Southeast asia april 2019 Back to Basics Asi a’s Luxe Camping Boom

PLUS: Vientiane Dubai Hong Kong Bintan

Singapore S$7.90 / Hong Kong HK$43 Thailand THB175 / Indonesia IDR50,000 Malaysia MYR18 / Vietnam VND85,000 Macau MOP44 / Philippines PHP240 Burma MMK35 / Cambodia KHR22,000 Brunei BND7.90 / Laos LAK52,000 What makes The Song of India unique? Singing the It’s the only classic Indian restaurant in Southeast Asia that has been awarded a Michelin star for three consecutive years. The creative menus are designed to take guests on a journey through Praises of India, offering the opportunity to indulge in different dishes from all over the vibrant, multi- The Song cultural country. Celebrating inspiration Chef Manjunath Mural’s dishes are the inspired by of India many things: he frequently draws ideas from Why you’re sure to fall in love with Singapore’s meals he ate as a child, as well as traditional Indian only Michelin-starred Indian restaurant recipes. But he tweaks them to give them a modern twist—something we find inspirational ourselves!

Take the Journey We highly recommend the signature Journey Through India menu. Beyond being beautifully presented, it gives guests and their tastebuds a chance to perambulate across different regions such as Hyderabad, Lucknow and Punjab. Each dish comes from a specific area and highlights distinct native flavors and preparation methods.

04ADV_Amex.indd 2 3/8/2562 BE 17:12 Don’t leave without sampling... 1. Lucknow Lamb Shank. These tender lamb shanks in a robustly scented, creamy gravy of herbs is also traditionally known as “nalli gosht”. 2. Laksa Chicken Kebab. A simply perfect blend of both Indian and Peranankan cuisine. 3. Bengal Prawn Curry. Tiger prawns in onion salsa and traditional hand pound spices, enhanced with mustard seeds.

The vibe Housed in a colonial-style black-and-white bungalow among lush greenery, The Song of India exudes serenity. Inside, the elaborate chandelier and plush seating adds an air of luxury and comfort perfectly befitting your decadent but still homey meal.

For special occasions and everyday indulgences During special occasions and festivals such as Christmas or Deepavali, guests are treated to new set menus created by Chef Mural that are available for a short time only. Turkey biryani for Yultide? Only at The Song of India!

American Express® Platinum Credit Card Members receive up to 50% off their total food bill at The Song of India with the Love Dining by Platinum Program.

Find out more at amex.co/lovedining Terms and conditions apply.

Not an American Express® Platinum Credit Card Member?

Visit amex.co/platg or call 6396 8838 to apply.

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04ADV_Amex.indd 3 3/12/2562 BE 10:43 A private island escape just south of Singapore. subscribe now! Every month, more than 5 million people Timely and trusted advice on where to go worldwide read Travel + Leisure, the world’s now, need-to-know travel tips and service leading travel magazine. details we all need, and a bold new look are Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia is the what sets the magazine apart today. most widely distributed international edition It’s your indispensable guide to Southeast of the magazine, offering readers around the Asia and the world beyond, a must-read for region a chance to experience the world. today’s cosmopolitan and sophisticated traveler.

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Your private-island getaway begins in an Discover starry nights, sunny days and a Tel : +62 811 7710951 exclusive overwater villa, one of only 15 villas beach of powdery white sand, along with a E-mail : [email protected] on the island. Each of the villas has five thoughtful and beneficial partnership with telunasresorts.com distinct spaces: living room, king bedroom, the local community – and all of this just bathroom, balcony and a loft sleeping area 50km from Singapore. The resort invites accessible by a ladder. visitors to embrace the serene pace of the Telunas Private Island is the Winner of island or join a variety of sea and land TripAdvisors 2018 Travelers’ Choice Award. activities. You’ll enjoy the infinity pool and over- You’ll enjoy meal creations by Chef Surya, water massage treatments at our spa and a who embraces a diverse blend of traditional friendly, authentic and caring staff. Indonesian and western cultural influences.

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04SubsAd_Telunas.indd 53 3/6/2562 BE 17:49 clockwise from top left: stephan kotas; alanna hale; tom mannion; lindsay lauckner gundlock contents

April features 68 Under the Big Top A handful of new tented camps across the region is setting new conservation standards, while redefining the luxury- resort experience. 80 Tasting Wine, the Walla Walla Way Washington State has become a compelling wine destination. Ray Isle experiences its top-notch Cabs and Syrahs and down-to- earth spirit. Photographed by 68 80 Alanna Hale k 96 88 88 What’s Old is New er gundloc n Again Characterful k and classic, the best

y lauc new British hotels are a s infused with a beguiling sense of history. Photographed nnion; lind a by Tom Mannion m m o t 96 le; a

h Viva Mexico City In a huge city layered with

lanna history, in which ; a s change is an essential a t o

k part of the residents’ n a DNA, where to begin h p e planning a trip? By st :

t Michael Snyder. Photographed by p lef o

t Lindsay Lauckner m Gundlock ro e f s w k cloci

ON THE COVER T he entrance to a tented villa at Capella Ubud, in Bali. Photographed by Stephan Kotas. Model: Angelina Agustina. travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 7 contents

In Every Issue T +L Digital 10 C ontributors 11 T he Conversation 12 E ditor’s Note 14 D eals 64 Wish You Were Here 106

19 Reasons To Travel Now Set up 35 Tenerife Modern The largest Special camp in Mongolia; go beekeeping of Spain’s rugged Canary Islands 44 Choose Your Own Adventure in Tasmania; the tastiest events makes an unexpected No matter how your family at Ubud Food Festival; and more. destination for architecture and travels, this year’s guide offers design lovers. 22 Capital Growth It’s worth fun for nature lovers, foodies, lingering in Vientiane. Spend a 36 Timeless Dubai In a city beach-goers and every tribe weekend exploring both new continually hurtling toward the in between. hangouts and historic legacies. future, a new development in 26 Greener Pastures Fine-diners one of Dubai’s oldest districts in Hong Kong are embracing the looks to the past. Upgrade plant-based life with refined 38 The Original Rustic Chic Head 55 The Wonders of Astrotourism vegetarian and vegan menus. upstate to New York State’s Schedule in your next natural light show; an ethereal new Have Camera (and Child), Adirondack Mountains, where 29 stargazing hotel in South Korea; Will Travel Does the jetsetter hotels are recapturing the the latest developments in the life change after having kids? A arcadian glamour of the region’s space race; and more. professional traveler muses on 19th-century heyday. the challenges of fatherhood. 41 Hats Off to Hamburg Idyllic 32 The Far Side Stray from Bintan’s green spaces and innovative t

contemporary architecture make n manicured hotel grounds for a e k pastoral family trip that explores this colorful German port well e & i

worth exploring. b

the island’s cultural treasures. m rcro e b f a y o s e t ra donne; cour a t f arcane; y o s e t an; cour w k yong m i k : t lef m 55 26 38 44 fro

8 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com from left: kim yong kwan; courtesy of arcane; tara donne; courtesy of abercrombie & kent CMY CY MY CM K Y M C Travel +Leisure_Sep2018_OP.pdf120/8/201812:04PM t+L digital

+Lookout Six hotels perfect for a family vacation; where to thio s m nth on travelandleisureasia.com celebrate a special Some of Japan’s Best This philippine isle Where to Go in Macau occasion; finding inner skiing is actually is a surf paradise right now peace at Vietnam’s most outside of Hokkaido Sun-drenched Siargao is all With ambitious new hotels, spiritual resort; the Book your next winter escape about catching waves, getting diverse eateries and a vibrant latest travel deals in these cozy mountain towns to know the locals and arts scene, the former that offer pristine powder soaking in the island’s Portuguese colony is and much more. without the madding crowd. chilled-out vibes. constantly reinventing itself. travelandleisureasia.com eli h y of feng wei ju wei feng of y s e t a. woodward; cour t t o c s n; e

Download Us Follow Us Keep up with Us s

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10 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com contributors

1 2 Jonathan Lindy Evans Alexander Writer Writer “ The Far Side” “Family Special” Page 32 Page 44 — — “It is tempting to imagine how “Multigenerational travel is on tourism on Bintan Island the rise. Children are a great 1 might have developed if the icebreaker. Families are now resorts enclave had never been more willing to venture to built; many time-poor visitors places that previously only never leave its boundaries. But intrepid travelers attempted, I can’t imagine anyone not like, for example, Lord Howe being captivated by Kawal, Island, which has a beautifully Penyengat, Trikora or Gurun luxe resort, but down-to-earth Pasir Busung. Interestingly, outdoor activities.” Three tips the local people don’t resent for life on the road: “Inflatable the success of the resorts: they travel pillows for planes that are a major employer and have go between your child’s seat helped to boost land prices. By and the one in front are a far the best food on my trip godsend for helping kids sleep. was the Javanese chicken I had Kids’ meals aren’t always s at Rica Rica restaurant at The automatic on planes, so make Residence resort—a taste sure you request one. And

ung Haye ung sensation that was served don’t try to squeeze too much e L accompanied by eight types of in; children tire of sightseeing

nice nice sambal.” Instagram: quickly.” Instagram: a 2 J @adventures_in_journeylism. @lindyalexanderwriter. y of of y s e t

cour 3 4 ; s ng i Joe Janice mm u C Cummings Leung Hayes e e o Writer Writer J “Under the Big Top” “Greener Pastures” y of of y s

e Page 68 Page 26 t — — “A lot of people, me included, Leung Hayes reported on the are tired of staying in air-con rising wave of vegetarianism boxes in over-built resorts and veganism, and high-end exander; cour

l when visiting nature-oriented restaurants that cater to these A places. We want more contact greener tastes in carnivore- ndy ndy i with the surroundings, to heavy Hong Kong. “I think L hear the crickets, to smell the people are coming to terms y of of y 3 s

e woodsy aromas. But we don’t with the realities of factory t want to give up fine dining. farmed meat, that it harms

cour The new generation of tented the environment and our ; s n camps is perfect for that. At bodies.” Her pick of the city is a

Ev Cardamom Tented Camp, “Grassroots Pantry in the n n a where boardwalks connect the morning. Breakfast there is h t villas to limit impact on the like a little secret. It’s tranquil, na o

J grasslands, I loved stepping and the food is all responsibly out of my tent at dawn, and sourced and wholesome. It’s a y of of y s

e watching mist drift across the great way to start the day.” t veal. And tramping through Next up on the Hong Kong- the forest with a Wildlife dining trend horizon? “The

o Alliance ranger who knew use of local produce, and the t

m virtually every plant.” revival of Chinese tea.”

fro cour p: Instagram: @joejcummings. Instagram: @e_ting.

4 11 exotic & idyllic retreat t he conversation ...where life is a private celebration

Istanbul Airport—the world’s largest—is set to officially open this month with six runways, 115 gates, 250 airlines and an eventual capacity for 200 million passengers a year. Its closest rival will be the new Zaha Hadid–designed Beijing Daxing International Airport slated to open in September. These sprawling, futuristic hubs are expected to help us fly faster and further. Here’s what to look out for. A tulip Magic Mirror T he design inspiration for O ne of the high-tech features at Istanbul’s Istanbul Airport’s air 55,000-square-meter duty-free retail area is a virtual traffic control tower is fitting room that allows shoppers to personally this flower, a traditional preview make-up, clothing, watches and more without symbol of the city. physically trying them on.

Starfish 600 T he nickname given to Daxing, due to its six concourse arms that unfurl from the airport’s central hub. meters T he farthest you’ll have to walk to your gate at Daxing. Despite the 76.5 million 700,000-square-meter T otal area in square meters that the Istanbul Airport will terminal, its design cover once the facility is fully completed in promises short walking 2030—that’s larger than Manhattan. distances for travelers.

in honor of our family issue, we’ve #TLASIA picked your top bonding moments.

S winging into the sun on Koh Lipe. Lighting up the night in Seoul. By @wanderlust.nl. By @thesoulofseoulblog.

Sanur I Ubud I Nusa Dua I Jimbaran

P. 62 361 705 777 F. 62 361 705 101 E. [email protected]

Osaka’s Katsuoji temple has pockets of Family feasting at Mandarin Oriental, magic. By @chopsticksontheloose. Hong Kong. [email protected]. JOIN US @

Sh are an Instagram photo by using the #TLAsia hashtag, and it may be featured in an upcoming issue. Follow @travelandleisureasia

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Athens • Bali • Chiang Mai • Dubai • Golden Triangle • Hangzhou • Hawaii • Hoi An, Vietnam • Koh Samui • Kyoto • Langkawi • Maldives • Seychelles e ditor’s note

A t Four Seasons Tented Camp.

From My Travels A favorite resort of mine remains the Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle (fourseasons.com) in northern Thailand, which adopts orphaned and overworked elephants, and introduces guests to these amazing beasts in what is hese days, many of us yearn to get back to essentially a wild setting. basics. Tented camps are travel’s answer Scattered across a bamboo- to this quest, and our look at their growing covered hillside, the 15 tents number around Asia (“Under the Big Top,” here all have epic views over the Ruak and Mekong rivers page 68) uncovers some of the newest canvas and into Laos and Burma. homes where you should be spending your next break. As you’ll discover in reading these stories, a stay at any of these properties is a far cry from roughing it. A gin and tonic on arrival at Shinta Mani TWild, a handmade copper tub at Wild Coast Tented Lodge and even dimpled teak floors at Capella Ubud—you’re not going to gain any merit badges here. Actually, that’s not entirely true. Fittingly for this age where giving back has become a vacation goal, guests can venture out on anti- poaching patrols in the wilds of Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains. Alternatively, tour the junior ranger program at Yala National Park to get a better grasp of what it takes to preserve this wild corner of Sri Lanka, or visit a Balinese school where the students’ artwork is for sale. Also, check out “The Wonders of Astrotourism” (page 55). This is a must- read for solar eclipse–hunters or those wanting to head into sub-orbit. And

there’s a remote resort in South Korea cway u k

that caters specifically to stargazers, r e h

that is, if the space race being waged by p o t s

the likes of Bezos, Branson and Musk i r

proves too costly. h ee; c d t r a m fan Sa r I : t

@CKucway lef m

[email protected] fro

14 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com from left: Irfan Samartdee; christopher kucway LELEWATU RESORT SUMBA SUMBA BARAT, INDONESIA To escape visit yournextmeeting, I amcurrentlyoutoftheofficewithlimitedaccess toemail. ONE FARRER HOTEL FARRER ONE SINGAPORE LAGUNA BEACH, CALIFORNIA,USA MONTAGE LAGUNA BEACH PREFERREDHOTELS.COM PALAIS DE CHINE DE PALAIS TAIPEI, TAIWAN QUEENSTOWN, NEWZEALAND AZUR

© 2019 Preferred Hotels & Resorts 19_098 t&L

e ditor-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, Lauryn Ishak, Grace Ma, Morgan Ommer, Aaron Joel Santos, Scott A. Woodward, Stephanie Zubiri

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TRAVEL+LEISURE (USA) Editor-in-Chief Jacqueline Gifford Senior Vice President, News, Luxury, style Meredith Long

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travel+leisure southeast asia Vol. 13, Issue 4 Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia is published monthly by Media Transasia Limited, 1603, 16/F, Island Place Tower, 510 King’s Road, North Point, Hong Kong. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the Publisher. Produced and distributed by Media Transasia Thailand Ltd., 14th Floor, Ocean Tower II, 75/8 Soi Sukhumvit 19, Sukhumvit Road, Klongtoeynue, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand. Tel: 66-2/204-2370. Printed by Comform Co., Ltd. (66-2/368-2942–7). Color separation by Classic Scan Co., Ltd. (66-2/291-7575). While the editors do their utmost to verify information published, they do not accept responsibility for its absolute accuracy.

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courtesy of the pavilions hotels april 2019 REASONS TO TRAVEL NOW

T+L’s monthly selection of trip-worthy places, experiences and events.

no. 1 Earn major parental cred by setting this year’s summer camp in the Mongolian wilderness.

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

Polo on horseback in the Orkhon Valley at The Pavilions Mongolia.

