. You can now get closer to the clothing brands, beauty products Reserve 3 nights and be dome via the Glasswalk, which and housewares. If you need the enticed with a complimentary opened late last year. Suspended perfect handbag but haven’t chosen th 15 meters in the air, the 10-meter- a designer, you can find offerings 4 night, including daily long bridge has a glass strip in the from Bottega Veneta to Louis Vuitton breakfast for to and a luxury floor for viewing the action below. and Chanel. Unlike some boutiques, airport round trip transfer. Here you can spot the coats of arms where you can only look at the on the base of the dome, which products, here you can touch them represent the 10 French cities that and try them on for fun. On rainy were most important in the textile days it’s a great place to lift your The St. Regis Bali Resort industry a century ago. spirits. galerieslafayette.com. Kawasan Pariwisata, Nusa Dua Lot S6, Po Box 44, Nusa Dua Bali 80363 Indonesia stregisbali.com SUBSCRIBE NOW TO OUR DIGITAL EDITION 1 year / 12 issues for US$29.99. Available at www.zinio.com/TravelandLeisureAsia

powered by JUNE 2019 UPGRADE

T R A V EL S MAR TER

Mile-High Club First class isn’t the only way to fly. How about flat beds, chefs and your own crew on one-of-a-kind K trips that let you skip the customs line? Private-jet tours are taking N: FREEPI N:

IO well-heeled travelers for the most T

RA luxurious cultural exchanges.

ST BY JENNY HEWETT RCE ILLU RCE OU S . K A S A H C AR T OPI A S A K I T O H Y C Y B N IO T RA ST ILLU

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 57 UPGRADE

“ONCE I GET YOU UP THERE, where the air is rarefied, we’ll just glide, starry-eyed,” croons Frank Sinatra in his 1958 hit Come Fly With Me. Those lyrics may have heralded the so-called golden age of air travel, but they still speak to the way the journey is often as important as the destination. Today, a new era of aviation has emerged that’s reigniting the spirit of flying. Personalized, multi-stop, private-jet adventures are now the epitome of luxury travel, with some of the world’s most exclusive hotels offering around-the-world tours in gorgeously outfitted planes. “We’re focused on elevating travel above the ordinary,” says Javier Loureiro, director of guest experience at Four Seasons Private Jet. “We tap into our rich network of local contacts in each destination to provide insider access to exclusive excursions that are customized and authentic.” Here are five you’ll want to pack your bags (and maybe liquidate your assets) for.

AMAN ASIAN CRADLES Amanwella, in southern OF CIVILISATION Sri Lanka. Wheels up: October 2019 Where: China to Sri Lanka. One of the world’s most exclusive luxury hotel brands takes Amanjunkies sky-high on an immersive 12-day cultural and spiritual adventure through China, Bhutan, India and Sri Lanka. This hotel-hopping private-jet tour unlocks some of Asia’s most remote areas and historic sites, with mind-blowing stays at a marathon eight Aman properties. After departing from Shanghai, the second stop is hilltop hideaway Amandayan in the ancient Yunnan city of Lijiang for cocktails and a calligraphy lesson. In Bhutan, guests are treated to a private blessing by a monk and then take in the scenic landscape on a full-day hike to Tiger’s Nest. Bedding down in luxury 2) AN ( AN

tents at wilderness camp Aman-i-khas in tiger M sanctuary Ranthambore, guests also have the Y OFA Y

chance to spot crocodiles, leopards and jackals S E on an open-top Jeep safari. The 19-seater jet T

accommodates 16 people and features luxe COUR O

leather seating and lounge areas. T O H

aman.com/expeditions/private-jet/pan-asia- P K

october; contact Aman for pricing. OC ST Y M Aman’s ; ALA;

Airbus S ON

ACJ 318. S EA S Y OFFOURY S E T OP: COUR OP: T

M FRO

58 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM FOUR SEASONS TIMELESS ENCOUNTERS Wheels up: March 13 to April 5, 2020. The Four Seasons Private Jet social Where: Kona to London. area. Tick some of the world’s most iconic landmarks, including the Taj Mahal and Sydney Opera House, off your bucket list on this this 24-day, nine-destination voyage with The Taj Mahal Four Seasons Private Jet. Starting in Hawaii, is one stop on the 24-day

AN (2) AN this once-in-a-lifetime tour mixes in tropical

M tour. frolics on Bora Bora and Bali with urban

Y OFA Y experiences in some of the cosmopolitan S E

T centers of the universe. Enjoy a spine-tingling private concert at the theater where Mozart COUR

O performed in Prague, cruise down the Thames T O

H in London at twilight, and get a bird’s-eye view P K of Dubai from a seaplane. Between OC

ST destinations, guests kick back on the Y

M 52-person luxury jet, which is staffed with an

; ALA; eight cabin crew, three pilots, a guest S

ON experience director, a doctor and an executive S

EA chef. Menus, inspired by the destinations, S

UR UR come complete with wine pairings and seats lie fully flat, with custom-made Mongolian

Y OFFO Y blankets, mattress toppers, duvets, crisp S E

T linens and goose-down pillows ensuring plenty of shut-eye.

OP: COUR OP: fourseasons.com/privatejet/journeys/timeless- T

M encounters-2020/; from US$147,000 per person

FRO based on double occupancy.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 59 UPGRADE

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Falcon 900XE

seats just AROUND THE WORLD BY O T O

eight guests. PRIVATE JET H P Wheels up: December 28 to January 20, 2020 K OC

T Where: Washington, D.C., to Marrakech. S Y

The next best thing to having David M LA

Attenborough as your seat-mate, this around- /A the-world tour is hosted by a team of National K LAC

Geographic experts and explorers. Departing B T from Washington, D.C., in a reconfigured R UA Boeing 757, with 75 VIP leather seats with T 2); S 2); (

adjustable head- and leg rests and a 45-degree S E

recline, this trip takes in 15 heritage UR S sites in 11 destinations, including Samoa, A RE Petra, Morocco, the Serengeti Plain and the T

Great Barrier Reef. While staying at some of RING

The Touring OU the world’s most coveted accommodations— T Y Treasures trip such as a National Geographic Unique Lodges B

visits The LY

Whitsundays. of the World on Tanzania’s Ngorongoro SS LE

Crater—guests will learn about the latest M EA

developments in marine biology, S anthropology, archaeology and paleontology. Y OFY S E

On hand to provide expert insights and T education are a photographer and filmmaker, a geographer and an art historian, while the OP: COUR OP: T flight crew includes an expedition chef, a M physician and a dedicated luggage handler. FRO nationalgeographic.com/expeditions/ destinations/around-the-world/private-jet/ around-the-world-jet-tour/; from US$98,940 per person. SEAMLESSLY BY TOURING TREASURES Wheels up: October 2019 Where: Around Australia. With its luxury Dassault Falcon 900XE jet limited to just eight guests, this 21-day tour is one of the most inspiring ways to see Oz. Pairing pinch-yourself experiences with stays at the country’s top-end hotels, such as Saffire Freycinet in Tasmania and Southern Ocean Lodge in Kangaroo Island, the itinerary succinctly captures the soul and spirit of the land Down Under. “We combine helicopters, superyachts and private jets to cover a vast area in an exciting and luxurious way,” says Suzy Mercien-Ferol, co-founder of Touring Treasures. “Guests will have a bragging list for multiple opportunities that few rarely see, such as the Paspaley Pearl farms, which are accessible only by seaplane.” Enjoy five-star meals and spa treatments, and don’t even think about touching your luggage. “Our tours offer opportunity to spend more time on Explore Petra, experiences and less time in queues.” touring one of 15 UNESCO treasures.com; from US$85,772 per person. sites on the trip.

60 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM FROM TOP: COURT ESY OF S EAMLESSLY BY TOURING T REAS URES (2); ST UART BLACK /ALAM Y STOCK PHOTO

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BEACH VIETNAM T+L READER SPECIALS La Veranda Resort This month, plan ocean escapes to Phu Quoc, Uluwatu or Phu Quoc Langkawi, or book discounted unique stays in cities from Spend your summer days in a French colonial–style mansion Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur. and spoil yourself with either a gastronomic or wellness treat. Book at least two consecutive nights at La Veranda Resort Phu Quoc and get buffet breakfast; round-trip airport transfers; a welcome drink; welcome fruit trays; daily complimentary drinks for two; morning wellness activities, including yoga by the sea and Vietnamese massage workshops; and beach club excursions to Sao Beach. Guests can also choose between a complimentary set dinner for two at French- Indochine restaurant The Peppertree or a 60-minute spa treatment for two at the La Veranda Spa. The Deal Summer Promotion: a night in a Deluxe Garden room, from US$155, through October 31. Two-night minimum. laverandaresorts.com.

SOUTH KOREA Shilla Jeju Take a break on this idyllic Korean island with a package from Shilla Jeju. The deal includes accommodation in a Standard Mountain View room; INGAPORE IR S IR

breakfast for two at selected A EL

F&B outlets (free for children T O under 37 months); Y

complimentary access to OF Y S E

Soombi Spa Zone (including T indoor and outdoor swimming La Veranda is pools, the adult pool, Jacuzzis COUR C; an oasis on UO

and the Finland Sauna). Q Phu Quoc. U

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Jeju: a night in a Standard O K OR

Mountain View room, from S E W290,000, through December R SUPERSAVER 31. shilla.net. RANDA RANDA RAWAN BANG RAWAN E

YotelAir, Singapore A VEA

INDONESIA TT Experience the new YotelAir in the just-launched Jewel Changi L Alila Uluwatu

Airport and get a special discount. With 130 cabins, the airport OF Y The thought of a group S E

rest-stop includes self check-in/checkout kiosks; a 24/7 gym; T vacation shouldn’t make you HYA RAND G shower-only cabins; space-saving smart beds; fast Wi-Fi; rain sweat, and with this all- Y OF Y

showers; and the brand’s signature social space, Komyuniti. S inclusive package from Alila COUR OP: E T

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The Deal Opening Rate: a night in a Premium Queen cabin, from Villas Uluwatu, your next big M

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62 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM FROM TOP: COURT ES Y OF L A VERANDA R ES ORT PHU QUOC; COURT ES Y OF YOT ELA IR SINGAPORE

COURT ES Y OF GRAND HYATT ERAWAN BANGKO K This golfing getaway pairs a pairs getaway golfing This The The T (excluding spirits); guided guided spirits); (excluding shuttle from the resort to the the to resort the from shuttle golf course; one round of golf golf of round one course; golf guests. guests. has each and guests, guests on a private guided tour tour guided aprivate on guests car for local sightseeing. sightseeing. local for car course, excluding caddie; one one caddie; excluding course, recently the at accommodation and traditional warung-style warung-style traditional and the at dinner, available and all complimentary minibar minibar complimentary resort; the at choice at The The at with a dose of culture on your your on culture of adose with walks; and more. more. and walks; two nights in a in nights two time pre-dinner drinks for two two for drinks pre-dinner time to the nearby nearby the to two nights in a in nights two G G free. The deal includes daily daily includes deal The free. for two at the 18-hole, 72-par 72-par 18-hole, the at two for C for two persons at a venue of of avenue at persons two for package: a night in athree- in anight package: next visit to the Thai capital. capital. Thai the to visit next panoramic ocean views. views. ocean panoramic round at the the at round refurbished The The refurbished restaurants. The three- The restaurants. fine-dining signature resort’s morning or evening nature nature evening or morning transfers; airport return two; for breakfast daily room; return airport transfers, and a and transfers, airport return room, from from room, Grand Hyatt Hyatt Grand D TH E L D E D dinner set time one Bar; Beach 60-minute spa treatment each, each, treatment spa 60-minute inclusive of taxes, through through taxes, of inclusive tea afternoon lunch, breakfast, bedroom villa, from from villa, bedroom six to up fit can villa bedroom Bangkok D CITY OUTDOOR M he Datai Datai he an ls ls at om ra ue at ec ec eal A A , nd Hyatt Hyatt nd ai with luxurious luxurious with ai C gkawi. The deal includes includes deal The gkawi. L ember 31. Maximum six six Maximum 31. ember ember 19. 19. ember sts will also get a get also will sts D P bine some retail therapy therapy retail some bine IL

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AN ISLAND THAT WAS ONCE A CASE- STUDY IN OVERTOURISM REOPENS W ITH NEW ENVIRONMENTAL ZEAL. THE SANDS ARE GETTING WHITER ON BORACAY P. 66

NORTH, CENTRAL AND SOUTH: THREE STOPS HELP REVEAL THE CULTURAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL DIVERSITY AND HIDDEN HISTORY OF VIETNAM P. 76

BOAT JOUSTING? AH, THOSE QUIRK Y SOUTHERN FRENCH ALSO OFFER UP AN OYSTER HOTEL, A WINE ESTATE CUM V ILLAGE AND BEACHES FOR DAYS IN LANGUEDOC P. 88

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LEIG page 76.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 5965 Return to Paradise

Boracay is back, cleaner and greener than ever. But what are the other implications when a popular tourist haunt shuts down for a reboot? Stephanie Zubiri returns to the island to see if this Philippines favorite can preserve its soul along with its shores.

PHOTOGRAPHED BY FRANCISCO GUERRERO At the private pool of the Presidential Villa in Shangri-La Boracay's Resort and Spa.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 67 overdevelopment and overtourism have marred many of the region’s most beautiful destinations, from Angkor to parts of Bali. Hard choices have to be made, a delicate balance of what’s best for a country’s economy and its—the world’s, really—environment. In Thailand, for example, Maya Bay on Koh Phi Phi, made famous by the Leonardo di Caprio movie The Beach and visited by a shocking 4,000 people a day trampling its coral, has had its closure extended to 2021 “until natural resources return to normal.” Bad for Instagram, good for everything else. This came in the wake of the Philippines’ decision to shut Boracay to tourism last April, for six months, but with no real guarantee that it would reopen. An estimated 1.7 million visitors a year proved far too many for a 10-square-kilometer idyll. “As long as there is shit coming out of those pipes, I will never give you the time of day to return to the island,” President Rodrigo Duterte proclaimed in reference to the 716 out 834 businesses and residences that were said to be dumping their CONFESS I WAS a little anxious as I sat sewage into the waters. And so, Boracay was there on the plane. It was going to be the first sent to rehab. time I’d see Boracay again after a long period. I Now I was heading back, ostensibly to loved it once, had been infatuated by the magic and evaluate how an iconic tourist destination seemingly endless possibilities. My memory bank is could reinvent itself cleaner and greener. But, highlighted by long twilit walks with my first love on on a more personal level, to see if I could fall in the beach, inebriated sunrises that pushed my sensory love all over again with the island of my youth. boundaries, raucous and joyful dinners with my entire family followed by hours of dancing on the shore to “I WAS DEVASTATED, and afraid of ring in countless new years. To me, Boracay has always been a the future,” says Djila Winebrenner, owner of place where you could be whatever you wanted to be. The Lazy Dog and 15-year resident of Boracay. Flourlike white beaches famed throughout Asia, crystalline “All we knew was that there was going to be no turquoise waters, that laidback island lifestyle set against her income.” Sitting in the café of her Bulabog-side iconic golden sunset... Boracay was known not just for its party B&B, a Boracay institution, Djila expresses scene but also offering a true connection to the island. Its life as a what everyone on the island was feeling last holiday destination began in the late ’70s when it appeared in the year: insecurity. Some businesses were more film Too Late The Hero, and in a quick decade it became a popular prepared to weather the tourism drought, stop for backpackers and adventure travelers. By the 1990s, it was while others have been forced to shutter fully on the tourist map—yet, even then, people walked on the themselves permanently. sand, danced barefoot under the moonlight, lived close to the shore. The way the shutdown was originally It was paradise. Until it was not. Time took its toll. Bad choices positioned made many longtime residents and and a rough period—the easy geniality having hardened by fast business owners uncomfortable. “The business and a loose lifestyle. My once-deep love dwindling, I began government, the media, the netizens—they all only returning gingerly and was always left with a bit of called us greedy, they said we were breaking disappointment afterwards. the law. That hurt a lot of people, because for Eventually things really went off the rails. Rapid, unrestricted years we were clamoring for attention from development, mass uncontrolled tourism—the infamous May 1 the government to address overdevelopment anything-goes trashy-party “Laboracay” tradition became issues and we never got it,” Djila says. In the symbolic rather than an anomaly. Insane commercialization left end, personal feelings aside, she sees net little of the Boracay I once knew. What did paradise have left to benefit to the closure. “I’m glad it happened, offer when its sands were littered with cigarette butts and broken because it may not have happened at all.” beer bottles, the easy-breezy visitor demographic taken over by Cold turkey seemed to be the only way and, bucket-list tour groups in matching baseball caps, and the coming out of rehabilitation, Boracay is deceivingly clear waters tainted with E-coli? It’s a question many looking well. You can see that whatever trauma beloved places are needing to ask themselves these days, as it has been through, the necessary treatments

68 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM The shallows in front of Crimson Resort and Spa. CLOCKWISE FROM BELOW: Eco-transport at Station X; Mosaic restaurant at Crimson; grilled octopus at The Lind. OPPOSITE: Island trike taxis. Soothing hues in The Lind Hotel. OPPOSITE: Fresh oysters from Street Market in Station X.

70 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM WHILE A DIFFER ENT GROOVE FROM THE OR IGINAL BOR ACAY

I LOVED, ITʼS FULL OF FR ESH, DYNA MIC ENERGY The bar at Station X. CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE LEFT: Birdcage-chic at The Lind; in The Lind's bar; White Beach is pristine again. OPPOSITE: Rustic design at Shangri-La. and therapies are being administered. Roads BORACAY IS FAMOUS for its sunsets, and it reminds me have been widened and paved. Most of the why while I am precariously perched on the ledge of Sirena, the piping has been laid for proper sewage. cocktail bar of Shangri-La Boracay’s Resort and Spa. The sky turns Electrical wires have been cleaned up. a spectacular shade of orange, the golden orb kisses the sea and the To help the island stay on the eco-friendly shore, setting them ablaze. I feel as captivated as I ever have been. track, citizens’ arrests have been authorized Over the years, when things at White Beach had gotten too crazy, for litterbugs. The local government has I called Shangri-La, in the northern part of the island, home. I’ve mandated a shift to electric and solar-powered stayed in all room and villa types, and on this trip I am quite tricycles and is slowly phasing out the old serendipitously in the same Treetop villa that I stayed in on my first passenger trikes to combat climate change, check-in. I sleep with the curtains open so I wake with first light to and air and noise pollution. Other measures the Rothkoesque, unobstructed view of ocean and sky. I requested a include limiting the island’s capacity to 19,000 yoga mat, and my first morning’s practice on the terrace, under a day, with all visitors needing a confirmed chirping birds, is one of the most amazing moments of my year to booking from accredited hotels; watersports date. Balancing on my headstand, I face the verdant canopy of trees such as Jetskiing need to be 200 meters away the resort has preserved, and appreciate all the efforts—protecting from the shoreline; and no more daybeds, the island’s endangered fruit-eating bats and on-going coral rehab, tables and chairs in the 30-meter-from-shore for example—they’ve made to stay sustainable and close to nature. exclusion zone. Most significant is the ban on Shangri-La Boracay celebrates its tenth anniversary this year alcohol and smoking on the beaches, with and is better than ever. One of the few resorts on the island that has Tourism Police strictly enforcing this and an excellent support system, this grand dame took advantage of the imposing fines. closure for refurbishments and repairs. No staff were let go, with It’s still a work in progress, particularly in many sent off for training at other Shangri-Las, a win-win. The the back end where construction isn’t quite service is impeccable, personal and warm. I come back to my villa done yet. Famous White Beach, however, has one afternoon to a canvas set up on an easel with paints and returned to spectacular. Originally a string of small resorts, cute bars, restaurants and shops, White Beach is the Boracay my father is always nostalgic for. But that’s long gone—having been replaced in later years by mass tourism tropes, cheesy banana boats out at sea. Now, cleaned of trash and debris, stripped of all the lounge chairs and tables that had encroached on her precious shores, White Beach is completely refreshed and returning to how I remember it. The architecture is no longer rustic, the vibe is not so much barefoot, but that sparkle is back. The clear waters are truly clear; tests have shown that it is now safe. The best proof of this: marine life has already returned and the massive carpets of icky green algae have been reduced to a few healthy natural tufts. For those who know Boracay, the mood has changed. It feels more corporate, more constructed but also more peaceful and calm since they’ve been strictly enforcing curfews and noise pollution regulations. “It’s no longer ‘Party Island.’ I’m glad all the crazy parties are gone,” Djila says, but adds wistfully, “so are the good quality parties from the local community that has been here all these years and helped create that vibe.” I wonder out loud… with all these changes, what’s the draw for the long- time visitor—or even for a new one on the hunt for castaway island magic? Just then, a shaft of light falls through the trees, directly onto Djila. Her eyes twinkle and her big warm smile returns. “It’s a bit harder to find these days,” she says, “but it’s still magical.”

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 73 Lounging at Crimson. RIGHT: Souvenirs at Station X. OPPOSITE: Floating above the fray at Shangri-La.

fingers and toes that the island would be back in time. Happily, the miraculous happened and the government was true to its word, opening the island on October 26. I was impressed with how well-oiled everything was at The Lind, considering its six-month hiatus. Our server at that time, Darwin, who is now the F&B supervisor, made sure our rosé was always delivered frosty to our balcony for sunset sessions. And I encountered one of the best dishes I’d ever eaten on the island, which left me dreaming about it for months: grilled octopus, tender yet brushes on a table next to a bottle of wine. A note from my villa charred, crisping the delicate tips of the manager, Suzette, encourages me to enjoy the sunset. tentacles, bits of smoky chorizo mingling with With its own cove, incredible spa, amazing wine list and F&B roasted tomatoes and the best darn romesco selection, it’s easy to never leave the property. But, as a private sauce in recent memory. I would have returned enclave, it’s not quite Boracay—and I need to get out to see how just for that meal, but the property is pretty things have changed. Shangri-La while still peaceful is no longer amazing all round, with wonderful views, solitary; its home on “Station Zero” has seen the opening of a few family-friendly facilities and a really worthy resorts, such as Crimson. A short walk down the beach brings you piece of real estate: daybeds on the sands. to this ultra-modern, Mediterranean white structure. Proud Unlike most of their neighbors, The Lind perpetrators of the longest happy hour on the island (10 a.m. to allotted enough space for a lounge area— midnight), Crimson has fantastic food to accompany all that meaning, importantly, they adhered to proper boozing. Think with buttered or fresh tuna setbacks on the beach. Sustainability has tataki. The Latin American fine-dining outlet, Mosaic, is definitely always been at the core of both The Lind and worth a visit, offering excellent grilled steaks and Peruvian Shangri-La; their long-term efforts to reduce tiraditos. The smoked prawn ceviche is plated beautifully and single-use plastics have been joined by many engulfed in a wispy cloud of smoke, the fresh raw prawns curing other establishments since the imposition of slowly in the symphony of tangy and spicy sauces that vibe with the new, strict, reopening regulations. sun streaming through the patterned window frames, Latin classic And while The Lind’s marketing and Besa Me Mucho on the stereo, and my refreshing Campari soda. communications manager Quino de Jesus isn’t Full disclosure: I actually had been to Boracay once before right wrong when he says, “All the resorts look after it reopened—but our stay was so brief we only had time for pretty much the same now,” in reference to the one proper meal at The Lind, a contemporary, airy resort where crop of white, cement, modern buildings that friends were getting married. The wedding had been planned for have replaced the little rustic huts of yore, early November and the bride and groom were crossing their another change is an increased emphasis on

74 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM design. The old Filipino cliché, “What happens in Boracay, stays in granted to Macau-based Galaxy Entertainment Boracay,” is out the window now that everything is all about Group by the Philippine Amusement and Instagram. The younger generation’s preoccupation with social Gaming Corporation the month before media likes over actually socializing means the island is not saved Boracay’s closure. President Duterte, however, from the growing need for F&B to be photogenic. But to prove that’s has been adamant about his stance against not all bad, visit Station X, a hip resort complex that lacks in gambling on the island, pledging that no such beachfront what it makes up for in cute, quirky décor and fantastic casino would come to fruition under his term. retail concepts. The food market has a crab to die for, great Even if that’s true, what happens after? oysters, poke bowls and Korean bingsu. Round it off with some craft My last evening is spent on the iconic White coffee and cocktails. I love shopping for souvenirs at Local Color, Beach. The paraws—sailboats that are finally, which has thoughtfully curated, well designed products from local thankfully devoid of advertising—dance a artists and artisans. While a very different groove from the graceful ballet across the painterly sky. The original Boracay I loved, it’s full of fresh, dynamic energy. tide is pulled back so far that the shore is like a looking glass, creating prisms of and A LOT OF THINGS have changed for the better and yet there gold. The sunset is glorious. No raucous music; is still uncertainty in the air. Back at Bulabog beach, Djila and I instead the beach filled with good, happy walk past a whole row of boutique kitesurfing resorts that have energy, kids boogie-boarding, couples taking been boarded up for the controversial reason of “easement”—the photos, a friendly pug splashing about. requirement that properties be 30 meters from the waterline. The day eases seamlessly into night and I We meet Ken Nacor, a local who was Asia’s No. 1 kitesurfing head to a party to meet some friends. In freestyle champion for several years. After exchanging hellos, Djila Boracay, there are always friends around. I explains to me that Ken is losing his livelihood and everything he’s had geared myself up for a crazy, drunken saved up for, with zero compensation. I look back and see him night. Friday in the middle of summer—why sitting in front of his establishment—one of several titled wouldn’t it be? But the island is calm. Our properties losing their real estate to make way for an extension of a party tapers off early and, out of curiosity, I boulevard—eerily boarded up, staring out to that paradoxically want to see if there’s perhaps anywhere else to beautiful sea, hovering like a spirit in limbo over the shell of a body. carry on. I walk out on the beach, where It leaves me sad and full of unanswered questions. As much I instead of the usual boom boom there is a agree with the need to cure Boracay, measures should be serene hush. Children are playing with light- implemented fairly and with a proper action plan to address the up toys, glittering like neon falling stars on a collateral damage. Taking titled land away from owners without dark sky. I take in the balmy sea air and heave recompense and without making public the intentions doesn’t sit a sigh. I don’t miss the blow-out, I no longer right. It’s apiece with the new trike-taxi regulations: many locals need it here. I’m happy with the chill cocktails own their individual tricycles and now, though at the lower end of and meaningful conversations. I’m happy with the economic chain, are being told to reinvest in green-powered the morning yoga and mind-blowing vehicles without assistance. It feels a bit unfair when other fossil- massages. I don’t need much more than just to fuel vehicles such as cars and trucks are still allowed on the island. be at peace by the sea. Like me, the island has There’s no disputing that the main attraction, that sand so white matured. It has transitioned from a wild, and fine it’s unreal, is finally back to its old pure state and so are unbridled paradise to something more the clear, turquoise waters. I just hope the improvements are not a measured and relaxed. The immediate vibe for Trojan horse. Rumor had it that the closure was in fact preparation a visitor might be less carefree, but it feels a for the opening of a large casino, after a provisional license was worthy trade for protecting the future.