Horseback riding? Tick. Archery? Genghis Khan with activities such as ingredients, and guests can try Tick. Sleeping in tents? Tick—well, archery, horseback riding and polo, traditional hand-pulled noodles, luxury gers, but this camp will still kayaking along the river, and homemade breads, grilled meats and freshly caught fish of the day—a s put you and your family well and trekking through sweeping el

t truly into the wild. Perched on a hill grasslands, plus singing, music and world away from sloppy joes and o h overlooking the Orkhon Valley art lessons. If mom and dad need a chicken nuggets. pavilionshotels. s

ion Cultural Landscape, a unesco- mindful break, in-house nannies com; summer camp available June il v

a protected site at the foot of the can tag in while parents take up 15–September 19; all-inclusive from

e p e Central Mongolian Khangai range, daily yoga, Mongolian massages, or US$600 per night, per adult; US$350 h t these hand-painted yurts at The even traditional healing rituals with per night, for children aged seven to y of y

s Pavilions Mongolia make a wild the resident shaman. At dinnertime, 18 years; US$150 per night, for e t locale for summer camp. Guests of lively family-style feasts will children aged three to seven; kids

cour all ages can channel their inner showcase the area’s locally sourced under three are free. — Eloise Basuki

travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 19 powered by

Zinio Ad.indd 18 3/14/2562 BE 12:04 20 — US$130. from start fees golf US$130; from Co Lang Angsana at doubles US$410; from Co Lang Tree Banyan at doubles com; lagunalangco. locals. to donated is and farm organic resort’s the supports which of rice, tonnes 20 to up yielding ayear, twice harvested is paddy The efficient. more and greener used is that manpower the making and machinery area—replacing the in crops and weeds excess eating by paddies the maintain to helping ago, ayear introduced was trio bovine The greens. of the middle the in right located fields of rice hectares four to tend who Bao, calf, their and Chi Chi Tu mother Phat, father of buffalo: family area’s resident forthe hour lunch also but course, golf Faldo–designed Nick 18-hole, resort’s integrated the hitting mean just doesn’t Co Lang Laguna at Tee time of water buffalo. groomed afamilyare by grounds in Vietnam Central golfing edible These no. n S r e

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E .B. room rate. — rate. room the with complimentary experience beekeeping stay; two-night minimum all-inclusive, A$2,200, from doubles saffire-freycinet.com.au; buzz. the worth definitely region—it’s the of terroir distinctive the off shows that nectar multi-floral and fragrant adecadent, beekeepers budding offers gold liquid this box, prickly and ambigua kunzea manuka, like flora native Freycinet’s across foraging freely bees Barker’s With range. mountain Hazards the of view idyllic an with honeycomb—all fresh warm, the extract to bees) 60,000 to up house each can (which hives the through producer, honey Hives Wild and hives. nearby from directly honey their up scoop to suits apiarist full-body donning guests has now experience new exclusive an that so much seriously—so smanian lodge lodge smanian xury L Freycinet Peninsula. Freycinet on Tassie’snew experience rugged this sweet with ofgold Find pot areal no. u rice-field golfrice-field course. tural landscapes landscapes tural at N

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courtesy of ubud food festival (3) from top: courtesy of laguna lang co; courtesy of saffire freycinet

courtesy of ubud food festival (3) and Ubud Food Festival’s Food Festival’s Ubud and Syamsudin, Kris founder, project with discussion a in locals supporting are Spices Gamalama and Afo Cengkeh projects tourism community-based how and area of the history the of cloves. Delvesource into world’s only the once Maluku, North in Ternate is heritage spice fabled Indonesia’s to Integral for Spices culinary genius. The lush locale is home not only to Bali’s best restaurants—including restaurants—including best Bali’s to only not home is locale lush The genius. culinary farmers and Michelin-starred chefs will skew toward the rich heritage of Indonesian Indonesian of heritage rich the toward skew will chefs Michelin-starred and farmers collaborative dinners, regional masterclasses, food tours, and talks by food activists, activists, food by talks and tours, food masterclasses, regional dinners, collaborative (ubudfoodfestival.com; April 26–28; three-day pass Rp600,000 for Indonesian residents, residents, for Indonesian Rp600,000 three-day pass April 26–28; (ubudfoodfestival.com; Locavore, the only Indonesian restaurant to grace the Asia’s 50 Best list—but also to to also list—but Best 50 Asia’s the grace to restaurant Indonesian only the Locavore, U I Get a taste of of ataste Get scenery. dinners in ecial take S n Ubud Food Festival Food Ubud the gatherings: gourmet popular most Asia’s Southeast of one Rp850,000 for international visitors) Rp850,000 p b donesia at the the at donesia As the spiritual hub of the Indonesian isle, Ubud also doubles as an epicenter of of epicenter an as doubles also Ubud isle, Indonesian the of hub spiritual the As Spice up your life atBali’s spirited food fest. most ud Food Festival. U b ud’s lush lush ud’s C h ange ange cuisine. Here are the events we are most excited about. about. excited most are we events the are Here cuisine. April 26, 12:30 p.m.; free. p.m.; 12:30 26, April DeNeefe. Janet director, wedding dishes that will will that dishes wedding Peranakan of traditional onafeast put will cuisine legendary onthe books of seven Now, author the food. onPeranakan up Teoh grew Debbie Penang, from mother Nyonya a and Malacca from father of aBaba daughter the As onya N y . This year’s theme is “Spice up the World,” and and World,” the up “Spice is theme year’s . This N no. u ptial ptial

4 N o sh worldwide for their fortheir worldwide renowned are beans onesia’s coffee archipelago’s The I free. a.m.; 11:30 27, April kick. umami aserious with sauces fermented into scraps, vegetable and trimmings fish and meat like waste, food turn to how you show will Schoener, Felix head, development and research restaurant’s the workshop, this In waste. food managing about passionate Morsel is ery Locavore at team eco-minded hyper-sustainable, The Make Rp350,000. tickets p.m.; 12 28, required. April No fiancé park. of the out laksa usual your blow nd E v travelandleisureasia.com C o ffee Wheel ffee C o unt

— Rp1,050,000. tickets 7p.m.; 28, April morning. very that Ubud around from foraged ingredients using made be will feast seven-course Lumpur, this Kuala in of Dewakan Teoh Darren and Bangkok in Du of Le Tassanakajohn “Ton” Thithid Eatery, Toyo of Manila’s Navarra Jordy Featuring dinner. collaborative inspired foran restaurants acclaimed most Asia’s Southeast of five from chefs seven enlists festival the of meal final The to the Wild the to I tickets Rp350,000. tickets p.m.; 12 28, April wheel. bean’s flavor the explores that masterclass session acupping in senses your sharpen and Seniman, mecca, Ubud’s coffee from team of the help the with topic complex this into Delve flavors. of kaleidoscope tropical n fuel at a stall astall at fuel by R C onica V e o er ffeenatics. M e dan caf dan

/ april 2019 april I n é veen

21 lno g weekend

Sleepy little Vientiane is one of the more overlooked capitals of Southeast Asia—most

t pass through for no more than one night. But f y o

Capital Growth s on a long-weekend trip, I quickly learned that o poe e a t O ften considered a gateway town, Vientiane is an underrated L

what it lacks in wow-factor attractions, it f our

destination in its own right. Laurel Tuohy wanders its y o s makes up for with plenty of small-town charm. ; c t e heritage streets and finds hip new hangouts I live just a short flight away, in Bangkok, t that are reinvigorating the city. but had never visited before—always seduced o poe a L

by flashier destinations when holiday time f y o

Cw lock ise from rolled around. Friends had told me that café s e top left: The culture rules in Vientiane and the city’s t Patuxai monument age du coq; cour

growing number of coffee shops make perfect a c ; cour

symbolizes Lao L o f pit-stops as you wander the still-standing t independence; Lao o y o s Ph Poet’s tropical French-colonial architecture—some addresses e k t lobby; at The c lovingly restored, others in advanced stages of o Cabana Design t y S decay. The low number of tourist sites, plus a ; cour y Studio & Café; m h a o fresh honey at the compact, walkable downtown, is said to make l u A / t Lane Xang market; the city’s slow pace of life surprisingly alluring. s o t

dinner at La Cage So, when I heard about the opening of the o h du Coq; jewel tones p city’s first real boutique hotel, Lao Poet, I had a k

adorn Lao Poet’s al fé; laurel w feeling that owner Lamphoune Voravongsa, a t rooms. C who also founded Luang Prabang’s lauded Satri a : c t dio &

House, felt the hip winds of change starting to u t

blow through the languorous capital. p lef o t gn S

i m s e ro Friday Evening D e f na s After landing into the city at dusk, I checked a b w a k into Lao Poet (laopoethotel.com; doubles from C e h cloci US$88), which has brought a modern, more T

22 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com clockwise from top left: catwalkphotos/Alamy Stock Photo; courtesy of Lao poet; courtesy of The Cabana Design Studio & Café; laurel tuohy; courtesy of La cage du coq; courtesy of Lao poet (Hengbounnoy St., Ban Haysok; 85 Haysok; Ban St., (Hengbounnoy choice for a first night’s dinner, dinner, night’s forafirst choice photograph. old oversize of an form the in lobby the oversees who and site, onthis lived once who Kheo, Maha poet Laotian beloved to homage an earth—it’s to down back brand the brings moniker hotel’s pretty the Anderson, Wes channels theme palm-frond the and River Mekong of the views has pool rooftop the While residents. former city’s of the photographs vintage oversized furniture; wooden painted fancifully cushions; velvet building: the throughout reflected glamour toned of jewel- hits with collection Voravongsa’s own from antiques Indochine mixes boutique 55-room The buildings. heritage forits known better that’s acity to stay millennial-style Laos’s rural, agricultural soul. The brasserie is is brasserie The soul. agricultural rural, Laos’s to nods as well as rule French former city’s US$6) from mains 6065; Across the street from the hotel is a smart asmart is hotel the from street the Across , referencing both the the both , referencing over a st honey bees so fresh were I took ge du du ge La i l 6- C l stuck to the comb the to l stuck 20 a / 54 67- i T C n t o h q

a he market he i alluringly served in a small pitcher. asmall in served alluringly tart lemon asilky alongside delivered was crema golden by topped on espresso aspot- Iindulged: glad Iwas fordessert, room of out Iwas like seemed it though And cooked. perfectly all were ceviche pomelo and tuna delicate a and ravioli, Camembert confit, duck The pop. French of vintage asoundtrack plays and cages chicken rattan woven with decorated Saturday travelandleisureasia.com and sampled honey so fresh bees were still still were bees fresh so honey sampled and Setting out for a walk to familiarize myself myself familiarize to forawalk out Setting tea and sampled and tea staples. I took in the chaos over a Thai tea tea aThai over chaos the in Itook staples. with the city, the first stop was for coffee at coffee for was stop first city, the the with from clothing to electronics to kitchen kitchen to electronics to clothing from bana Design Studio & Studio Design bana e T h Quai Fa Ngum; 85 Fa Ngum; Quai Avenue, where locals buy everything everything buy locals Avenue, where the morning market on Lane Xang Xang onLane market morning the from US$2 from designer and local tastemaker Nilada Nilada tastemaker local and designer C mango waffles. mango and bright is space the Ratanavong, sourdough toast, and sweet sweet and toast, sourdough menu the greenery, with filled offering hits like avocado on avocado like hits offering a After breakfast, I strolled toward toward Istrolled breakfast, After ). Owned by interior interior by Owned ). ’ s chaos s 6- 21

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253 A p ril 2019 ril -

C 31 a 8; coffee 8; coffee fé ( 5–16

23 lno g weekend

stuck to the comb. (It’s not as scary as it sounds—Laos is well-known for its honey, and jars from small producers are found in nearly every corner store and larger vats in markets.) Down the street is another mélange of Franco- Indochinese culture: Patuxai, the Arc de Triomphe–inspired war monument features Laotian touches, such as renderings of Kinnari, a mythical bird-woman. I stopped by Wat Si Saket (Lane Xang Ave.; entry US$1), the only temple in Vientiane that survived the Thai invasion of 1828, then I was ready for an afternoon pick-me-up from a newbie to the coffee scene,T itkafe (fb.com/ titkafe; drinks from US$2). The modern coffee bar is developing a reputation with the city’s bloggers and bean connoisseurs. I wanted to try their nitro cold brew, which is crafted with state-of-the-art technology not often seen in the laidback capital. Titkafe uses a mix of locally sourced beans that support farmers with imported beans to balance the flavors. I chose the “passion honey nitro,” which was surprisingly mellow. Enticed by the vibrant Laotian textiles I kept seeing, I stopped into Saoban (saobancrafts.com) for souvenirs. Their wide selection of handmade fabric items (indigo scarves, Tai Deng woven wall hangings, ikat bags) comes with an attractive ethos: stock is alace;

sourced using fair-trade principles that a P

support employment for local craftspeople— tth more than 95 percent of whom are women, e according to the owner—and preserve y of s s e traditional techniques. Between the crowds in t the new café and the passion behind Saoban’s y; coury;

crafts, it seems that the city is developing an h appreciation for locavore products. uo Keeping my taste buds firmly in country I set off to Amphone (37 Soi Wat Xieng Gneun; ar; laurel t y h uo y of cocoon b s e In vientiane t o; laurel t o; : cour t

you can just chill C & h m lef out and indulge... oug e fro s y of D of s y e ‘The luxury the city wi k cloc offers is time’ cour t

24 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com clockwise from left: courtesy of cocoon bar; laurel tuohy; courtesy of settha Palace; courtesy of Dough & Co; laurel tuohy expert Boulevardier. I thoroughly approved. approved. Ithoroughly Boulevardier. expert an up me whipped he negronis, Iliked that Limchai Tongchana bartender head telling Upon juice. peach fresh and honey Jameson, with made Special, Gung drink, popular most their ordered and bar the at aseat nab to lucky Ifelt it. above yelling crowd hippest Vientiane’s 90 with understated, but anything was vibe the 20 just with lounge gentleman’s a like up Done found. be to want doesn’t it like it’s that Street onHenbounnoy alley an down hidden completely so spot cocktail new, tiny café was created by Christina Soukdala, a Soukdala, Christina by created was café doughnut This Vientiane. modern in me kept US$4) from mains (fb.com/doughandcolaos; Breakfast on my last morning at at morning last onmy Breakfast out Icheck suggested had Ratanavong ticket. the be might Laos milk. coconut of shackles creamy the from freed dish Thai ona take healthier afresher, like divine, tasted it beautiful, wasn’t it Though top. on floating chilies and shallots grilled with broth clear in a greens chopped and fish minced combined Mine next. arrived basil, sweet and sauce fish Orr chilies. red and garlic raw of slices by amplified flavor their fresh, and spicy, bitter table phak of som order An villa. turquoise avintage in dishes Laotian traditional serving restaurant 85 cocoonbarvientiane; drinks from US$ from drinks cocoonbarvientiane; Sunday 6- s R&B pumping from the soundsystem and and soundsystem the from pumping s R&B For a nightcap, though, I thought nouveau- Ithought though, For anightcap, , a traditional Lao stew made with eggplant, eggplant, with made stew Lao , atraditional 30 , or pickled mustard greens, arrived at the the at arrived greens, mustard , orpickled / 577 77 -66 ; mains from US$5) from ; mains C ocoon ( fb.com/ leather seats, seats, leather Dough & Dough , a 7. 50 ), a ), C o

at their restaurant, restaurant, their at lunch over Vientiane in life about Krimi Hala manager general with chatted and property the Istrolled landmarks. great city’s of the one is that 1932 since standing hotel historical (setthapalace.com; doubles from US$ from doubles (setthapalace.com; an office with a fresher view. fresher a with office an wanting travelers forworking location popular is a stream, small a and fields overlooking structure agreenhouse-like in housed café, the laptops; their behind ensconced waybest possible. the in messy and chewy sweet, visited—were I day onthe chocolate dark and jam, raspberry compote, pastries—apple filled The U.K. the in studying while doughnuts British-style with affair love her began who capital of the native a reason to visit in itself. itself. in visit to a reason that’s and pride, with sleepiness its wears still city, Vientiane historic this to dimension a new adding are stay and drink eat, to places trendy Though said. she time,” is offers city the luxury “The river. the over sunset the watching or lunch, atwo-hour massage, afternoon of along pleasures the in indulge and out chill to place best the is said, she here, but Bangkok, and Dubai in She’s world.” the lived from “a retreat calls she aplace in of life pace slower the city, she’s appreciate to come the in year US$5 menu tasting (setthapalace.com; On a sugar-high, I set off for off Iset asugar-high, On Many customers were were customers Many Belle travelandleisureasia.com E poque Brasserie Settha Palace 140 8) . In her her . In ) , a

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25 ha d ining

Greener Pastures Hong Kong may love its meat, but these fine-dining chefs are planting the seeds to a green revolution, making high-end vegetarian and vegan menus that offer food for thought. By Ja nice Leung Hayes

Not long ago, dining out as a vegetarian in Hong Kong usually meant sticking to Indian food or choosing restaurants designed specifically for strict Buddhists. In the latter, you’d have a choice of “Chinese mock-meats made of soy and sodium, and doused in oil and dressings,” says local chef Peggy Chan, who has been vegetarian for almost two decades. “The stigma that surrounds vegetarian and vegan foods has always been that it’s bland, and limited in variety.” Chan has been pioneering a change in this attitude, serving up creative plant-based menus at her vegetarian restaurant Grassroots Pantry (grassrootspantry.com; tasting menu from HK$850) since 2012. And now the rest of the city seems to be following in step. In addition to the growing u number of vegetable-led eateries, there’s been a k from top: Grassroots Pantry head chef Peggy noticeable change in Hong Kong’s most y of Ha

luxurious fine-diners, which have begun to s Chan out in the field; her e restaurant serves creative offer vegetarian and even vegan menus in t plant-based menus; a bagel addition to their usual omnivorous plates. with koji-smoked carrot One of the first to do so was Arcane (arcane.

and cashew–cream cheese ar (2); cour at Grassroots Pantry. hk; tasting menu from HK$888), led by Shane

Osborn. The former executive chef of London’s m & b Michelin-starred Pied à Terre and finalist on Netflix cooking show The Final Table, this

Australian chef will be familiar to e dining roo t globetrotting gourmands. “We’ve always had a vegetarian options on the menu. Over the past y of t s e

year we’ve had more vegan guests so it made t sense to offer them a bespoke menu [as well],” y (3) r

Osborn says. “People are becoming more t health conscious and also realizing that we pan s need to be more ecologically aware. We cannot t oo r y of arcane; cour

continue to consume as much meat as we do.” s s s e

Social start-up Green Monday t

(greenmonday.org), founded by Hong Kong f gra y o s

entrepreneur David Yeung, encourages op: cour e t

vegetarianism on Mondays—or one day a m t

week. Yeung’s team posits that cutting meat cour fro

26 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com and animal products from one’s diet can significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore help combat climate change. Combine this with constant food-safety concerns in the headlines regarding factory- farmed meats across the globe, and the fact that Hong Kong imports more than 90 percent of its food, and it’s easy to see why Hong Kongers are attracted to eating more plants. “People are more interested in sustainability in general, simply due to the fact that we are prompted with this knowledge daily through televised news, published articles, online magazines and social media on rotation,” Chan says. Grassroots Pantry is known for its commitment to both people and planet, serving up nutrient-dense foods mostly sourced from certified organic operations, including farms within Hong Kong, which not only minimizes food miles, but also from top: The vegan ensures freshness. daikoku shimeji salad with Grassroots Pantry has been a casual all-day cashew butter at Arcane; tomato consommé with eatery since its inception, but as Chan’s cuisine junsai is served with a has become increasingly sophisticated, a mushroom tart and a green tasting menu has also been launched in the pea yogurt tartlet at Tate; evenings. “We hope that plant-based fine- Tate’s dining room; greens get a starring role at Haku. dining cuisine will extend to demographics that otherwise would prefer air-flown Japanese fruit tomatoes, caviar and Wagyu beef, and eventually shift people’s mindsets on the true ‘value’ of food,” she says. With a clientele firmly in this demographic u k is the Michelin-starred T ate Dining Room & Bar

f Ha (tate.com.hk; tasting menu from HK$1,480). y o

s Their new vegetarian tasting menu has been e t well-received. “I wouldn’t call [vegetarianism] a trend; it is now part of daily life,” chef-owner Vicky Lau says. “We get quite a number of non- r (2); cour a

b vegetarians ordering the menu. They are often &

m curious about what combination and cooking methods we put into it.” Creating meat-free dishes isn’t simply about swapping steak for ining roo

e d squash. As Lau puts it, “I believe that the menu t a

t must flow well and there are a lot of things to f reconsider, therefore the vegetarian version is y o s e

t a completely new set of dishes.” Suprisingly, the ingredients are no less ry (3)

t luxurious than an omnivorous menu. When you think of Japanese fine dining, tuna and ts pan Wagyu come to mind, but to Agustin Balbi, f arcane; cour roo y o executive chef of Haku (haku.com.hk; six- s ss e

t course tasting menu from HK$600), a modern Japanese restaurant, vegetables are just as y of gra s

o worthy of the spotlight. The vegetarian menu e t t

m at Haku is an expression of his love and

cour fro appreciationp: cour for his ingredients. “We work d ining

with high-quality producers, and I thought that instead of using that amazing produce in a supporting role, why not do a menu that showcases [the vegetables] as the main attraction?” For instance, Balbi collaborates with a farmer in Japan whose sole focus for the past 50 years has been to grow the perfect tomato. Osborn uses highly seasonal, specialty Japanese produce, such as tsubomina, a distinctive mustard related to the Brussels sprout, and mukago—tiny wild mountain yams. “To know their history and their passion to achieve a certain level [of quality] is magical,” Balbi says. “If that is not luxury, what is?” Haku is also known for their house-made ferments, such as miso, which takes months to produce. The vegetarian menu at Tate also requires a lot of work from Lau’s team. “Although vegetables are normally not as expensive as meat, the man-hours in prepping all these dishes is what makes it costly,” she says. Chan agrees, adding that by using high- quality, environmentally and ethically sound ingredients, and thereby educating customers, “We dispel the myth of plant-based being of lower value.” Putting vegetables at the forefront is, at the moment, still a nascent concept in Hong Kong, where the meat consumption per capita is among the highest in the world. But these chefs clkw oc ise from top: are up to the challenge. “Even if we serve only Corn flatbread with grilled one vegetarian menu a night I think it’s worth mustard greens at Gaa; it, because it’s a statement that we as chefs care roast eggplant with mushroom foam at about the environment,” Lau says, “and, of e