THE DETAILS on White Beach with and eclectic music; go STAY daybeds on the sands. for last call. Station 2; thelindhotels.com; drinks for two P500. Crimson Resort and doubles from US$320. Spa Boracay Perfect Lanterna Home for travelers looking Shangri-La Kitchen Authentic for a party. crimson Boracay’s Resort Italian private dining hotel.com; doubles and Spa Rustic by chef Luigi Barbolla. from P14,000. luxury, butler service 63-998/575-2540; and private beaches. P850 per person. The Lazy Dog shangri-la.com; Station X / Prisma Cute value spot on doubles from P19,000. the kitesurfing side. Young, hip and photogenic, global lazydogboracay.com; EAT+DRINK doubles from US$15. eats, good cocktails. Exit Bar A simple hut thehuehotels.com; The Lind with a great local vibe meal for two P1,500. A modern favorite Three for the History Books New resorts in remote places highlight Vietnam’s diverse natural beauty while always keeping sight of its layered history and culture. Eloise Basuki covers a millennium in a three-stop trip from top to bottom tip.

PHOTOGRAPHED BY LEIGH GRIFFITHS Hilltribe meets haute-couture at new Sapa retreat Hotel de la Coupole. OPPOSITE: At Poulo Condor Resort & Spa, on Con Dao, guests can paddle on the resort’s stream.

IT’S BEEN A FEW days since Guiding is Khu’s main source of from a recycled soft-drink bottle. My Tet, Vietnam’s riotous weeklong income now that harvest season is polite declines are useless against New Year holiday, but Sapa is still in over and the northern Vietnamese their insistent laughs, so I shrug and celebration mode. “There’s a festival winter has turned much of Sapa’s take a gulp. It’s Tet, after all. The tomorrow in Cat Cat village… you iconic green fields into cascades of wine is potent and full of funk, but should go!” says my guide, Khu, dirt and mud. goes down velvety and warm. “Some a 20-something rice farmer from With farm work on hold, the people call it alcohol,” Khu says. “We nearby Lao Chau. Khu is leading locals are happy for a distraction call it happy water.” Yep, the party is me through Matra, a Black Hmong from strangers. As we trudge past still on in Sapa. hilltribe village five kilometers empty fields, I hear calls of “Hello!” Though the Google Images away from Sapa city, and its glut from inside a corrugated tin shack, version of the region—lemon-lime of tourists who come to hike the where a merry group of guys offers rice-paddies rolling across hills like region’s famed rice terraces. us swigs of homemade rice wine silk—was sadly out of season, one

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 77 CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Indigo layers on a walk in Matra village; the view from the top of Fansipan mountain; into the mist on the Fansipan cable car; a Gatsby-worthy dip at Hotel de la Coupole’s heated pool; seared duck with Vietnamese root vegetables at the hotel’s Chic restaurant; the hotel sits within the yellow Sun Plaza building, seen here from Sapa Square; murals painted by the Bensley team add 1920s flair. bush grows year-round in Matra: the T HOTEL DE LA indigo plant, a defining part of the Coupole, I spot Black Hmong tribe. It steeps in deep, reminders from my navy-tinted vats outside most walk in Matra villagers’ homes, and gives their everywhere I go. traditional outfits that signature Indigo cloak inky-blue hue. Khu spots a few stems Aelevator walls, upholstery and growing on the side of the road and pillows; lampshades resemble the crushes the leaves into my hands tribe’s structured headwear and with a splash of water. I rub them silver jewelry. Like many of together as she instructs, and my Bensley’s over-the-top interiors, hands stain a Kermit green. As the a stay here is like a night at the dye dries, it deepens to a light indigo. museum—the Bangkok-based Khu points at her midnight-blue designer spent five years collecting skirt, framed with neon-pink antiques from Parisian flea markets , the traditional dress of to represent the French haute- the Black Hmong people: “It takes couture concept, a nod to the wealthy one year of drying for it to become colonialists who used Sapa as a this dark.” hilltop retreat at the turn of the last The textile culture in Sapa, a five- century. The lobby alone makes me hour drive northwest of Hanoi, is a gawk: 500 oversized vintage spools strong part of what distinguishes handspun with hilltribe threads the many ethnic minorities that live back the concierge, and a stack of old here—the scarlet headdresses of the French suitcases (including a Louis Red Dao, the rainbow weaves of the Vuitton number) are piled above. Flower Hmong. Each tribe’s I meet up with General Manager individual craft has been passed Jean-Pierre Joncas, who tells me I from generation to generation, and actually just missed Bensley; he had now they are embodied in a grand dropped off another 750 kilograms of new space in the center of town. The antiques from Paris just before I Hotel de la Coupole, the first arrived. “Every month he brings international five-star in Sapa, takes more things and keeps adding to it,” this rich tradition and runs with it; he says. I ask him when they’ll be both hilltribe fabrics and French done and he pauses for a second, haute-couture inspired the hotel’s then laughs, “I think if we waited for aesthetics, a Wes Anderson–style him to finish, it would be another vision dreamed up by prolific hotel five years before we could open.” designer Bill Bensley. The hotel’s 249 rooms rise This stylish ode to Sapa’s heritage straight into Sapa’s perpetual cloud is my first stop on a north-to-south cover, complementing the moody tour of Vietnam that takes in three design and the eponymous glass of its historic destinations: Sapa near domed rooftops with a constant the Chinese border, Quy Nhon in the misty setting. During clear center, and Con Dao off the Mekong moments, the balcony from my Delta; one overrun with tourists, one emerald-painted Deluxe room virtually unknown, and the other frames vistas of Fansipan mountain, infamous. As each destination gets a the highest peak on the Indochinese lavish new abode for visitors to play Peninsula, which I can, in fact, reach in, their draw is expanding beyond right from the lobby. The hotel just historical appeal. But, for these shares space in a mixed-use building properties, the heritage that owned by Vietnamese development precedes them is inherent to the company Sun Group, so is just steps high-end experience. For me, a away from the train station to their first-time visitor to these parts, groundbreaking cable car. I’m happy to learn the past is still When it opened in 2017, the sticking around. Fansipan cable car was the world’s

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 79 LIKE A MIRROR FOR THE STARS, THE OCEAN SHINES WITH LIGHTS FROM HUNDREDS OF FLOATING SQUID TRAPS

64 MAY 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM Private infinity pools are a highlight of every Anantara Quy Nhon villa.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 81 Playtime in the waves off of Con Son’s main town, with Bay Canh Island, a prime turtle-nesting area, in the distance.

64 MAY 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM longest at 6,292 meters, and made Sapa’s highest peaks more accessible JADE-GREEN JUNGLE for non-trekkers. The cable car glides over terraced valleys, swaying bamboo forests and cliff-side HILLS CROWN EMPTY waterfalls, but Fansipan’s beauty peaks with its height. When we land, CRESTS OF SUGAR- the mountaintop is swallowed in clouds. But as the bitter wind pushes WHITE SAND the mist away, red-tiled temples, an efgy of Guan Yin the goddess of mercy, a gleaming , It may seem an odd choice for an ancestors, and to pray for protection and all of Sapa below come into view. international five-star, but for from droughts and floods. Inside the On the way back down on the train, I Anantara, with sister brand Avani tallest tower, Huy tells me not to can even see the crowd gathering for already owning the property next mind the bats screeching above us in the party in Cat Cat, and I give a vain door, it just made sense. “We had the triangular-roof’s abyss or the wave to Khu from up above. this stretch of land, but Anantara scribble of grafti on the walls—the At dinner under the cupola at the also likes to look for unusual scrawled devotion of local lovers over hotel’s restaurant, Chic, executive destinations,” director of public the years—and instead lights me an chef Basha Shalik serves dishes relations Kate Jones tells me over incense stick, points at the statue of inspired from both Sapa and the dinner at the resort’s grill-focused Shiva and tells me to make a wish. French: my sturgeon hotpot comes restaurant, Sea Fire Salt. “People We also visit the sprawling Tien with a bouillabaisse broth; a creamy don’t want to see what everyone else Hung pagoda, still bustling with Tet mushroom soup uses only wild fungi has seen before; they want revelers, and the dilapidated from Sapa’s forests; pear tartine something new.” But there’s also no remnants of Quy Nhon’s former uses the spices of , reason Quy Nhon shouldn’t be on leper colony—a still functioning star and . For better or travelers’ bucket lists—golden sand hospital and peaceful memorial on a worse, Sapa has grown up. Though fronts wavy blue ocean and nearby quiet stretch of Quy Hoa Beach. its small-town charm may be lost uninhabited islands, the forested Though this history is fascinating, with the influx of tourists, here its hills offer virgin trekking, and my favorite part of the tour is just legacy is still proudly on show. ancient towers provide a peek at watching everyday life roll out. We Vietnam’s former Champa reign. visit a small incense factory, where a Y THE TIME I Central Vietnam was the base of score of women swathe thousands of arrive in Quy Nhon, the Champa kingdom, which also bamboo sticks in a fragrant a seaside city 300 covered parts of Cambodia and Laos, cinnamon coating, then lay bundles kilometers south of during the 11th to 15th centuries. to dry beneath the hot sun. We order tourism hotspot Hoi Quy Nhon’s port, Thi Nai, was an a drip coffee from Huy’s favorite An, night has fallen. important point of trade for the café, and watch the world go by. BIt’s too dark to see how pretty my empire with China, Southeast Asia At lunch I get my seafood fix at new digs are at the new Anantara and beyond. After the Vietnamese local joint Anh Vu Tom Ngai, famous here, but the bay’s carpet of conquered the Champa people in for Quy Nhon–style banh xeo topped twinkling lights puts on an evening 1471, the port town remained active, with tom ngai, jumping shrimp. Here show just steps from my beachfront and later became a strategic military in Central Vietnam, the rice-milk villa deck. Like a mirror for the base for the Americans during the crepes are plain white without the stars, the sweep of ocean shines with war. This history and a look at local yellow addition of . They’re lights from hundreds of floating life is weaved into every Anantara also smaller than most of the squid traps; Quy Nhon is famous for guest’s stay—when I met with Kate, versions I’d eaten elsewhere in its seafood, and I’ve been dreaming she was just finalizing a fishing tour Vietnam, cooked in a disc-sized pan about it all the way from Sapa. where guests set out in traditional that’s overflowing with so much Daylight casts a finer picture of basket boats. I get a dose on the Quy bubbling oil it catches on fire, searing just how special this place is. The Nhon Explorer experience, guided by the cakes with a lick of char. I layer all-villa resort is the first of its kind Huy, a local to the region and also the my banh xeo with a bouquet of herbs not just for the Anantara brand, but hotel’s guest relations manager. We and slivers of green mango, roll up also for the location. Though it was visit the Banh It Champa towers that the crisp pancakes in delicate rice an important staging area for the sprout up on a hill from the region’s paper, then dunk them in the U.S. military during the war, Quy flat farmlands. The skinny, burnt pineapple-spiked fish sauce—the Nhon is several hours off the beaten orange–brick towers were built by condiment of choice here in Quy track from its world-famous beach the people around the 11th century as Nhon. One bite in and I tell Huy we’re neighbors Da Nang and Nha Trang. a place to worship their gods and going to need another helping.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 83 I spend the rest of my visit swanning around my villa, taking advantage of my wine cellar, and mini bar stocked with deli cheeses and cured meats, and cooling off with dips in my private pool. One lunchtime, Sea Fire Salt’s executive chef Thu teaches me how to make banh xeo, though I’m not as liberal with the lashings of oil that made Anh Vu’s so addictive. Another morning, Anantara’s head of security, Phuc, gives us a beachside lesson in the local martial art Viet Vo Dao, of which he’s Quy Nhon’s master. Surprisingly, I’m more coordinated than I thought I’d be, and the swift flow of movements sends a bolt of strength through my body. This string of villas may have opened up Quy Nhon as a new spirits,” says Huong Bach, the luxury destination off Vietnam’s assistant resort manager at Poulo well-trod path, but here, it seems, I Condor Boutique Resort & Spa, about don’t have to worry about the local those who died in the 113 years of culture slipping away because of it. Con Dao’s history of incarceration. Over the past generation, Con Dao t’s my first day of island life has transformed its image, on Con Dao, but I can’t stop becoming a lush escape for Saigon blinking away tears. This holidaymakers, with a Six Senses southern archipelago just a staking claim in 2009 as the luxury scenic 45-minute prop-plane resort of choice for most expats and flight from Saigon has in-the-know tourists. Since it opened Ieverything you pine for in in 2017, Poulo Condor offers this paradise—jade-green jungle hills same contemporary high-end crown empty crests of sugar-white service with a heritage slant. Taking sand that give way to the bluest the French name of the island, the oceans and even a baby turtle or resort arranges its 36 suites and 200—but the sting of the island’s villas like a quaint colonial village, dark past is sobering. with signposted streets—Rue de For more than a century until Tourane, Rue de Cochin and Rue de 1975, Con Son, the largest island of Tonkin—leading guests to white- the group, was a prison complex rife washed cottages, a lake carpeted in with inhumanity—violent beatings, flamingo-pink lotus flowers, an unthinkable torture and countless infinity pool with a mountain executions. It started with the backdrop, and, out front, that the archipelago’s famous green sea French, who were ceded the island sapphire South China Sea shoreline turtles, who lay their eggs across the during the Versailles Treaty in 1861 lapping at kilometers of empty, islands from May to October. and used the prison to house surprisingly deck-chairless, soft, After a refreshing dip in the thousands of political dissidents, white sand. resort’s strip of Vong Beach, I spend including Vietnamese Nationalist Today, this natural beauty is the rest of the afternoon exploring Phan Chau Trinh, an early resister eclipsing Con Dao’s scars, offering the 30-hectare jungle property by of the French occupation. When the access to some of the country’s best bike, kayaking along the in-resort Americans arrived, they transferred marine life. Neighboring Bay Canh stream, and ending the day with a the prisons to the South Vietnamese Island is a day-tripper’s dream, blissful few hours in the lake-view to hold communists and Viet Cong, covered in protected rainforest and spa where I try my first-ever as well as students, writers and edged with vibrant reefs where cupping session. In my Colonial other opposing voices. “There are snorkelers and divers of all levels suite, a spacious one-bedroom 8,000 people living on this island, can spot manta rays, dolphins, a furnished with wooden antiques and but there are more than 20,000 possible whale shark, and, of course, European art, plus a full bath and

84 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Quy Nhon’s Thien Hung pagoda; jumping shrimp banh xeo; fishing boats in front of Anantara at sunrise; Phuc, a master of Viet Vo Dao, leads a lesson on Anantara’s beach; the resort’s Sea Fire Salt restaurant has ginger, green tea and 13 more salt flavors; the beach at Six Senses; incense at a factory in Quy Nhon. outdoor rain shower, it’s easy to lose yourself in the romanticism of the French era. But the island’s past is not disconnected here, rather, it’s intrinsic: the owner, Le Ngoc , was a prisoner on Con Dao, serving three years of a 20-year sentence. Along with his daughter, Le Ngoc Quynh, who decorated the resort’s interiors with antiques she handpicked from Saigon’s vintage stores, the pair opened Poulo Condor as a tribute. “[My father] wanted to give thanks to the island,” Quynh says. “He was

CLOCKWISE FROM still alive after the war, but some of TOP LEFT: A his friends passed away while traditional basket serving their sentences.” boat in Quy Nhon; Huong has organized the prison finding the hidden tour for me with guide Van, who entrance to Con Dao’s French Tiger gives vivid recounts of how shackles Cages; the cottages chained to an iron bar bound all the at Poulo Condor feel inmates together inside the island’s like French colonial most well-preserved prison, Phu homes; crab paste noodle soup at Bun Hai. Van tells me the legendary story Rieu Cua Ba Hai of teenage heroine Vo Thi Sau, who Khiem in Con Son’s became a guerilla fighter for the Viet main town. Minh in 1948, and even managed to OPPOSITE: Pops of lob a few grenades at the French nostalgia at Poulo Condor. before she was executed at Phu Hai at the age of 19. Today, she’s an icon and has her own shrine where worshippers, mostly from the north, come to offer her expensive jewelry, the cages with open, barred tops, crowd the main pier to buy fresh makeup, designer handbags and designed so guards could jab the seafood direct from the fishermen’s fancy dresses in exchange for prisoners with sticks to keep them boats; at the morning market, prayers and blessings. Vo Thi Sau awake, or throw dirty water on them vendors hawk tropical fruits, a has pride of place at the Con Dao during cold nights. Next door, in the rainbow of Vietnamese desserts, and cemetery, where most other graves solariums—roofless outdoor cells— crusty banh mi. For lunch I drop by remain nameless, and Van tells me posed mannequins curled up in pain Huong’s family restaurant that sells that the few who have tried to help visitors envisage the real authentic Con Dao–style bun rieu destroy her headstone have all been prisoners burned to their flesh from cua, a noodle soup that her mysteriously haunted to their sitting under the sun for days on relatives start making at 2 a.m., untimely deaths. end. It’s not somewhere I feel I can catching fresh blue crabs and It’s at the French Tiger Cages linger for very long, but as I walk to pounding the meat to make the where I break. Surrounded by a the exit and notice a woman sitting moreish paste topping. larger fortress, the block of 70 on the ground softly singing, I In the afternoon, I ride to secret pantry-sized cells for more than pause. Van says she’s chanting a beaches tucked behind dense forests 500 prisoners was hidden from Buddhist hymn, a blessing for the all over the island—to the south, outsiders, and only discovered after former prisoners. The tears roll. where aquamarine coves are flanked a group of imprisoned students was On my last day I hire a motorbike by a tangle of mangroves and released and drew a map for U.S. and cruise around the cliffs of the fishermen in their rainbow- congressional aide to Saigon Tom island for a dose of current island striped wooden junks; and to the Harkin to investigate. I walk above life. In the breaking dawn, locals cliffs above the rocky coast of Nhat Beach, where it’s said dugongs hang out in the bay. As the sun sets, I join a crowd at the small, sandy beach I RIDE TO that flanks the pier; most wade into SECRET the sea fully clothed. Con Dao’s history is a sad one, and it’s clear no BEACHES FLANKED one’s forgotten it. But right here, with golden hour casting a glow over BY A TANGLE OF the ocean filled with everyone from old grannies to floatie-armed MANGROVES toddlers, the spirits are still high.

THE DETAILS Anantara Quy Nhon Villas standard for Sapa. The indoor Six Senses Con Dao This The beachfront villas are a heated pool looks like it’s 10-year-old property features GETTING THERE complete treat; even the bath straight out of the Gatsby slick wooden "shack" villas I started my journey in Hanoi, and shower boast floor-to- mansion, with jewel-tone tiles, with incredible views of their from which you can take a ceiling beach views. Each villa 20s-era girls in murals, four- pretty much private, eternally sleeper train (eight hours) to has an in-room wine cellar, poster loungers, and huge shallow, beach. Recent Lao Cai, then a 45-minute van deli fridge and private pool. bronze statues about to dive additions are a speedy dive or taxi to Sapa town. Instead, I Don't miss a treatment in the into the blue. accorhotels.com; boat and an incubation center took a five-hour, disco-lit night peaceful treetop spa the doubles from VND2,400,000. for their own clutch of green bus, which brought me direct property shares with Avani. sea-turtle eggs. sixsenses.com; from Hanoi's airport to central Poulo Condor Boutique anantara.com; doubles doubles from US$680. — E.B. Sapa. Note: despite lay-flat Resort & Spa Privacy and from US$500. beds, the ride was fairly serenity abound in this family- sleepless. An airport in Sapa Avani Quy Nhon Each of the run jungle retreat just 10 has been proposed for 2020. 63 rooms in this refurbished minutes from the airport. For Quy Nhon, Phu Cat hotel has a private balcony, Villas start from 107 square airport is 45 minutes away and and loft studios are perfect for meters, while two-bedroom can be reached with a direct family getaways. Avani guests pool villas are spacious flight from Hanoi (or Saigon). have access to Anantara’s enough for families and Con Dao is a short flight from main pool during low season, groups, with private beach Saigon or Can Tho. Individual and can book into Sea Fire Salt access. Guests have free use hotels can book transfers, or year-round. avanihotels.com; of bicycles and kayaks, and just ask your travel agent to doubles from US$150. yoga can be arranged on some arrange the entire journey. mornings. Don’t leave without Most nationalities outside Hotel de la Coupole A booking in a massage with of ASEAN will need to apply for a wonderland of creativity and delightful spa manager Chi. visa before traveling; check historical design, this Bill poulocondorresort.com; evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn. Bensley hotel marks a new doubles from US$170.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 87 Teams of boat jousters prepare to do battle on the canal in Sète. OPPOSITE: An 1850 depiction of the sport of boat jousting. The painting hangs in Sète's Musée Paul Valéry. IN THEIR OWN TIME

Like the rest of southern France, Languedoc has vibrant harbor towns, endless beaches and rolling vineyards. But the region’s spirit of mellow eccentricity is entirely its own—and a new generation of oddball entrepreneurs aims to keep it that way.

B Y J OSHU A L EVINE | PH OTO G RAPHED B Y A MBROISE T É ZENAS

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 89 HE TINY VILLAGE of Assignan sits on the edge Languedoc’s comparative emptiness and of the Haut Languedoc natural park, about a 40-minute lack of development are the main reasons it drive from Béziers, which is where the TGV from Paris isn’t as well known as Provence, its flashy, more stops. This is fairy-tale country, with medieval stone popular neighbor. There’s a lot to be said for cottages clinging to lush, tree-lined gorges and being overlooked, however—particularly when undulating, densely wooded hills that rise up toward a place has as much to offer as this one. With its dramatic granite peaks. Untamed nature reigns ancient forests; broad, uncrowded beaches; and supreme—the only inhabitants you’re likely to meet on buzzing, ungentrified harbor towns, many of the local hiking and biking trails are wild sheep, Languedoc is one of the most enchanting knowns as mouflons, or some of the region’s 240 species under-the-radar regions in France. It won’t of birds. stay that way for long, however. Early In these parts, clearings in the woods mostly mean one adopters—like Verstraete and Guy Savoy, the thing: wine. There are vineyards everywhere. Many celebrated chef who recently bought a vacation belong to Marc Verstraete, a ruddy, good-natured fellow home in Sète, the region’s delightful port from Flanders who produces nine varieties of red, white town—are already piling in, and others will and rosé at a winery that resembles a spaceship (from the surely follow. air, you can see it’s actually shaped like a giant bottle). “We looked at vineyards in Provence, but there was VERSTRAETE AND I WERE sitting at a café always something that didn’t work—too many cars, or table in Assignan’s main square, which is the train ran too close,” Verstraete told me. “Finally, the movie-set perfect. Narrow, winding streets agent said he had one more property in Languedoc, but he lined with stone houses shaded from the couldn’t sell it because there was just nothing there! We summer sun: check. Leafy plane trees and that arrived in the evening, and it was love at first sight.” variety of lavender that fills the evening air CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT: A brass band accompanies the boat jousting in Sète; a guest room with views of the canal at Sète’s Hôtel l’Orque Bleue; vineyards near the Castigno wine estate, which offers tours and tastings; one of the restaurants at Château Castigno, a village repurposed as a hotel.

with a light incense: check. Café tables under a night sky swarming with stars, like a van Gogh painting brought to life: check. Almost all of the village is now owned by Verstraete, who, after buying the vineyard in 2007, quickly found the project beginning to snowball. The manor house on the estate was a shambles, so he also purchased a small house in the village where he could stay during the renovation. Then he discovered that the whole village was dying of neglect and that most of its homes were up for sale. “So we bought a dozen and said, ‘One day we’ll do something with them,’ ” Verstraete explained breezily. Nowhere to eat? Simple. Open a restaurant in town and get your stepson to come over from Uruguay to run it. “All the people in town said, ‘The Belgian is nuts!’ In a week there wasn’t a table free.” Today, the Château Castigno project has completely reinvented Assignan and its surroundings. Verstraete and his wife, Tine, a former costume designer, have carefully converted stone houses into 24 hotel rooms, three restaurants (bistro, haute cuisine, and Thai—just because they love Thai food), and a spa. Verstraete, who made his money in the steel business, has channeled a lifetime’s experience as a demanding, well-heeled business traveler into the place. He and Tine each have a hotelier’s eye for detail, adding special touches like the Castigno crest stitched on hotel linens by an order of Belgian nuns known for their exquisite embroidery. The real heart of Castigno, however, is not the hotel but its vineyards, which yield 120,000 bottles annually. Languedoc is France’s biggest wine-making region by far, and though its wines are often dismissed as unremarkable, to Verstraete the issue is one of

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 91 FROM LEFT: Florent Tarbouriech, who has developed a revolutionary method of growing oysters; the Tarbouriech oyster beds in the Étang de Thau, a lagoon near the Mediterranean; the pool at Château Castigno, with the village in the background.

perception. “I’ve seen wine around here sold for one euro a bottle. The prices are too low.” If only younger winemakers were able to recognize its potential and focus more on quality than quantity, Verstraete said, the sky Because it is home to both beach and port, the vibe in could be the limit. “The future of French wine the town is pleasantly laid-back and sun-soaked, but with is here,” he said. The key is getting the message an artsy, industrial edge—a welcome antidote to the across. “I want all kinds of different people to blingy, yacht-infested harbors of the Côte d’Azur. The come to the hotel—young people, families—eat main canal provides Sète with an arena for the boisterous well, stay a week, and drive away with their local sport of water jousting, in which two teams of trunks full of wine.” oarsmen row furiously at one another, while jousters perched on tricked-out platforms try to knock their MY TRUNK SUITABLY STOCKED, I headed counterparts off. south past Béziers to the Étang de Thau, the On summer Sundays, the banks are crammed with largest in a series of lagoons that line locals cheering on their neighborhood teams. It’s not a bad Languedoc’s Mediterranean coast, starting at metaphor for Sète itself, which is homegrown (they’ve the Rhône River Delta and running all the way been jousting in the canal since the 1600s), slightly to the Spanish border. Between the sea and the ramshackle, and proud of its scrappy, nonconformist eastern end of the lagoon lies the town of Sète. character. The great songwriter Georges Brassens, The two bodies of water are connected by beloved by the French for his scruffy, skirt-chasing ways, several canals, which give Sète virtually was born here, and in his song, “Plea to Be Buried on the unlimited options for waterside dining and a Beach of Sète,” he writes: “Poor pharaohs, kings, poor predictable nickname: the Venice of Languedoc. Napoleon…you would envy a little the eternal vacationer… But this is a place with its own identity. The who spends his death on summer holiday.” Sètois call their town l’île singulière, and A trip to the beach explains why Brassens wanted to singular it certainly is. spend eternity here. Unlike the cramped beaches of the Coquerie, just outside the cemetery walls. In a town that glories in the simple preparation of its fishing catch, Majourel shows how much further you can go with some real finesse and artistry. A superb fillet of hake came in a shellfish consommé topped with a thyme, shrimp and dried tomato foam. That dish alone Riviera, it is broad and sandy and runs for kilometers. was worth the climb. Even on a sweltering midsummer day, you can find a quiet spot. Lining the beach are big, thatched-straw I BUMPED INTO MAJOUREL by accident bungalows, called paillotes, where the Sètois gather for a few days later at Domaine Tarbouriech, a rosé-lubricated lunches. I stopped at one of the more handsome new hotel with a very specifically boisterous spots, La Ola, for a sublime plate of razor clams regional theme on the Étang de Thau about an in oil with garlic and . hour south on the coast from Sète. The place Brassens isn’t the only iconic French artist associated belongs to Majourel’s friend Florent with the place. The great master of French verse, Paul Tarbouriech, who supplies oysters to La Valéry, was from Sète; he was buried in the Cimetière Coquerie, as well as several other of France’s Marin, high above town on Mont St.-Clair. It is worth most renowned chefs. Indeed, the hotel is just walking up the hill to the cemetery for several reasons. the latest extension of an expanding First, the view of the town and the sea from among the Tarbouriech empire built on oyster shells. jumble of old tombstones is poetry itself. Second, the If anything, Languedoc’s oysters have an Musée Paul Valéry next door celebrates both the poet and even worse reputation than its wine. The region Sète’s noble lineage of painters. I lingered over two lovely furnishes tons of them—as many as the better- by Gabriel Couderc, one depicting a round of known oyster beds on the Atlantic and the jousting on the canal and the other Valéry’s funeral, as English Channel. But the small Bouzigues from well as a raucous contemporary piece by Robert Combas the Étang (their generic name is taken from that illustrates one of Brassens’s many bawdy songs. a nearby town) are puny and limp, their shells If you time things right, you can end up for dinner at lined with a dull nacre that flakes off easily. Anne Majourel’s Michelin-starred restaurant, La It’s the poor man’s oyster.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 93 Tarbouriech grew up in Sète and dropped out of school, where he had been studying to be an engineer, to work with his dad in the oyster parcs, which is what the French call the man- made beds where oysters are cultivated. “When you’re from Sète, you’re either a fisherman or a dockworker,” Tarbouriech told me on the hotel’s veranda, overlooking the elegant swimming pool. Tarbouriech started out with mussels, which he cultivated farther out at sea than his Tarbouriech and I sampled the fruits of his success at competitors. By 2006, his Medithau corporation Saint Barth, an oyster shack that sits beside his was supplying France’s biggest supermarkets. processing plant on the lagoon. It’s a cavernous place, yet But his oysters remained a down-market, every table was taken. Tarbouriech first gave me a commodity product. “Tarbouriech”—his super-oyster’s unsurprising name. That’s when Tarbouriech had his oyster Then he gave me a Bouzigues. (Tarbouriech still produces epiphany. One of the big reasons Atlantic them, too—it’s a business.) The two specimens couldn’t oysters are heartier than their Mediterranean have been more different. The Tarbouriech was big, cousins is that they spend hours a day out of the plump and scrumptious, its inner shell lined with nacre water when the ocean tides pull back. As a as hard and shiny as nail polish. The Bouzigues? You don’t result, the oysters have to work harder to want to know. conserve moisture than the soggier Bouzigues. The success of Saint Barth convinced Tarbouriech that As any gym rat will attest, strenuous exercise his oysters could pull in people from afar. He had bought a pumps you up, and that’s as true of oysters as it fanciful old manor house up the road in 2012, mostly as a is of people. Tarbouriech wondered why he place where his whole family could live—his wife and two couldn’t just lift his Mediterranean oysters out of his three grown-up children are in the business. But of the water for protracted periods to make the kids chose to live on their own. So what do you do with them work as hard as Atlantic oysters. It took a ruined 18th-century folie? The answer was obvious: him eight years to develop and install a reliable turn it into an oyster hotel. “I’m just doing what they’ve solar-powered system that could hoist tons of been doing with wine tourism in Burgundy and oysters in and out of the water every day. When Champagne for twenty years,” Tarbouriech said. “It’s the he started with his father, Tarbouriech worked same thing, but for oysters.” just four oyster parcs; now his mechanism I stayed in the hotel’s sumptuous Japan room, which powers 100, each 10 by 50 meters. has a ceiling so high it could be on the next floor and a FROM FAR LEFT: Razor clams and a Planning a Languedoc Tour glass of local rosé Set aside a week to do wine country, check out the oysters at La Ola, a beach and experience the beach scene in Sète. restaurant in Sète; room to breathe GETTING THERE from €65), Anne Majourel’s on Sète beach; the The TGV from Paris to Béziers magnificent restaurant laid-back vibe at takes a little more than four overlooking the sea, so make La Ola. hours. The nearest sure you call ahead. You international airport, in wouldn’t want to leave Sète Marseille, is a two- to three- without eating at one of the hour drive from the area. informal restaurants that line its endless beach. Try the ASSIGNAN boisterous La Ola (laola.fr; Much of the village on the mains €15–€25), where half of Château Castigno (village Sète turns up on a sunny castigno.com; doubles from Sunday. €132) wine estate has been repurposed as a plush hotel, MARSEILLAN where guests take their meals The rooms in the new building in a picturesque square. at Domaine Tarbouriech There’s also an haute cuisine (domaine-tarbouriech.fr; restaurant, La Table, run by doubles from €275) are lovely, two brothers who well but the grand manor house is deserve their Michelin star. where you want to be. Take Guests can try grape-infused your oysters at Le Saint Barth treatments in the spa or (lestbarth.com), from where explore wine country in one of the Tarbouriech oyster parcs the hotel’s wine-colored are in full view. classic Citroëns. TOUR OPERATOR SÈTE Butterfield & Robinson's I loved the shabby-chic vibe of Kathy Stewart—a member Hotel l’Orque Bleue of the A-List, Travel + Leisure’s (orquebleue.fr; doubles from collection of the world's top €89). Make sure you ask for a travel advisors—can arrange canal view. There aren’t many private itineraries in tables at La Coquerie (1 Languedoc, with optional Chemin du Cimetière Marin; cycling excursions through private terrace almost as broad. Why a room 33-6/47-06-71-38; prix fixe nature preserves and dedicated to Japan? Because Japanese oysters medieval villages (butterfield. restocked French beds after the local oysters com; from €1,340 per person were wiped out by an epidemic of gill disease in for a five-night trip). — J.L. the 1970s. There are only four immense bedrooms in the main house (and 11 suites in a new building behind it), lending the place a personal, homelike feel. The extensive spa

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Ô H extracts. I got a dandy hot-rock massage, except R LANGUEDOC instead of rocks they used oyster shells. After F rance all, when you’re inventing oyster tourism, why PROVENCE not go all the way? Montpellier A lot of what I encountered in the region had this kind of loose-limbed, unpretentious Assignan Marseillan vibe—and was all the more winning for it. If Béziers Sète Marseille there’s a criticism of French style, it’s that it ÉTANG DE THAU can sometimes be a little stiff and self- MEDITERRANEAN SEA important. That’s often the price to pay for perfection. But if you want to unbutton your collar and get a taste of southern France in all its raw, unfussy glory, Languedoc is a great place to start.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 95 Southern P R I D E, Southern P R O M I S E

Alabama is a place of boundless creativity and abundant natural resources— with an unfathomably painful past. On a road trip from city to shore, Kevin West finds the state’s residents reckoning with its legacy and coming up with entirely new definitions of what it means to be Alabaman. PHOTOGR APHED B Y R INNE A LLEN Highlands Bar & Grill Dolester Miles (left) and co-owners Pardis and Frank Stitt at their Birmingham restaurant. OPPOSITE: Chantilly House, a project by Auburn University’s design/build studio in Alabama’s Black Belt.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 97 CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: The Montgomery church where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached from 1954 to 1960; owner Johnny Fisher (left) and chef Bill Briand at their Orange Beach restaurant, Fisher’s; the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in Selma, site of the famed 1965 civil rights march; a quilter at work in Gee’s Bend; Birmingham mayor Randall Woodfin; local oysters at the Royal Oyster, in Gulf Shores; a sign marking the spot where Rosa Parks’s civil disobedience launched the Montgomery bus boycott; downtown Birmingham. The devil was beating his wife as I crossed the Alabama state line. I was driving from Nashville, in a hurry to reach Muscle Shoals, and I had gotten to the point where I-65 snakes down from middle Tennessee’s Highland Rim.

When the highway levels out again and runs When I got there at 4:15, the nice man in the front straight, you find yourself in the cotton-growing ofce listened to my story and said the last tour of the Heart of Dixie, as Alabama has been known since day had already begun, but I was welcome to join it. I the 1950s. pushed open a door into the carpeted studio. A FAME The windshield wipers on my rental car sound engineer interrupted his tour to greet me. frantically tried to keep pace with an August “Come in,” he said. “I’m telling some stories about downpour. Then, in a clap, the sun broke through Aretha Franklin.” and electrified the gloom, even as the rain continued He was in the middle of a famous one: how to fall—in Southern folklore, that’s the devil beating Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler had his wife. Luminous spray trembled above the road, brought Franklin to FAME to record with the and sunlight bounced off wet pastures on either side. Swampers, the house band that would go on to back Light and mist rose together, particulate gold. On the Rolling Stones, Etta James and Paul Simon, the stereo, Aretha Franklin’s voice climbed through earning the group —and FAME itself—music the verses of “Mary, Don’t You Weep,” shining in immortality. The session lasted just one day because glory with the sun. When the clouds closed again, I of a drunken fight between Aretha’s husband and a was off the interstate and on a two-lane behind a car musician. The Swampers later flew to New York to with the license plate luv bama. I passed a field of finish the album’s title track as well as “Respect,” King Cotton, its leaves dark as poison ivy. Aretha’s first No. 1 hit. The Queen had arrived, and Muscle Shoals was not meant to be on my her reign began on a single day in this very room, itinerary, but I was in Nashville when I heard about the sound engineer said. Aretha’s death, and decided to pay my respects at The visitors glanced around, shook their heads, FAME Studios, where the Queen of Soul laid down made little noises. One spoke: “It was a….” he said, tracks that would eventually become her career- before words buckled under the weight of his awe. defining hit record, I Never Loved a Man the Way I The engineer finished the thought for him—for all Love You. I bought a funeral wreath and a vintage of us. “It was a milestone.” LP of Aretha’s Gold to leave as tributes and drove to FAME in a car called Soul—honest to goodness, the A WEEK OF MILESTONES: that’s how rental agency issued me a Kia Soul. The studio would I’d describe my road trip through Alabama. My close at five. home state is Tennessee, but I’d never been to

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 99 Alabama apart from one drunken New Year’s Eve in Opelika. Most of what little I knew about the state Alabama is not boiled down to the civil rights era and college football. And the music, from the Blind Boys of uniquely burdened Alabama to the Alabama Shakes. If pressed, I could have come up with Truman Capote and Harper Lee with America’s whispering childhood secrets in Monroeville, white barbecue sauce, and something about the space program in Huntsville. The Alabama of my mind racial history. But was hung with faded garlands, and the thought of it made me uneasy, like a family member who the buried mass of sometimes lets slip a racist word. It had nothing to do, in other words, with what I’d injustice seemed been hearing from trusted friends about the vibrant, progressive Alabama they knew: The flourishing closer to the surface fashion and music scenes around Florence, across the river from Muscle Shoals. The sophisticated food in the state where culture in Birmingham. The experimental architecture and agriculture out in the Black Belt, a region named for its rich, dark soil. Rebirth, returns, the Confederate accolades. Last year, a new monument, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, opened in president was Montgomery. (Its colloquial handle, “the lynching memorial,” is more painfully descriptive.) Then there sworn in was the grand reopening of the Grand Hotel on Mobile Bay, and, down at Gulf Shores, a new generation of oyster farmers, fishermen, and chefs who, post–Deepwater Horizon, have been rebranding he and his wife thought I resembled the amateur the stretch of shoreline sardonically called the architectural historian behind the Instagram Redneck Riviera. Even Alabama politics has held account @alabamahouses. The man introduced surprises. In 2017, Democrat Doug Jones, an himself as Fennel Mauldin and insisted I join them attorney who successfully prosecuted two of the for dinner. Klansmen who bombed Birmingham’s 16th Street Fennel and Evie Mauldin grew up in the area and Baptist Church in 1963, was elected to the U.S. knew everybody. Their stories came like hors Senate. That same year, Randall Woodfin, a d’oeuvres—artful and tasty. Like how the hotel charismatic 37-year-old African-American political where I was staying, the GunRunner, used to be a novice, won the Birmingham mayoral race. On the Cadillac dealership, its lobby bar a Cadillac-size eve of its 200th anniversary of statehood, there was a freight elevator. How fashion designer Billy Reid new Alabama to discover. turned his annual food/music/ideas festival, the I was apprehensive all the same. Alabama is not Shindig, into something like a homegrown South uniquely burdened with America’s racial history, I by Southwest. And how Florence’s other big know. The Southern Poverty Law Center, based in designer, Natalie Chanin, runs a café at the factory Montgomery, has documented hate groups in every of her Alabama Chanin label that serves the best one of these United States. But somehow the buried brunch around. mass of injustice seemed closer to the surface in the “This has happened in the past five years,” Fennel state where Jefferson Davis was sworn in as said. “My generation left. They all moved to Atlanta. president of the Confederacy. To prepare, I reread What’s different now is the younger generations Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from are staying.” Birmingham Jail” and clicked through pictures of The next morning at Alabama Chanin, I tried out marchers under attack by police dogs and ofcers Fennel’s thesis on Natalie Chanin, with her wielding fire hoses. Emmylou Harris–white hair. She didn’t disagree, but placed Florence’s renaissance within a historical “ARE YOU ALABAMA HOUSES?” context. “There’s always been a creative bent to the I had just sat down for dinner at Odette, a farm- area,” Chanin said in her honeysuckle accent, name- to-table restaurant in Florence. The man speaking to checking musicians and Pulitzer-winning novelists. me was a silver fox: a sweep of hair, natty dress, Creativity is part of Alabama’s “legacy,” she said, gentry accent. I wasn’t sure I heard him right. “Are and then stopped and stepped back from a word you Alabama Houses?” he repeated, explaining that that can stink of Confederate nostalgia.

100 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM The Memorial for Peace and Justice, in Montgomery, honors the memory of lynching victims across the United States.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / MAY 2019 101 FROM LEFT: Scott Peacock linens with his homegrown indigo; Birmingham’s Sloss Furnaces, a relic of the city’s industrial-manufacturing days; Gulf State Park, on Alabama’s southern coast.

How, I asked, did she remain sensitive to the Te-lah-nay’s long walk resonated with history’s past without becoming dismayed by it? Her label other perilous journeys, from Moses leading the makes organic women’s clothing and home textiles; Israelites out of Egypt to John Lewis and the foot Natalie told me about an oral-history project she had soldiers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge on their launched, Project Threadways, to collect textile freedom march from Selma to Montgomery. workers’ stories, giving voice to people who had long been ignored. Before that, Alabama Chanin had TOWARD THE END of dinner that night at once planted a field of cotton and invited volunteers Highlands Bar & Grill, in Birmingham, Red Dog set to help handpick the crop; some were joyful, others the table for dessert. Holding a silver spoon by the end overcome with grief. Natalie’s point, Southern in its of its handle, he lowered it into its proper place, just indirection, seemed to be that Alabama’s legacy of so, on the white tablecloth. Born Goren Avery, Red creativity gave her the means to respond to that other Dog has waited tables at chef-owner Frank Stitt’s legacy. “There’s a lot of blood in this earth,” she said. flagship restaurant since it opened in 1982, “Maybe this is one step toward healing.” ascending the ranks of his profession to the status of Not far from Alabama Chanin, I saw another living landmark. Highlands pastry chef Dolester project that, like a field of cotton, was more complex Miles—Miss Dol to her juniors—has also been with than it appeared. It contained some 3.8 million Stitt since the start. Her win at the James Beard kilograms of stone stacked over the course of 30 Awards last year mattered on several levels: she years by Tom Hendrix, who died in 2017. The low, was the first African American to claim the honor, wandering wall looked like a labyrinth that had been and the first self-taught pastry chef. unfolded. It memorializes Hendrix’s great-great- “My aunt and my mom, we used to make grandmother, Te-lah-nay, a Yuchi tribe member who desserts together when I was coming up,” Miles told was forced onto the Trail of Tears, then later braved me when I sat down with her, Stitt, and Stitt’s wife great danger to come back from Oklahoma, alone and business partner, Pardis, for coffee and a slice of and on foot. The artist’s son, Trace, explained that Miss Dol’s signature coconut cake. “You know, I one side of the wall, a straight path away from a loved it when I was little, and it all came back. I was central circle, represented Te-lah-nay’s removal. like, ‘This is what I really want to do.’ So Frank gave The other side, which he called “the dark path,” was me my opportunity.” her return. “It twists and turns,” he said, “because The night Miles won, Highlands did as well, your journey through life is never easy.” winning outstanding restaurant of the year after nine times as a finalist. What the Stitts have ideas, and almost no prior political experience, he accomplished over 37 years goes beyond intelligent rallied voters with the campaign message We cooking, fabulous staff and a dining room that deserve better. Birmingham long ago ceased to be an flatters traditionalist ideas about Southern economic powerhouse; two generations of hospitality. Highlands essentially founded postindustrial decline and exodus had hollowed it Alabama’s progressive food scene with the out. Woodfin’s agenda since gaining ofce, he told revolutionary idea that Southern cuisine could be me, has focused on three key items, each of which is elevated with prime ingredients, meticulous “neighborhood revitalization.” technique and unstuffy service. Generations of Neighborhood revitalization was, in fact, exactly chefs have emerged from Stitt’s kitchen as disciples what I had seen the previous day. The gentrifying of that gospel. When I asked for the secret to neighborhoods I drove through had everything Highlands’ longevity, his response was quick: today’s tourist or transplant might want. Beaux Arts “Respect for one another.” skyscrapers have been transformed into boutique “We insisted on people having a sense of… hotels. The Pizitz department store has new life as a character,” he continued, with a half-moment’s mixed-use development with apartments above a pause to locate the precisely weighted word. “We food hall. Commercial districts have gentrified insisted that people not be racist, that people not be wholesale with farmers’ markets, craft breweries, rude, that they not be homophobic. When we have and self-aware restaurants—a new Magic City. In our full meeting, 170 people, there is very much a the historic enclave of Avondale, I had lunch at Saw’s sense that we’re working for a good cause. Don’t you BBQ, then went next door to Post Ofce Pies for a think, Dol?” wood-fired to go. Aretha was playing at both— “Mm-hmm,” said Miles. “I always felt like I was as well as at the Pizitz and in a gallery of the Civil a part of this family. I never felt any different. That’s Rights Institute—part of a citywide show of R-E-S- why I stayed so long.” P-E-C-T for a life that included singing at Dr. King’s Birmingham is a relatively new city, founded in funeral and, further along the arc of the moral 1871. Its early iron and steel industries transformed universe, at Barack Obama’s inauguration. the raw red-clay landscape so quickly that it earned I mentioned Avondale to the mayor and asked if the nickname Magic City. Suburban Mountain that’s the kind of revitalization he had in mind. Brook sprouted mansions, and downtown leaped Yes, he said, but his goal is to improve all 99 city with skyscrapers, hotels, theaters and department neighborhoods, including the 88, many stores. That was white Birmingham. predominantly black, that have not flourished anew. Black Birmingham also prospered: the business I asked him the same question I’d asked Chanin, community around the current Civil Rights about how to reckon with the past without being Institute downtown included the ofces of Oscar defeated by it. Adams Jr., the first African American admitted to “I tell people this,” the mayor said. “From a the bar in Birmingham, and A. G. Gaston, a historical perspective, Birmingham has shown the businessman who, when he died in 1996, left an world once how to pivot away from hatred. There estate worth tens of millions. But for Birmingham’s was resistance to change, and we were also the black citizens, daily life was defined by Jim Crow. poster child for how to make change. When those Segregated schools, theaters, restaurants and parks forces met, change won out.” were typical of the era. Less typical was Birmingham’s eventual notoriety. Charles Moore’s KNOWINGLY OR NOT, the mayor’s take photographs of the 1963 Good Friday march, the ones on Birmingham—a telling that honors the moral I had seen online of city public safety commissioner heroism of the civil rights era and also acknowledges Bull Connor’s men attacking the peaceful marchers, the injustices that made it necessary—aligns with were published by Life and spread like airborne ash recent efforts at the state level to change how people from a distant wildfire. That September, the think about Alabama. To replace the image of Bull bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church killed Connor’s police force, for instance, with something four young girls and offended common decency inspiring. One part of those efforts is the U.S. Civil everywhere. The events of 1963 cemented Rights Trail, which spans 100 sites across 15 Birmingham’s place in American history. states—26 in Alabama alone. Launched last year, it’s “Birmingham is unique in that we reckoned with currently under review for unesco World Heritage our differences on the world stage,” said Mayor designation. The campaign’s tagline explains why: Woodfin the morning I met him in his ofce. “It “What happened here changed the world.” happened in other cities, but here you saw it.” A few days later, the Civil Rights Trail led me to Woodfin, who jokes that he grew a beard to Montgomery’s Dexter Avenue. It runs uphill from appear more mayoral, came home to Alabama after Court Square, site of the former slave market, to the law school to make a difference. With charisma, big Alabama State Capitol, where Governor George