Dewakan; Odette’s amuse- course, pleasing a few vegetarian friends along t t bouche mushroom broth. the way.” ode y s e t n; cour n; a k Mor e Plant-based Plates dewa y s T hese fine-dining restaurants landscape of candy-colored not permanently advertised, a vegetarian tasting menu has e t across the region are also morsels all featuring beetroot vegetarian menu is available been available from the outset. becoming known for their prepared in multiple ways. here with advance notice. Teoh Chef Garima Arora works with vegetarian offerings. There are also vegetarian says that Malaysia’s natural a vast array of Thai produce— tasting menus on offer for landscape provides the best of try the unripe jackfruit served

Odette, Singapore gaa; cour of both lunch and dinner. its bounty during the wetter with roti and pickles, or the y s

Though French fine-dining is e

odetterestaurant.com. months, so for the dry season, coconut shoots with long t often epitomized by its animal his team preserves the pepper and macadamia milk— proteins—foie gras, beef, Dewakan, Kuala Lumpur

vegetable produce for year- and has a room dedicated to cour : duck—at Odette, a Michelin- As the chef of a contemporary op

round abundance. dewakan.my. fermenting ingredients in- t two-starred French eatery Malaysian fine-dining house, no doubt influenced by m within Singapore’s National restaurant driven by indigenous Gaa, Bangkok

her training at contemporary fro

Gallery, acclaimed chef Julien flora and fauna, Darren Teoh is Indian cuisine lends itself to e gastronomic trailblazers s

Royer lists a completely plant- no stranger to his country’s plant-based cooking, and at w

such as Noma and Gaggan. k based dish as one of his vegetation; in fact, it forms the Gaa, the boundary-pushing gaabkk.com.

signatures: an elegant basis of his cooking. Although Indian-meets-Thai fine-diner, a cloc i

28 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com esays Have Camera (and Child), Will Travel D oes the jetsetter life change after having kids? Photographer Lester V. Ledesma muses on the challenges of fatherhood for a professional traveler. ilsl u trations By wasinee chantakorn

travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 29 essay

Sunrise finds me hard at work in the village the shot. While it’s heartwarming to know that of Ywama, on the shores of Inle Lake. With a my little girl misses me when I’m away, I can’t camera in my hand I am exploring a morning deny that in the last five years, my job has been market, capturing scenes of daily life in this trickier with the extra challenge of parenthood. corner of Burma. The air is cool, the Now don’t get me wrong—I love being a atmosphere busy at this early hour. Before me, family man. But as a professional traveler for rows of wooden stalls lead to the water’s edge, more than two decades, I was accustomed to a where boatmen disgorge loads of passengers life that isn’t set up for raising a family. Not too eager to get on with their market chores. There long ago, my schedule was a constant parade of is much hawking and haggling everywhere. In overseas trips to shoot magazine covers or the middle of all this picturesque chaos, I feature stories. It was the life I had always glimpse a scene that makes my heart skip a dreamed of living, and needless to say I beat. Backlit by golden sunlight, an Intha enjoyed every second of it. That life changed in mother, a smoldering cheroot wedged between 2014—just a week after my 39th birthday— her lips, is carefully adjusting her daughter’s when my daughter was born. headscarf. I discreetly move in, careful not to I still remember that odd mix of happiness disturb the moment. Then I quickly go through and dread when I first laid eyes on Leanne Ava the motions I’ve done countless times before as Ledesma. Ecstatic as I was to finally become a a travel photographer: change lens, set dad, there was that sinking feeling that exposure, focus, frame the scene, put finger on perhaps this new title came at the expense of the shutter button… my wandering ways. I wanted to keep the best My phone suddenly rings. It doesn’t stop job in the world, but I was also serious about ringing. People look in my direction while I fatherhood. Thus began the constant and reach for the phone. “Daddy I miss you. When ongoing struggle to balance my passion with are you coming home?” says the voice on the my love. It’s not always easy to find the middle other end. It’s my daughter Leanne, crying ground between the two, and I’ve already back home in Singapore. missed a few birthdays (shoot a story in I spend the next five minutes somewhat Bhutan or attend a kiddie party? Admit it— patiently explaining why daddy has to be away. you’ll do what I did!). Thankfully, most of the By the time she is pacified, my subjects have time I’ve ended up being proud of the choices moved on. The scene has changed, and I lost I’ve made.

30 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com to cope with the intricacies of bringing the little one on an adventure. A sarong provides instant cover when changing diapers. She’s being picky with food? Anything crunchy (but not spicy) seems to do the trick. When kiddie tantrums threaten a flight, a bag of toys—or, God help us, an iPad—often helps keep the tear bombs from exploding. Despite the hassles, my wife and I happily put up with the inconveniences just to see our baby experience the rest of the world. We did it to see her squeal with delight when she came face to face with a herd of giraffes on Calauit Island in the Philippines. We did it so that she could play with local children in Siem Reap, and in the process learn that Khmer kids are no different from Singaporean kids, or French, or Indian (especially when there’s candy involved). We did it so she could join us in a Tuscan harvest festival to witness what parties are like in a faraway place. And we still do it so she can grow as a traveler, and realize that places and people all over this world are both different and the same. It is in times like these, with my wife and daughter happily by my side, that I realize what having a family means to a person driven by wanderlust. My family is an anchor for this restless soul, the place to return to when the journey is done. But whichever place I find myself in, as long as my Joanne and Leanne are I no longer fall off the with me—that’s home. map like I used to do, because a little girl is always looking for me

Truth be told, I’ve changed quite a bit too. Keep me out there for a while and I’ll start missing my wife and kid. And I no longer fall off the map like I used to do, because a little girl is always looking for me. These days, I try to stay at least a week at home in-between trips, and I now limit my travel assignments to twice a month. It’s my way of ensuring that I’m never too far away from my family. Then there are those blessed instances when I get to bring my girls on location. No luxury resorts or theme parks are involved, mind you—my wife, Joanne, and I believe in searching for authentic local experiences. Usually they arrive after my job is done—this lets us enjoy a few days together unfettered by work. Travel takes on a new dimension with a toddler in tow, and my wife and I have learned

travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 31 wander

Ckw loc ise from top left: Cruising the Kawal mangroves; dried seafood stalls in Tanjung Pinang; bright Mesjid Raya Sultan Riau pops on Penyengat.

construction stalled, and the island’s curio-laden south remained a reservoir of untapped potential. Now, it seems the entire island has had a much-needed facelift. Last year, more than 1 million visitors hit Bintan Resorts’ 13 properties, more than double the 2012 figure. And that number is set to grow with next year’s opening of an international airport. There’s a new focus on the island’s natural bounty, emphasizing the richness beyond the resorts—a land of discovery where inquisitive The Far Side kids can learn about rural history Bintan is known as a resort paradise, with many visitors never straying and the traditional slow life just an far from their hotels’ manicured grounds. But the island’s diversity hour from one of the world’s most makes for a pastoral family trip, says Jonathan Evans, who heads out modern cities. Making a return trip to find the cultural treasures beyond the developed northern coast. to the island, I decided to discover this wholesomeness for myself. I hired a driver to embark on a clockwise circuit that would take in When I first visited Bintan in the once-underexplored south, and 2012, the resort island—the largest found that charming local villages, of Indonesia’s Riau Archipelago— stunning natural wonders and a wasn’t much known for its cultural rapidly diversifying capital are just immersion. I recall being some of Bintan’s other treasures shepherded onto a coach and driven hidden in plain sight. through its neat, airbrushed

landscape to my tightly guarded Ju st beyond the barrier of the ts (6) or

hotel for a weekend of quiet Bintan Lagoon Resort (bintanlagoon. s seclusion. Bintan was colonized in com; from Rp1,501,000) estate, an re t

the 1990s by developers who turned midway along the northern coast, in its northern white-sand beaches into I arrive at the sea-gypsy village of y of b

Singapore-by-the-sea. But as Panglong. Here, igloo-shaped brick s e Indonesia’s economy stagnated kilns once used to burn mangroves t

toward the end of that decade, for charcoal stand near the entrance; cour

32 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com men smoke kretek (clove) cigarettes as they repair a riverboat; on the seafront, young families relax in small overwater homes. Though the arrival of electricity has transformed the gypsies’ lives, the village’s traditional atmosphere still casts its spell on me. The calming scenery continues further down the east coast. Waterfront highways thread through halcyon villages housing picture-perfect bungalows, while modest resorts, ramshackle boatyards and jetties line the shores known collectively as Trikora Beach. rainforest into a thicket of from top: Riau-style becaks Just off Trikora Empat (Beach Four), Christmas trees, while solitary sea take you around Penyengat Island; tented living at The I find myself alone in a copse that apple trees protrude from the water. Canopi; Grotto Santa Maria’s houses Grotto Santa Maria, where biblical carvings. limestone sculptures depict bible All across Bintan, new ventures scenes. The trail leads up to the bijou are transforming the landscape. Chapel of St. Peter, a leftover from Even the gritty capital, Tanjung the Catholic migrants of the 1960s. Pinang, best known for its street My easygoing driver, Mohamed, tells markets, now flaunts pristine malls me that a Beijing businessman is like City Center, while Areca Water building a five-star hotel close by, Park (fb.com/pt.bintanareca) is a suggesting that this tranquil colorful family adventure in lagoons coastline may get crowded soon. surrounded by greenery. The city’s A 30-minute drive away, family heart, though, remains rooted in the haven The Residence (cenizaro.com; past. After lunch at Sam’s Anna from Rp1,821,090) kickstarted Restaurant (Jln. Ir Sutami; 62-821/ southern Bintan’s renaissance a year 1927-1115; mains from Rp20,000) on ago. The spacious resort emphasizes the seafront—order the chicken—I oneness with nature—its villas are walk down a nondescript lane onto a immersed in jungle; the spa looks out jetty where a 10-minute pompong onto a green expanse. Prizing myself (water taxi) ride takes me to the from the comfort of my bed, I cycle small island of Penyengat, whose around the estate looking for photo- history as a Malay seat of power is ops before checking into the stylish embodied in its heritage yellow restaurant, Rica Rica (cenizaro.com; architecture. According to local mains from Rp175,000), for Javanese legend, islanders offered so many ayam bakar (spiced grilled chicken) eggs to the local sultan to fund the served with a smile. construction of Penyengat’s Disney- Near sundown, Mohamed drops esque centerpiece, the 18th-century me among a maze of boathouses in Mesjid Raya Sultan Riau, that the Kawal village to take a ride through whites were mixed with lime and its century-old mangrove. A wild- used as cement.

6) eyed boatman named Rizal, who The journey is as much fun as the ( ts runs an eco-initiative here, Rumah destination. At the pier, I am ushered or s Bintan Adventure & Tours (rumah- by a becak driver into his house- e bintan-travel.com), makes a witty shaped trailer with a crimson roof an r t

in host for the journey (“Watch out! and ornately carved windows. As I b Snake!” he teased). As we glide down trundle through the village, children y of s the twilit Sebung River, beyond the wave from outside their homes. I pay e t hulking wrecks of fishing vessels, the absurdly cheap Rp10,000 fare to

cour fireflies start to glow, turning the head five minutes across the water to

travelandleisureasia.com / April 2019 33 wander

Panglong T he historic Lagoi Bay Doulos Phos will become a hotel.

Bintan

Tanjung Uban Trikora Beach

Kawal Village Senggarang Penyengat Tanjung Pinang

the Chinese settlement of Rp8,498,400), I kick back with a Senggarang, where families still live martini among colonial-luxe villas in stilt houses. I wander past filled with stunning décor and wh ere to stay centuries-old temples beside a yellow artwork, all set behind a perfect T he development Cassia Bintan pier, and find a tiny shrine almost white-sand beach. of Bintan’s resorts A youthful zest completely engulfed by the rampant It’s also here, at Lagoi Bay, that into more than pervades this just beach newcomer branches of a banyan tree. I come across a brace of millennial- retreats means spattered with A more desolate environment friendly openings at Plaza Lagoi. there are plenty of vivacious murals; awaits in the northwest, outside the A hip rooftop bar, Yeah! Lounge places for diverse split-level mini- port city of T anjung Uban, where (bintan-resorts.com; drinks from family fun. Here apartments, tuk- are just some of tuk service and roadsides of russet rock lend this Rp50,000), makes a cozy sundowner our top picks. tiffin breakfasts part of Bintan an almost desert-like spot as waves crash against the add to the Nirwana spontaneous fun. quality. Suddenly, I am dazzled by shore below. Lights illuminate Gardens cassia.com; from the sand dunes of Gurun Pasir sculptures of Indonesian wildlife in Activities from Rp1,318,700. Busung (Jln. Raya Busung), an Lantern Park, where I stroll before batik painting to undulating beige moonscape full of stopping at Rumah Imaji (Jln. quad biking keep The Canopi selfie-snapping locals, where Gurindam Duabelas, Plaza Lagoi) to guests of all ages Camp in a luxury busy around this teepee by a rainwater has reacted with rock pose with artworks at this 3D “selfie elegant resort. treated-saltwater minerals to form brilliant turquoise gallery” that neatly references local Diners and oasis that’s the pools (Telaga Biru). Just a few culture—a topsy-turvy Malay House drinkers should size of 50 Olympic kilometers north—in stark leads to a painted mangrove forest. make a beeline for pools. This The Kelong for envelope-pushing Doulos contrast—is the entrance to the Later this year, a “boat-el,” the seafood and resort within resorts zone, where tidy hedgerows Phos, will welcome guests into the to the Calypso Treasure Bay flank the roads that connect the refurbished interior of the world’s Floating Bar for soon joins the nearby attractions. longest-serving passenger ship, a sundowners. Marriott Group’s 105-year-old vessel once inhabited by nirwanagardens. Tribute Portfolio. com; from thecanopi.com; T he move away from mega-resorts missionaries on voyages to the Asian Rp2,354,850. tents from here is yielding unlikely hotel colonies. With facilities both on land Rp1,611,720. The Residence options. There are splashy and on board, including a Maritime The first luxury Trikora Beach contemporary apartments at C assia Museum, the new hotel will become property outside Club & Resort Bintan (cassia.com; from Rp1,318,700) something of a symbol of the island’s the resorts At this boho-chic and glamping tents at T he Canopi intent to synergize its gritty history enclave attracts estate with warm watersports service, villas

(thecanopi.com; from Rp1,611,720) in with its glitzy future. Hopefully by ts aficionados and house families of r o the family-oriented T reasure Bay now we’ve learned the lessons of families; Kakatu four. Older s

resort (treasurebaybintan.com), those long-ago missionaries: rather Kids’ Club runs children may re n a treasure hunts, enjoy the roaring t n

where I spend an afternoon that force change upon the cultural i Segwaying around the giant Crystal legacy, this island that once felt like cooking classes surf; kids below b and dance three stay for y of of y

Lagoon and ATV-riding along a path two separate worlds seems to be s lessons. cenizaro. free. trikorabeach e carved through a forest. At T he letting its modern and traditional com; from club.com; from t

Sanchaya (thesanchaya.com; from sides co-evolve symbiotically. Rp1,821,090. Rp1,685,030. cour

34 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com daniel schoenen/getty images T A ntiago C S e a a ud nerife. latrava’s latrava’s itorio de Tenerife Modern unexpected destination for architecture lovers. lovers. architecture for destination unexpected argest of of argest T he l S p ain’s C By a nary nary

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D ubai is a place of superlatives: the Emirates. Only at the creek will you textile and spice souks, an world’s tallest building, biggest find traditional wooden abras sailing 18th-century fort (the oldest shopping mall, largest tin of caviar. between the districts of Deira and structure in the city) and a warren of It’s easy to see why Dubai Creek, a Bur Dubai, something they’ve been coral-and-adobe desert dwellings. waterway running through the doing since the 19th century, when Now the creek is getting a second oldest part of town, gets lost amid all the first pearl divers and spice wind, thanks largely to the Al Seef the shinier attractions. The historic traders heading for India and Iran neighborhood project: a 1.6- neighborhoods along the saltwater docked their dhows here. For one kilometer-long development starting channel, especially on the southern dirham, you can hop aboard. Your at the edge of the Al Fahidi historic side, are so linked to the roots of captain won’t tell you about the story district and unfurling southeast Dubai that the city has frequently of the creek—how it declined as a along the waterfront. It’s a mix of oup r G considered submitting them for business center with the advent of retail and cultural spaces, from a h inclusion on the unesco World cultured pearls and the discovery of purpose-built souk at one end to an eira

Heritage list. Yet until recently, this oil, or how it has been dredged and ultramodern cluster of shipping m u mostly residential area has been expanded countless times over the containers at the other. J y of of y overlooked by tourists. years—but that doesn’t matter. The As part of the revitalization s e They’re missing one of the most sheer joy of the ride lies more in the project, the Jumeirah Group (the t o spectacular spots in the United Arab panoramic views of Dubai’s history: United Arab Emirate’s luxury hotel C ur

36 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com chain) brought three buzzy hotels to Surrounding Al Seef Hotel is the this neighborhood last year. In new souk, which has been designed September, the traditionally to look like those of Dubai in the designed Al Seef Hotel (jumeirah.com; 1950s. The crowds arrive at night to doubles from US$125) joined the more enjoy the breeze off the water, contemporary Zabeel House Al Seef perusing the tchotchke-filled market and its hostel-like cousin, Zabeel stalls and snapping waterfront House Mini—both just a 15-minute selfies beside traditional fishing creekside walk away. boats. It’s not Jumeirah’s first foray At Al Seef, everything suggests a into building a souk; like the market warm nostalgia. Staff offer at Madinat Jumeirah, one of the cardamom-flavored Arabic coffee brand’s other Dubai properties, and Emirati dates in a lobby there’s something almost movie-set decorated in “midcentury Dubai” perfect about this nod to the past. style, complete with vintage TVs and With Al Seef, Jumeirah is trying Plying the brass bells at the front desk. The 190 to appeal to a new type of traveler to waters along Dubai Creek. up rooms and suites are split among 10 Dubai—one who is younger, more ro

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y of vintage details, like gaslight-style foundational parts of Dubai, the hotel s + More Hotels e t

r lanterns and photographs from provides a view past the glitz and

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t Emirati restaurant, Saba’a (prix fixe as where it could be going next.