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 103 Wallace gave his infamous “segregation forever” Peacock quoted a resident of the era who said, “There speech on the steps where Jefferson Davis was are two places in this world where it is possible to live sworn in. Standing sentinel between the two is a civilized life: Paris, France, and Unionville, Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, built Alabama.” The luxurious way of life, dependent upon in 1889 of red brick and named in memory of the the inhumane economics of , grew shabby pastor who served there from 1954 to 1960. Tour without it, and the Black Belt declined. What director Wanda Battle hugged me when I entered. remained was antebellum architecture and poverty. “We love on everybody who comes in here,” she said. An hour deeper into the Black Belt, the hamlet of “That is a part of what this legacy is all about.” That Boykin dozes in a bend of the Alabama River. word again, but here glinting with hope 50 years after Peacock took me there to meet Mary Lee Bendolph, King’s assassination. who sat on her porch, dressed and ready, studying Battle was luminous. I felt improved by her the Bible as she waited for us to arrive. (I asked: the presence. She showed me the ofce in which King 23rd Psalm.) Bendolph belongs to a community of organized the bus boycott and told me about the 16 slave descendants known as the Gee’s Bend Quilters, elderly members who still remembered him. She whose creations rise to the level of great American sang “This Little Light of Mine” to demonstrate the art. She welcomed us with hugs and a throaty laugh, church’s acoustics and insisted I visit the Legacy then took us inside to see pictures of her grandkids Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and and the she sewed for the Obamas in 2009. Justice, twin projects from Montgomery’s Equal Bendolph, who no longer sews, accompanied us to Justice Initiative. “I cried so hard when I visited,” the Gee’s Bend Welcome Center, where the public she said. “They made me more convinced of the can meet quilters who continue the tradition. importance of my taking responsibility to love Before we left Reverie, Peacock finished rolling people every day.” out his biscuit dough and got a pan into the hot oven. I hugged Battle and went where she sent me. Both He grew up close to the Florida state line but is now a visits require time. Each is heavy. The museum is Black Belt stalwart. His antique house, maintained dense with text. The memorial has little apart from in a state of splendid disrepair, sits on Marion’s the names engraved in 800 monuments, one for each main drag, and his backyard garden is a one-man county in the U.S. where a lynching occurred. agricultural experiment station that honors the Visitors appear raw and unguarded. spirit of George Washington Carver, the African- Later, I realized the genius of the memorial is that American botanist and environmentalist who it makes us grieve in broad daylight. Hidden shame championed alternatives to soil-depleting cotton. In and rage are brought out to be aired in full view of a twist, Peacock’s principal crop, unlike Carver’s companions and strangers alike. Private emotions favored , is inedible. He plants indigo and are transformed into public monument. It makes no processes it for pigment. “I grew that blue,” he said sense to say my experience there was beautiful, but, of his sky-colored T-shirt, a suitable companion for on levels both personal and historical, it felt his cloudlike hair. essential to our national journey. NEAR THE END OF MY TRIP, I was at “I’VE NEVER MADE the same biscuits a marina in Orange Beach, about to eat some twice,” said chef Scott Peacock, perhaps the most Alabama-grown oysters at Fisher’s restaurant. skilled caretaker of the Southern home-cooking Owner Johnny Fisher, a Mobile native, had just tradition, as his hands coaxed flour and buttermilk brought them from the kitchen, where chef Bill into a salutary alliance, “and I have tried.” It was Briand, a two-time Beard semifinalist for best chef in before breakfast at Reverie, a white-columned the South, had disappeared for the start of dinner mansion in Marion, my first stop in the Black Belt, service. I was mid-reach when someone at the table and Peacock had already laid out honey, jam and proposed, with winking solemnity, that we raise a “enough butter to float a battleship.” He was giving glass to Ed King, who had died that day. Who? King, me a preview of his new project: small-group I was told, played guitar for Lynyrd Skynyrd and workshops on the art of Southern biscuits. “It’s a cowrote “Sweet Home Alabama.” I was struck by the practice,” he said. “It definitely is. I marvel at it symmetry, a second passing to bookend my trip, every time.” although this one wasn’t much noticed, even on the Alabama’s Black Belt is a 19-county swath of rich Redneck Riviera. topsoil at the heart of the broader southern Black As far as I could tell, Gulf Shores and Orange Belt. It was once the state’s wealthiest region: the Beach didn’t really live up to the nickname. The throne room of King Cotton, the Saudi Arabia of mind-set of the Alabama beachfront seemed open to agriculture. Before the Civil War, its landed change, at least around food. Fisher champions aristocrats outdid one another in feudal lavishness, sustainable fisheries—his version of the culinary throwing parties with actual jousting tournaments. good morals practiced by Frank Stitt in Birmingham. Another local chef, Chris Sherrill, “Disaster won’t create your change,” explained founded a group to promote consumption of one longtime resident the next day over lunch, “but abundant Gulf species considered “trash fish.” He it will accelerate your rate of change. We’ve seen that explained his idea over tacos made from bluewing after each storm, and we’ve seen it after the oil spill.” searobin, an ugly big-headed slimeball that tasted The group at the table, which included the great with salsa and kudzu-lime crema. Likewise, a mayors of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, wanted new generation of oyster farmers, producers like to talk about shiny new ideas: the eco-lodge at Gulf Lew Childress of Shellbank Selects, raise small, Shore Park and programs to protect endangered sculpted oysters that bring a premium over typical sea turtles. What I brought up was, perhaps, a Gulf oysters grown out to the size of a tourist’s nuisance. I asked what they thought about the sweaty palm. region’s reputation as the Redneck Riviera. People Credit the oil spill and oldsters. The Deepwater waved hands as if shooing flies at a church supper. Horizon disaster initially led to a ruinous The consensus was that stereotypes linger among moratorium on Gulf seafood sales, but a people who haven’t actually been to Alabama. The multibillion-dollar restitution fund has since cure for ignorance is travel. helped Alabama’s shore communities rebuild. “If we get ’em here, we’ll change their minds,” Afuent retirees arrived here like horseshoe crabs said the longtime resident with determined on the spring tide, and snowbirds now flock to the optimism. “You rarely hear someone say they’re upscale eateries. gonna retire and move up north.”

An Alabama Road Trip Spend four to five days wending your way through the state, from Muscle Shoals to the Gulf Coast.

GETTING THERE food at the Highlands Bar & To replicate this road trip, Grill (highlandsbarandgrill. fly into Huntsville—it’s com; mains US$24–$44) and reachable through hubs like Saw’s BBQ (sawsbbq.com; Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas- mains US$7–$10). The U.S. Fort Worth—then drive an Civil Rights Trail hour west to Muscle Shoals. (civilrightstrail.com) has a list of notable sights in town. FLORENCE & MUSCLE SHOALS MONTGOMERY & The 10-suite GunRunner THE BLACK BELT (gunrunnerhotel.com; doubles In Montgomery, it’s vital from US$139) celebrates the to experience the National area’s creative heritage. Visit Memorial for Peace and the Factory (alabama chanin. Justice (museumand com) for an unbeatable brunch memorial.eji.org) and the Civil and locally made housewares, Rights Memorial (splcenter. FAME Studios (famestudios. org). In the Black Belt, sign up com; tours US$10) for a for a biscuit workshop with glimpse of music history, and Scott Peacock (chefscott Odette (odettealabama.com; peacock.com), in Marion, and mains US$12–$29) for dinner. visit the Gee’s Bend While in the area, see Te-lah- Welcome Center in Boykin nay’s Wall (ifthe legends fade. (County Rd. 29; com), a large-scale work 1-334/573-0020) memorializing a Yuchi woman’s return after her THE GULF COAST forced removal from the state. White-sand beaches are the main draw, but while you’re BIRMINGHAM there, sample the seafood at The Grand Bohemian Hotel Fisher’s (fishersobm.com; (kesslercollection.com; mains US$24–$38) and check doubles from US$299), in the in to the eco-minded Lodge at suburb of Mountain Brook, Gulf State Park (lodgeatgulf lives up to its name, with statepark.com; doubles from jewel-tone furnishings and US$294) to immerse yourself a gallery. Get great Southern in the area’s natural beauty.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 105 wish you were here

A monk at Punakha Dzong, one of Bhutan’s most majestic fortresses, is a study in solitude. At the confluence of the Pho Chhu and Mo Chhu—the father and mother rivers—the dzong is central to the nation’s history, formerly as the seat of government and today the winter home of Bhutan’s main Buddhist monk body. Rebuilt several times over the centuries, always without a single nail, it’s not uncommon to hear the baritone echo of monks chanting from the assembly hall. — SHINSUKE MATSUKAWA

106 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM

HOSPITALITY MORE THAN JUST A WORD True hospitality comes from the hea!. From a genuine desire to make sure our guests always feel totally at home. SPECIAL ACCOR EDIT ION

SOUTHEAST ASIA JUNE 2019 The Maldives FROM RAFFLES TO FAIRMONT TO MERCURE

MGALLERY: THE STYLISH BRAND IN VIETNAM

A DOZEN TASTES OF AUSTRALIA

REDISCOVER BANGKOK AND PHUKET WITH ACCOR LEGENDARY ICON World’s First Orient Express Hotel MEETS MODERN LUXURY

The train that became a legend, the Orient Express remains a symbol of luxury travel and timeless refinement 135 years after its maiden journey. Its multicultural heritage is now transported to a collection of Orient Express hotels, inviting travellers on a captivating journey to elsewhere. This new journey begins in Bangkok.

AW_190329_OE_Mahanakhon_T&L_DPS_Magazine_Ad_406.4x266.7mm.indd All Pages 3/29/19 4:31 PM LEGENDARY ICON World’s First Orient Express Hotel MEETS MODERN LUXURY

The train that became a legend, the Orient Express remains a symbol of luxury travel and timeless refinement 135 years after its maiden journey. Its multicultural heritage is now transported to a collection of Orient Express hotels, inviting travellers on a captivating journey to elsewhere. This new journey begins in Bangkok.

AW_190329_OE_Mahanakhon_T&L_DPS_Magazine_Ad_406.4x266.7mm.indd All Pages 3/29/19 4:31 PM BRANDS

Orient Express Mahanakorn Bangkok, Thailand.

Orient Express

LUXURY TRAVEL DEFINED A “Journey to Elsewhere” and “A Refined Door to the Unexpected” for more than 135 years, Orient Express remains the symbol of luxury travel and timeless refinement. The multicultural heritage of this legendary trains is now transported to a collection of Orient Express hotels, taking travellers on a captivating journey to elsewhere.

SPLENDOUR ON THE RAILS Rare know-how and noble materials echo the original train’s splendour, creating a permanent experience marked by emotion and wanderlust. Transported by this special sense of style and the promise of radical change from the everyday, Orient Express beckons you to discover another way of travelling, living and seeing the world: a culture.

SOME OF OUR FINEST: The first Orient Express Hotel, Orient Express Mahanakorn Bangkok, set to open in Thailand late 2019.

4 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM INTRO

ELCOME TO THIS SPECIAL EDITION OF Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia magazine, devoted to some of the best hotels in Asia Pacific. From the sparkling sands of Sydney to the aquamarine waters of the Maldives, from the colourful markets of Bangkok to the gilded pagodas of Myanmar, Accor has a hotel or resort for every mood. With more than 1,100 hotels and resorts across the region, we have put together this collection of hotels and destinations to inspire your next adventure, whether you seek cultural immersion, romance, family time or a gourmet getaway. In the Maldives, we introduce you to five gorgeous resorts, from the family-friendly Mercure Maldives Kooddoo to the ultra-luxe Raffles Maldives Meradhoo, which has only 38 villas for the ultimate seclusion. In Australia, you can soak in a luxurious tub at the Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour, overlooking the twinkling lights of the city, or visit picturesque vineyards for the ultimate foodie escape at Mitchelton Winery, Hotel & Day Spa, MGallery; Mount Lofty House, MGallery; or Novotel Barossa Valley. Further north, the tropical delights of Queensland are yours to explore at Pullman Port Douglas Sea Temple Resort & Spa or Pullman Palm Cove Sea Temple Resort & Spa. Phu Quoc is one of the hottest resort destinations in Vietnam and we invite you into four resorts on this palm-fringed island of pearl farms, temples, waterfalls and lush jungle. High in the hills of Sapa, Bill Bensley has created a French Indochine fantasy at Hotel de la Coupole, blending high-fashion glamour with colourful hill tribe influences. Equally bold, the new SO/ Auckland was created in collaboration with renowned Kiwi fashion label World and brings a new sense of playfulness to the city. We also take you inside the Phoenix Hotel , MGallery, a 1918 heritage hotel, which provides an elegant taste of a bygone era. Finally, we provide a sneak preview of Raffles Singapore, which is set to reopen its doors in August. This historic, iconic hotel has been welcoming travellers for over 130 years and has been undergoing a careful restoration, which will bring the hotel firmly into the next century while retaining its heritage charm. Its relaunch will restore the hotel to its rightful place at the epicenter of Singapore’s social scene. We look forward to welcoming you soon.

Michael Issenberg, Chairman & CEO Accor Asia Pacific

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 5 BRANDS

Raffles Hotel Le Royal, Cambodia

RAFFLES BUTLER SERVICE pastries are like gems, discovered, Raffles Butlers are the living enjoyed and cherished. Rafes embodiment of Raffles’ heritage of bespoke service. They take care of RAFFLES SPA The lotus flower is every detail so that our guests have the central inspiration for Raffles space to be themselves and the Spa’s philosophy. At Raffles Spa , a freedom to discover local culture. balance between strength and relaxation is the key to a feeling of RAFFLES SIGNATURE BARS The inner tranquillity and rejuvenation. Long Bar is lively, colourful and joyful. It’s a destination where locals RAFFLES GALA EVENT With each and tourists meet and socialise, Raffles property being a centrepiece where conversation flows, where for social events and elegant people go to experience the soul of a celebrations, the hotels, host the city. The famous Singapore Sling was biggest celebrations and most invented here in 1915. The Writers sophisticated events. Bar is an oasis of calm and tranquillity in a Raffles Hotel for guests in residence. It’s where guests can relax and unwind. SOME OF OUR FINEST: Raffles Singapore, Raffles Grand RAFFLES PATISSERIE A modern Hotel D'Angkor, Cambodia; day treasure box of both familiar and Raffles Hotel Le Royal, Cambodia; exotic treats. It is a place sought out Raffles Hainan, China; Raffles by people who appreciate tasteful Manila Makati, Philippines; ‘treasures’. The experience and sweet Raffles Jakarta, Indonesia

6 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM Raffles Singapore.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 7 6:16PM The moment Makati took your breath away

Cherish a moment in Fairmont Makati, an urban sanctuary of understated elegance among Manila’s renowned shopping and lifestyle centers. As our guest, you’ll be treated to spacious rooms and suites with floor-to-ceiling windows for unparalleled views of the glimmering skyline, accompanied by an atmosphere of sophisticated excellence and serenity.

Gateway to your perfect Makati moment. fairmont.com 4,800 110 Hotels Destinations BRANDS

10 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour, Australia.

unique aromas, textures, flavours Sofitel and secrets. INDULGENT WELLNESS Sofitel hotels afford a wealth of CHIC DESIGN Every Sofitel address opportunities for relaxation, is a contemporary work of art by rejuvenation, health and well-being. masterly architects and interior The Sofitel MyBed™ ushers in designers like Didier Gomez, Jean luxurious relaxation and comfort. Nouvel, Pierre-Yves Rochon, Andrée Sofitel Spa proposes a collection of Putman, Richard Francis-Jones and pampering beauty treatments and many more, elegantly blending soothing therapies and Sofitel Fitness French and local aesthetics. offers a range of personalized exercise programs and a range of ARTS & CULTURE Embracing cutting-edge gym equipment. French art de vivre, Sofitel hotels celebrate their continental roots while honouring and showcasing the finest local customs and traditions. Sofitel hotels blend local and SOME OF OUR FINEST: international artistic expression to Sofitel Singapore City Centre, create cultural journeys designed to Singapore; Sofitel Singapore both delight and inform. Sentosa Resort & Spa, Singapore; Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour, Sofitel Bali Nusa AUTHENTIC & LIVELY F&B Sofitel Australia; Sofitel Bali Nusa Dua Dua Beach chefs create fusion dining enriched Beach Resort, Indonesia; Sofitel Resort, Indonesia. and enhanced by each destination’s Guangzhou Sunrich, China.

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June features 52 Paradise Awaits There are two sides to every seashell in the Maldives: uncovering something for every type of traveller. 64 Two Sides of Thailand Bangkok and Phuket are opposites, but do share an ongoing ability to evolve and constantly surprise. 74 The Kiwi Connection Two addresses offer stylish stays, with a 74 94 distinct touch of their locale combined with 81 52 Kiwi hospitality. 81 On the Menu Down Under You’ll only get a true taste of Australia when drinking and dining. 88 The Next Beach Thing These days Phu

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UTOR/GETTY I UTOR/GETTY B 94 Magical Myanmar ONTRI C Discovering the land of the golden pagoda is a step back to another era in Asia. TOPRIGHT: BARCROFT MEDIA/

ON THE COVER High above the azure waters surrounding the Fairmont Maldives Sirru Fen Fushi. TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 13 CONTENTS

Accor Brands From ultra- 24 Around the World on a Plate 34 Amazing Plates Gathering luxury to affordable comfort, If you’re looking to fully some of the world’s top chefs in Accor has the perfect brand appreciate Indonesia, then Bangkok, and advancing portfolio to help guide you to the search no further than a gastronomie ideals, Sofitel’s SO perfect accommodation choice. handful of Accor hotels that Amazing Chefs is a chance to 16 Up on the Roof Bangkok has offer some of the finest try a multitude of Michelin- more than its fair share of local dishes you will ever taste. starred cooking all in one enticing rooftop bars, you just 28 Design Your Memories Look setting. have to know where to look, forward to timeless elegance, a 42 Your Rewards Accor’s writes Joe Cummings, who lives stylish spirit and charming extensive loyalty program, to tell a tale high above the city vestiges of Vietnam’s history MyResorts, offers something streets. when you stay at Accor’s for everyone at each of its MGallery Hotel Collection. locations around Asia. And you’ll be pleasantly surprised at exactly what that means for your next vacation.

16 28 34 42

14 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM UNCORK a sparkling EVENING

With over 30 handpicked cuvées, discover your new favourite at Sydney’s home of Champagne. See you for Champagne Hour! Sunday to Thursday 5pm - 7pm CHAMPAGNEBARSYDNEY.COM SOFITEL SYDNEY DARLING HARBOUR, 12 DARLING DRIVE, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA ROOFTOP BARS

Up On The Roof Bangkok has more than its fair share of enticing rooftop bars, you just have to know where to look, writes Joe Cummings, who lives to tell a tale high above the city streets.

A night out at RedSquare Rooftop Bar.

16 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM GREAT CITYSCAPES deserve great rooftop bars, and Bangkok is richly endowed with both. With an abundance of glittering skyscrapers— nearly a hundred taller than 150 meters— brightly lit roadways, a network of narrow canals, and the wide, curving Chao Phraya River, the tropical city offers unparalleled views to those who can find a comfortable perch. Cocktail hedonism combined with elevated views seems like a simple formula, but with typical French élan, Accor has honed rooftop hosting to a fine art, as I found out recently on a two-night tour of six of their finest local skyborne venues. Night one begins at Belga Rooftop Bar & Brasserie, ensconced on the 32nd floor of -inspired Sofitel Bangkok Sukhumvit. Leaving trafc-choked Sukhumvit far below, I arrive just in time to catch the last rays of the sun bouncing off the surrounding cityscape. A subtle breeze wafts across the curving outdoor terrace as I sit down to a flight of draft Belgian brews, drawn from the nine different Belgian beers on tap (plus another 30 by the bottle) at Belga. My favorite tonight is Maredsous Blonde, a golden beer with a clean bouquet that’s very refreshing at the end of a long, hot Bangkok day. This being the only Belgian restaurant in the city, I feel duty bound to sample moules frites, Belgium’s iconic bucket of steamed mussels accompanied by pommes frites. We choose the house signature moules, steamed with Hoegaarden, an unfiltered beer whose Belga terrace. ABOVE: Moules flavors of and citrus peel mate Mariniere, Belga. perfectly with fresh mussels. As for the fries, they live up to Belgian legend, especially when dipped into mixed fresh at the table by the brasserie’s Maître Mayonnaise. Two beers later, and I’m digging into a crisp buckwheat wafe topped with house-cured salmon, garden salad and lemon-dill dressing, a brilliant re-interpretation of the Belgian wafe tradition. The food and beer at Belga are so good that you might not even notice the stupendous views, and instead find yourself wandering inside to admire the open kitchen and copper beer taps. Moving from Brussels to Moscow, my next stop is RedSquare Rooftop Bar at the brand- new Novotel Bangkok Sukhumvit 4. Perched on the 25th floor, the outdoor terrace is flanked by a sleek swimming pool to one side and a bustling semi-indoor bar on the other. Cozy nooks with red-upholstered barrel chairs look out onto city views on both sides of the

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 17 ROOFTOP BARS

building. I sit at a table that looks towards All Seasons Place and an assortment of other distinguished edifices along Withayu Road’s embassy row. As the name might suggest, RedSquare is dedicated to vodka. Mixologists here work with more than 35 unique vodka labels from all over the world, including Burnett’s, Crystal Head, Stilltheone, Skyy, Ciroc, Finlandia, Belvedere, Artic, and Chase, to name a few. I continue my rooftop cocktail evening with a Mojito Skyy, the house signature concoction of US-made Skyy Vodka and delicate homemade syrups of mint, cucumber, and strawberry, beautifully presented with a strip of thinly sliced cucumber placed against the inside curve of the glass. Another drink that catches my eye is the intriguingly named Angel Kenya, containing vodka, homemade black tea, guava juice, and yaa waan (Stevia or candyleaf). I reckon next time I decide to rise above the City of Angels, I’ll be ordering one of these. The Parch, rum with Bar bites at RedSquare present a lime, mint and cosmopolitan mix of textures and flavours, hazelnut. ABOVE: including Fresh Burrata, Wild Mushroom The View Rooftop Soup, Cold Cut Selection (Parma ham, coppata, Bar at night. serrano ham, salami), and my odds-on favourite, Spiced Prawn Burgers, all served on gleaming white plates that contrast well with the red fabrics. By this point I’m beginning to lose count of how many drinks I’ve had, but I’m feeling the love and ready for the final stop of the evening. Right in the heart of bustling Pratunam, tucked check-and-jowl behind world-famous , Novotel Bangkok Platinum might seem like an unlikely location for a rooftop bar. In fact, I’d wager that most people thronging the streets below, walking to and from CentralWorld and other malls in one of Asia’s most concentrated shopping districts, have no idea that that nine floors above them sits View Rooftop Bar. It feels like a flash-yet-comfy pool bar you might stumble on at a South Beach hotel in Miami, replete with beanbag chairs, an infinity pool, and brick walls painted with vibrant street art. Curated audio by DJ/producer Bradley Hart enhances the effect. Meanwhile, the stunning scene across Rajprasong’s glitter and pomp is softened by a bird’s eye look at intensely green Pathumwananuruk Park just below the hotel. Here I start with Purple Haze, a striking presentation served under bell glass to capture the fragrant smoke of thian op, Thailand’s >>

18 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM

ROOFTOP BARS

traditional culinary candle. The blend of The entrance frankincense and other spices lend an exotic to Sky on 20. perfume to the signature blend of butterfly pea BELOW: Winter flower-infused vodka, vermouth, lime, is coming at Sky on 20. lemongrass elderflower, and lavender. Our table shares a delicious Burger Slider Trio made with pulled pork, fried chicken, and beef, along with Tempura Battered Purple Potato Fries dusted with View’s signature chili salt. This is a rooftop bar that goes all out to wow its guests with originality and flair, I decide as I dip into my second drink, The Parch, a magical concoction of Captain Morgan Dark Rum, lime, mint, and hazelnut, which is topped with a sweet and savory slab of caramelized pineapple. After a day’s recovery, I launch into night two at Sky on 20, slotted neatly into the 26th floor of Novotel Bangkok Sukhumvit 20. The extensive drinking menu boasts fizzy cocktails that use prosecco as a base, such as Red Hot Lover (gin, strawberry, vanilla, and prosecco), but I go for the spirit-forward section dubbed GTFO, and bounce into an Apple Q, an aromatic, full-bodied concoction of Botanist gin, lime, apple, homemade BBQ syrup, and fresh rosemary. Sky on 20’s leafy garden-like terrace offers an impressive angle on aerial Bangkok that takes in both Sirikit Lake and Benjasiri Park. While drinking and gawking, I enjoy light, satisfying plates of Gouda Cube Cheese with Mustard and Pepper and Fried Zucchinis with Dip. A barfly’s work is never done, so before I can say “I’ll have another,” we’ve flitted across town to the 29th floor of SO/ Bangkok. Here Hi So Rooftop Bar provides an unparalleled view of Lumpini Park, Bangkok’s oldest public green space. Comfortably wedged into a semi-open- air triangle just outside the hotel’s esteemed Park Society restaurant, this bar features separate guest cabanas, a dedicated DJ booth (in full swing every night of the week), and a mezzanine one floor above for those who want to go that bit higher. From there, a hidden entry leads to Super Hi-So on the 31st floor, a secret sky platform for private events and intimate dates. >>

Sky on 20’s leafy garden-like terrace offers an impressive angle on aerial Bangkok that takes in both Sirikit Lake and Benjasiri Park. I’m drinking and gawking

20 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM MEMORABLE VERANDA HIGH

RESORT

A HAVEN OF PEACE IN THE HEART OF THE MOUNTAINS

Far from stress, close to nature: Veranda High Resort Chiang Mai offers modern chic mgallery.com in a timeless retreat overlooking mountain streams, rice and tea terraces. Be inspired accorhotels.com by our tailor-made service, and just enjoy being you.

VERANDA HIGH RESORT CHIANG MAI, MGALLERY 192 MOO 2 BANGPONG, HANGDONG • CHIANG MAI 50230 • THAILAND TEL.: +66-53-365-007, +66-62-398-6899, +66-98-913-7699

MGA LLERY, A COLLECTION OF MEMORABLE HOTELS: EUROPE - AFRICA - MIDDLE EAST - CARIBBEAN - ASIA PACIFIC ROOFTOP BARS

A recent Hi-So relaunch brings in a reworked drinks menu created by mixologist Kishan Rampersad. I leap on the Banana Whiskey Sour, containing a healthy dose of bourbon, along with banana liqueur, fresh lime, bitters, and a dash of sugar syrup. We order a few bites from the Park Society menu, which covers a broad international selection of tapas and Asian small plates like gyoza, , and Thai-style garlic prawns, along with more hearty comfort food such as BBQ ribs, and fish and chips. After hopping a taxi, we’re soon winding our way skyward to Speakeasy, which encompasses two floors at the top of Hotel Muse Bangkok Langsuan, MGallery. Matching the early 20th-century concept and décor of the hotel, Speakeasy evokes Prohibition-era chic, with lots of wood paneling, antique art, and servers dressed in period-inspired clothing. The lower of the two floors boasts an old-fashioned belly-up bar and a long, roofed terrace for admiring the views across Soi Lang Suan. Stairs lead a floor up to the rooftop bar proper, which is spacious and affords views from virtually all four sides of Bacon old the hotel. Three large private domes designed fashioned, at in classic Beaux Arts style are available for Speakeasy. private parties by reservation. ABOVE: Studio In a nicely dimmed corner of the terrace, Session, Hi So Rooftop bar. we sample the bespoke creations of Thai barman Lersak Jamkadsin. With more than 30 brands on hand, gin is the house specialty, and customers are encouraged to create their own G&T by selecting their particular label of choice along with one of several boutique tonics (including Fentimans, Fever Tree, and Thomas Henry) and finally a botanical garnish such as coriander, , cinnamon, lemon peel, or rosemary. Anyone who appreciates lighter cocktails should have a look at the Inspired by Her section of the drinks menu, which lists such delicately balanced recipes as Jasmine (vodka, pineapple juice, passionfruit, lime juice, Midori, and jasmine syrup) and Butterfly (gin, strawberry jam, lime juice, rosemary, cucumber, tonic, and soda). I go in the opposite direction to find my favorite cocktail of the rooftop journey, a Bacon Old-Fashioned in which bourbon saddles up with dehydrated orange, vermouth, and bitters, and is garnished with a crispy, bourbon-infused strip of bacon. I can just about manage a cigar downstairs at the Blind Pig Cigar Lounge before heading home for a much-deserved rest.

22 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM

ON THE PLATE

World of Fairmont Pancake at Afternoon Tea. Mercure Jakarta Pantai Indah Kapuk.

Nasi Tutug , Grand Mercure Bandung Setiabudi.

At the Grand Mercure Bandung Setiabudi, only the freshest farm-to-table ingredients are Around the World used, with the all-day dining Hardy’s offering —a mix of soybean paste with steamed rice—served alongside dishes such as fried and , fried chicken on a Plate and spicy . For those with a sweet tooth, If you’re looking to fully appreciate Indonesia, then search don’t miss the grilled cassava with brown sugar no further than a handful of Accor hotels that offer some dipped in shredded coconut. of the finest local dishes you will ever taste. Originally built in 1918 are a private estate, the Phoenix Hotel Yogyakarta comes with many traditions that have grown over the years, WHEN IN JAKARTA, the place to see and be seen is the Peacock though today it is part of the luxury MGallery Lounge at the Fairmont Jakarta. Popular with the social-media set, Collection. As such, its history-laden hallways the lounge’s Signature Afternoon Tea set brings the taste of treats are adorned with some of the finest artworks from various Fairmont hotels around the world to one setting, found in the country. That said, do not miss out whether it’s from The Plaza New York or a Lychee on the Chef’s Table, which celebrates Javanese Mousse Tart from the Fairmont Peace Hotel Shanghai. dishes in a private room. , a dish made Also in the Indonesian capital, the Mercure Jakarta Pantai Indah from jackfruit, is served with condiments such Kapuk is renowned for its NSNTR Restaurant & Bar. The name as egg, chicken and tofu. Bakpia 1918—a mix derives from the acronym for archipelago, but the real mouthful is of green beans, cashew nuts wheat, butter, a carefully selected menu that includes the spices, herbs and exotic sugar and salt—has become a signature dish of fruits of this vast island nation. Count Durian Pancake and Durian Yogyakarta, a memorable taste of the city that Crème Brulee among the signature dishes here. underlines the friendliness of the Javanese.

24 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM

BRANDS

Novotel Bangkok Sukhumvit 20, Thailand.

26 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM Novotel Brisbane South Bank, Australia.

Quality time is about making area, and free breakfast for kids everyday moments matter. under sixteen. Novotel Everything about Novotel has been thought through to enhance well- INBALANCE AT NOVOTEL Three being, life-balance and enjoyment. offers of wellness with InBalance From intuitive and modern design, to Fitness, InBalance Wellness (pool, rewarding programs and sauna, steam room) and InBalance experiences—everyone can take time Spa Wellness and Treatment Center. to relax and rejuvenate, or make time to connect with family and friends.

LIVELY LOBBY WITH A GOURMET BAR An informal, friendly space where you can enjoy trendy drinks and savour simple, delicious balanced meals. SOME OF OUR FINEST: FAMILY & NOVOTEL A signature Novotel Bangkok Sukhumvit 20, offer from each Novotel for each Thailand; Novotel Bangkok family at every step of their stay, Sukhumvit 4, Thailand; Novotel including kids welcome gifts, play Brisbane South Bank, Australia

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 27 DESIGN

Design Your Memories At Hôtel de la Coupole, MGallery mixing classical comfort and Indochine charm.

Look forward to timeless elegance, a stylish spirit and charming vestiges of Vietnam’s history when you stay at Accor’s MGallery Hotel Collection. BY GRACE MA

TRA V ELA NDLEI S UREA S I A . C O M / J UNE 2019 29 DESIGN

RAISING THE CURTAINS to the allure of historic Hanoi, Hotel de l’Opera Hanoi, MGallery echoes the majesty of the nearby century-old Hanoi Opera House with its striking colours, lush jewel-toned fabrics and elegant French décor. Feel like a celebrity in this boutique beauty that exudes colonial splendor and contemporary grandeur as you spend restful nights in cozy luxurious rooms decked in wooden flooring and vibrant Asian textiles and , and equipped with pampering amenities. Actually, you’ll feel like you’re in a different era, one with all the mod cons. After a day of exploring the city’s serene lakes and historic streets, wind down with hearty meals of classic Vietnamese specialties at Satine Restaurant or Mediterranean-style à la carte and buffet dining at Café Lautrec, then continue dinner conversations at Parisian-style lounge La Fée Verte, which has a detailed drinks list of aged spirits, creative cocktails and imported wines. There’s also an indoor swimming pool with an open-air terrace, a day spa, gym and sauna.

30 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM MGallery, where modern comfort goes hand in hand with classical French Indochine charm. Rooms are imbued with a timeless chic, where wooden flooring and bespoke furniture by Vietnamese artisans play off muted fabrics and marble bathroom to create a warm and inviting ambience. Memorable art-filled dining experiences abound here too. The elegant Café Des Beaux-arts is a fashionable hangout for coffee or cocktails surrounded by stunning artworks. Modern Vietnamese and is served at Saigon Kitchen, an all-day, open kitchen restaurant inspired by Asian street food, while the Social Club offers stunning skyline views and exquisite European dishes prepared with the freshest seasonal ingredients. In line with the MGallery “Inspired by Her” philosophy, find everything from female-inspired artwork to small touches that make female guests more welcome. But don’t think for a minute that this Each and every MGallery aims to evoke a FROM TOP: The Art is all heritage or a step back into the past. The sentiment, to tell a story as captivating and as Nouveau outdoor hotel’s showcase is its sexy, rooftop saltwater unique to its location as the Hanoi tale. pool beckons at infinity pool that screams see and be seen. Hotel Royal Hoi An, Whether it’s bespoke design or wellbeing MGallery; solitude Other chill-out options include a wellness spa dedicated to women, MGallery guests are at Le Spa, La and a fitness center. enriched simply by staying at one of the 90 Veranda Resort Comfort and indulgence reign at 1920s boutique properties around the world. Phu Quoc, French colonial-style La Veranda Resort Phu MGallery. Beyond Hanoi, MGallery (mgallery.com) has OPPOSITE FROM Quoc, MGallery, a stylish tribute to its founder left its mark around Vietnam. It’s the little TOP: Hôtel des Arts Madame Catherine’s poignant family details that dazzle in Hotel Royal Hoi An, Saigon, MGallery; connection to the idyllic island. The seaside MGallery. Inspired by the love story between a Hotel de l’Opera mansion’s well-appointed rooms exude classic Japanese merchant and a Vietnamese princess, Hanoi, MGallery. and elegant Vietnamese grace with intricate the hotel’s majestic architecture plays out the details of dark mahogany wood and hand- marriage between Indochine-inspired design and delicate Japanese touches. Historical charm flows through the modern well-appointed rooms, several of which have balconies with city or river views. Hotel Royal Hoi An’s location besides the serene Thu Bon River offers the perfect base to explore places of interest such as the city’s unesco World Heritage- designated Old Quarter, the 18th-century Japanese Covered Bridge and Tan Ky House. Relaxing at the hotel is pretty cool too: swim in the Art Nouveau outdoor pool; be pampered at The Woosah Spa; enjoy a cocktail with spectacular views from the city’s highest rooftop bar The Deck Hoi An, where a DJ isn’ out of the norm; or tuck into delicious fare at The Attic, open kitchen Faifo Café, or at Hoi An’s first high-end Japanese dining venue, Wakaku Restaurant. Discerning business travellers and leisure- seekers will revel in the glamorous romance of multi-award winning Hôtel des Arts Saigon,

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 31 DESIGN

unesco World Heritage site of Ha Long Bay, and features handcrafted materials and architecture built with traditional construction methods, blending heritage and spirituality with modern comfort. In fact, using the same styles as in the 13th century, this MGallery is designed to age: return in five years and it will have taken on an older, durable sheen. Rooms come with an outdoor patio living area and signature features such as wooden inked slabs traditionally used for calligraphy. Vegetarian dishes takes the spotlight in rustic Tho Quang where authentic is available, while Thien Tra Lobby Bar is the best place to enjoy sundowners with picturesque mountain views. Nature, wellness and spiritual-themed excursions can also be enjoyed in the nearby Hanh Huong Yen Tu village and the hotel’s Tue Tinh Am Wellness center with meditation, yoga and Truc Lam Zen sessions. Hôtel de la Coupole, MGallery is another Bill Bensley masterpiece that creatively blends local culture, a rich French history and Sapa’s modern ambiance into one magnificent landmark—think of it as haute couture meeting hill-tribe style. Each room looks out to splendid views of the Sapa valley and rice painted mosaic tiles complementing FROM TOP: At the fields, while the interiors are stamped with pampering four-poster beds and spacious Hôtel de la Bensley’s signature luxury style unfolding in private verandas. Meals come with healthy Coupole, MGallery; rich textures, plush colourful fabrics, gilded venturing back in backyard organic ingredients, whether it’s time at Legacy Yen flourishes and bathrooms with checkered-tile gourmet French and Vietnamese fine dining at Tu, MGallery, a flooring. This may be the 21st-century but these The Peppertree or Mediterranean and Western luxe wellness comfortable touches of the past are what bring favourites and themed buffets at all-day al retreat. modern Vietnam to life. fresco diner Le Jardin, while garden-inspired cocktails and a glass of estate wine are best savoured with the brilliant sunset views from Le Bar. Island discovery tours await intrepid adventurers who can choose to delve into Phu Quoc’s rich history and culture, go squid fishing on a traditional fishing boat or explore the Cua Can River in a kayak. Wellness-seekers can enjoy yoga by the sea or soothing artisanal organic oils and body treatments at Le Spa. Is a resort simply that if it’s also a pilgrimage site or in fact an entire village? The question will burn in the back of your mind once you find yourself on a spiritual journey back in time at Legacy Yen Tu, MGallery, a luxury wellness sanctuary perched 1,068 meters above the sea on Yen Tu Mountain. This is the setting where Vietnam’s 13th-century King Tran Nhan Tong established Truc Lam Yen Zen Buddhism. The Bill Bensley-designed resort is near the

32 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM

CHEFS

Amazing Plates Gathering some of the world’s top chefs in Bangkok, and advancing gastronomie ideals, Sofitel’s SO Amazing Chefs is a chance to try a multitude of Michelin-starred cooking all in one setting. BY ELOISE BASUKI

PLAYING WITH CHOCOLATE is like playing with fire— culinary maestros start fires of their own across both should not be left unsupervised. Luckily, my cocoa Bangkok with a 10-day feasting your stomach may only playtime is under the guidance of one of the world’s best: just survive. Stéphane Bonnat, a fourth-generation French chocolatier from Bonnat—the oldest chocolate BEYOND THE THAI CAPITAL, each Sofitel adheres to manufacturer in the world. As part of Sofitel’s 2018 SO “Gastronomie Francaise,” celebrating cooking traditions Amazing Chefs event, Bonnat is here at SO/ Bangkok’s and practices by bringing them to life through gourmet Chocolab to give our small group a crash course on all experiences developed in quaint villages, storied things to do with cocoa. Armed with raw cacao beans, vineyards and famed boulangeries. This ideal is centred bags of his single-origin dark chocolate and the lab’s on four keys to a French menu: bread; pastries; wine; kitchen tools, Bonnat imparts on us his dessert wisdom: and cheese and charcuterie. Pure-butter by the best ratio for a velvety smooth ganache, how to famed baker Bridor; the input of celebrated baguette decorate bonbons like a pro, and that DIY chocolate ice maker Frederic Lalos; and at least one organic bread or cream isn’t as hard as you’d think. These sugar-loaded pastry option all underscore Sofitel’s commitment to two hours are just a taste of what is to come at this year’s quality. Each hotel offers its own signature bread, while SO Amazing Chefs event, where Michelin-starred pastries often incorporate local flavours.

34 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Sofitel prides innovation, the restaurant is famed for its 21 ateliers— itself on its wine menu—both by the glass and the literally, special workshops where diners witness menus bottle—with celebrated French labels sharing the come alive before their eyes. Think Asian noodles, spotlight alongside bottles from the region and the rest Peking duck, Korean, Filipino and a French patisserie of the world. Complementing these pours is the cheese and you start to grasp the idea. Each atelier reflects the buffet or trolley that visits every corner of France, while authenticity and warmth both of an Asian hawker stall never overlooking more local offerings. Always keep an or a French market. The setting alone is as breathtaking eye out for wine-and-cheese-themed events at Sofitel as as the menus, starting with the grandeur of a spiral well, whether it’s Beajoulais Nouveau Day or a cheese- staircase and three-storey high, floor-to-ceiling pairing class. Another key element of the French windows overlooking Manila Bay. culinary tradition at Sofitel is the signature Apero Chic: small offerings of terrines, galantines and premium THIS YEAR MARKS the eighth edition of So Amazing charcuterie, an inspired charcuterie board. Chefs, taking place September 15–22 in Bangkok. With A prime example of this approach is at the Metropole eight Michelin chefs and eight varied activities, the event Hanoi’s revamped angelina cocktail bar. The elegant bar promises to please every palate. Star chefs from Japan, seats up to 120 guests, while a separate whisky lounge France, Spain Holland, Germany and the U.S. will be in tucked behind a charcoal curtain features the kitchens. Add into this mix, masters when it comes wingbacked chairs and a roaring fireplace, almost a to cheese, oysters, boulangerie and setting out of a different era. The second level offers an dim sum, not to mention an Iron Chef intimate dining space with a seasonal menu that winner from Thailand, and every FROM TOP LEFT: includes lobster rolls with caviar, Welsh lamb pie and tastebud is catered for. Over the Hard at work at the Chocolab; the Wagyu beef burgers topped with black trufes. course of two days is the SO Amazing cheese selection Established but continually ground-breaking is Spiral Chef Competition Culinary at Spiral’s at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza Manila. Known for Showdown, pitting teams of star chefs L’Epicerie.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 35 CHEFS

against each other in a fun event where the public can admire their cooking skills up close and personal. But where this annual gastronomic get together really shines is in its SO Amazing Chefs Dinners, seven evenings of wine-matched, multi-course banquets cooked up by a star-studded line-up of chefs. Before the eight courses begin, we start with drinks at the Sofitel’s Hi-SO rooftop bar, looking out at the blushing sunset with a matching rose and lychee martini. Moving inside to Park Society, the restaurant’s vast views of the twinkling Bangkok skyline make a fitting arena for the culinary carnival to come. Our first plate, simply called “Just Carrot” sets the standard. Two-Michelin-starred, Hua Hin-based, Scottish chef James Noble has transformed the humble veg into a variety of textures from a mousse to a bread to an Indian-style deep-fried carrot bhaji. Over the next seven courses, we’re served meals of art: smoked veal by two-starred French chef Thierry Drapeau comes surrounded by a cubist plating of potato , spinach puree and trufe shavings; while Bastien Falkenroth’s king salmon swims in tangy ponzu and juicy pearls of coconut tapioca. We finish off with a cheese-plate by the Marchand brothers, along with Spanish chef María José San Román’s hojiblanca olive-oil ice cream. With each dish one-upping the next, it’s almost too hard to call FROM TOP: Wagyu favorites, but my vote goes with dessert. at angelina; SO The olive-oil ice cream is lush and rich Amazing Chefs despite being cream-free, and >> food in disguise .

36 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM San Roman gets extra points for swinging by each table to feed us spoons of her spicy, herbaceous liquid gold. Of course, SO Amazing has put on a finale to really prove the best cooks of the bunch: the Culinary Showdown. During this live, open-kitchen cooking event, four teams of chefs battle it out in front of the diners. Last year’s winners, the all-French Blue team— Drapeau, Guy Lassausai, Alexandre Demard, Joffrey Jacob and Benjamin Ben Sadou—won with their adapted dishes mirroring Thai street food: mussels in tempura with liquid nitrogen topped with shrimp and served with guacamole cream and a som tam gel. Back in the SO Sofitel Chocolab, I’m considering it a win that my chocolate ice cream actually resembles ice cream at all. Despite this being my first-ever time making the icy treat, Bonnat’s teaching has turned out a soft and creamy scoop, with delicate bite from his 65-percent dark chocolate. We pour some of our hot, silky ganache over the frozen dessert. It’s way too indulgent, but then again, that is what this festival is all about. sofitel.com; Mixing things eight-course SO Amazing Chefs Dinner up at the 2019 Bt10,000, or Bt12,500 with wine angelina whisky pairing. lounge.

JAPANESE MENUS AT THE PULLMAN BANGKOK KING POWER

TENSHINO RESTAURANT A chic soba with truffles (above) and TENKO OMAKASE In Japanese in a serene setting (above) that and innovative take on Japanese Maine lobster are highlights in the folklore, Tenko is defined as take your taste buds on an cuisine, Tenshino serves the main menu. “heavenly fox,” which in turn unforgettable journey. freshest dishes with ingredients Designed as a French represents chef Goji Kobayashi, At the heart of this dining from Japan and France. restaurant, one with the Japanese whose years of culinary experience experience is the quality produce, Starters include highlights tradition for natural materials in have helped turn this into the which reflects Japan's changing such as Wagyu beef tartar, served mind, Tenshino is divided into five premier omakase restaurant in seasons. Ingredients are flown in with caviar and crispy nests, main sections, each with a Bangkok. With more than 10 years from Japan daily. Among these are and Hokkaido scallops with different aesthetic. A five-metre of experience, chef Goji is Takeshima A4 Wagyu beef, roasted cauliflower. communal table greets guests as considered an ichinin mae, which scallops from Hokkaido and Flown in daily from Japan is they enter, while a bar area means independent chef. Kyushu's red sea urchins, all the freshest sushi and sashimi, features curved booths and The authentic and original served on artisanal Japanese while the oyster menu is direct bistro-style marble tables. www. taste of Japan comes to the fore ceramics. www. from France. Hokkaido sea urchin, tenshinobangkok.com here in a cultural dining experience pullmanbangkokkingpower.com Prepare for a new experience across Asia Pacifc Discover how much you can do and save with an Accor Plus membership. accorplus.com Softel Singapore Sentosa Resort and Spa Softel Singapore Prepare for a new experience across Asia Pacifc Discover how much you can do and save with an Accor Plus membership. accorplus.com Softel Singapore Sentosa Resort and Spa Softel Singapore BRANDS

Banyan Tree Phuket, Thailand.

BANYAN TREE SPA As the first - RESTAURANT The luxury oriental spa in Asia, Banyan signature restaurant of Banyan Tree, Banyan Tree Spa introduces an exotic blend Saffron stays true to the classic and of ancient health and beauty practices ingenious culinary techniques which have been passed down from passed on for generations across the Tree generations. High-quality services Thai Kingdom. are delivered consistently by graduate therapists trained in STAY FOR GOOD Banyan Tree Banyan Tree Spa Academies in group’s sustainability platform that Thailand and Indonesia, making it encourages guests and associates to the market leader of Asia’s spa partake in activities that empower industry. local communities (35,000 meals provided to community members ROMANCE This signature touch since 2014) and embrace applies across all Banyan Tree environmental conservation (450,000 properties, making each destination trees planted since 2007). ideal for romantic getaways, honeymoons, renewal of vows or destination weddings. From personalised Intimate Moments, breath-taking Destination Dining SOME OF OUR FINEST: spots, private In-Villa Dining, Banyan Tree Phuket, Thailand; romance is weaved seamlessly with a Banyan Tree Samui, Thailand; touch of rejuvenation, allowing Banyan Tree Shanghai On The Banyan Tree couples to fully immerse in quality Bund, China; Banyan Tree Macau, Lijiang, China. time with one another. China

40 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM BRANDS

Fairmont Jaipur, India.

MEETINGS & EVENTS Fairmont’s brand name – according to J.D. Power Fairmont – is the most highly regarded amongst luxury meeting and event planners. Fairmont hotels can AT THE HEART OF THE accommodate midscale and large DESTINATION Each Fairmont hotel, events at various price points, whether historic or new, is without compromising on luxury. intrinsically linked to the heart of the destination, playing a central role in PARTNERSHIP WITH REEBOK the community as host of the most Fairmont has linked up with Reebok notable events. for fitness apparel and jogging shoes.

FAIRMONT GOLD Fairmont Gold represents our next level of hospitality: it includes a dedicated SOME OF OUR FINEST: space in many of our hotels, featuring Fairmont Shanghai Peace Hotel, elevated guest room design and a China; Fairmont Maldives Sirru Fairmont fully staffed Fairmont Gold Fen Fushi, Maldives; Fairmont Shanghai Peace Hotel, China. residents-only lounge. Jaipur, India; Fairmont Singapore

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 41 LOYALTY

Your Rewards Accor’s extensive loyalty program, MyResorts, offers something for everyone at each of its locations around Asia. And you’ll be pleasantly surprised at exactly what that means for your next vacation.