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P from US$37), serves classic regional Bin Masoud reflects on this

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t pudding called umm Ali. history, its culture.” For a place so “pocket” rooms next door. “I love that it really takes you back long known only in terms of its xey S zabeel​house.com; doubles from

le in time,” says Dina M. Bin Masoud, modern extremes, perhaps reflecting A US$104, or US$85 at Mini. director of operations at the on the past—distant and not-so- T

m Jumeirah Group. “You feel anchored. distant—is the most daring Mandarin Oriental ro

F op: It quiets the bustle.” innovation of all. Jumeira This 256-key resort on Dubai’s Arabian Gulf coastline incorporates traditional Emirati healing into At Al Seef its 2,000-square-meter spa. Hotel by mandarin​oriental.com; doubles Jumeirah from US$750.

Fo rm Hotel In the Al Jadaf cultural district, you’ll find the Emirates’ first member of the Design Hotels group, which offers curated culture and architecture tours. form-hotel. com; doubles from US$133. roup G h ONE&ONLY ONE ZA’ABEEL The Dubai-based company’s u m eira first truly urban property will open in 2020 within twin y of J of s y skyscrapers connected by e the world’s largest cantilever. our t

C oneand​only​resorts.com. Dio sc very

The Original Rustic Chic I n New York’s Adirondack Mountains, a wave of hotels and resorts is recapturing the arcadian glamour of the region’s 19th-century heyday. By Peter Terzian. Photographs by Tara Donne

O ne of five self-service bars at the Point, a resort on the shores of Upper Saranac Lake in northern New York.

38 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com Adelphi Hotel, Saratoga Springs Built in 1877, this 32-room hotel was the boutique alternative to its gargantuan neighbors. It reopened in 2017 after a renovation that evokes Gilded Age elegance with a palette of gold and royal blue, massive marble bathrooms, and lots of tufted upholstery. Yet the place still feels crisp and modern, thanks to such high-tech amenities as bedside controls that allow you to open the drapes without getting up. On the evening Caleb and I visited, we chose a sidewalk table at Morrissey’s, the hotel’s cocktail lounge, and watched the passeggiata of i n the years after the American civil war, from left: preppy families and chattering teenagers Manhattanites of means began fleeing summer Toasting s’mores against the backdrop of Broadway’s carefully at the Sagamore in the city for northern New York state, made resort, on Lake preserved Victorian architecture. We ordered a newly accessible by the railroad boom. Some George; the pickled stone-fruit salad that we’re still talking headed for the lakes and forests of the Adelphi Hotel, in about and a plate of flatbreads and hummus Adirondacks, where elite families like the Saratoga Springs. topped with greens and feta. Just inside the Rockefellers, Merriweather Posts, and restaurant, two young men sang Neil Young Vanderbilts built their own private lakeside songs from the late 1960s, when the town was a “Great Camps.” By the turn of the century, stop on the folk-music circuit—another layer of more than 180 hotels had opened across the its rich history. theadelphi​hotel.com; doubles mountain range, many with amenities familiar from US$209. to resort-goers today: golf courses, barbershops, children’s playrooms. Other The Sagamore, Bolton Landing affluent travelers decamped to Saratoga An hour’s drive north, this grand property on a Springs, just south of the Adirondacks. Lavish private island off the western shore of Lake hotels lined Broadway, the posh spa town’s George sits like a queen among the vintage main street, including the Grand Union Hotel, motels. Its original 1883 structure burned to which was for a time the largest in the world. the ground, as did its replacement. The current But in time the region fell out of fashion with iteration, which dates from 1923, encompasses the monied class. Most of the area’s hotels, built not only the mammoth main building but also of wood and remotely sited, went up in flames. seven multi-unit lodges. The interiors aren’t New highways brought inexpensive motor slick or trendy—our room, in one of the lodges, lodges. Growing up in nearby Albany, I knew was decorated with twig furniture and large little of this history. (I remember a strip-mall photographs of animals. But the atmosphere is Woolworth where the Grand Union Hotel cheerful and comfortable, the clientele diverse. stood.) But last summer my husband, Caleb, Wandering the island’s 28 hectares, we came and I discovered that a handful of the old across staffers helping kids make s’mores, a luxury hotels survive or have recently been family playing football and a band of young reborn, allowing travelers to once again escapees from a wedding reception capering experience Saratoga and the Adirondacks in fin on the lawn above the lake. thesagamore.com; de siècle style. Here’s how we toured them. doubles from US$159.

travelandleisureasia.com / April 2019 39 Dio sc very

H otel Saranac, Saranac Lake The town of Saranac Lake, two hours farther north, is a dot of civilization amid wilderness. The six-story Hotel Saranac, a landmark since 1927, recently underwent a four-year refurbishment that brought out its Jazz Age roots, with handsome dark woods and plush navy and orange fabrics in the guest rooms. The main entrance is in a covered passage that recalls the hidden shopping arcades of early- from left: Our room is in a cottage, done in what you Coconut muesli 19th-century Paris. But the Great Hall, the with hazelnuts and might call Adirondack Gothic: pine paneling, a second-floor lobby and lounge, is the berries at the Point; thousand throw pillows in as many patterns showstopper. It’s modeled after a room in a kayaks and canoes and a stone fireplace topped by a towering medieval Florence palazzo, right down to the for guest use at the mantel clock. The other accommodations hand-painted ceiling. hotel​saranac.com; resort. ranged from Mr. Rockefeller’s cozy former doubles from US$131. study to the boathouse’s massive upper story. Most guests dress up each night for a superb T he Point, Saranac Lake four-course dinner at the communal table in One of the most famous of the Great Camps the taxidermy-rich main hall. Formal wear is was built in the early 1930s, at the end of a requested on Saturday and Wednesday secluded forest road on Upper Saranac Lake, evenings, because that’s what the Rockefellers for William Avery Rockefeller II, a descendant wore to dinner. But you can also eat in the of John D. Fifty years later the 11-room complex kitchen, or on the dock by candlelight. of four lodges was turned into a resort. Pierre Dogs are welcome, and Toby, our 10-year-old and Laurie Lapeyre, a New York City couple shepherd mix, frolicked with Romeo, the who have vacationed at the Point for more than resident Lagotto Romagnolo. We fell into a cycle two decades, purchased the property in 2016 of reading, napping and hiking with Toby. and supervised a substantial renovation. On our last afternoon, as we sat on the patio The Point’s team of managers, servers, chefs of the main lodge before lunch, I realized I’d lost and boathouse attendants have a genie-like track of the time, the day, even where I was in ability to provide things you didn’t even know the universe. Not because of Rockefeller you wanted. Ask to row to a scenic picnic spot, traditions or rustic antiques, but because of as we did, and they’ll stock your backpack with something more ancient: sun and sky and pure a gourmet lunch in smart bento boxes, along air, the blue lake, the white and purple with stainless-steel knives and forks, cloth wildflowers sweeping down to the shore, the napkins, a map, sunscreen, bug spray and a hum of insects—the very things people began marine radio. When you return, pleasantly coming to the Adirondacks for in the first place. exhausted, they’ll appear with a plate of freshly thepoint​saranac.com; doubles from US$1,750, baked cookies. all-inclusive.

40 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com nextt ac

Be fore I went there for the first time, I had T he atrium of painted a picture in my mind of what Hamburg the Fontenay hotel on the must look like based on what I knew it to be: a banks of busy port off the cold North Sea. I knew that the Hamburg’s Beatles had learned their trade in its rowdy man-made riverside clubs, so throw in a few drunken lake. sailors. Add a low gray sky and the container cranes of the St. Pauli dockyards and, voilà, the Hamburg of my imagination—gritty, commercial, and somewhat dreary. It was only after gazing out through the floor-to-ceiling windows of my room in the Fontenay (thefontenay.de; doubles from €357) that I could see what the Japanese mean when they call Hamburg “the green city in the woods.” Directly below me was the Aussenalster, the artificial lake where the Alster River bulges out as it flows toward the Elbe River, Hamburg’s economic lifeblood. Runners were making their way along the lakeside path under 130-year-old plane trees, past grand villas and boathouses. Sculls and sailboats sliced back and forth. It felt like a country idyll, but in the heart of a mercantile hub of almost 2 million. This lesser-known Hamburg is veined with canals and flush with the riches of global commerce. You can see where the merchant money went in the superb white villas—much of Hamburg’s architecture is white, and, by municipal decree, so is the Fontenay—but the spirit is reserved and discreet, like Hamburgers themselves. Nothing here feels overbearing, including the Fontenay. Everything in the hotel is curvy, from the concentric rings of its structure to the elliptical sofas and rugs in its circular atrium. The colors are summery—pale green, beige, sky blue— and the hotel’s 13,000 square meters of glass coax in any available light. But underneath it all there’s a reassuring solidity. The wooden room doors weigh a ton. The Fontenay is a late-life passion for billionaire Klaus-Michael Kühne. Now 81, Kühne commissioned local architecture firm Störmer, Murphy & Partners, the winner of a Hats Off to competition, to draw up plans for the building in 2013. One of Kühne and his team’s priorities was to make his guests feel like they could shut Hamburg the world out when they wanted to—hence the heavy doors. T he colorful German port where the Fab Four hit their From my suite, I could make out the stride endures, alongside idyllic green spaces and Binnenalster—the Aussenalster’s little brother. groundbreaking contemporary architecture—as epitomized It’s barely 15 minutes on foot from the Fontenay to by a sleek new hotel. By Joshua Levine. the main train station, on the Binnenalster’s far Photographs by Christian Kerber shore. Just beyond is the late-19th-century >>

travelandleisureasia.com / April 2019 41 Hamburg’s nextt ac signature red brick exteriors.

city hall that marks the beginning of downtown. It is one of the few remnants of Hamburg’s prewar commercial grandeur. In 1943, the British launched Operation Gomorrah—eight days of bombing that took out 80 percent of the city’s port and much of central Hamburg. Of the architectural masterpieces that were spared, the most fantastical is Chilehaus (chile​ haus.de), so named because the shipping magnate Henry Sloman, who financed the office building, imported saltpeter from Chile. The intricate brickwork contained within its sharp-edged triangle, which is reminiscent of New York’s Flatiron Building, helped the architect Fritz Höger earn the nickname “Der Klinker-Sticker”—the brick knitter. Today its ground floor holds an assortment of shops and cafés. It’s a short walk from Chilehaus to T ortue Hamburg (tortue.de; doubles from €190), a new boutique hotel that occupies an imposing government building that escaped the bombs. There’s a charming interior courtyard and two pleasant restaurants, one a brasserie and the other serving Asian fusion cuisine. Somehow, Hamburg’s old warehouse district on the riverbanks managed to make it through the war unscathed, too. It became a unesco World Heritage site in 2015. The green copper canopies like little bonnets hung warehouses are great brown buildings, with high on the walls to shelter the winches used for hauling cargo up from the canals. For the most part, the warehouses are no longer used as such, but some still house Oriental rug depots, where €1.5 billion worth of Europe’s A jetty on the carpets come through each year. At the nearby Aussenalster Kaffeemuseum Rösterei Burg (kaffee​museum- burg.de), I learned that Hamburg has also served as the point of entry for much of the continent’s coffee over the centuries. (At the museum, don’t miss out on some satisfying coffee tasting.) Another warehouse has been commandeered by what a guide told me has become Germany’s most popular tourist attraction. I have rarely seen anything more German than M iniatur Wunderland Hamburg (miniatur-wunderland.com), which presents miniature electric-train tableaux of the world’s cities and landscapes—a Norwegian fjord, the Swiss Alps, Hamburg itself—in truly insane detail. Traffic controllers at a bank of screens could be running a modest airport. When I visited, it was crammed with German families staring transfixed as tiny trains tootled around a pint-size Matterhorn—an amazing if bizarre example of Germany’s passion for precision.

42 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com At HafenCity’s tip sits the splendid new T he undulating emblem of modern Hamburg: Herzog & de roofline of Hamburg’s new Meuron’s E lbphilharmonie (elbphilharmonie.de), concert hall. a concert space, hotel and apartment complex that dominates the harbor like a glass ocean liner in a Wagnerian fantasy. Tickets for concerts in its two halls have been selling out consistently, no matter who’s playing, since it opened in 2017. Hamburg has no tradition of good cooking, its signature dish being fried local fish on a bun. (No, it’s not the hamburger, which is believed to have been invented in New Haven, Connecticut.) That said, there’s no shortage of places to get a terrific meal. At Bianc (bianc.de; mains €86–€160), a sleek new eatery in HafenCity with Italian chef Matteo Ferrantino at the helm, I had a killer dish of sea bass, artichoke, peas and summer truffle, and another of intensely corn-flavored chicken, scallop and polenta. Excellent as Bianc was, however, I preferred a small place called Jellyfish (jellyfish-restaurant.de; tasting menus from €115) in the working-class Sternschanze neighborhood, just north of St. Pauli. The octopus with turnips and salsa verde was as good as octopus gets. Walking around this bright, modern city, I realized that the Beatles belong to a bygone Hamburg. But sheesh, they’re the Beatles and I am a baby boomer (my favorite: John). Anyone who has ever sung along to “I Want to Hold Your Hand” must not leave Hamburg before heading down to Beatles-Platz in St. Pauli. This is where I met Stefanie Hempel for H empel’s Beatles-Tour (hempels-music​tour.de), right in front of a cheesy metal statue of the Fab Four. Hempel is an ebullient young musician who T he neighborhood is still crummy, didn’t grow up with the quartet but knows them better than their mothers did. She showed me but I took a selfie in the doorway the Beatles’ Hamburg, from the Indra Club, where they played their first concert in 1960, to where John Lennon slouched for a the Top Ten Club, now the Moondoo, where they photo used on his Rock ’n’ Roll album played for 92 nights straight. The neighborhood is still crummy, but I didn’t care. I took a selfie in the doorway where a pompadoured John Lennon slouched for the photo later used on his Beyond the warehouses, what has risen in Rock ’n’ Roll album cover (which was shot the past 15 years from blighted waterfront has before a local girl named Astrid Kirchherr been a triumph for Hamburg’s urban planners. persuaded the band to get mop-top haircuts). This is the new H afenCity (hafen​city.com), a I have taken few tours that moved me as much, huge tract of modern apartments, shops and and as a bonus, Hempel brought along her restaurants. The development screams luxury ukulele for an unexpectedly rocking rendition with buildings by Richard Meier, but the city of a Beatles song at each stop along the way. has reserved one-third of HafenCity’s housing This may not be today’s Hamburg, but it will for moderate- and low-income tenants. always be my Hamburg.

travelandleisureasia.com / April 2019 43 44 april 2019april / travelandleisureasia.com atter how your family travels, this year’s guide offers fun for everyone. for fun year’s this guide offers familyyour how travels, atter N THE GUIDE THE o m REST

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these trips bring the thrills. by scaling a staircase of discovery at the new cloc i t t

46 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com Winter fun at Hoshino Resorts Risonare Tomamu, in Hokkaido.

Expert Advice C arlah Walton, Head of Product & Marketing, Wendy Wu Tours

Don’t Drive Walking or cycling around a new city, village or region is a great way to interact with locals, to find hidden treasures and shopping spots, and to people watch.

Make Friends A ccepting invitations into people’s homes is a great way to connect. It’s amazing how much can be said even when you speak different languages.

Get Covered Kids hurt themselves easily and if you’re doing adventurous stuff on your trip you increase your chances of needing medical assistance. Make The kids corner sure you have at Hong Kong comprehensive Ocean Park travel insurance for Marriott Hotel. the entire family. el t

onare H ong Kong Ocean Park tt Ho

s get up close to animals snow blankets high kids’ skiing lessons yard yard Marriott Hotel, with its and marine life from mountain peaks and (private lessons are also ts ri 16-meter-high lobby or around the world. twinkling white pine available for families), k Marrio s k b ac of y

ar aquarium, family-themed s marriott.com; Whiskers forests at the five-star, ski and has a nursery that e t ino re rooms, sprawling central Submarine room from in/ski out H oshino Resorts allows little ones to play in sh cean P o lagoon pool and organized $260; oceanpark.com.hk; Risonare Tomamu. As well the snow. Adventure : cour : t scavenger hunts. Next adult tickets from $61, as generous suites, saunas Mountain provides a snow y of O y of h s lef s e door is Ocean Park, where

e child tickets from $30. and jet-baths, Tomamu escalator for kids too t t kids can take a seat on offers easy access to some small for the ski lifts. e fro m e s adrenaline-pumping Hk ok aido, Japan of the best skiing in Japan. hoshinoresorts.com; u; cour wi m el; cour a v rides, see the city from up Step into your very own The GAO Snow Academy Mamarakuda suite m ra o t t k cloc high on the cable car, and fairytale: deep, soft, white teaches both adults’ and from $412.

travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 47 fami ly guide 2019

T he new Explorer Dream pool deck is ideal for families.