DAY ONE OF YOUR VACATION AND, after traveling all day, you’re perched at Toya Beach Bar and Grill at the Sofitel Bali Nusa Dua Beach Resort to catch the sunset. Better still is that there’s a three-hour window from 3pm to 6pm that includes free cocktails, Heineken or Bintang beer if you’re enrolled in MyResorts, the exclusive Le Club AccorHotels benefits program designed to provide members extra value that says “thank you for choosing Accor.” You’ve just discovered that the perks start before guests even arrive at the hotel or resort, with all the available extras outlined prior to check-in. Elite members enjoy personalized check in at the Lobby Lounge. For starters, all membership tiers can enjoy MyGlass, a personalized beverage experience that guests can enjoy for their entire stay or

FROM TOP: Drinks in the pool at the Sofitel even for one day only. Each resort has the Bali Nusa Dua Beach Resort; enjoying flexibility to customize its drink according to some down time in-room at the resort. the locale and the guest profile. MyGlass goes >>

42 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM Fairmont Maldives Sirru Fen Fushi

Stunning resorts across Asia Pacifc INCREDIBLE BENEFITS JUST FOR MEMBERS

Discover more at accorhotels.com/myresorts LOYALTY

well beyond simply enjoying a drink. Think menu at the Sofitel Bali Nusa Dua Beach along the lines of a two-hour wine tasting Resort as are free-flow cocktails during a session or take part in a cocktail-making class. three-hour stretch each afternoon. When you’re headed off on vacation, it’s a At the other end of the age spectrum, given that you want to be spoiled. At the Sofitel MyKids is a vacationing parent’s dream. For a Bali Nusa Dua Beach Resort, there’s even a PIC flat fee that varies among resorts, daily (Person In Charge) who you can contact during activities such as arts programs and meals are your stay until you check out. It’s just a small taken care of. Your well-travelled kids can thank you for your loyalty. even enjoy personalized check in that includes For Platinum members, the resort offers a a registration card and key, and their own gift of on arrival and some local welcome drink. An arrival gift and daily treat coffee to take home once you depart. are standard, the plan adaptable to every stay. In Vietnam, that means homemade sweet, OF COURSE, Accor’s loyalty program is spicy and savoury rice crackers are part of the available at each of its properties and rewards always-fun menu, while grilled banana new members as well as top tier, returning chocolate cheese and chicken satay are on the guests. Better still, there’s an endless number menu at Indonesian resorts. MyKids is also an of perks for everyone from you to your kids. opportunity to teach the idea of learning from At Fairmont Maldives Sirru Fen Fushi the local community and enjoying nature, between midday and 5pm, when you're with tree planting at the Novotel Bali Benoa poolside, enjoy your favourite Margarita— and batik painting at the Pullman Phuket classic, strawberry, passion fruit or mango— Arcadia Naithan Beach just two options. for US$6. If you're a Platinum member, up to Adults will never feel left out. MyTreat is the two Margaritas are free each day as part of ticket to high tea, or a platter of international MyGlass. Local and foreign beers are on the and local desserts sent to your room. >>

FROM LEFT: Getting pampered at the Fairmont Yangcheng Lake in China; the Clearwater Bay Lounge, Raffles Hainan.

44 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM BRANDS

SO/ Hua Hin, Thailand.

experiences that capture the vivacity and vibe of the locale, the trendiest of SO/ local scenes. FASHION SIGNATURE A unique AVANT-GARDE DESIGN Every SO/ collection of design hotels, each SO/ is address is a creative and an artistic vision brought to life by a contemporary masterpiece, celebrated name from stylish, vibrant embellished with vivid design and expressive world of fashion, elements, textures, colours and including works of Monsieur influences of the destination, giving Christian Lacroix, Kenzo Takada and each hotel a one-of-a-kind personality Karl Lagerfeld. and style.

PLAYFUL ENTERTAINMENT From tantalizing cocktails at the HI-SO rooftop bar to pulsating DJ beats and SOME OF OUR FINEST: talk-of-the-town parties, SO/ SO/ Singapore; SO/ Bangkok, energizes guests with surprising and Thailand; SO/ Hua Hin, Thailand; SO/ Auckland, New Zealand. entertaining happenings and social SO/ Auckland, New Zealand

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 45 LOYALTY

FROM LEFT: Grand Water Villa Sunset, Fairmont Maldives Sirru Fen Fushi; a family meal at the Fairmont Yangcheng Lake.

MyWellness permits access to fitness, spa Platinum members and includes and yoga sessions. Exercise programs, gym complimentary Internet for any number of gear and even healthy dining and drinking devices, while MyExtratime allows guests to options all help to revitalize, rejuvenate and extend their resort experience beyond check-in reenergize your vacation. At the Fairmont and check-out, as early as 8am and as late as Maldives Sirru Fen Fushi, relax with a 5pm. If a room is not ready, silver, gold and 15-minute complimentary scalp massage and a platinum members can use the executive 45-minute personalised training session at the lounge until it is. MyUpgrade is available for wellness centre. gold and platinum members. Going beyond the norm, MyDiscovery lists MyHost is a complimentary service for gold sky diving, bungy jumping and watersports and platinum members, aimed at perfecting among its many activities, but there’s also their stay. This door-to-door service includes more sedate sightseeing tours and chances to anything from arranging homemade cocktails immerse yourself in the local culture through on arrival to escorting guests to their suite conservation projects. and coordinating all their luggage handling. Guided tours by marine biologists are Any special requests or needs are taken care available daily, and nighttime snorkelling is a of, spa reservations, dinner plans. thing. Monkey Island, home to 2,000 Platinum members can take advantage of macaques, is one tour that also includes a MyGuest, which allows them to extend benefits transoceanic ropeway with breathtaking views to his or her loved one. MyRewards aims to over a local fishing village. surprise and delight platinum members On the very practical side of any stay, during their stay, via a gift, an experience and MyConnect is available to Silver, Gold and even a little bit more special attention.

46 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM BRANDS

Hôtel de la Coupole, MGallery, Vietnam.

Hotel Muse Bangkok Langsuan, MGallery, Thailand. MGallery

STORYTELLING Charming and delightful hotels with their own thoughtful stories, each hotel stages with talent a unique personality and story, experienced by guests through its architecture, interior design and service offers.

INSPIRED BY HER OFFER Inspired by Her program seeks to meet the specific requirements of the female leisure and business travellers through a suite of services and amenities such as adjusted bathrobes, feminine touch in the F&B etc.

MEMORABLE MOMENT Every MGallery hotel creates a truly singular, charming and often extravagant experience of the destination that leaves guests with unforgettable memories.

SOME OF OUR FINEST: Hotel Muse Bangkok Langsuan, MGallery, Thailand; Hotel Des Arts Saigon, MGallery, Vietnam; Hotel Lindrum Melbourne, MGallery, Australia

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 47 FeelFeel WelcomeWelcome in rea in South Ko DISCOVER KOREA’S DYNAMIC CITYSCAPE & RICH CULTURAL HERITAGE WITH ACCOR AMBASSADOR HOTELS

SEOUL | 15 Hotels

INCHEON | 1 Hotel SUWON | 2 Hotels

24 HOTELS DAEGU | 1 Hotel FROM LUXURY TO ECONOMY ULSAN | 1 Hotel CHANGWON | 1 Hotel BUSAN | 3 Hotels IN 7 DYNAMIC CITIES M y S t o r i e s , M y K o r e a Create picture-perfect memories with Accor Ambassador hotels

Spoiled for choice with four hotels and a variety of bars and restaurants. ~ Seoul Dragon City An enchanting stroll through history ~ among hundreds of "hanok" houses.~ ~ Bukchon Hanok Village

The royal guard changing ceremony. Spectacular! ~ Gwanghwamun Gate ~

Relaxing on the rooftop with ~ amazing views. ~ ibis Styles Ambassador Seoul Myeongdong A traditional Korean experience. Authentic and exceptional. ~ Gyeongwonjae Ambassador Incheon ~

A refreshing dip in a pool with a view.

~ Novotel Ambassador Seoul Dongdaemun

~

Romantic evenings glow with wonder in downtown Seoul. Lazing away idyllic days in beautiful ~ Cheonggyecheon Stream ~ Busan. ~ ~ Haeundae Beach

Explore a world of fascinating stories at 24 Accor Ambassador hotels in seven destinations across South Korea.

JUNE 2019

Pullman Phuket Panwa Beach Resort in Thailand, page 64.

THERE’S SOMETHING FOR EVERY TYPE OF TRAVELLER—COUPLES, FAMILIES, ADVENTURE SEEKERS—IN THE MALDIVES P. 52

WHEN IN NEED OF SOME LOCAL FLAIR COMBINED WITH UNM ATCHED BANGKOK AND PHUKET COULDN’T BE HOSPITALITY, LOOK NO FURTHER THAN MORE DIFFERENT BUT BOTH ARE STILL GREAT STOPS FOR YOUR NEXT TRIP TO NEW ZEALAND THAILAND P. 74 P. 64

THE BEST WAY TO GET A TRUE TA STE OF ANY COUNTRY IS THROUGH ITS FOOD AND DRINK, PARTICULARLY IN

AUSTRALIA AFTER Y EARS ON THE CUTTING P. 81 EDGE, THE TIME HAS NEVER BEEN BETTER TO VISIT FAR-FLUNG PHU QUOC P. 88 TAKE A STEP BACK IN TIME TO ANOTHER AGE OF ASIA, BUT ALSO ENJOY A GLIMPSE OF THE FUTURE IN MYANMAR P. 94

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 51 A string of Water villas at the Fairmont Maldives Sirru Fen Fushi.

52 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM PARADISE AWAITS BETWEEN SNORKELING TRIPS AND INNUMERABLE HAPPY HOURS, ASHLEY NIEDRINGHAUS DISCOVERS THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO EVERY SEASHELL IN THE MALDIVES AND UNCOVERS SOMETHING FOR EVERY TYPE OF TRAVELER, FROM ROMANTICS TO FAMILIES TO THE BUDGET-CONSCIOUS IN THIS ULTRA-LUXURIOUS COUNTRY. High above Raffles Maldives Meradhoo.

LONG A DESTINATION THOUGHT OF ONLY FOR ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME JOURNEYS AND SKY- HIGH PRICE TAGS, THE MALDIVES HAS TURNED A CORNER. HOME TO SOME 1,200 ATOLLS STREWN ACROSS THE INDIAN OCEAN, MOST WITH JAW-DROPPING OVERWATER VILLAS THAT HOVER ABOVE LUMINOUS BLUE WATERS, THIS WATER WONDERLAND IS ACCESSIBLE TO EVERYONE. LUXURY AT ITS FINEST ABOUNDS, AS DO ROMANTIC GETAWAYS, PURELY ASPIRATIONAL ATOLLS AND WORLD-CLASS DIVING. YET, THE MALDIVES NOW OFFERS GETAWAYS FOR FAMILIES WHO ARE SEARCHING OUT VALUE THAT INCLUDES EVERY AGE GROUP. WHAT HASN'T CHANGED, AND WHY EVERYONE VISITS, IS A TO-THE-HORIZON SEASCAPE WITH COLORFUL REEFS AND PLENTIFUL SCHOOLS OF MARINE LIFE. AT THE END OF EACH DAY, MODERN COMFORTS AWAIT AT YOUR TROPICAL ATOLL, WHICH DOUBLES AS YOUR OWN PRIVATE ISLAND ESCAPE.

54 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM Creature comforts at FOR THE POSH HONEYMOONERS Raffles Maldives A LUXURIOUS FOODIE HAVEN LIKE NO OTHER Meradhoo. Raffles Hotels are synonymous with luxury, so it’s no suprise that the brand’s first foray into the Maldives, the Raffles Maldives Meradhoo, is now open. Their home in this tropical paradise is the Gaafu Alifu Atoll in the southern strip of the country near the Equator, one of the largest and most remote atolls in the world. Glamorous beach villas are built on the natural island, encircled by powdery white sand while the overwater villas rise out from the dappled turquoise water. The ultra-remote location is free of light pollution, so looking for shooting stars and dreaming of the far-off galaxies is a nightly pastime. The outdoor pool and shower in the 18 beach villas and three two-bedroom beach residences are an ideal spot to enjoy a starry night. With soft waves lapping against the stilts of the above-water villa, the lavish one- and two-bedroom addresses are reached aboard a Maldivian bonito, a traditional fishing boat. Terraces in the overwater villas have glass panel floors where electric blue trumpet fish, rays and even green sea turtles flutter through the crystal-clear water to create dazzling personal aquariums. Marble bathrooms, heavenly beds and soothing soft blue hues add to the natural elements of the light-filled and generously proportioned villas. Swim in the Enjoy fresh-cut fruits and flaky pastries at breakfast, pool or the ocean, choose a bottle of premium Champagne at the pool bar in the options are the afternoon and end the day with fresh seafood at Nikkei, endless. where creative and skilled chefs deliciously interpret through a local lens with Japanese precision. The adjoining Overwater Bar favors South American and Japanese spirits, with lots of mezcal, tequila, pisco, and sake, and pairings complement fish tacos and fresh-caught oysters. Plucked-from-the-sea prawns, delicious grouper and lobsters are marinated and grilled at Firepit, a gourmet beachside barbecue with an exceptional list of Old and New World wines. Complete your stay with a rejuvenating spa treatment and swim past dazzling coral walls as you mingle with the schools of tropical fish that await in the warm waters. www. raffles.com/maldives; villas from US$1,778 with breakfast.

Recliners with a view, or two. A beach with surreal colours in every direction. A spacious Tented Jungle Villa.

villa hosts fulfill any wish from dive lessons in the FOR THE FAMILY THAT TRAVELS IN STYLE undiscovered reef around the island to private SPACIOUS VILLAS WITH ENDLESS PERKS barbecues. A breezy chic style brings a cohesive look and feel to the villas by using light woods and a natural pop Tucked away on the western rim of the Shaviyani Atoll, of color coming from the floor-to-ceiling views of the the all-villa Fairmont Maldives Sirru Fen Fushi occupies a turquoise waters. delightfully remote slice of sand surrounded by water One of the many show-stopping elements in the resort that is such a perfect shade of turquoise it looks like an is the semi-submerged art gallery, the first of its kind in Instagram filter in real life. Guests arrive at this tropical the Maldives, created by renowned underwater paradise after a scenic hour-long seaplane flight from naturalist and artist Jason deCaires Taylor. The Malé. In total, the 120 villas are a blend of art and nature configurations of the gallery were designed to act as an made from natural materials, indigenous decorations artificial reef and it’s a high-end coral regeneration and native patterns. One of the country’s biggest islands, project that is a sanctuary for the marine life. Guests can and its lagoon, richly populated with 250 species of snorkel around the stainless-steel cubes and enjoy the colorful reef fish, is also top of the charts for size. Yet, vibrant coral. www.fairmont.com/maldives; villas from the biggest attraction for divers and snorkelers alike are US$1,020 on a half-board rate. the manta-cleaning stations found under the waves here. Witnessing manta rays in their natural habitat like this is priceless. Trade the saltwater and sea turtles for a round of cocktails in the 200-meter-long infinity pool— another bigger-than-most amenity—that traverses the length of the island. Across a trio of accommodation options, 120 villas offer something for every vacation style. Honeymooners delight in over-water villa, an essential fixture of any Maldivian resort, that have generously sized sundecks with hammocks and a huge infinity pool, where newlyweds can choose their preferred villa view of sunrise or sunset. Targeting multi-generational families are roomy beach villas that have plunge pools and child- centric hangout zones, including a kid’s club, toddler play garden and an area exlusively aimed at teens. Adventure A Water villa premium bathroom seekers will find a home in the safari-like tented jungle at the Fairmont. villas with outdoor pools. Around the resort, personal

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 57 FOR THE ECO-LUXE FAMILY A NEW RESORT GETS ENVIRONMENTAL KUDOS

If the Maldives is home to a resort truly aimed at young families, then Mövenpick Resort Kuredhivaru Maldives is it, from its kid-friendly guestrooms to restaurants offering a specially created Powerbites menu for children. Parents win too. While mom and dad enjoy a yoga class or time in the spa, children ages two to 12 are well looked after in the Clean, eco- Little Bird kids’ club where they can learn about the local friendly lines of culture through immersive games and activities, the Movenpick. participate in educational but fun eco-friendly activities, or enjoy a cooking class. And when it comes to mealtime, the chefs creatively transform meals into beachscapes with palm trees made from veggies and a scoop of mimicking the sand, adding a touch of whimsy to kid-specific meals with the Powerbites menu. Clunky baby gear, like playpens, strollers, car seats and even baby baths are available, allowing families to travel light. There’s another aspect of Mövenpick Resort Kuredhivaru Maldives that shouldn’t go unnoticed, even under a tropical sun: its Swiss roots. Unwind in a café culture environment with top quality Mövenpick products including coffee, chocolate, ice-cream and wine. Or indulge in a sweet treat during the afternoon: a glass of iced coffee or a scoop of ice-cream. Then there’s the daily—and complimentary—Mövenpick Chocolate Hour, which is as delicious as it sounds. Later in the day, wine tastings—there is a test at the end to sharpen your ability to identify labels—at the Mövenpick Coffee & Wine Lounge take place at sundown. To cap off a perfect day, the menu at Bodumas offers local and Asian dishes, Unforgettable and Western classics, all with a 360-degree ocean view. sunset views. The aim here is to make sure the vibrant islands and coral reefs are around for generations to come. Those efforts arise in several ways, from reducing plastic waste, paperless check-in and out and avoiding over packaging to installing solar panels that produce clean energy and building an in-house plant that eliminates the need for 300,000 plastic water bottles a year. Incorporating the island’s natural resources and elements is a design element, and the furniture and structural elements come from coconut wood. During construction, the island’s indigenous palm trees were not disturbed, so the lush island has plenty of shade under swaying palms. The 72 overwater pool villas have nets suspended over water, and private pools jut out from the wooden deck, giving the sensation of floating in the sea. The 30 beach pool suites offer sunrise and sunset views, and follow an open-concept floor plan that includes rattan furniture, a free-standing stone bathtub and a spacious pool deck. On the second story veranda, panoramic views await. Dip into the plunge pool or the ocean water without ever leaving the comfort of the suite. All of the resort’s villas and communal spaces Villas adapt to the adopt techniques from local architecture, and the Asian- natural environment. inspired peaked roofs are dramatic. www.movenpick. com; suites and villas from US$588 with breakfast. >>

58 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM AW Raffles Maldives Advert - Travel_n_Leisure - Oct2018.pdf 1 10/3/18 3:11 PM

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K Overwater Sunset Pool Dining by design Villas beckon. at the Mercure.

FOR VALUE-SEEKING TRAVELERS whimsy to the proceedings. Sun seekers and swimmers AFFORDABLE VILLAS PACKED WITH STYLE will delight in the overwater villas—15 with private pools—that have staircases that lead directly into the Located in the far southern reaches of this sweeping calm blue and green waters that halo the rooms. island nation, the Mercure Maldives Kooddoo Resort is For the ultimate in relaxed pampering, book a known for its remote location, one that is only a treatment at Suvadiva Spa. If a more adrenaline-packed 55-minute flight from Male. Value seekers score well afternoon is in order, the dive center can arrange a here for the 68-villa resort offers some of the best diving meeting with local sharks that harmlessly navigate the in the Maldives, its deep channels providing an reef waters. Or, if something between these two pursuits underwater setting unlike anywhere else in the country. hits the right note, take a stand-up paddleboard to the Gaafu Alif Atoll lies in southern region of the Maldives hammocks and cocktails at Vistas, an overwater lounge archipelago, a mere 100 kilometers north of the Equator. and cocktail bar. These seas are renowned for its prodigious marine life, Best of all, the magic of the Mercure Maldives mature vegetation, soft sand beaches and easy access. Kooddoo Resort starts on the arrival flight where the Where the Mercure Maldives Kooddoo Resort offers dramatic scenery of the atolls insists that you book a great value, it doesn’t skimp on character or luxury, with window seat and have your camera ready: the views, 43 overwater villas not to mention 25 more along the and the memories that they provide, are nothing short of secluded beach. Each has outdoor showers, deep soaking spectacular. www.mercure.com/maldives/kooddoo- tubs and punchy accent colors that bring a touch of resort; villas from US$238 including breakfast.

COMING SOON A new and convenient ocean-borne address promises to increase the variety of what's available in the Maldives even more.

Pullman Maldives Maamutaa Cosy up to the bar for a selection Resort From a seaplane, the first of champagnes, whiskeys in the 15- thing visitors will notice about the to 18-year range, a fridge full of 120-villa Pullman Maldives international beers, and more than Maamutaa is how green the island 80 exotic wine labels—both New actually is. Yet, the resort is only 10 World and Old. Don’t miss out on minutes by speedboat away from the Pullman’s hand-crafted cocktails new airport at Kooddoo. Set amid and mocktails, or the long list of azure seas, the resort consists of 80 fresh juices, milk shakes, soft drinks bungalows above the water and and mineral water. another 40 located along beaches. For the active set, there’s dawn Don't overlook the spa, two and dusk Tai Chi and yoga sessions, swimming pools, organic gardens, and each stay includes one and—of course—a tennis court. Your adventure excursion. Try your hand serve and volley have never seen fishing at sunset while your kids are such a setting. enjoying the resort’s kids club. At the Among the unique experiences at Pullman Aqua Club is complimentary the resort are a champagne snorkeling equipment and two breakfast with a variety of cuisines snorkeling excursions shuttles each from every corner of the globe. day. Windsurfers, catamarans, Lunch involves a selection of light canoes and stand-up paddleboards meals and snacks, a salad bar and a are also available. Welcome to the dessert bar, while dinner’s fine dining All guests are eligible for at least Pullman Maldives options include mouthwatering one 60-minute spa session or a dive, Maamutaa Resort. Italian, organic and international provided they have a PADI menus. certificate. pullman.com.

60 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM

BRANDS

Pullman Bangkok King Power, Thailand.

THE JUNCTION AT PULLMAN The and design in a fresh, modern and Junction is a fresh new take on the inspiring way. Exhibitions take place Pullman lobby concept and is at the very heart in living spaces lending to the of the Pullman guest experience. It is Pullman’s creative vibe and invite a destination in itself, a dynamic, guests to discover local up-and- vibrant and happening place where coming artists, connecting them to global nomads check in and out, meet the city they are in. Pullman Phuket Arcadia Naithon and mingle, work and play. Beach, Thailand. PULLMAN RESORTS PULLMAN POWER FIT & SPA We continually imagine new ways of CONCEPT At Pullman, we doing business and unwinding in an understand that feeling good is ever more connected world. Our crucial to peak performance and guests can work and play as they offer global nomads exciting and disconnect from the pressures of rewarding ways to stay on top of daily life and reconnect with loved their game. Our Wellness ones and oneself. Ambassador Sarah Hoey’s holistic approach to Sport, Spa, Sleep and Food boosts our guests’ daily life in a powerful way. SOME OF OUR FINEST: IMMERSIVE ART & DESIGN Pullman Phuket Arcadia Naithon A stay at Pullman is an opportunity Beach, Thailand; Pullman for our guests to be immersed in art Bangkok King Power, Thailand

62 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM BRANDS

Vitarity room in Swissôtel The Stamford, Singapore.

Pürovel bathroom amenities and Swissôtel signature treatments. Nankai Osaka, Japan. SwissÔtel SWISSÔTEL VITALITY ROOM A new perspective on well-being and hospitality. Launched in October 2016, the stylish sanctuary includes SWISS HOSPITALITY bespoke wellness features to help Contemporary hotels designed with guests maintain their mental and the quality and care of Swiss physical health. The innovative hospitality. We are Swiss at heart and concept builds on Swissôtel’s global by nature. We offer guests the well-received Vitality Programme. quality of life, vitality and peace of mind they need to explore the world THE QUARTER Signature restaurant and discover life's true rewards. Life at Swissôtel Hotels & Resorts a is a journey, Live it well. reminiscent of a brasserie/bistro, international and eclectic, a SOME OF OUR FINEST: PÜROVEL The Pürovel philosophy is restaurant where locals ‘want to be’, Swissôtel Sydney, Australia; derived from the origin of wellbeing embracing contemporary design as Swissôtel Nankai Osaka, Japan; and use of nature’s resources. The well as the values of Swissôtel as a Swissôtel The Stamford, Pürovel essence is transfused in brand with an emphasis on fresh, Singapore; Swissôtel Merchant Pürovel Spa & Sport facilities, local and sustainable products. Court, Singapore

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 63 A pool with a view at SO/ Bangkok.