The kids room at Iniala Beach House. For an Easy Escape Going on vacation shouldn’t be a complex project. These spots were made with families in mind, so while kids are busy having fun, parents can truly switch off. Expert Advice

A ngel Llull t

Mancas, Managing en Cruise adults can unwind at the while parents put their Director The new Explorer Dream Broadway-style Zodiac feet up. iniala.com; $2,902 Asia Pacific, k & ie Booking.com mb from Dream Cruises will Theater, or the on-board per night, all-inclusive. e launch in Shanghai this spa. dreamcruiseline.com; in the Club ercro s b spring and Tianjin in three-night Japan cruise S ingapore For parents with very young Hou summer for a range of departing Shanghai from As one of Singapore’s first h children, look for a of s y e Japanese itineraries, $406 per person. nature-inspired resorts, accommodation before beginning D’Resort both enthralls options with a kids’

club or varied cour t ; weeklong cruises in P huket, Thailand and entertains. The f iniala Beac

activities. ths

Australia and New Many kids dream about enormous complex y o s e S tay Young riffi t

Zealand for the winter living in a tree house, and features an integrated G

Choose a h season. It’s perfect for at Iniala Beach House, water park, a six-hall our destination that eig ; c s

multigenerational trips: dreams do come true. cineplex, a 32-lane bowling makes you feel like a L e; e s the on-board Little Luxury suites, 24-hour alley and an immense kid again. Letting s your inner child run rui Dreamers Club has a service, wellness and indoor playground. The crui free can be the m

kids-only area with water sports will meet the proximity to Pasir Ris, the break you need. rand C

games, workshops, adults’ standards, while longest stretch of beach in f drea T ffeam E ort y o costume parties and a DJ kids’ bedrooms are made Singapore, makes it the s y of st of s y

I f you are traveling e e booth; teenagers can step to look like jungle ideal city chill-out with extended t into another world at the canopies and caves. location for seaside lovers, family, get everyone our : c

involved in planning t

ESC Experience Lab with Costume shops and a too. dresort.com.sg; to ensure all cour t op: lef t virtual and augmented theater will also keep Rainforest Family room members get a say. m m

reality experiences; while young ones entertained from $185. fro fro

48 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com For a Culture Trip M eeting the locals, learning traditional crafts and tasting authentic food can make a one-of-a-kind way to learn about a region.

China Macau Explore a lesser-known T he St. Regis Macao T he Strand Cruise side of China with knows how to look after immerses guests A bercrombie & Kent’s families. In addition to in traditional 12-day Family China and babysitting services, customs. the Yangtze tour. This trip child-sized robes and is made for kids: toboggan slippers, outdoor pool toys down quiet parts of the and Macanese cooking Macau’s Great Wall; in Xian, learn classes, there is the Macau historic St. Paul’s to make traditional Photo Tour, which gives ruins. dumplings, see the families a Polaroid Terracotta Warriors then camera and photo album craft your own clay to capture special Expert Advice soldier at a local pottery moments as they tour the L ilani Goonesena, factory; head to Chengdu area’s heritage sites, like food and travel to see the giant pandas; the ruins of St. Pauls, the blogger, cruise down the Yangtze, ornate A-Ma Temple, and eatdrinklaos.com and visit an underwater the iconic Lord Stow’s R espect museum; and finish with Bakery in Coloane Village. traditions a kung-fu lesson in marriott.com; Deluxe king Giving alms to monks and going to Shanghai. abercrombie room from $293. temple on religious t kent.com.au; 12-day tour days can make en k from $7,800 per adult, inroads to understanding the e & & e i $7,270 per child. Explore the local community. mb Great Wall with

cro Abercrombie Dress up e

er Burma s & Kent. b T he Lao people love Join a two-, three- or kids and delight in h Hou y of a of y four-night Strand Cruise “falang” (foreign) s

e children wearing t that travels between traditional dress as Bagan and Mandalay. It’s it means they are cour ; suitable for kids aged four getting into the hs

t spirit of things and

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culture. h

ig tour of the imperial e L ; cour Join the party ; ; s capital of Ava by horse and e e D on’t be afraid to s s cart, and exploring walk the street rui C exquisite pagodas and during Pi Mai (new m crui year in April, and and historic temples. There’s r celebrated with st no cabin fever on board: a water splashing). Or y of drea

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s pool with sun deck, spa s e e t coconut husk boat

t and fitness room make down the Mekong cruise time a breeze. during the : cour t thestrandcruise.com; boat-racing festival, o t

Boun Suang Heua, in

m lef m The Strand suite from October.

fro fro $1,063 cour p: per night. 50 guide fami

l not only helps the planet, but also teaches kids kids teaches also but only planet, not the helps april 2019april / travelandleisureasia.com y the communities we visit. we visit. communities the avel gives us the opportunity to give back to back give to opportunity the us avel gives T r 2019 Memories valuable lessons along the way. the along lessons valuable Mindful Mindful R e sponsible tourism tourism sponsible For For S ha S restaurant, restaurant, ck hi ’ ing at ing at D nta nta s Khmer Khmer s in

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from left: courtesy of shinta mani shack; courtesy of rosewood luang prabang; courtesy of bali spirit festival from left: courtesy of shinta mani shack; courtesy of rosewood luang prabang; courtesy of bali spirit festival P the resort, Rosewood’s Rosewood’s resort, the of out Venturing families. for bigger together joined be can rooms Riverside traditions. Buddhist its to legacy colonial and heritage hill-tribe its from area’s history, the reflect tents hilltop and suites sewood abang, R waterfall, private own its beside Nestled ang L u r o abang P ’s design-led design-led ’s r L ua ng L a os Riverside room from $665. from room Riverside rosewoodhotels.com; elephants. rescued healthy and happy MandaLao’s with playing and waterfalls Si Kuang azure the in swimming River, Mekong the along treks temple forgotten monks, novice with sessions chanting excursions, alms-giving than-usual on more-authentic- you take experiences curated ethos of celebrating of celebrating ethos festival’s the with keeping In children. and families for designed workshops storytelling and music dance, crafts, of arts, line-up a huge has Ubud the spirit, and body mind, the on focus that arts martial onesia to dance improvisation and yoga pirate from everything li, Offering B a BaliSpirit Festival BaliSpirit I nd travelandleisureasia.com Getting tricky at the Bali the Festival. S in in p irit irit for seven-day access. seven-day for $850, all pass abundance $250, adult from pass teenager $70, from pass explorer kid festival.com; balispirit areas. driest island’s the in programs reforestation bamboo and schools, at education AIDS and HIV including projects community local to donated are funds environment, the and harmony health, S helps kids reconnect reconnect kids helps can help out at Farm Farm at out help can world. world. are actually made of of made actually are about commitments commitments about tour companies that that companies tour cases they end up in up end they cases O to the environment, environment, the to display information

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fami ly guide 2019 For Foodie Families O ne of the most fun ways to get to know a country, region or town is through its food. Traveling works up an appetite, and tasting local cuisine is the perfect way to fill bellies and hearts.

Expert Advice R affles Laight, the 10-year-old star of boyeatsworld. com.au

Make a deal T he best tip I can give to parents is ditch kids’ menus and encourage their children to eat what locals eat. Make a pact for your kids to eat at least one thing they’ve never tried before each day—they may end up loving it.

B e Patient A lways join the Preparing pho on popular queues at a Black Tomato street markets, tour in Vietnam. because locals know best.

E at unexpected T hough I found the Vietnam blacktomato.com; two- dough pleating. The best fried tarantulas in On this two-week journey week tours from $5,230 per part? Feasting on your Cambodia kind of with Black Tomato Tours, person, all-inclusive except creations after you’ve bland, I can't resist a killer seafood laksa explore Vietnam from for international flights. made them in a family- or khao soi curry. north to south, with style meal. plenty of culinary finds Kath mandu, Nepal backstreetacademy.com; along the way. Stops Learn to master the art of from $18 per person. include Hanoi, Halong the momo (the Nepali- tarik, nasi lemak, blue rice, Bay, Hoi An, Saigon and style dumpling) in an Kuala Lumpur, char kway teow and kuih Con Dao (or Phu Quoc if intimate cooking class Malaysia cakes. Stop off at a local s you prefer). Visit bustling with Backstreet Academy. Learn all about Malaysian market in a Malay Reserve r ou t

local markets and sample This community-focused, cuisine on a half-day village, and wander the o t a

regional specialties such peer-to-peer travel journey with Food Tour streets and family-run m o as the capital’s pho cuon platform connects guests Malaysia’s Off the Rail shophouses in an Indian T k rolls. In the ancient town with local hosts, in this Food Tour. This train tour Muslim neighborhood of Hoi An, float along the case, part-time electrician pauses at different before a traditional nasi of Blac of y coconut-palmed Purna, who invites you roadside stands and kandar. foodtourmalaysia. s e waterways in a traditional into his home to teach the villages along the rail line com; four-hour tour $62 for t

bamboo basket boat. delicate craft of momo where you can try teh an adult, $31 for a child. cour

52 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com courtesy of Black Tomato tours Sale Vacation Super Book now at: www.wyndhamhotels.com/hotel-deals/super-vacation-sale points* whenyou bookdirect from 20March to 03 May 2019 . Save upto anincredible 40%*offourBest Available Rates andearn3,000 Wyndham Rewards bonus your next holiday adventure awaits. Wyndham there to welcome you. With more than100hotels instunning locations across Asia Pacific, Whether you are looking for anadventurous cityescapeorarelaxing beachgetaway, there’s a up to Enjoy 40 % ­ o * *Terms &Conditions apply. (WHR0057) at ILTM PacifiAsia c. Friendships create business Apply to attend in2019. you’ll find both here. If you’re the finest luxury travel supplier or buyer, 27 - 30May 2019at iltm.com/asiapacific be discovered. Register for ILTM Pacific Asia Don’t miss your opportunity to discover and 07 - 09 Apr Africa 2019 28 - 29 Apr Arabia ARABIA 2019 experiences andmoments that matter in the luxury travel industry. ILTM brings together the finest luxury travel professionals to create the places, Latin America 14 - 17May LATIN AMERICA 2019 Asia PacifiAsia c 27 - 30May 2019 North America North 23 - 26Sep NORTH AMERICA 2019 30 Oct - 01Nov China 2019 CHINA 02 - 05Dec Cannes 2019

natthaphong janpum/Alamy Stock Photo april 2019 UPGRADE

travel smarter

IN our nature The Wonders of Astrotourism I f the total eclipse of 2017 left you longing for more celestial phenomena, read on for our guide on viewing the next natural light shows. plus: a new windswept hotel in sync with the skies, and an update on the race to get travelers into suborbital space. o t o Ph k c o t S y m a l A / m Besides waterfalls and sequoias, Yosemite National ng janpu ng o Park in California is h known for its vast a expanses of sky. t na p TH

travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 55 56 upgrad

How w hen Where What april 2019april / travelandleisureasia.com lar lar Total A S C in place take also will which 2020), ( one next the catch can (July 2),you year’s this miss to get your bearings. time have you so eclipse, the before A don’t your block view. S seconds. 36 and minutes two last C to summer, or this seconds 15 and minutes two about last will totality to Head spectacle. full the see to traveling worth it’s so wide), kilometers A in event year’s this (during totality of path the within you’re if covered fully appears only sun the but average, on months 18 every T Jordan Harvey (jordan@knowmad Harvey Jordan adventures.com; 1-612/315-2894), a tour. days from US$3,545) from days departures o t o h h - m r ay on the coast, so the mountains mountains the so coast, the on ay L tal solar eclipses occur about about occur eclipses solar tal rive in late June, a few days days afew June, late in rive uth uth ile and and ile ungungo, should where totality erica, it will be about 150 150 about be will it erica, i st, advises joining an organized organized an joining advises st, e T r A y one of of y one S m L o a A erica specialist on on specialist erica S r (intrepidtravel.com; six six (intrepidtravel.com; gentina. gentina. e rena, rena, E I n c trepid trepid lipse C D . h S e ile, where where ile, hou cember 14, cember T r avel’s two avel’s two ld you S o T uth uth + L ’ s

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checkn i G oodnight Moon A new hotel at a spiritual nexus for stargazers, sign-readers and solitude-seekers is putting a far-flung Korean isle on the map. By Daven Wu

U lleungdo is an undulating masterpiece as ethereal as the sky it was built to salute.

As islands go, the first impression moonlight calms and soothes away of Ulleungdo tends to be a little stress and anxiety. A glimpse of Mount underwhelming. Rising out of South It’s almost kismet then that last Song-got in the dining room. Korea’s East Sea, this squat, dark year, the Healing Stay Kosmos debuted mound of cedar- and juniper-cloaked at Chusan-ri, a rugged spot at the edge volcanic rock seems an unlikely of Mount Song-got and Seonginbong dream destination, especially as Peak where the island’s energy flow is getting here is, to put it mildly, a believed to be at its strongest. major schlep. Designed by The System Lab, the And yet, for generations, successive new 12-bedroom resort (four of waves of curious travelers—lured first which must be rented together as the by word of mouth and latterly by single Villa Kosmos) is a remarkable gorgeous Instagram posts—have fusion of pioneering engineering, braved the rough seas from the local materials, and elegantly mainland, inexorably drawn to the futuristic architecture. island’s mix of unearthly raw beauty, “Koreans believe that places with unique outdoorsy pursuits and rich chi energy heals the energy of incredible cuisine and, most vitally, people and helps their wishes come spiritual energy. true,” says the project’s lead architect For reasons now lost in time, Chanjoong Kim, and to his credit, the Ulleungdo is believed to be an energy resort’s design is a subtle nod to that gateway, a natural conjunction belief while managing to never between the primal forces of the descend into obvious tropes. Earth and the sky in which the The all-white façade is an wan (3) waters are suffused with healing arresting swirl of loops and curls, the properties, the forests balance silhouette meant to symbolize the m yong k i emotional trauma, and even the flow of yin and yang energies. The k

58 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com on the horizon Space Race Are you and your bank Light and life account ready to follow flow into the these rocket-men up, up hotel from and away into the every direction. atmosphere?

The race to cross the final frontier is heating up. Leading unusually ethereal quality of the based around the sweet local fish and the charge is Sir Richard architecture is the result of ultra- mountain vegetables available in the Branson, the billionaire high performance concrete that area, and where recent gastronomic determined to be in space in doesn’t require reinforcing steel, triumphs have included steamed the next few months on board which meant that the ultra-thin Dokdo Island shrimp served with a his own Virgin Galactic spaceship, in time to celebrate 12-centimeter walls were poured and parsley and oyster emulsion, and a the 50th anniversary of the formed on-site. The design, Kim beef short-rib cooked sous-vide for 40 Apollo 11 moon landing. notes, had to complement the hours and paired with a heady truffle Branson’s coup, if he pulls environment, and flow with the potato purée. it off, is just the tip of a more monumental presence of Mount And on a clear night, when the ambitious, commercial vision Song-got. “That’s why I wanted the black-velvet sky is ablaze with stars of putting fare-paying private architecture to be as light as possible, unmarred by light pollution, sit passengers into suborbital like a scarf lightly floating at the edge yourself in the resort’s Ring Chair in space—a joy-ride that, for of the cliff,” he says. “The building a grassy plain, and soak in the now, anyway, given the may be an artificial existence, but it’s moonlight pouring down like a limitations of the available technology, will last just a few one that does not conflict with the benediction from Mount Song-got. minutes, since the spaceship surrounding nature.” Like the resort itself, the does not pull free of the Facing the sunrise, the sea or experience is utterly in harmony Earth’s gravitational pull. trees, each villa is designed with nature. The caliber of Branson’s according to astrological and competitors vying to be the meteorological charts, and the first to monetize space travel diktats of yin and yang geomancy— is impressive. Among them: specifically the five elements—and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Amazon guests are assigned to rooms The Details CEO Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, Visit thekosmos.co.kr, and villakosmos.com according to their birthdates. and several private Chinese for Villa Kosmos bookings; or call 82-2/ companies funded by China’s As expected, the extracurricular 2038-9595. Rates start from W350,000 per giant state space agency. The night. The four-bedroom Villa Kosmos is activities on offer cleave closely to the prize is a space and astral island’s natural bounty, most of it rented out entirely (for a minimum of four and maximum of eight guests) with rates tourism industry that, pristine and undeveloped, largely as starting at W2,500,000 per person, per according to a 2017 study by a result of its physical isolation over night, a price that covers airport and ferry Bank of America Merrill the centuries. Lined with rocky cliffs transfers— including a limousine service Lynch, will be worth US$3 and caves, the emerald-hued waters from Seoul Incheon International airport— trillion in 30 years. around Seongin Peak are a natural butler service, tour guide, and all meals For now, the airfare for a cooked by a private chef. draw for kayakers and scuba divers. seat on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo is suitably sky- Beaten paths fringed with wild Getting There high, with a single passenger Pampas grass wend through forests The resort will provide detailed ticket (return, of course) of fragrant pines, past lighthouses instructions, but generally, take the Airport Railroad Express (letskorail.com) from hovering at around the and bijoux fishing villages, and the Incheon International Airport to Seoul or US$250,000 mark, though shimmering 25-meter-high Cheongnyangni train stations, which takes Branson hopes prices will Bongnaepokpo waterfall. about 1½ hours (arex.or.kr). Then take a train drop to around US$45,000 The indolent may, of course, to either Pohang (2½ hours from Seoul within the next decade. n (3) prefer to stay within the grounds of station) or Gangneung Port (two hours from You can’t help but wonder wa k Cheongnyangni station). Hop onto a three- what the frequent flyer the Kosmos, where executive chef hour ferry ride to Ulleungdo (daezer.com). program will look like. — D.W.

y Sunjin Hwang parlays stints at El On arrival at the island, it’s a 20-minute m i k ong Bulli and Noma into a robust menu taxi-ride to the resort.

travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 59 60 upgrad rks: rks: e T ppens: d When Thai shoulder season is my my is season shoulder September and October.” and September season, post–rainy is mid-May. second The through of March end the roughly is first the two: are the not-quite-peak months in their specialty regions. in specialty their months not-quite-peak the ree ree T h h A (noun) hacker fare o lex single round-trip ticket. than rather a fares, one-way two P l