Bangkok and Phuket couldn’t be more different, but they do share the ongoing ability to evolve and constantly surprise visitors, so it’s never a bad time to explore the country’s most popular stops once again. BY DUNCAN FORGAN

64 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM TWO SIDES OF THAILAND

Lounging at the Pullman Phuket Arcadia Naithon Beach. along the Chao Phraya river at dusk. The Speakeasy I FIND MYSELF LULLED INTO A REVERIE atop the Hotel by the drink and my immediate surroundings. Muse Bangkok. Langsuan, Benefitting from the prized perch high above MGallery Lumpini Park—one of the more sizeable patches of greenery in the Thai capital—the bar at the sumptuous SO/ Bangkok is a stellar addition to the city’s sky-high club: its impressive roster of rooftop drinking venues. The views across the park with its lakes and luminous tropical greenery are impressive. My gaze is drawn to the chrome-and-glass towers that dominate the skyline on the other side of the park; vertigo-inducing structures that were but a distant twinkle in the eyes of ambitious developers when I first visited nearly 20 years ago. What has not changed—and at this realization I raise a quiet toast—is the ability of Bangkok and, indeed, Thailand, to hit the sweet spot of travelers. At once chaotic, confusing, but also utterly magical, the inexhaustible capital is as spellbinding as ever. Regularly voted one of the best cities on the planet by visitors, the city remains a place of seemingly endless contrasts. Here old merges seamlessly with new, the spiritual is balanced with the earthly and the sacred is on first name terms with the profane. Although it retains its innate exoticism, Bangkok’s breakneck evolution means that BANGKOK MIGHT even experienced hands like me are constantly presented with fresh fuel for our ardour. On any given day, visitors can kick back at an NOT EVOKE authentic Japanese-style onsen, take an art excursion to hip galleries such as Case Space Revolution and Cartel Artspace, browse Thai IMAGES OF designer fashion at and round off an evening with bespoke cocktails at speakeasy-style bars like Rabbit Hole and J CHILLING OUT, Boroski Mixology. Best of all, this eclecticism is at play in a wide variety of neighbourhoods, ranging from FRENETIC AS THE some of the city’s most venerable quarters to upscale enclaves pulsing with vital energy. What’s more, all these areas are easily BIG CITY IS, BUT accessible via the city’s separate Skytrain and subway networks, with many stations a short hop from properties such as SO/ Bangkok, AS I TAKE A PEW Sofitel Bangkok Sukhumvit and others in the Accor family. Take Sathorn and Silom, for example, just a AT PARK SOCIETY stone’s throw from my perch at Park Society. The two districts have been synonymous with Thailand’s financial growth. It’s not just the AND SUP MY WAY swanky condos, international hotels and glittering skyscrapers bearing the names of big-name multinationals that make this part of THROUGH A Bangkok so dynamic. It’s also the fact that the twin ’hoods have evolved to offer one of the SUNDOWNER, most rounded lifestyle packages in the capital.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 67 BANGKOK As diverse as the Thai capital itself, the city’s top hotel addresses cater to every budget, offering stylish comfort, convenient locations and—of course—some of the best Thai food imagineable.

Grand Mercure Bangkok Fortune. Novotel Bangkok Although its proximity to some of Bangkok’s most famous and modern shopping districts makes it ideally placed for retail therapy, this property is not just geared towards shopaholics. Spacious rooms are ideal for kicking back in, while a generously sized outdoor pool ups the relaxation ante further. novotelbkk.com; from Grand Mercure Bangkok US$150. Fortune A favorable location right on Bangkok’s subway system Pullman Bangkok Grande places this newly renovated hotel Sukhumvit A stone’s throw from Everything at right in the thick of things, with the city’s Skytrain system and the one address in easy links to highlights such as lifestyle amenities of Sukhumvit The Commons. the old city and Chatuchak Road, this hotel couldn’t be better Weekend Market. Thai flavours located. Other draws include the abound at the property through seafood buffet at Atelier Cultural draws and must-visit restaurants everything from the cuisine to restaurant and the small bites at traditional music performances. Tapas Vino. abound with stars including dining hotspots grandmercurebangkokfortune. pullmanbangkokgrandesukhumvit. Bunker and Eat Me and buzzing bars like com; from US$150. com; from US$192. Smalls and Namsaah Bottling Trust. On a personal note, I’m especially drawn to Hotel Muse Bangkok Langsuan, Pullman Bangkok King Power A Bangkok’s Chinatown, which has witnessed an MGallery Designed to evoke the little north of the city’s main “golden age of travel,” this shopping area, this hotel fuses injection of vital energy courtesy of some of boutique exudes effortless style creature comforts with irresistible the city’s most creative bars and galleries. and class. Warm wooden features convenience. Airy rooms benefit Venturing into the melee of the old city and seductive lighting evoke the from floor-to-ceiling windows affords an opportunity to get acquainted with past, while Asian motifs while the property’s huge outdoor ventures such as Cho Why, an independent art counterbalance the European feel swimming pool is a winner. of the place. Special mention goes pullmanbangkokkingpower.com; space, and Teens of Thailand a super-cool to Speakeasy: one of Bangkok’s from US$171. shophouse gin bar. With old-school markets most pleasant rooftop bars. and hidden shrines lurking nearby, it’s hotelmusebangkok.com; from SO/ Bangkok There’s plenty to arguably the most charismatic place to wander US$190. admire about the SO/ Bangkok: not least its striking design by in Bangkok. Ibis Bangkok Riverside From its Christian Lacroix. Special mention Temple hopping and immersion into perch by the Chao Phraya River, though goes to its elevated bar, traditional Thai culture is not such a thing in nearby highlights include popular Park Society, which benefits from areas such as Ekkamai and Thong Lor. lifestyle and shopping venue a prize perch high above Lumpini However, for entertainment and creature , while Bangkok big- Park—one of Bangkok’s few hitters such as the sizeable patches of verdant comforts there are no better places to be. and Wat Arun are but a ferry ride greenery. so-sofitel-bangkok.com; Highlights of these ultra-hip hoods include away. Ibis-bangkok-riverside. from US$200. restaurants like Canvas and Freebird, where bangkokshotels.com; from US$63. chefs adopt a freewheeling approach to local Sofitel Bangkok Sukhumvit Ibis Styles Bangkok Khaosan Also centrally located, this urban ingredients. Also trending is The Commons, Viengtai A funky and creative haven exudes Gallic flair in every an open-plan community mall that features hotel in one of the hotspots for corner of the hotel, from the several star names from the city’s F&B scene. foreign tourists, the hotel offers bathroom amenities to the fresh Other ventures worth seeking out here simple but design led experience. baked croissants and patisserie include ZudRangMa, a vinyl lover’s paradise Nearby Streats is a one-stop items in its lobby café. The guest culinary destination with three rooms here are as luxurious as that specializes in exotic sounds from Africa separate venues offering you would expect from a Sofitel, and Asia, and Keaton the Tailor, a playful and everything from gourmet bakery while a gorgeous outdoor pool original stop on the map that eschews the old items to hearty comfort food. supplies extra joie de vivre. school personality of many of the city’s endless ibisstylesbangkokkhaosan.com; sofitel-bangkok-sukhumvit.com; from US$100. from US$199. list of outfitters. >>

68 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM BRANDS

Angsana Velavaru, Maldives.

MEET AND GREET Corporate Angsana Laguna Phuket, Thailand. functions, business meetings or Angsana grand gala events, our resorts feature exclusive spaces in stunning locations. With a specialised Events Team and impeccable service, guests ADVENTURE TRAVEL Angsana are assured of exceptional events. brings the adventure back into travel whatever your age or reason DON'T FORGET YOUR FAMILY With to visit. Intertwining local chic and various activities available for the a vibrant fun-filled atmosphere, kids, Angsana is the perfect family Angsana offers amazing destination holiday destination. Enjoy all-day playgrounds across the world. Each activities at the Kids Club, family- hotel is designed to provide friendly water and land activities and spacious stylish rooms and suites, kids amenities. perfect for couples, families and groups of friends.

A SPA, OF COURSE Angsana’s Spas SOME OF OUR FINEST: embrace the contemporary, holistic Angsana Laguna Phuket, and tropical garden spa concepts Thailand; Angsana Velavaru, through all the resorts around Asia. Maldives; Angsana Lang Co, Vietnam; Angsana Tengchong Hot Spring Village, China

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 69 Pool views at the Avista Grand Phuket Karon, MGallery.

SUCH INSPIRING EVOLUTION is not just confined to Bangkok: it cream, are just two courses that will please applies to other top destinations in Thailand too. In particular, every member of the family. Phuket. So famous is the kingdom’s most popular island that you’d Away from the resorts, there’s no shortage be forgiven for thinking it had no remaining secrets to reveal. But of menus that kids will enjoy. Jungceylon is a the so-called “Pearl of the Andaman” has proved itself rather adept magnet for both shopping and eating, with a at pulling rabbits from the hat. please every palate list of sandwiches and With numerous chalk-white slivers of sand dotted around its pizzas and ice cream, Mediterranean and perimeter, Phuket’s main claims to fame are its bays and Japanese and, of course, Thai offerings all seascapes. Rightly so. And the appearance of a clutch of inviting making the cut here. new beachside draws means that there has never been a better To burn off some of that lunch, head to Dino juncture to load up on, as the T-shirts say, Vitamin Sea. Park Mini Gold between Karon and Kata Yes, Phuket is a playground. And it’s well beyond the days of a beaches. It’s 18 holes set against a prehistoric shovel and pail at the beach. At the Novotel Phuket Surin Beach backdrop—there’s even a Flintstones-themed Resort, the Siam Adventure Club offers a Popsicle hotline, which is restaurant—isn’t, how to put this, a normal exactly what it sounds like. Any kid can pick up the phone, order golf course. Life-like dinos are ready to snap up their favorite flavor and it will be delivered in minutes free of any errant golf ball, while the hazards include charge. an erupting volcano. Most importantly, it’s a The Siam Adventure Club also offers a video arcade aimed at great escape from the tropical sun. kids four years old and up, but also at parents who need their own On Kamala Beach, legendary Ibiza name break with the help of classic games such as the Mario Bros and Café del Mar packs in revelers with a tried and Donkey Kong. A cinema and candy store round out the attractions tested blend of ingredients that encompasses here. great food, international DJs, a big party pool At the Grand Mercure Phuket Patong Resort & Villas, authentic lined with loungers and plenty of day beds. Just Thai dishes at Jewel of Phuket’s Cuisine are seasoned to family as popular with the party crowd is Bliss Beach tastes. Mee Hoon Gaeng Poo, yellow crab curry with vermicelli Club, overlooking the porcelain-white sands of noodles, and Oh Aew, banana jelly and palm seed coconut ice Bangtao Beach in the quieter north of Phuket. >>

70 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM FAMILY-FRIENDLY PHUKET PARADISE BIG SMILES THAI STYLE

AWARD-WINNING HOSPITALITY IN BEAUTIFUL KAMALA BEACH

Plenty of room to stretch out and relax. Lush tropical gardens. And a lagoon-style pool with a kids area and waterslide. Welcome to an idyllic island retreat that’s pure happiness for your entire family.

SWISSOTEL.COM | ASIA PACIFIC | EUROPE | MIDDLE EAST While life on this popular island does tend to be a beach, there are plenty of other PHUKET diversions around. For visitors looking for There’s more than a few unforgettable beaches on Thailand’s favorite some retail therapy, the most convenient island, so after your days on the sand are fulfilled, make sure you explore the rest of the getaway through its great resorts collection of high-end boutiques is located at The Plaza Surin. Standout shops here include Andara Avista Grande Phuket Karon, flair. An acclaimed spa features a Boutique with its comprehensive and colorful MGallery Phuket’s rich heritage range of wellness packages, while selection of resort wear and Soul of Asia, as a hub of trade is celebrated via the swim up pool bar is a suitably where art and antiques from around the the Sino-Portuguese design amenable option for leisurely region are a boon for browsers and buyers touches found around this drinks. alike. Close by is Bampot where Scottish chef property. The resort’s signature novotel-phuket-kata-avista.com; restaurant Portosino expands on from US$120 per night. Jamie Wakeford has forged a formidable word this theme with its mash-up of of mouth reputation around the island with Asian and European culinary Pullman Phuket Arcadia his creative, modern European menu. styles. Karon beach—one of Naithon Beach For an idyllic While I appreciate the never-ending buzz of Phuket’s finest stretches of sand Phuket getaway, look no further —is right on the doorstep. avista- than this diamond of a property. popular beaches such as Patong, Kata and grande-phuket-karon.com; from Perched on a headland Karon and the laid-back reverie of stretches US$100 per night. overlooking the Andaman Sea, the along the coast like Kamala and Naithon, my resort offers the ultimate in rest own personal happy place on the island is Avista Hideaway Phuket Patong, and relaxation. While Naithon Phuket Town itself. MGallery Downtown Patong’s Beach is just a minute’s walk from freneticism seems a world away the property, two outdoor pools The island’s capital used to be largely at this suitably named refuge. Laid offer an alternative to the ocean. overlooked by visitors eager to arrive at the out in the style of a traditional pullmanphuketarcadia.com; from beaches, but tourists are starting to fall for the Thai village on a lush hilltop US$120 per night. town, which is redolent with reminders of overlooking the Andaman Sea, the resort has numerous enticing Pullman Phuket Panwa Beach Phuket’s rich history of trade. The best place to calling cards including three Resort Sense of place is an launch an investigation is along Thalang Road, swimming pools, two restaurants important factor when it comes to the historical heart of Phuket Town and home and a rooftop bar. avista- choosing a resort. And Thai to some of its best-preserved examples of hideaway-phuket-patong.com; touches abound at this beautiful heritage architecture. from US$120 per night. property. Subtle accents inform the decoration of the rooms, Thai A short hop away is Raya House, one of the Grand Mercure Phuket Patong cuisine is the mainstay at most famous restaurants in a food-obsessed With more than 300 rooms Tamarind restaurants, while town. Visitors can slurp down the venue’s including sumptuous suites and a relaxing massages can be enjoyed famous crab curry— so good that it has selection of pool villas, there’s a at the resort’s Talay Spa. lot to discover at this expansive pullmanphuketpanwa.com; from become an Instagram hit. Yet while its property. In fact, enticing food- US$100 per night. signature dish has become a social media star, and-beverage options such as a the beautifully preserved Sino-Portuguese dedicated craft beer lounge and Swissotel Resort Phuket structure that houses the restaurant is a versatile international dining Kamala Beach Located near one stately portal to a bygone era. It’s a reminder venue Bubbles mean that the of Phuket’s most laid-back resort offers a one-stop shop for beaches, this resort is the perfect that the magic of Thailand resides in its ability guests near Phuket’s most buzzing choice for a relaxing family to offer new experiences without losing track beach. grandemercurepatong.com; vacation. Indeed, a centerpiece of its enchanting past. from US$120 per night. pool complete with waterslide offers scope for some serious Ibis Styles Phuket City The splashing. Highlights include the myriad charms of Phuket Town are Serenity Spa and inviting rooms Never pass often overlooked by visitors eager equipped with private balconies. up a to hit the island’s beaches. This swissotelphuketkamala.com; from seafood sleek stop offers hip stays within US$60 per night. meal in easy reach of urban attractions Phuket. including colorful traditional Swissotel Resort Phuket Patong shophouses and an incredible Beach. With spacious rooms, a selection of restaurants and food lush pool and the Andaman Sea stalls. accorhotels.com; from just 200 meters away, this resort US$50 per night. supplies all the ingredients for an idyllic beach break. Highlights of Novotel Phuket Kata Avista the property include the excellent Resort & Spa Overlooking the Thai and international cuisine at pristine sands of Kata Beach and Flavours restaurant and a swim- the shimmering Andaman Sea, up pool bar. this resort is a solid all-rounder swissotelphuketpatong.com; from that offers more than just a little US$100 per night.

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Mövenpick Resort Mövenpick & Spa Jimbaran Jimbaran Bali, Bali, Indonesia. Indonesia.

MÖvenpick

MÖVENPICK WINE, COFFEE, CHOCOLATE… Mövenpick is the only hotel company that can offer its own branded range of fine food and beverages – from coffee and chocolate to yoghurts. A moment to enjoy true quality and to reflect on Mövenpick Colombo, Sri our food heritage which stretches Lanka. back to 1948.

MÖVENPICK SIGNATURE DISHES Traditional Swiss recipes revisited by Mövenpick to entice the modern palate, marrying tradition with culinary innovation.

MÖVENPICK SLEEP Mövenpick SLEEP rooms include a large array of in-room amenities, arranged by us, to enhance guests’ sleep experience. These rooms are situated in quiet areas of our hotels.

MÖVENPICK BALANCED LIVING Mövenpick Balance is a concept to enhance guests’ life during their stay. It includes healthy food, individually different sleep, inner peace and commitment to the community.

SOME OF OUR FINEST: Mövenpick Colombo, Sri Lanka; Mövenpick Resort & Spa Jimbaran Bali, Indonesia

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 73 The Kiwi Connection Two addresses in New Zealand offer stylish stays, each with a distinct touch of their locale combined with Kiwi hospitality. BY LINDY ALEXANDER the world of fashion and design such as Kenzo, Christian Lacroix, and Viktor & Rolf. The first SO to open in the Pacific region, renowned local fashion innovator WORLD was engaged to create bold and energetic designs for the property over a three-year period. The in-room artwork right down to the ET THERE BE LIGHTS. wallpaper, cushions for the chauffeured cars Lots of them. You get the feeling it’s an idea and the individualized, hand-made uniforms Lthe designers of Auckland’s newest hotel, for the staff, are all meticulously detailed and Marc de SO/Auckland, took to heart as you spot the extravagantly executed. Passorio. TOP imposing mega-chandelier created by Dutch Drawing on Auckland’s rich volcanic FROM LEFT: A Harbour Society design house Moooi in the entry foyer. The geography, the hotel’s emblem is a stylized entree; the view branches of the enormous chandelier hold 68 topographical map of the city. “The swirling, at SO/ SPA. individual lamps of diverse styles, from dusky hypnotic effect feels as though you’re looking OPPOSITE FROM pink and transparent bell-shaped lights to directly into the eye of a volcano,” says Benny TOP: The definitive porte- twinkling fairy-lit orbs. It’s an installation Castles, designer and director for WORLD. cochere at SO/ that immediately strikes you with its scale, “It reflects that feeling of stepping into a Auckland; the playfulness and beauty. boutique hotel—a hypnotic experience where Green Room But with light also comes shade and in the outside world is left behind and a new bar, Sofitel keeping with the modern, urban hotel trend experience begins.” Wellington. that eschews a traditional lobby, check-in is at The dynamic theming of the hotel flows Mixo, the ground-floor cocktail bar featuring into the 130 guest rooms, and gives a nod to moody South American volcanic blue stone the building’s history as the former Reserve tiles on the walls and shimmering black Bank, which once housed New Zealand’s gold flooring. There is visual relief in the form of reserves. The suites are decorated in three plush, velvet armchairs, fiery lava-coloured different styles: vapor, liquid and solid, and carpets, tall vases filled with flowers and each room references earthly elements—think suspended glass bouquets of flower blossoms rust-coloured padded velvet headboards, white above the bar. cushions with a swirling black vortex, gold Opened in November and just a block from hand basins, and black and gold carpets. the water, the hotel is the latest of eight SO The glamour and bling continues on the properties, which stretch from Bangkok to 15th floor, where Michelin-starred French chef Berlin, Mauritius to Singapore. Each SO Marc de Passorio is at the helm in the hotel’s hotel pays tribute to its location through restaurant, Harbour Society. The menu is collaborations with high-profile names from French-inspired but features Kiwi flavours,

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 75 HE CHIC SOFITEL BRAND has earned the enviable reputation for being able to effortlessly blend French sophistication with the local environment. But even so, Twhen you’re greeted with a warm and genuine “bonjour!” at the Sofitel Wellington, you could be forgiven for momentarily forgetting where in the world you are. Any lapses in memory are quickly remedied by home-grown hints scattered throughout the sumptuously furnished property, such as the gilded apple and pear sculptures (the hotel was once home to the New Zealand Apple and Pear Board), and the two-meter- high glossy, botanical images of plump roses and hydrangeas by Kiwi photographer Vicky Fulton in the Green Room lounge and bar. The décor calls on Paris’ iconic Jardin du Luxembourg, with the shimmering copper throughout the interior reminiscent of the garden’s beehives. Wellington’s lush botanic gardens are nearby and the framed botanical prints, floral frescoes and patterned wallpapers cultivate a wonderfully peaceful atmosphere. Within the 129 guestrooms and suites, the French and botanical themes continue, with vintage gold and bronze tones, gilded lamps, velvet bedheads and heady Orange Amber Lanvin toiletries. But the opulence of Sofitel hotels is captured in the heart of every room— the luxurious custom-made MyBed. Together with the high-quality linen, pillow menu, and thick fluffy towels it’s tempting to call it a night (or day) and stay in. But if you did, you’d be missing out on the Jardin Grill, where you can dine under vibrant blossoming paintings with a view with exquisitely presented dishes such as the into the glimmering copper kitchen. The codfish poached in spiced milk with seasonal menu celebrates New Zealand produce but vegetables and aioli, and lamb rack with with a twist, such as the chargrilled Merino raspberry harissa. For de Passorio, working lamb rib with yellow miso, chive yoghurt at the hotel is a culinary adventure. “New and caramelized , or the house made Zealand offers so many things, from fantastic tagliatelle with black tiger prawns, tomato, A Cocktail Trio produce and wine to amazing scenery spinach, chilli oil and crispy fried . at The Green Room, Sofitel wherever you go, fresh air and generous, After you’ve lingered over your meal, the Wellington. friendly people,” says de Passorio. “When I naturally friendly staff doesn’t hesitate to say, ABOVE: Jardin was invited to join SO/ Auckland as the Head “bonne nuit” before you retire to your own Grill restaurant. Culinary Designer I felt it was fate and an little piece of France, right in the centre of offer impossible to refuse.” New Zealand’s capital. Another offer impossible to refuse is cocktails at the HI-SO rooftop bar. With sweeping views over the harbour and the rising volcanic cone of Rangitoto Island, the THE DETAILS lively indoor-outdoor bar is the perfect spot to order a “sunset gun,” a beautifully balanced SO/ Auckland Rates begin from NZ$469 per room per night and include a complimentary non-alcoholic cocktail with a hint of smoke to minibar. nurse as you watch the sky turn pink over the Sofitel Wellington Room rates start from NZ$269 city of sails. per room per night.

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Grand Mercure

STORIES COME TO LIFE At Grand Grand Mercure Mercure, we welcome each guest by Jakarta enriching four brand senses: Kemayoran, Indonesia. Welcome, Taste, Wellness and Discovery.

Grand Mercure SENSE OF WELCOME A royal Yangon Golden welcome awaits you at Grand Empire, Myanmar. Mercure Bangalore. We grace our guest with only the finest of embrace–a Mysore Peta, classical royal Indian attire worn by the kings.

SENSE OF TASTE Latitude 32 North is a birth place to great teas, including Xin Yang Mao Jian, which enjoys its reputation around the world for its beautiful shining shape, refreshing good taste and fragrance.

SENSE OF WELLNESS Immerse in the Sense of Wellness with our award-winning and locally crafted Ryn Spa at Grand Mercure Phuket Patong.

Grand Mercure Phuket Patong, Thailand. SENSE OF DISCOVERY Experience authentic and elegant cultural heritage of Indonesia with batik painting. Guests can try this at the Grand Mercure Yogyakarta.

SOME OF OUR FINEST: Grand Mercure Jakarta Kemayoran, Indonesia; Grand Mercure Phuket Patong, Thailand; Grand Mercure Zhengzhou West, China; Grand Mercure Mysore, India; Grand Mercure Yangon Golden Empire, Myanmar

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 77 BRANDS

Mercure Maldives Kooddoo Resort, Maldives.

they are immersed in their Mercure Bangkok destination. Mercure, Locally Sukhuvit 11, inspired hotels. Thailand. Mercure LOCAL WINE & BEVERAGE LOCALLY INSPIRED Each hotel has CONCEPT Offer of quality wines or its own style and personality. Locally beverage with a story to tell, locally rooted, the design and decor of each produced or selectively distributed by hotel tells an authentic & inspiring demanding producers, at attractive story. Blending classic decoration prices anyway. with a modern twist or contemporary design & heritage, with a new bedding offer, Mercure hotels are a promise of an inspiring escape. SOME OF OUR FINEST: While every Mercure hotel is unique, Mercure Maldives Kooddoo all share the same passion for high Resort, Maldives; Mercure quality services. So from the moment Bangkok Makkasan, Thailand; our guests step inside a Mercure—be Mercure Bangkok Sukhumvit 11, it in the Maldives or in Bangkok— Thailand

78 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM BRANDS

Tribe Perth, Australia.

Tribe Perth, Australia. Tribe Tribe is a new kind of hotel. One that responds directly to the desires and aspirations of the modern traveller. A concept inspired by global journeys and an uncompromising vision to deliver a uniquely positioned, design driven hotel. A refreshing and disruptive brand, Tribe challenges the status quo with its edited hotel experience thatmakes it a leader in the design-led affordable luxury sector. Modern travellers, we made this hotel for you. Welcome to Tribe.