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OUTDOOR VIETNAM t+l reader specials Sheraton Grand This month’s deals offer fun city stays the whole family can enjoy, Danang Resort plus a romantic getaway to Dubai, beach breaks in Vietnam, Take advantage of the white sands and clear waters that Indonesia and Thailand, and more. front Sheraton Grand Danang Resort to reach your exercise goals. The ocean-view hotel has a new fitness challenge for their guests, with incentives for those who complete the trials. Finish four laps in the 250-meter infinity pool to receive a complimentary cocktail; run or walk 10 kilometers at the Sheraton Fitness Center or on a beach or sightseeing trail to earn a 50 percent discount off a Shine Spa treatment; kayak two kilometers in the ocean to be rewarded with a banh mi and Vietnamese coffee at the hotel’s Tea Lounge. Complete all three challenges to earn a free afternoon high tea for two. Guests can register for the challenge at the Sheraton Fitness desk, where they will receive a special passport to mark each completed goal. 20 t i

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in your choice of a Junior suite, t Danang Resort r o offers a fitness Thai villa, Sanchaya suite or s challenge. two-bedroom villa; one round of golf for two people; a private wine and cheese tasting with the Estate sommelier for two people; daily a la carte n grand danang re

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64 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com from top: courtesy of sheraton grand danang resort; courtesy of well hotel bangkok sukhumvit 20

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stephan kotas April 2019

u p on stilts and topped by canvas, new eco-resorts across the region are making hotels fun again. no need for walls when you check in to these tented camps p. 68

f our hours from seattle are some of the best wines in the pacific northwest and an outsize number of killer chefs. welcome to walla walla p. 80

stog d y? no way. there’s a new generation of independent boutiques in the u.k. that has us planning a cross-country tour of british hotels p. 88

one of the original mega-cities, the busy mexican capital needn’t be tough to navigate. just stick to these 10 ’hoods in mexico city p. 96 s a I n the t o k Photographer’s

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travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 67 Under The Big Top Big The Under spiritedly and whimsically redefining the luxury-resort experience. luxury-resort the redefining whimsically and spiritedly Glamping is so last season. season. last so is Glamping t he region is setting a new standard for conservationism, while conservationism, for standard anew setting is region he A handful of new tented camps across across camps tented new of handful

from top: christopher kucway; aaron joel santos

from top: stephan kotas; courtesy of The Pavilions Himalayas Lake View from top: christopher kucway; aaron joel santos

from top: stephan kotas; courtesy of The Pavilions Himalayas Lake View these camps are far from back-to-basics. Cuisine is big-city big-city is Cuisine back-to-basics. from far are camps these pages. following onthe spots new of the three and ago years adozen Triangle Golden Camp Tented Seasons Four iconic the creating trend, of this leader facto de the is designer hotel beyond-prolific The us. told Bensley Bill footprint, small a really You make ormigration. drainage of patterns the don’t you so change points, six only at Earth Mother touch structures “Tented them. around wildlife and communities the to preservationist and kind gate the of out busting are properties canvas-covered new green, as themselves rebrand to scrambling all are hotels existing nte T e Though their goal is to bring you back to nature, all of of all nature, to back you bring to is goal their Though d

c a mps are havin are mps g amoment. In an era when when era an In ” Man and beast alike are getting a better night’s sleep. night’s abetter getting are alike beast and Man of eco-retreats. onlands protection found have fauna, other many among primates, endangered hoots—the gibbon the bed aking across hear barely could we loud so were birds the Amazon, the lions, the lodges. Alpine European and retreats trekking American South camps, safari of African amash-up like They’re bathtubs. scenic pools, private doors, Hand-carved butler. action-hero towel–bearing acold sidekick your as send but Tomb Raider–style... in you plunge Activities backyards. their from foraged flavors local of full but refinement, its in “ I like having only this much material between you and and you between material much this only having I like ” “In “In together. fingers two holding said, Bensley travelandleisureasia.com .” At his new camp in Cambodia, listen for for listen Cambodia, in camp new his At

/ a Yala from from pril 2019 2019 pril S Bali. Bali. ud, in in ud, pella C H h C a i inta inta malayas Lake Lake malayas N a View, View, in in mbodia; and mbodia; a b se KW cl tional tional e M S P l o r a U o avilions i c ni Wild, Wild, ni L N w b a 69 e : P nka. nka. The The pal a i rk rk ; Shinta Mani Wild C ome fly away to a luxe, cunningly conservationist jungle book in the heart of Cambodia. By Jeninne Lee-St. John photographed By aaron joel santos

t was about a year and a half ago when Bill Bensley told me about his fantastical plans for Shinta Mani Wild, his first entirely home-grown resort. “You’re going to take a zipline from the highest point on the property, over the waterfall and back, to the welcome platform, where you’ll be handed a gin and tonic,” he laughed, “because by then you need it.” Obviously, I then proceeded to gush to everyone about the double ziplines—even though I didn’t fully believe it. Hoteliers tell you a lot of things pre-opening, and many of them don’t pan out. This was the nuttiest thing any hotelier had ever told me, so the sheer chutzpah of the idea was exciting enough to pique the imagination about what the real Shinta Mani Wild might include, whether or not sailing in above the southern Cambodian Irainforest was a realistic way to hand over your passport. So, when one of the first things my butler, Boren, says after he picks me up from the Phnom Penh airport in his camouflage vest is that he used to be a professional M uch of the fare at Shinta Mani Wild includes produce and herbs foraged on site. clw ock ise from below: The resort pool, in a break in the trees; Boren, one of the camp butlers; the room rate is inclusive of all spa treatments.

couple of arm lengths’ away and the rope runs out. Back he goes to the platform. Back he comes with a longer rope. He hooks us to each other, and Boren reels us in. “You should live your life big,” Boren says to me. “But sometimes you have to make yourself small.” Everyone is laughing. I’m loving the nonchalance of the whole situation. Zipline No. 2 is a seven-second breeze. And then someone indeed hands me a drink (Bloody Mary, pre-radioed in by Boren) as soon as I drop in. I’m not sure of our exact GPS positioning, but I do know that we are light years removed from your typical five-star. ziplining guide, I scan my brain for the other crazy promises Bensley had made me. Guests can go out on anti- not a man known to be constrained by realism, Bensley poaching patrols: “You can pick up snares,” he said. (Sure, acquired the rights to this land by subterfuge: posing as an sounds safe.) The room rate includes all alcohol: “That’s aw-shucks, cowboy boots–wearing capitalist, he won a how I like to travel. No nickel-and-diming.” (Oh, Bill, you 99-year concession and logging rights to 350 hectares in might regret that when I get there.) But first things first. the Southern Cardamom Mountains, left it untouched for The fly-in entrance is real and I’m super excited. Maybe a 15 years, and has now opened the most ambitious, luxury little too excited—3½ hours later I find myself dangling in eco-resort in the region. Its all-inclusive rate covers multi- mid-air over a brook, waiting to be rescued from the course meals prepared at the chef’s discretion or your middle of the second-longest zipline in Southeast Asia. request, all-you-can-spa treatments, all activities, and the We had changed cars at the property line, from a new salaries, room and board for the team of park rangers who SUV to an old U.S. Army Jeep that’s part of the fleet the live on-site. “This is an extension of all the good work we hotel acquired from the production of Angelina Jolie’s are doing with the Shinta Mani Foundation,” Bensley said Khmer Rouge biopic, First They Killed My Father. We had of the Siem Reap–based organization he’s affiliated with bumped up a rutted dirt road to the tall zipline-takeoff that runs a hospitality school, issues micro-loans, covers tower. At the top, Boren stuck his finger up and declared tuitions, funds healthcare and promotes sustainable there was no wind. “Make yourself small,” he told me, “if farming to help lift rural Cambodians out of poverty. you don’t want to get stuck.” But, I wanted to let it hang At Wild, there are only 15 guest tents dotting a 1½- all loose, kick my legs, and take 360-degree video above kilometer stretch of river, meaning you’ll often have the the trees. I wanted to milk the zipline for all it was worth. staff’s undivided attention. Because it’s a baby boutique I did not make myself small. So here I am, having coasted brand, and probably also because it’s middle-of-nowhere to within two meters of the landing zone and then rolled Cambodia, normal hotel rules do not apply. Zipline as ever so slowly back from whence I came, stuck. much as you want: your butler will grab any of his pals No matter. who are available—they’re all trained for flying—to do It’s a clear, sunny day. Maybe I should be scared, the 320-meter run with you. Most nice hotels are wary of dangling 30 meters in the air, but what can I do? I lean calling you a motorbike taxi, but this one has as an official back, I listen to the birds, I take in the view down the activity climbing on pillion behind the rangers to go out valley, I wave at a local guy passing below. Boren has sent on patrol. Did I mention Boren brought me cliff jumping? one end of a rope with a ranger to Spiderman-shimmy “My dad took me camping all over America,” Bensley down the cable to fetch me. I’m live-streaming it on said. “This place is fulfilling my childhood dreams and Instagram and you can hear me crack up when he gets a reliving my memories.” Which perhaps explains why the

travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 71 custom boat on which I am lucky enough to take the maiden voyage (two more are under construction), is so damn cute. It looks like a little boy hand-built a toy model then put it under an expando-ray. Boren pours champagne on the upper deck as we sail the Srey Ambel Estuary, through a serene side of Cambodia I’ve never seen. The banks are pristine. The only people we encounter are uniformed school kids and dudes on motorbikes crossing on wooden barges with poles. There are beaches of white sand that my feet melt into like cookie dough. The sense of freedom is liberating. And the little boy’s sense of adventure is contagious. When I’m visiting in late January, the area has just eased into dry season, a state of affairs that ordinarily might preclude kayaking, but Boren is stoked for it. “It’s so fun,” he enthuses. “I love dragging the kayaks out when you get stuck.” Out, I soon find out he means, of tangled masses of roots that have broken the waterline, over muddy embankments that sporadically ground us, and under awkwardly positioned branches that require me to do an in-boat limbo. With Boren hopping in and out of the kayak so much, I have a front-row seat to my own personal Ironman Challenge. Det, the resident naturalist, is a shier soul whose true passion is for forest bathing. Bensley had told me that he had found 11 kinds of edible mushrooms on the property. During my visit, I learn that Det also discovered a species of vanilla there that was previously unseen in Cambodia. He is a keen orchid hunter. A nature stroll with him is utter serenity, largely because of his own sweet nature. An excursion with the rangers can be a little more harrowing. Poaching, logging and squatting remain big problems and big business, even though the surrounding region was made a national park shortly after Bensley got his land. A live civet can fetch US$100 on its way, often, to an inhumane kopi luwak farm. Mainland Chinese, in the Cambodian land-grab, offer locals US$500 a hectare for illegal clearings, so they can claim squatters’ rights

T he deck of one of the 15 guest tents. clw ock ise from left: R angers funded by the camp are always on the hunt for poachers and loggers; the zipline entrance; antique aesthetic. and build developments. The Wildlife Alliance-Shinta Mani Wild rangers are fighting an uphill battle with residence includes a car and every trapped wild boar they free or logger they arrest. private driver. the-beige.com; After a multi-day sting in January, for example, they from US$355. — J.C. impounded an excavator and marched the workers to court, only to have the case thrown out and the evidence Roo sewo d Luang returned. Still, when you see the rudimentary snares, four other tented Prabang Hilltop Tents, often hand-made of split branches and twine, dotting triumphs laos Wa Ale Island Resort, forest paths, it’s hard to lose faith in the good fight. While the 100 or so stairs that While the camp’s concept is extraordinary—“I’m never burma lead to Rosewood Luang going to make any money off of this,” Bensley tells me. L anbi Island next door is home Prabang’s hilltop tents sound to Burma’s only national marine like a schlep, you’ll hardly notice. “This is purely feel-good”—the aesthetic is actually quite Built on a former rice terrace, understated for his standards. Tents contain old park—convenient whether you’re staying in one of the 11 the brick path to your sky-high hardbacks, steamer trunks and Princess-and-the-Pea beds luxury tented villas on one- canvas palace is lined with that you sink into like a fluffy hug. On the porch is the kilometer Turtle Beach, named trickling streams, bamboo living area with your big minibar; custom murals and for the sea turtles whose nests groves, gardens and banana palms—a verdant playground couches provide color, and several old brass fans keep the resort carefully protects, or one of the two whimsical treetop for butterflies, dragonflies and things cool—as does the river that I’m told rushes under villas made of recycled timber. bees. The six 75-square-meter my tent during rainy season. Canvas flaps can be lowered A rustic yet elegant open-air tents are each named and around this area, but then you’d be walling yourself off pavilion contains the main designed after regional hill dining area. Chef Ray Wyatt, a tribes. Example: as the Lisu are from the already Insta-famous, corner-perched faux-ivory known for their colorful tunics, tub and the hammocks next to it that hang over the gully. veteran of African safari camps, creates mouthwatering and their tent has the traditional It’s tempting to laze here in my bathrobe, but Boren dynamic menus using resort garments on wall hangings and and Det are waiting to take me ziplining one final time. garden produce, sustainably on a mannequin, and a tasseled It’s my last morning in this summer camp for grown- caught seafood from the headpiece crowns the king- sized bed—which looks out onto ups, and I should live my life big, right? It goes without archipelago, and graded fresh meats from Thailand. The hotel a balcony giving way to views of saying that I get stuck again. No matter. I’m not quite naturalist doubles as a guide for fog-shrouded mountains, ready to pick up my passport yet. cross-island treks and kayaking. distant Luang Prabang, and the waaleresort.com; from US$400 rest of the Bill Bensley– designed, French hill station– shintamani.com; doubles from US$1,900, inclusive of board, per night, per person sharing. — JEO CUMMINGS inspired property. Tents also alcohol, spa, activities, and airport transfers to and from form the Sense Spa, which is perched right above Rosewood’s Phnom Penh (three hours) and Sihanoukville (two hours). Th e Beige, cambodia section of the Nauea River. L ast year, nearly 2.5 million Glass squares in the floor people visited Angkor Wat, provide a calming peephole to most of them ferried back and the flowing water below. forth by bus from hotel clusters rosewoodhotels.com; tents from in nearby Siem Reap. You can US$932. — Eloise Basuki escape the clogged roadway by staying at The Beige, situated Thv e Pa ilions Himalayas on 10 hectares of tranquil lake view, nepal farmland north of Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat. Boasting “no T ented camps have been a traces of vinyl or plastic,” the safari-standard in India for resort offers eight tented villas generations; now neighboring made with wood and durable Nepal has its first luxury eco- organic sailcloth, which are up camp. Ensconced in rice fields to 112 square meters inside and and accessible only by fitted out with colonial-style paddleboat, the eight tented furniture. Air-con equipment is villas have fully retractable carefully concealed; private wraparound glass doors, which terraces and indoor-outdoor means you can count on baths ensure plenty of close Himalayan views for days. The contact with nature. Cool off in wellness cred here is as high as the infinity pool, mounted on the the altitude: the pool is filled by roof of the library and reception a natural spring, the spa building and surrounded by therapists are Ayurvedic, and jungle views; in cooler months, the resort’s organic farm take a lounge chair by the supplies your produce. Best of outdoor firepit.L ocal chefs all, The Pavilions dedicates half prepare innovative dishes of its profits to improving the inspired by Khmer regional lives of children and young cuisine using all-organic people in neighboring Pokhara. ingredients, many grown on the pavilionshotels.com; doubles resort’s own farm. Each from US$332. — J.L.S.

travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 73 Wild Coast Tented Lodge A t the far end of Sri Lanka, it’s a question of who is watching who in Yala National Park. s tory and photographs by Christopher Kucway

here’s something skittering across the roof of my tent, something that sounds like bowling balls bouncing along a tin shed. I’m wanting for nothing: I’ve got a four-poster bed with mosquito netting, copper bath, teak floor, full complimentary bar, all enshrouded in a heavy, taut canvas so it’s easy to forget that I am still in the wilds of Yala National Park in the far southeast of Sri Lanka. But out on my deck, I see what’s happening: way too easily, a grey langur dive bombs off my roof, almost in slow motion, over my head and into a tree. A second one follows. Then a few babies. I’m in the center ring of a mid- afternoon circus, which is kind of odd given that our four hours of touring the park earlier that morning yielded little A welcoming more than listless water buffalo, some curious deer and a handmade copper tub. T blue jay or two. I’m on the edge of the park but still part of it. from top: O ne of the smaller pod-like I had arrived at dawn, after a lengthy middle-of-the tents; an indifferent night drive from Colombo. The closer we got, the longer painted stork. the journey took, with the last two kilometers along a washboard of a dirt road dotted with elephant crossing signs. We pulled in as the pitch-black night gave way to a vivid orange strip of sky over the Indian Ocean. Daylight unveiled a tented camp—truth be told, the 28 luxe tents here look like oversized onions or alien landing pods, next to the ocean rolling ashore more loudly than the birdsong. Checking in, I was presented with a litany of what is where, when it’s there and how things work: Ring the front desk when I wanted to head to dinner. Someone would accompany me on the short walk—since there are no man-made boundaries, wild pigs, monkeys, and possibly the occasional leopard are roaming around. For their dinner, I presume. The warnings extend to the beach where I’m not to venture out of sight along a shore with crashing waves and families of wild elephants. While the park has been set aside by man as a preserve, Mother Nature is clearly in charge here. Only 90 minutes after the 2004 earthquake off Sumatra, a tsunami struck here, waves reaching more than six meters tall. Some 250 people perished in the immediate area.

74 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com There’s a chill in the air at sunrise, a welcome dip in we’re driving along an oversized cheese grater. Tip to the the temperature since, for most of the day, the sun sears left, lurch forward, roll to the right, bounce upwards. Our everything it oversees. This parched landscape lives and driver grumbles in Sinhalese. No further, he protests, his dies with the monsoon, one constant being the strong truck can’t take it. Onwards, just a little more, insists the winds that rake the shoreline, permanently bending guide, who flashes hand signals to slow or stop. In the trees to its liking as if some unseen and oversized bonsai search for wildlife, we roll down a precipitous natural stone master had his hand in it all. embankment; I tighten my grip, close my eyes and hope we Nature may rule, but the creature comforts at Wild don’t rip out the bottom of the jeep. Finally, inevitably, we Coast Tented Lodge—where 40 percent of the power is turn a corner to confront a washed-out trail. How deep this solar and gray water is recycled to irrigate the puddle—lake?—drops we decide not to find out. landscape—cushion the blow in a quirky manner known Managing a 14-point turn, next to the bulk known as only to those who have visited the subcontinent. Elephant Rock, we retrace our path. A squawking “Everything is fine in your room, sir?” peacock stares at us from under the shade of a tree, “Ah no, the coffee maker doesn’t always work.” mocking our passage. But it wasn’t a futile journey. “So then, everything is fine in your room sir?” At 979 square kilometers, Yala National Park is only “Well, the coffee… Uh, yes, okay.” slightly smaller than Hong Kong. Its forests, scrub, That conversation having come to an abrupt, natural grassland and lagoons are home to 250 bird species and end, my Cocoon Suite is sumptuous. The king bed is 44 varieties of mammal, most notably one of the world’s welcome. Special soaps are there to ensure I don’t largest concentrations of leopards. Declared a wildlife damage the handmade copper tub. (Note to guests: if you sanctuary in 1900, then a national park in 1938—a period lounge on the outdoor deck, keep your door closed.) when the British appropriated this land as hunting (Second note to guests: don’t leave anything shiny on the grounds—it now is only open to pursuit with binoculars deck. Sunglasses and coffee mugs disappear quickly.) and digital cameras. Not erring on the side of caution, I make my way to Yes, there were a few dust-churning convoys of jeeps dinner unaccompanied—save the seven wild pigs that racing towards rumors of elephant herds or shy leopards, blur through the bush with definite purpose in a different but we quickly tired of that and headed down a narrow direction. The camp’s bar and restaurant nudge against path of our own, escaping the crowds in the hope of the coast, a perfect spot to watch the same sun that tripping across a resident or two who was trying to do the greeted me on arrival sink to the other side of the world. same thing. As we roll slowly along, a Crested serpent By morning, I completely forget what day of the week it is. eagle, its white bar along its wingspan obvious, swooped low over our jeep, landing in a tree long enough to check us Down a single track in a jeep, thick with bramble on out. Camouflaged in the bush is an endless array of both sides, there’s only forward or reverse here. Keep your wildlife, from alligators sunning themselves on the grassy arms in the jeep. Shield your eyes. Thistle-heavy branches banks to Chestnut-headed bee-eaters, blurs of green, blue, whip into the truck when you least expect it. It feels like yellow and chestnut once they fly off. As we exit the bush, Painted storks are easier to spot: gangly creatures, they’re more concerned with fishing in a small pond than with us. En route back to camp, we veer down a side road and come A four-poster bed across a herd of equally famished elephants chomping awaits. R ight: An their way through some dense growth. As we exit the elephant ambles park, the closest thing to a leopard we’ve seen being a paw through the park. print, it feels as if the wild animals are lying in wait for the park to close to us touristing humans at 6 p.m. For them it’s home and, if need be, they know where I live.

resplendentceylon.com; doubles from US$700, inclusive of room, board, alcohol, and Yala National Park safari; the drive from Colombo international airport takes five hours. Capella Ubud C hannel explorers from a different era, find Zen in unlikely places, oh, and tone those glutes in Bali. By Jeninne Lee-St. John photographed By stephan kotas

hether or not Capella Ubud is for you depends on whether or not pratfalling into a cow patty could be your idea of a hilarious time. During a saffron, tubs are copper, and toilets are antler-topped “get acclimated” walk through the thrones. As soon we arrive, I get social media anxiety farming hamlet adjacent to the resort anticipating all the photogenic everything everywhere: property, our guide, Arya, suggests the striped Cistern in the valley, for one, ringed by tall we might want to feed an adorable U-shaped pipes gushing water into the pool, is industrial calf in a little hollow. Faster than I can steampunk that manages to look of the place. say moo, my friend Alisa steps But the hotel is much more than skin-deep beautiful. forward off a rice terrace, loses her There’s a feeling of magic that pervades the property— balance and is knee-deep in dung. and overrides any protestations from one’s, say, calves, Arya is racing to help her up but I’m from repeatedly hiking up from one’s farthest-flung tent. doubled over with laughter—and Capella Ubud is super green (no trees were harmed nor soon so are they. Farming is optional at the jungle-nestled irrigation channels diverted in the building of this Capella Ubud, but when your guide knows all the neighbors resort), intensely local, spiritually grounded, endearingly Wof both the two- and four-legged varieties, your best bet is to personable, and a little bit weird. In the pre-dawn, your just dive in to these organic experiences no matter where private sherpas will get you up and down Mount Batur they lead. Not to worry, laundry is included. with smiles, safety and lots of selfies; come dusk, head for Another brainchild of Bill Bensley, this historical- cocktail hour in the Officers’ Tent, a custom-wallpapered fantasy resort that opened last summer on the outskirts Wes Anderson set adorned by Edison-era bulbs, leather of Keliki village 20 minutes from downtown Ubud takes arm chairs and carved deer heads, in which general as its inspiration the European settlers of the 1800s; the manager Simon Dornan and executive chef Matt McCool 23 tents are themed on members of an old-world have an on-going billiards competition. Where else can expedition party—the Baker’s Tent and the you follow up an eight-course chef’s-table tasting menu Cartographer’s Tent, for example. Floors are made of with s’mores at a campfire to the background of black- dimpled teak in Central Java, doors and headboards are and-white Indonesian movies? Where else does slipping hand-carved masterworks, umbrellas are tasseled silk in a cow patty count as a luxury experience?

76 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com B y now it should be clear that Capella Ubud is not your average luxe life of leisure. It’s built into a cliff, so even if you’re rooming higher on the grounds, you’ve got to walk uphill a bit to reach any of the facilities. If, like I am, you’re down below, in the Temple Tent, ostensibly so you can hear the dulcet sound of the Wos River and get a better sense of how enmeshed the resort is in its community—smile and wave at the local residents bringing offerings to the altar in the valley from which this room takes its name—but possibly because your friends at Capella are gas-lighting you, it’s a literal hike to anywhere else on the property. I start counting how many steps up it takes to get to breakfast and keep losing track around 300. I’m not complaining; I don’t need to go to the gym all week. Toss in a trek to the top of an active volcano and my fitness needs are sorted. It does require a fair amount of willpower to say yes to C apella Ubud is hidden a 3 a.m. wake-up call, but I had been wanting to hike in deep in the jungle. Mount Batur, one of Bali’s four sacred peaks, for years, clkw oc ise from and during a stay at a resort inspired by expedition below: Chef Matt parties seemed like an apropos time. Capella minimizes McCool and general the hardship: our SUV is filled with blankets and pillows manager Simon Dornan have a nightly billiards for the hour ride, and they’re one of a handful of hotels game; international with a license to drive all the way to the foot of the trail. cuisine with Balinese It’s not just the smugness inherent in line-skipping that’s twists; tents come with such a perk of getting this head start; when you’re hiking private pools; the resort’s traditional to a summit 1,717 meters above sea level, every step healer, Pak Budi. matters, and when you’re trying to get there by sunrise, so does every extra minute of sleep. So, after a quick pit- stop at the base where everyone else has to leave their cars and minivans, we keep driving up a long twisting road, passing all the less fortunate souls forced to start hiking before the actual hike begins. It’s cold in the pre-dawn. Alisa and I are bundled up in layers of athletic gear, sweaters and parkas, and our butler-guides, Arya and Sundana, have put headlamps over our knit hats. The trail is steep, but lined, luckily, with branches and shrubs to grasp for leverage. If I start to even consider feeling winded, I look at the three happy superhero guides, the pair from the hotel and a local tour guide, watching out for us. They’re tasked with carrying a massive picnic basket, a first-aid kit, extra gear, lots of water, our backpacks when they become awkward... plus making sure we don’t fall off the mountain. The rest point is about two-thirds of the way up, but, Arya warns us, less than halfway in terms of exertion. Indeed, no longer solid ground, the new trail is loose volcanic dirt. It feels like quicksand and requires all my core strength not to lose my balance with each step. The occasional glance backwards reveals a twinkling daisy chain of flashlights snaking from far down in the valley. I wonder if the folks at the way bottom will possibly make it up by sunrise. And then, when my glutes are about ready to call it, we’re at the summit. The guys beeline it to their perfect spot on the ridgeline and make quick work of spreading out a big gingham blanket and unpacking tiffin boxes of breakfast sandwiches, fresh pastries and fruit. They pour us coffee, wrap throws around our shoulders, and go off for their own repast. As the sky starts to lighten, the ridge becomes more crowded and everyone who passes by wearing not enough clothes, carrying not five hours Capella had blocked off on our itinerary—until enough sustenance and lacking their own butler, to say we got there and tried being artists. The drawings are so nothing of three, looks at our five-star oasis longingly. small, detailed, often symmetrical, you’d think they were I offer a sandwich to a particularly pitiful Frenchman. based on stencils. We keep I Wayan Gama and his cousin Thanks to thick haze, there isn’t much of a sunrise; I Wayan Ariana until well past sunset, teaching us about think more a blurry clementine hiding in hollandaise stroke order and proportionality, interrupted every so sauce. But that’s beside the point. We made it to the top often by real pupils seeking advice on their progress. with time to spare, bonded with our guide buddies, and, Alisa and I finally leave, more for their sake than for giddy from over exhaustion, all five of us basically skip ours. The practice was meditative and, on the shaded down the other, less steep, side of the mountain back to veranda in their family home, we felt a part of the our car, pristine Lake Batur shimmering in the distance. community. I’m pretty sure that is the primary purpose of every detail we encounter during this stay at this S ome people go to Ubud for the yoga. I go for the hotel—a Balinese deep-dive. In the guest tents, the tree- shamans. Capella has their own in house, Pak Budi, and in shaded outdoor showers and private pools make for one of the spa tents under a wall covered by a Bill Bensley– nature-immersion water ablutions, and there are no TVs original painting of a Balinese offering basket, he floats his because they would drown out the nightly soundtrack of hands over me conducting an energy-healing session that the jungle-animal squawks from the treetops. I love it, rebalances my chi flow and somehow alleviates the nausea and falling asleep each evening I wish I had a bedside and stomach cramps that had hit me in the middle of the wildlife curator to tell me who was making every noise. night. Alisa, meanwhile, had arrived at the resort with a I guess next time I’ll check in to the Naturalist’s Tent. chronic pain that after two sessions with Budi seems to be working its way out of her system. capellahotels.com; doubles from US$838 inclusive of daily We find another kind of soulful rejuvenation at the breakfast, nightly cocktails and canapes, in-room minibar, Keliki Arts School. The intricate style of drawing and smart phone for data and international calls, certain painting looks ancient but was only developed in the activities, and, for stays of two nights or more, roundtrip 1970s. The imagery generally depicts idyllic scenes of transfers from Denpasar airport (two hours). The omakase traditional Balinese life or mythology. Keliki artists once restaurant, Api Jiwa, is open to the public, with chef Matt anchored the economy here, until tourism plummeted curating an 80-percent locally sourced eight- to 10-course after the 2002 terrorist bombings. menu based on guest preferences; US$90 per person. I Wayan Gama opened a free school within his placid family compound to keep the tradition alive, and so when we visit one afternoon, about 10 boys (girls are welcome, but we are told they prefer dancing lessons) are hunched over low tables, concentrating on their original works, which might take a few weeks to complete depending on the size. The school sells the pictures, starting from US$15 and going much higher, and gives the proceeds entirely to the young artists. Art supplies are paid for with donations from visitors and hotels. It didn’t seem conceivable that a trip to an artists’ school would take the

M ads Lange dining room looks (2) tented camp of cardamom courtesy down on the Cistern. Left: Intricate Keliki paintings often take weeks to finish. R olling down Preak Tachan River. lfe t: A safari-style guest room in Cardamom Tented Camp.

CARDAMOM TENTED

CAMP The camp is completely off the grid, so a solar I t’s no quick jaunt to get completely off the grid, but photovoltaic system provides most electric power, backed this ambitious Cambodian eco-stay is worth the trek. up by a low-consumption generator when needed. A By Joe Cummings sustainable water-treatment system filters local water and recycles all gray and black water. In the wooden restaurant-bar pavilion, over a tasty dinner of grilled fish, and pork and vegetables stir-fried with garlic and fragrant Kampot pepper, conservation y visit to one of the region’s greenest biologist Tom Gray recounts the history of the camp: Five resorts begins with a short flight from years ago, Minor International, through its Golden Bangkok to Trat, followed by a 1½-hour Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, acquired from the car ride to the Thai-Cambodian border Cambodian government this 180-square-kilometer for a quick passport stamp and pickup by concession to protect the land and its biodiversity from another car in Cham Yeam on the other loggers, poachers and river sand–dredging operations. side. An hour later we reach a pier on the One of the prime conditions was that the land be used Preak Tachan River in Trapeang Rung, to generate economic activity. Together with Khiri where Cardamom Tented Camp has Travel, a sustainability-minded destination management arranged for a wooden boat to complete company, they came up with the upscale tented-camp the one-hour sail upriver. The red-and- concept, then joined forces with Wildlife Alliance, a green craft putters past a few villages Phnom Penh–based biodiversity and conservation non- before entering a curving section of profit. Working with residents of the nearby Trapeang river flanked by evergreen rainforest, Rung Commune, the three entities operate under the my first introduction to Botum Sakor National Park. At slogan, “Your stay keeps the forest standing.” 171,250 hectares, it’s Cambodia’s largest national park and A percentage of Cardamom’s revenues go directly to Mthe largest tract of unbroken rainforest in Southeast Asia. Wildlife Alliance and its efforts to prevent land Deep in a dramatic veal—a Khmer word for the encroachment and wildlife trafficking through the keen tropical grasslands of southern Cambodia—is where eyes of their team of 12 rangers and the 40 camera traps Cardamom Tented Camp makes its home. We’re greeted across the concession. Since the rangers began regular warmly by Allan Michaud, the lodge manager and an patrols in 2013, incidents of hunting and illegal logging accomplished wildlife photographer who is famous for have dropped precipitously, according to the alliance. capturing an image of the previously thought-to-be Our educational dinner reaches its finale when Allan extinct giant ibis for National Geographic magazine. serves an exemplary chocolate lava cake made using a The nine safari-style canvas-tented rooms are well recipe passed down from his chocolatier grandfather. separated from each other by boardwalks on wooden After a sociable glass of whiskey, I head to my tent. I love platforms that minimize the human footprint on nature. sleeping under canvas. Enclosed in mosquito screening, the 33-square-meter tents have comfortable beds, soft lighting, well-placed cardamomtentedcamp.com; from US$259 for a three-day fans, bamboo and rattan furniture, tatami floor mats, visit, including ranger-guided hikes and rainforest trips,

courtesy of cardamom tented camp (2) tented camp of cardamom courtesy hot-water rain showers, and large outdoor decks. as well as boat transfers from and to Trapeang Rung.

travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 79 T he vineyards of Abeja Winery, in Walla Walla, Washington. O pposite: The tasting patio at Walla Walla’s Foundry Vineyards.

80 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com T asting Wine, the Walla Walla Way A corner of Washington State known for apples and wheat has also become a compelling wine destination. Ray Isle experiences its top-notch Cabs and Syrahs, homegrown restaurants and refreshingly down-to-earth spirit.

PHOTOGRAPHed BY Alanna Hale and it had a hot dog roller, a microwave, a hot case, and that was it. And I sorta like to cook with actual fire. But I asked some of my guys, ‘What do you think if we opened a place in a gas station?’ They were like, No way. So I asked my wife. She said no way, too. So I came in and told the GM, ‘Okay, I’ll take it.’ ” At one table three young, blond wine tourists were having lunch. At the auto-gadgets rack a guy in hunting camo stood pondering the tire-gauge choices, and at the gas- station register a beefy man in a tank top with frosted tips and sunglasses perched backward on his head was unwittingly channeling Guy Fieri while he paid for a can of Arizona Iced Tea and some scratch-offs. “So, Just-harvested yeah. Cans of Skoal, WD-40, you can grapes at Woodward wash your car, get propane...or an Canyon Winery. insane burger,” Bopp said. “It’s a great concept. Not that I knew it at the time.” That might go for Walla Walla itself, at least as a wine tourism destination: a great concept, not that anyone knew it at the time. Hunkered down in the southeastern corner of Washington, a 4½-hour drive from Seattle and equally far from Portland, Oregon, the place isn’t really convenient to anywhere. you want to eat some of the best food Still, wine has been made in the there is to be had in Walla Walla, Walla Walla area since Italian Washington, I suggest you head to the immigrants first began arriving in Cenex gas station at the corner of West the late 1800s. And since the 1970s, Rose Street and North Ninth. when Gary Figgins kick-started That’s not a joke. Chef Andrae Bopp Walla Walla’s modern wine era by has done stints at world-renowned New York destinations like Bouley and Le Bernardin, but for now, this is where he’s chosen to run his own Ifrestaurant, Andrae’s Kitchen. Drive past the pumps, park, walk in. To the left is a blackboard menu and a counter; to the right, a few small tables and the usual gas station stuff: racks of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, tallboys of Monster Energy, an abundance of motor oil. Not long ago, I was sitting at one of those tables talking to Bopp while eating his grilled corn salad (local corn, homemade aioli, cayenne, lime—absurdly good) and short-rib tacos (house-made tortilla, house-smoked short rib, pickled carrot and daikon—also absurdly good). And I was thinking, Well, hell, this is what Walla Walla is all about. The only thing I lacked, since Walla Walla isn’t just a town but also the most acclaimed wine-growing region in Washington, was a glass of wine. Bopp, a lean fellow with extravagant sideburns, a sleeve of tattoos NaKenge Adisa and a hoop in one ear, who chose a logo for his restaurant that makes wine borrows heavily from that of the Dead Kennedys—a chef, in other when he’s not working as a words—didn’t intend to open up in a Cenex station. “I saw the space, server at fine- dining restaurant Whitehouse- Crawford. D owntown Walla Walla sits in a valley near the Blue Mountains.