SOME OF OUR FINEST: Tribe Perth, Australia

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 79 HYDEPARADISO FOLLOW BOOK A BOOTH HYDEPARADISO.COM

THE PLACE TO BE SEEN, BY THE SEA OCEANFRONT VIEWS, DINNER, DRINKS & DANCING.

LEVEL 2, PEPPERS SOUL HOTEL 8 , SURFERS PARADISE QUEENSLAND, 4217 ONE ROUTE TO UNCOVERING AUSTRALIA IS THROUGH ITS FOOD AND DRINK MENUS. REGARDLESS OF WHERE YOU ARE, WRITES LINDY ON THE MENU ALEXANDER, YOU’LL ONLY GET A TRUE TASTE OF THIS DIVERSE COUNTRY WHEN DOWN UNDER DRINKING AND DINING.

Views to inspire from Mount Lofty House.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 81 Think of Australia and images of the Outback, Sydney Harbour and the Great Barrier Reef immediately spring to mind. Yet, spread across this great expanse of a nation is any number of opportunities for an unforgettable meal or drinks in settings that will remain wonderful memories after you've returned home. Whether it's a night of sipping champagne while overlooking Sydney, a must-visit corner of food- mad Melbourne or courses of artisanal creations in Barossa Valley, here is a sampling that no trip to Australia is complete without.

CHAMPAGNE BAR Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour The glittering lights and shimmering waters of Sydney are superbly framed by panoramic floor-to- ceiling windows at Sofitel’s Champagne Bar. Here you can savour the world’s finest champagne (this is the only spot in Australia serving Louis Roeder—the 2009 Philippe Stark Brut Nature). On Saturday nights the bar is the best spot to see fireworks on the harbour. Louder than a champagne cork popping, but guaranteed to get your weekend started with a bang. Be sure to order: Caviar to go with your champagne.

ATELIER BY SOFITEL Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour A short walk from the State Theatre, Atelier is ideal for dinner before a show. The three interactive food stations draw on South of France flavours, such as the Rossini beef burger with foie gras and the delicately flavoured seafood bouillabaisse with tiger prawns, mussels and saffron aioli. With native ingredients, the menu also carries hints of indigenous Australia, with native ingredients. Be sure to order: Burger Rossini for beef and foie gras lovers.

THE TERNARY RESTAURANT & BAR Novotel Sydney Darling Harbour With its polished timber floorboards, light-filled dining room and pastel palette, The Ternary is Scandi-chic at its best. Pull up a seat at the bar for a cocktail unlike any other. The team of talented mixologists here each have a signature offering, but the Palpasa by Mitch is a standout—it’s short and sweet with a gin and juice base and infused with fragrant lime and star anise. Be sure to order: Pulled pepper beef with tamarind sauce.

NEWMARKET RESTAURANT The William Inglis, MGallery The equine theme is undeniable at Newmarket Restaurant, which overlooks the beautiful grounds of Riverside Stables. But there’s no horsing around when it comes to the menu. Sunday afternoons mean live music in the verdant garden, and with specific gluten- free, vegetarian and children’s menus, everyone is welcome. Be sure to order: The light and delicious minute steak paired with some seafood. FLOYD’S BAR, PRETTY BOY, GOLDIE CANTEEN pineapple glaze, green pawpaw and Asian herbs is Novotel Melbourne Central the go-to dish. The executive chef at these three hip establishments is a rising star on the Australian food scene. Michael THE CLIVEDEN BAR & DINING Smith is known for his creativity and his commitment Pullman Melbourne On The Park to local and seasonal food. Be sure to order: Pork As one of East Melbourne’s newest bar and dining and veal with house-made pasta. destinations, the Clivedon is a modern interpretation of the classic buffet, transforming into a coveted THE MUSE fresh seafood bar on weekends. The innovative bar The Mitchelton Hotel Nagambie, MGallery also creates a bespoke gin featuring Mediterranean Set on the banks of the Goulburn River in the botanicals such as rosemary, and bitter Victorian countryside, The Muse is a restaurant almond alongside native botanicals like lemon renowned for paying tribute its fertile surroundings myrtle. Be sure to order: Throughout the week it’s with its produce-driven menu. Summer on the terrace difficult to pass up the Tasmanian wilderness, 28-day CLOCKWISE FROM means indulging in wines from the estate’s extensive aged beef fillet with potatoes, Yarra valley greens TOP LEFT: At the Newmarket underground cellar, watching kangaroos and and red wine jus. Restaurant; a sampling dishes that highlight the region’s best pineapple ginger flavours. Be sure to order: On this seasonal menu, THE CELLAR KITCHEN RESTAURANT sour, Temple of Tastes; the Cellar try the Goulborn River Trout. Novotel Barossa Valley Resort Kitchen in Barossa One of the best ways to take in the beauty of South Valley. OPPOSITE, HARDY’S VERANDAH RESTAURANT (HVR) Australia’s Barossa Valley is at sunrise in a hot air CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Sydney's scenic Mount Lofty House, MGallery balloon. Once your feet are back on terra firma, head Champagne Bar; A site for lavish parties in the 1850s, Mount Lofty to The Cellar Kitchen Restaurant that has partnered mixing drinks at The House is an historic estate that has been renovated to with Saskia Beer, an artisan food producer, cook and Ternary Bar; a produce-driven revive its original glory. With unbeatable views over food educator. The result? Sweeping views of the menu at The Muse; the lush Piccadilly Valley, the three-chef-hat Barossa and the region’s best produce on a plate. — Hardy's Verandah restaurant boasts Adelaide’s largest whiskey Be sure to order: Think slow roast free range chicken Restaurant; at Hacienda Sydney; collection and contemporary dishes that change daily. and caramelized , or Adelaide Hills grass fed, bouillabaisse at Be sure to order: Do not miss the Wagyu brisket, a dry aged beef. Atelier by Sofitel. house speciality.

HACIENDA SYDNEY Pullman Quay Grand Sydney Harbour Named one of the seven most Instagrammable bars in the world, Hacienda is a playful step back in time to the grand plantation architecture of . The classic rum-based cocktails are punchy and fruit- driven. Be sure to order: Prawn skewers with sugarcane and coconut or black bean .

TEMPLE OF TASTES RESTAURANT Pullman Palm Cove Sea Temple Resort & Spa There’s nothing quite like having a tropical cocktail amongst palm trees, salt water and sunshine. Signature cocktails at this far north Queensland restaurant use locally sourced fruits, gin and smoked sugar. The result is a candied pineapple ginger sour that carries notes of incredible depth and provenance. Be sure to order: Sesame crusted tuna. Enough said.

ALUCO RESTAURANT AND BAR Pullman Port Douglas Sea Temple Resort & Spa Overlooking a magnificent lagoon pool is the Aluco Restaurant and Bar, a relaxed restaurant within walking distance to secluded Four Mile Beach. Line caught fish from the nearby Great Barrier Reef features heavily on the seafood-inspired menu. For that special champagne dinner, book the poolside. Be sure to order: The crispy baby barramundi with

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 83 BRANDS

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84 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM FV by Peppers, Australia.

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TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 85 BRANDS

Mantra on Salt Beach, Australia.

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86 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM BreakFree Moroccan, Australia.

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TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 87 THE NEXT BEACH THI LONG THE NEXT GREAT ISLAND, THESE DAYS PHU QUOC REALLY IS ENTERING THE MAINSTREAM—AT ITS OWN PACE. BY RON GLUCKMAN EACH THING

High above the waters surrounding Phu Quoc.

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 89 S THE CABLE CAR slowly soars above Pineapple Island, the huge fishing fleet of Phu Quoc comes into view, hundreds of idyllic boats swaying in a series of stunning azure coves, the entire scene drenched by a golden tropical sunset. These squid boats from Vietnam’s southernmost island are visible every night, green lights blazing on the horizon to illuminate their way to the evening catch. For decades,A this has been the most captivating sight in Phu Quoc, aside from the endless stretches of mostly deserted, sparkling white sand. Then, the world’s longest cable car started service, above the southernmost point of Phu Quoc, offering scenic rides to a string of islands in a gorgeous green wilderness. The cable car not only put Phu Quoc in the famed Guinness World Records book, but also signaled the seriousness of investment pouring into this Rich Land, as Phu Quoc translates. For more than a decade, Phu Quoc has been touted around the region as the new Phuket. The comparison is apt, if only in scale: Phu Quoc is roughly the same size Thailand’s world-renowned island getaway. Where Phu Quoc could always boast of an abundance of natural beauty, phenomenal beaches and scrumptious seafood, Vietnam has taken a considerably slower tact in developing its own island gem. FORMERLY A PLACE OF EXILE, and a prison, Phu Quoc “I wanted to come visit five years ago,” says Lon, a was targeted as a holiday destination decades ago. In young entrepreneur from Hanoi who I met one night. 2004, Vietnam designated it as a center of international “But it was just so difficult to get flights.” Back then, the tourism, and launched plans for an international only option besides boats, was flying first to Ho Chi airport. That opened in 2012, but the innovative Minh, the only city with air connection to the island. He introduction of visa-free travel didn’t ramp up visitation, said it was easier to travel to Singapore or Thailand. “We since there were, and still are few overseas connections. were a family, and it was too much trouble.” Yet the slower pace has allowed ample time for That’s not necessarily a bad thing, according to planning, and preservation. Unlike the pell-mell Stefano Cazzola, an Italian who has been visiting Phu development of Phuket, Phu Quoc still feels like an Quoc since the 1990s. His Asco Lotus travel company alluring tropical getaway, with its laid back and relaxing specializes in Southeast Asia, and he’s seen boom times atmosphere. Phu Quoc National Park contributes 314 for tourism from Thailand to Cambodia, even little Laos. square kilometers of protected land with hundreds of “Phu Quoc has gone slowly,” he concedes, “but it plant species (dozens of them rare and endangered), remains as beautiful as in the old days. There isn’t which is more than half the area of Kien Giang reserve, a another place like this in Southeast Asia, an island with unesco World Biosphere Reserve. beaches like this, so beautiful and unspoiled. And now, The cable car-line stretches nearly eight kilometers, with the airport and visa on arrival, Phu Quoc is going to and provides a scenic view of not only of the greenery, take off. I have no doubt.” That’s never been more true, but another sight less commonly seen on Phu Quoc until now that Air Asia has four weekly flights from Kuala recently: a long stretch of upmarket beachside resorts. Lumpur to Phu Quoc. Long established on the backpack circuit, these new Poolside at Mövenpick Resort Waverly Phu Quoc.

generation of resorts are pushing Phu Quoc in many new traveler could ask for, the setting is what truly sets it directions, as a family destination, and also for high-end apart. Taking a page from the natural beauty of the luxury holidays. One of the biggest developments is on island, Premier Village is surrounded by lush tropical the western side of the island. This is where most of the forests and faces a seascape that boasts crystal clear older Phu Quoc resorts are scattered along the idyllic waters and beaches that are really pristine stretches of 20-kilometer Long Beach. white sand. South of this beach, a new area of luxury resorts The resort joins two other Accor properties: Novotel includes a sailing club that opened in November, and the Phu Quoc Resort (accorhotels.com) in the center of the island debut of famed designer Ashley Sutton. An island and close to the airport, and colonial-themed La Australian acclaimed for his inventive bars like Iron Veranda Phu Quoc, a 70-room boutique in the M Gallery Balls Distillery and Maggie Choo in Bangkok, and Collection, that was one of the first to bring an upscale Ophelia and the new Dragonfly in Hong Kong. For Phu experience to the island on the very north side. This trio Quoc he created Ink 360, a rooftop bar with sunset views makes certain that there is a resort for every type of and fantastic locally inspired octopus theme. traveler, whether it’s a family vacation or a short, One of the most exciting new properties is Premier romantic getaway. Village Phu Quoc (accorhotels.com), an all pool villa In the pipeline are two other properties on the island. resort at the southern end of the island, not far from the Designed in a modern, airy style, the Mövenpick Resort cable car. The 217 luxurious villas feature big deck, living Waverly Phu Quoc arrives on the scene with 282 rooms room and dining room, plus kitchenette, with gorgeous and 17 suites, plus 325 rooms and four two-bedroom views of beaches and seaside boulders. While the resort suites in a separate condotel. Twenty-five minutes from comes with all the modern amenities and services any the airport, there are also 79 private pool villas. The

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 91 A colourful escape.

Mövenpick will cater to families with three swimming pools, two separate kids’ pools, and a kid and teens club. Pullman Phu Quoc Beach Resort is located on the west side of the island just 20 minutes from the international airport. With 332 rooms designed with a colourful and modern aesthetic, each with a sea view, the resort is geared towards its beach and ocean front. Be sure to check out the 40 deluxe executive villas—each has a semi-private pool. Among the drinking and dining options are a sunset bar, a grill and a welcoming area around the main pool. Still, around Phu Quoc, the main attractions aside from simply relaxing include visiting a bee farm, pepper plantation and factories. The local Kampot pepper used to be world famous, and is in the midst of a revival on the mainland in Cambodia. Vietnamese still flock to Phu Quoc in droves to tour factories producing the pungent fish sauce, a mainstay in Vietnamese cooking. While it may not be to everyone’s liking, consider that it’s the local equivalent of wine tasting in France. A suite view at Pullman But it’s still easy, not to mention delightful to get lost Phu Quoc. on Phu Quoc.

92 JUNE 2019 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM BRANDS

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TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 93 MAGICAL MYANMAR DISCOVERING THE LAND OF THE GOLDEN PAGODAS IS A STEP BACK TO ANOTHER ERA IN ASIA, BUT ALSO A GLIMPSE OF WHERE THE NATION IS HEADED IN THE COMING YEARS. by rachna sachasinh AGES. M ALLANT/GETTY I ALLANT/GETTY G AGES M UTOR/GETTY I UTOR/GETTY B ANGOON TEA HOUSE; JASON JASON HOUSE; TEA ANGOON R ONTRI C

Ballooning above the ancient town of Bagan. TOP LEFT: COURTESY OF M FRO MEDIA/ BARCROFT OPPOSITE: A pour at Shwedagon the Rangoon Pagoda bathed Tea House. in beautiful light.

AFTER TOUCHING DOWN IN YANGON, I head straight to the chat over the hiss and gurgle of the espresso spiritual centre of Myanmar, Shwedagon Pagoda. “A golden house machines and snack on plates of and will cast a spell,” a fortuneteller tells me as he adjusts his curry. At Root (Bo Myat Htun Street, lower spectacles and presses his nose toward my palm. We sit at the base block) I dine on hearty beef stews and grilled of the 105-meter golden stupa. Along the sidewalks, men in meats that are the backbone of ethnic Wa traditional checkered go about their business with swagger, cuisine from Myanmar’s northern hinterland. cranking ancient hand-powered sugarcane juicers, bundling betel Café Salween (G15, Maha Bandola Road) and leaf concoctions, chopping coconuts. Graceful women in colourful Bodhi Nava (17 Bahan Street 2) quench my printed blouses and longyis, their faces painted with thanaka, sell caffeine cravings and signal the city’s growing clothes and cheap electronic gadgets. affection for artisanal coffee. This city boasts the largest collection of colonial era buildings in When it is time to shop, I head for Bogyoke Southeast Asia. A walking tour by Yangon Heritage Trust Aung Sung Market (Bogyoke Road, Latha), a (yangonheritagetrust.org) takes me past the Port Authority, the maze-like indoor bazaar packed with antiques, High Court and grand central train station. Buddhist pagodas, textiles and handicrafts, including made-to- GES.

A Chinese and Hindu temples, churches, mosques and synagogues order tailors. At Hla Day M pop up at every turn, revealing the city’s multicultural vibe. (hladaymyanmar.com), a social enterprise, I Myanm/art (myanmartevolution.com), offers curated tours of the pick up fabulous folk art and village crafts. vibrant art scene, one fuelled by a high regard for literature. And I peruse the head spinning gold pieces at Yangon street food is a testament to its many roots, and I enlist Turquoise Mountain (turquoisemountain.org/ ALLANT/GETTY I ALLANT/GETTY G Marc Shortt, founder of Sa Ba Street Food Tours myanmar), a British foundation that runs an

GES (sabastreetfoodtours.com), to show me the . We crisscross ethical studio where traditional toil. A M central Yangon in search of lan ta ye moh, or gangster snack, which consists of a South Indian topped with local fresh vegetables A WOODEN SKIFF FERRIES me across Inle and chickpeas. Steamed dumplings in Chinatown included pheto si Lake’s serene expanse in the northeastern OR/GETTY I OR/GETTY

UT kyet, or duck dumplings drizzled with spicy garlic oil, a Shan spin Shan State known for its staggering beauty and B on a traditional Chinese recipe. We fill our bellies on mohinga, a slow-life mindset. Rugged mountains crowned ANGOON TEA HOUSE; JASON JASON HOUSE; TEA ANGOON R ONTRI

C fish-and-noodle soup thickened with roasted rice and chickpeas. with gold-tipped pagodas shimmers in the Laphet thoke, a fermented tea-leaf salad mixed with crunchy split distance, swathes of brilliant green paddies and beans, cilantro and chillies, is a piquant Burmese invention. The floating gardens dot the shoreline. Inthar thoke repertoire includes rousing varieties, including lemon, fishermen row their wooden canoes standing , ginger and pennywort. “Many vendors don’t realize how up while balancing long conical basket traps, an important they are to the character of the city,” Shortt tells me. iconic image of life on the lake. TOP LEFT: COURTESY OF

M At upmarket tea houses like Rangoon Tea House (77-79 Pansodan Each day on the lake is better than the last.

FRO MEDIA/ BARCROFT OPPOSITE: Street), artists, journalists, shopkeepers, businessmen and tourists A morning spent in Inle Treasure’s (Taunngyi,

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 95 Glimpses of Silhouette Man the Irrawaddy Fishing Net On dolphins. Lake At Sunset.

95-9/428371003) an antique wood-framed workshop, observing Coasting at cloud level may be the best way women extract fine filaments from lotus stems and weave them to soak in Bagan’s transcendental landscape, into luscious silk textiles; an afternoon gleaning vegetables from although being ferried from temple to temple floating gardens and learning to steam fish in banana leaves, mold by horse cart isn’t bad either. Up close, Bagan’s potato rice balls and chop savory tomato salad, the mainstays of pagodas range from hulking Ananda complex, Inthar cuisine; a day exploring the abandoned pagodas at Indien, a with symmetrical prayer halls and iridescent lost settlement sequestered nearly five kilometers down a hidden golden spires to quaint brick stupas, often with channel. A timeless stroll down Nyaung Shwe’s weathered lanes, horses grazing nearby and nimble hawkers the gateway city to Inle Lake, reveals a bustling trading town with selling wooden puppets dressed in silks, a frontier spirit and plenty of tidy teashops serving toothsome painted umbrellas, colourful bags and longyis. Shan and Indian specialties. I also visit the city’s excellent artisan I seek out the “five day market,” a local market that rotates workshops, where lacquer ware is an among five villages on the lake. Villagers and townsfolk travel by institution. At Ever Stand GES. boat, anchoring near shore in the biggest boat up I’ve ever (everstandlacquerware.com), a family-run A M seen. Ethnic Pa-O women in red plaid headscarves, Padaung and operation, artisans demonstrated the process,

Inthar villagers do brisk business selling fresh vegetables, fruit, molding coiled bamboo and horsehair and /GETTYI handicrafts, silks, amulets, farm implements and live animals. coating it with thit-si tree resin and finally EM YE To the north, Inle Lake’s shores fold into a gently rolling polishing it with wood ash. Traditionally, E AL/ TO landscape dotted with magical valleys. I find myself sipping Pinot lacquer masters are men, but Black Elephant J HO Noir at Red Mountain Estate (redmountain-estate.com) and trekking (blackelephantlacquer.com) is one of the few P to scenic coffee plantations hanging in the clouds. I feel like I’ve spots run by women. MBoutik (Anawratha Rd., TOCK S ANISH MUN ANISH Y D stumbled into a slice of Myanmar that was no different ten, twenty Nyaung-U), a social enterprise works with M A L TO; or perhaps even a hundred years ago. village-based women’s cooperatives, producing A HO fabulous handicrafts, including rattan baskets P

AT SUNRISE, I climb aboard one of Balloons Over Bagan’s and rugs, hand-woven and clothing, TOCK S TOGRAPHY/ Y

(balloonsoverbagan.com) rigs and drift across the dusty red plains toys and gorgeous stone jewelry. M HO P LA sprinkled with golden pagodas. In the eleventh century, King Although the Irrawaddy River and a ribbon A Anawaratha, the first monarch to rule under the Pagan dynasty, of alluvial farmland marks Bagan’s western

jump started a 300-year building spree to sanctify the kingdom’s boundary, the town falls within the rain LEFT: MJ M UY BROWN/ UY conversion to Buddhism. Over the next two centuries, shadow of Myanmar’s dry zone, endowing the G Anawaratha’s heirs erected more than 10,000 pagodas across these landscape with a nostalgic, sepia-tinged aura. LEFT:

104 square kilometers, with as many as 2,200 still standing. Bagan Bagan is crisscrossed with meandering dirt M is undoubtedly the poster child of “the land of pagodas.” paths that connect homes and lead to FRO FRO OPPOSITE Sweeping views The Red Mountain at Sofitel Inle Estate Vineyard. Lake Myat Min.

neighbourhood pagodas. At dusk, monks chant and locals arrive to and pagodas shimmer on the river, and finally, light candles and incense. In these hidden corners, Bagan glistens I feel part of “The Land of Golden Pagodas.” like gold. As my trip draws to an end, I can’t help but wonder what lies in store for this embattled THE RHYTHMIC POUNDING of hammers and swirling flecks of nation and its creative, resilient people. When gold dust invoke a magical scene as I stroll through a knot of it’s time to leave, I don’t want to go. The narrow alleys in Mandalay’s old quarter. I stumble into a fortuneteller’s premonition came true. I find neighbourhood filled with dozens of home-based workshops, myself in a house of gold and am spellbound. where muscular men hammer pebble-sized pieces of gold into thin sheets of gold leaf. This two-block area, I learn, supplied the nation with most of the gold leaf for its golden pagodas. Mandalay may be WHERE TO STAY from the city outside. known for its dust and din, but this city is surprisingly charming. Pullman Yangon accorhotels.com; rooms Countless local bazaars, including the mind-boggling Zey Cho Centrepoint In the from US$99.

AGES. Market, sell a hodgepodge of exotic gems, jewelry, handicrafts, heart of the colonial Sofitel Inle Lake Myat M spices from the far corners of the nation. At Mahar Aung Myay’s quarter, with stunning Min A dreamy boutique views of Sule Pagoda’s resort surrounded by

/GETTYI centuries-old jade market, above-board and bootleg traders and golden paya and Maha rice paddies and

EM buyers haggle over the precious gems. Bandola Park. floating gardens, all YE E My favourite bazaar is an hour away in . Most head accorhotels.com; rooms with lakefront access.

AL/ from US$100. accorhotels.com; luxury J to the former royal city to walk across U Bein, the world’s oldest HOTO room with breakfast

P Grand Mercure and longest teak bridge, but I ogle its exquisite silk and Yangon Golden US$160.

TOCK markets. In cozy, home-based workshops, expert weavers turn out Empire This 175-room Mercure Mandalay S ANISH MUN ANISH Y D hotel keys its design on Hill Resort The gilded M stunning luntaya acheik or the 100-shuttle weave, longyis, a

LA local culture—look no teakwood suites here

A coveted pattern worn for important social and ceremonial rituals. HOTO; HOTO; further than the hand- are the place to stay in P Local teahouses—a Mandalay institution—also pay tribute to painted ceiling inspired Mandalay. Perched at

TOCK the city’s multiculturalism. Hankering for a good espresso or fresh by the region’s gems. the base of the 230- S

Y accorhotels.com; rooms meter Mandalay Hill,

M juice? Seek out the cool colonial interiors of Classic City Tea Saloon HOTOGRAPHY/ from US$96. the atmospheric P LA

A or the contemporary digs at Tea Generation. Novotel Yangon Max grounds and rooms In Mandalay, the Irrawaddy steals my heart. I spend hours on Close to all things offer a birds-eye view cultural, the hotel uses of the temple dotted

LEFT: MJ the waterfront watching dockworkers haul fish, rice, sugarcane,

M landscape and the UY BROWN/ UY contemporary design

G bricks, ceramics and even TVs on and off old-fashioned wooden and modern slow-moving Irrawaddy. barges. An excursion with Living Irrawaddy (burmadolphins.com) accessories to provide accorhotels.com; rooms LEFT: from US$122. M brings me up close with the river’s endangered dolphins. By dusk, guests with a break

FRO FRO OPPOSITE the last rays of sunlight cast a golden light. Dolphins, boats, nets

TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / JUNE 2019 97 BRANDS

ibis Styles Bangkok Khaosan Viengtai, Thailand.

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