founding Leonetti Cellar, the first winery in the region, the Doubleback, and Seven Hills Winery. vineyards have produced great wine: robust, tobacco-scented Top-notch restaurants line former– Cabernets; svelte, layered Merlots; Syrahs that melt on your palate, ghost town Main Street, which is all ripe blackberry fruit cut with peppercorn. The Walla Walla anchored at one end by the new Walla Valley, which stretches south across the Oregon border, was Walla Steak Co., in the beautifully designated as an American Viticultural Area in 1984, but the town renovated old train station. And only caught on in recent years, as the push to explore off-the-beaten- there is a plethora of wine bars, path wine regions has driven visitors to unsung corners of the patisseries and coffee shops. “There Pacific Northwest. These days a one-hour flight from Seattle gets are probably six or seven venues for travelers to Walla Walla with a minimum of effort, which has live music every night,” Wampfler resulted in a huge boom in downtown and near-to-town tasting said. “My wife and I kind of won the rooms, not to mention the restaurant and hotel scenes. lottery for winemakers when we That’s a major change, and it’s been some years coming. As Dan ended up here.” Wampfler, who runs the winery at Abeja with his wife, Amy Now, no one could ever confuse Alvarez-Wampfler, said, “A decade ago Main Street was a lot shorter, Walla Walla for Napa. Wine is big and it was a ghost town at either end.” We were sitting on Abeja’s here, as are apples, but wheat runs porch, sipping his vibrant 2016 Abeja Chardonnay. A couple of the place. When I queried one local guests at the high-end B&B Abeja operates were enjoying breakfast farmer about whether he’d ever in the morning sun as Wampfler described Walla Walla’s considered growing grapes, he said, blossoming. Now there are tasting rooms by the dozen, among them “Hell, no.” How big, I asked, was his such critically acclaimed producers as Spring Valley Vineyard, farm? “Oh, I’m small. Six thousand

travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 83 acres or so.” That’s 240 hectares, and big, he informed me, was more new Passatempo Taverna and you like 8,000 hectares. In many ways Walla Walla is still a quiet town in could easily be convinced you’re in an ocean of wheat. Sure, you can buy excellent artisanal goat cheeses one of Seattle’s coolest bars, with not (from the irrepressible French-expat cheese maker Pierre-Louis a clue that Passatempo’s high-design Monteillet) and heirloom tomatoes at the farmers’ market, but you space was once the more down-home can also swing by Klicker’s general store and buy a 12-kilogram bag named Pastime Cafe, a blue-collar of Walla Walla’s famed sweet onions from a crate by the parking lot. Italian joint with a lasagna deal on And Walla Walla still has that small-town interconnectedness. Thursdays. Head a few blocks outside As winemaker Casey McClellan of Seven Hills Winery explained, of downtown, and you’ll find the airy “My father told me in Walla Walla you should only say nice things, Foundry Vineyards tasting room, because you never know if you’re talking to someone’s brother or which doubles as an art gallery sister or cousin-in-law.” That also means it’s the kind of place where, showing nationally known when Chris and Island Ainsworth of Saffron Mediterranean contemporary artists. Kitchen needed to move to a new space, they enlisted their entire But while Walla Walla may have CrossFit group to help out. “They moved the whole place in four become a place with boutique wine hours,” Island told me. “They were loading things onto the trucks shops selling US$100 bottles of faster than we could take them out.” Cabernet, it’s still one where the Yet despite its small-town vibe, Walla Walla is hardly provincial. demolition derby at the county fair is When you eat at Saffron, the Ainsworths’ gözleme, a crisp Turkish among the biggest draws of the year. flatbread stuffed with house-made lamb sausage, local greens and “Growing up here, you kinda come smoked yogurt, makes you wonder if you’d somehow teleported to up with your own fun,” local Daylan Istanbul. Sip one of bartender Jim German’s sublime cocktails at the Gibbard told me. “My friends had this place four miles [six kilometers] out on Last Chance Road, and we’d make a potato cannon and go out there and lob potatoes at the cows.” Frog Hollow Farm’s Rick Small, the founder of Amy Dietrich is the Woodward Canyon Winery, grew go-to supplier for Walla Walla’s finest up in a farming family. He also restaurants. happens to make some of the state’s O pposite: Hand-cut best Cabernets, and has for more fries with pulled than three decades now. The second pork, pickled winery founded in the region, peppers, and a Crystal-hot-sauce Woodward Canyon got its name from aioli at Andrae’s the school bus route that Small took Kitchen. as a kid. But the Smalls, like other longtime Walla Walla families, were wheat and cattle farmers. “We’ve had family land in Woodward Canyon for three generations now,” he told me in the winery’s cozy tasting room, a few kilometers outside of town. “On my mother’s side I’m five generations here.” Small might have ended up farming wheat himself, but when he was in the Army Reserves he started making wine with Figgins, his friend and fellow reservist. One thing led to another, and in 1981, Small founded Woodward Canyon. (Figgins edged him out with Leonetti by four years.) But when I asked Small whether there were other vineyards around when he planted his vines, he laughed. “Oh, no—this was all wheat, wheat, wheat. I had no water rights, so I was hauling the water up, and I didn’t have power either. s urrounded by vineyards and wheat fields, i contemplated the oddity of merlot- eating coyotes as i float ed, sunglasses on, in the resort pool

Everyone thought I was an absolute raving lunatic. Plus I had long Eritage’s rooms all have private hair then. Now I have no hair, but I’m still a long-hair person.” decks or patios, the requisite luxe I mentioned that it’s strange how long it took the Walla Walla linens, and large tubs in which one wine industry to get going, given the quality of what’s being made. can soak pleasantly while “The thing is,” Small replied, “we could have had a wine industry considering which wineries to visit here generations ago. But the Italian immigrants in the area were the next day—all touches not planting Mediterranean varieties, and they just froze out. In the available at previous Walla Walla 1950s, Walla Walla had awful freezes: temperatures that went from hotel options, which have largely run 70 degrees to negative 30 degrees [21 Celsius to negative 34] in a to Holiday Inn Expresses and the couple of days. During one of them, my dad was up in the mountains like. Eritage is outside of town, hunting, and he said it got so cold so fast that the sap in the branches surrounded by vineyards and wheat of the pines froze. Limbs would crack and drop off the trees.” fields. It has a bit of a build-it-and- Whether because of global warming or just seasonal variation, they-will-come feel, but based recent years in Walla Walla haven’t been as brutal. Woodward on the serenity of the rooms and the Canyon’s 2014 Artist Series Cabernet Sauvignon, with its lush, quality of executive chef Brian Price’s black-cherry fruit, radiates the warmth of the 2014 harvest—one of cooking, travelers would be foolish a string of superb vintages that has continued through 2018. Small not to. Price moves adeptly between has had little to worry about, at least in terms of weather. Later, as addictively delicious takes on we stood amid the vineyard rows in Woodward Canyon, a distant comfort food, like buttermilk fried high-pitched yipping brought an annoyed look to his face. I asked chicken with kale-apple-bacon slaw, what it was. and more ambitious yet equally “Coyotes.” satisfying dishes such as roasted “Well, at least you don’t have to worry about them eating grapes.” Alaskan halibut with a chowder of “Oh, they’ll eat grapes,” he said. “Absolutely. Especially Merlot.” razor clam and bacon and a parsley- Later, at the new Eritage Resort, I contemplated the oddity of and-bone-marrow salad—a combo Merlot-eating coyotes as I floated, sunglasses on, in the pool. Eritage that sounds odd but tastes fantastic. is a joint project of Walla Walla’s Justin Wylie, vintner at Va Piano Almost all the produce comes from Vineyards, and hotelier-restaurateur Chad Mackay of Seattle’s Fire local farms, and if you stop by, say, & Vine Hospitality. It’s the first of a series of high-end hotel Frog Hollow Farm the next day, as I properties slated to open in and around town in the next few years. did, the whole concept of

travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 85 “farm-to-table” dining pops into life. Frog Hollow’s stand is open daily, and it’s a pleasure chatting with the amiable proprietor, Amy Dietrich, about her Honeynut squash, which Price roasts and serves with wheat-berry risotto and chanterelles—or, more entertainingly, how her first plant sale was so successful that it caused a traffic jam that the cops had to sort out. She still hosts the event every May, offering more than 100 types of heirloom tomatoes, vegetables, herbs and flowers, along with baby goats for kids to pet. Farm to table, farm to bottle, farm to people: that agrarian immediacy, in essence, is for me what makes Walla Walla so appealing. On my last night, I had dinner at Whitehouse-Crawford, the town’s longtime benchmark for fine dining, and ended up in a lengthy conversation with my server, a thoughtful guy named NaKenge Adisa. As it turned out, he’d gotten up at six that morning to crush grapes for the two barrels of wine he was making in his basement, before heading over to his restaurant shift. That’s Walla Walla. Amy Dietrich of Frog Hollow also works as an obstetric nurse; Andrae Bopp is a certified whitewater-rafting guide; Passatempo bartender extraordinaire Jim German is an accomplished painter. It’s a town full of passion projects, but without pretense. Adisa told me he’d moved back to Walla Walla from Seattle because the city was getting to him. “Here,” he said, “it’s more people-centric.” Bopp put it another way when I stopped back at Andrae’s Kitchen on my way to the airport to pick up one of his (again, absurdly delicious) Cuban sandwiches for my flight. “You go to Napa, you won’t see the winemaker behind the bar pouring samples, or the chef working the register,” he said, handing me my receipt. “Here in Walla Walla, you will.”

clw ock ise from above: Hanger steak with almond- and-caper-berry salsa and roasted potatoes at Saffron Mediterranean Kitchen; Tricia Rose, a server at Passatempo Taverna; the farm stand at Frog Hollow Farm. (foundryvineyards.com),​ which (saffron​mediterranean​kitchen. drinking & dining has a worthwhile art gallery and com; mains US$27–$45), chef Chris sculpture garden, and Gramercy Ainsworth channels Middle in walla walla Cellars (gramercy​cellars.com), Eastern and southern European M ake a long weekend of it—a three- or four-day trip will give you enough where you should make a food traditions through local time to experience the top wineries and restaurants at a leisurely pace. reservation to try Master produce. Whitehouse-Crawford Sommelier turned winemaker (whitehousecrawford.com;​ mains Greg Harrington’s world-class US$29–$44), which opened in Syrahs. Ten minutes outside of 2000, is still the premier white- setting, and sublime food in its Getting There & Around town, head to Woodward Canyon tablecloth destination, with a glass restaurant. The Inn at Abeja F ly into Seattle’s Sea-Tac Airport, Winery (woodward​canyon. lengthy selection of top (abeja.net; doubles from US$329) from where Alaska Airlines offers com) for Rick Small’s gorgeous Washington wines. At Passatempo is in a beautifully renovated group three flights a day to Walla Walla; Cabernets. Other great nearby Taverna (passatempowalla​ walla.​ of turn-of-the-century farmstead on the return leg, you can check a stops include Pepper Bridge com; mains US$24–$35), do not buildings at Abeja Winery. The case of wine for free (though Winery (pepperbridge.com) for bypass the bespoke cocktails. If, by tasting room for their excellent getting that back to your home complex, age-worthy Merlots; some unfortunate happenstance wines is open only to mailing-list country might be a problem; check Buty Winery (buty​winery.com), or brief bout with madness, you customers and inn guests. the customs regulations of your one of several top producers don’t make it to Andrae’s final destination). Rent a car at the across the street from the airport; Kitchen (andraeskitchen.com; Walla Walla airport, or hire a tour Where to Taste and the sleek, modernist tasting sandwiches US$9–$13) before guide to pick you up. Chris Wood of Book a spot at the seated tasting room at Long Shadows Winery heading home, stop en route to (long​shadows.com). the airport to pick up a Cuban or Tesla Winery Tours (tesla​winery​ at Seven Hills Winery (seven​hills​ house-smoked brisket sandwich tours.com) and Ali Rodgers of the winery.com) downtown to try for the plane. — R.I. Touring Co. (thetouring​co.net)— small bites paired with wines such Where to Eat both fun, convivial and as the mocha-scented 2015 Seven The farm stand at Frog Hollow connected—can tailor an itinerary Hills Vineyard Merlot. At other top Farm (frog​hollowfarm.net)​ is open spots—like the cozy tasting room W ashington to your tastes. Fridays from May to December, of Spring Valley Vineyard (spring​ Spokane but if you write in advance,

valleyvineyard.com)​ and Seattle Charles proprietor Amy Dietrich can P Where to Stay a Smith (wines​of​substance.com), a c arrange a tour of the farm, too. It’s i f i Walla Walla Valley The top lodgings are just a short c cool-industrial space in an old also a regular presence at the O

c drive outside Walla Walla. The warehouse—you can just walk e

Walla Walla Downtown a new Eritage Resort (eritage​ in. A five-minute drive away, Farmers’ Market (downtown​ n resort.com; doubles from US$169) the nascent “industrial district” wallawalla.com)​ on Saturdays. At offers peace and privacy in a luxe is home to Foundry Vineyards Saffron Mediterranean Kitchen Walla Walla

T he new Eritage Resort.

travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 87 Ckw loc ise from left: A sheep in the meadows surrounding Thyme, a rural retreat in the Cotswolds; the reception room at the Fife Arms in Scotland, which is hung with artworks, including a Lucian Freud portrait; Heckfield Place, as seen from its grounds. Characterful and classic—yet never old-fashioned— the best new British hotels are infused with a beguiling sense of history. From a country mansion to a quirky seaside pub, these five standout properties illustrate why, in the U.K., W hat’s Old Is New Again

Po h tographed by Tom Mannion travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 89 The Fife Arms SCOTLAND

Edinburgh North Sea

ENGLAND IRELAND

Thyme The London Rose HeckfieldP lace The Belmond Cadogan

clkw oc ise from top left: A guest room at Heckfield Place, a stately Hampshire home now repurposed as a hotel; the ceiling in the drawing room of the Fife Arms, by Chinese artist Zhang Enli, was inspired by Scottish s there anyone out there who, when visiting quartz; a wall of hunting trophies at the Fife Arms, a Victorian coaching Great Britain, doesn’t dream of staying in a house that has been renovated by grand, historic house? Maybe it’s the fault of gallerists Iwan and Manuela Wirth. Downton Abbey or our obsession with the royals. Maybe it’s a reaction to our tech- Ifilled, over-connected modern lives.W hatever the reason, it seems the hotel industry is listening, because the most charismatic, Instagram-worthy U. K. properties to open in the past few months have all been in venerable, time-tested spaces. There will, of course, always be a time and a place for the classics—for Claridge’s, the Connaught and the Savoy. But to get a real sense of the prevailing aesthetic in the U.K. and the country’s fascination with reinvigorating history, tradition and craftsmanship, consider a stay at one of these next- generation old-school properties. A reimagined Victorian inn, an entire country hamlet, a sophisticated retreat in London: these are our picks of Britain’s most intriguing, atmospheric new places to stay. When art dealers Iwan Bourgeois spider has taken up residence in the and Manuela Wirth took courtyard; and Picasso’s Mousquetaire Assis The over the Fife Arms about presides over the drawing room). four years ago, the Though the period furnishings and Victorian Scottish hotel had a artworks look like they could be original to the Inn storied past—but its hotel, most—including an ornately carved The Fife Arms, future was looking a little walnut chimney piece depicting scenes from Braemar, Scotland grim. Built in the village Robert Burns poems and a drawing of a stag by of Braemar in the 1850s to Queen Victoria herself—were in fact sourced capitalize on the by Russell Sage, the designer behind the Fife’s newfound popularity of the Highlands as a interiors. “Nothing is there just for decoration,” tourist destination (thanks to Queen Victoria, Iwan Wirth told me over traditional tea in the an influencer if ever there was one), this drawing room, as we gazed up at a ceiling formerly grand property had not aged well. mural by the Chinese artist Zhang Enli that Busloads of tourists would stop in for a night at was inspired by ancient Scottish quartz. “Every most; thanks to the hotel’s unsightly detail tells a story.” 20th-century additions, awkwardly carved-up In lieu of a concierge, a gamekeeper and a public spaces, and leaky roof, there wasn’t gillie, or hunting attendant, are at your service. much incentive for them to stay longer. For me, they planned a day that began with However, in the hands of the Wirths, the Fife horseback riding at the nearby Glen Tanar Arms has become a place you may never want estate, followed by lunch at the delightful to leave. I, for one, certainly didn’t. Rothesay Rooms, a farm-to-table restaurant In a renovation that took two years, the in the nearby town of Ballater, then a private Wirths—cofounders of the Hauser & Wirth tour of Braemar Castle. galleries—not only restored but significantly As I warmed myself by the fire that evening, added to the hotel’s original splendor. Where the edges of my brain beginning to melt from once there were some 90 guest rooms, the Fife a potent cocktail of local spirits, I felt less like now has just 46, ranging from stately suites the patron of a high-end hotel and more like a named after Braemar’s noble visitors (I was in guest at an enchanting country estate. Indeed, the Duke of Fife) to jewel-box-like rooms the hotel even has its own tartan and tweed— inspired by Scottish crofter’s huts. The now- used not only for the staff uniforms but also the generous public spaces are peppered with the custom interiors of the Fife’s fleet of Land works of international artists (the walls of the Rovers—and an official coat of arms. Its motto: Clunie dining room were hand-painted by “To the summit.” thefifearms.com; doubles from Argentina’s Guillermo Kuitca; a Louise £161. — A lix Browne

travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 91 T he town of Deal, just 15 renovating the pub and creating kilometers from the white cliffs eight beautiful bedrooms on the of Dover, is one of a handful of The floors above, aiming to attract Kentish seaside resorts that are locals and out-of-towners alike. once again becoming fashionable Seaside The décor and feel are clearly destinations for Londoners to Pub the work of someone with a move to. Creative entrepreneurs The, Rose trained eye for contemporary are quitting the capital in favor of D eal, Kent design; there’s an abundance of the bracing sea air, advantageous corduroy and velvet, soothing, property prices and growing arts low lighting, and huge potted scene; weekend travelers have followed close plants. The ground floor holds a restaurant behind. And with a fast train to the area now (where old wood paneling has been restored and departing from London’s St. Pancras, visitors original banquettes reupholstered) and a bar can be skimming pebbles on the English area with 1960s sofas and armchairs and a Channel within an hour. So one frosty fall wood-burning stove. Chef Rachel O’Sullivan, weekend, my family and I set off for Deal, eager formerly of the London restaurants Polpo and to experience the place for ourselves. Towpath Café, presides over an artful menu Our lodgings summed up the change this that ticks all the boxes: local, seasonal, organic. area has recently undergone: until our hotel, the Behind a heavy velvet curtain, a narrow Rose, closed for renovations in 2016, it was one of staircase leads up to the bedrooms. Ours the most notorious “boozers” in Kent. The bar immediately delighted my husband and children used to open at 8 a.m. and had a reputation for with its quirky, thoughtful touches—a record brawls. Following last year’s relaunch, however, player and a cool selection of discs (Joni Mitchell mornings find guests tucking into house-made and the Beach Boys), a jar of penny sweets, and granola and coffee from trendy roasters a shelf of carefully chosen vintage books. Each Climpson & Sons. Christopher Hicks, the new bedroom has a different color scheme. In ours, co-owner, has family roots in the pub a vast burnt-orange headboard was offset by business—his great-grandfather ran Thompson walls painted a deep sea green, while a roll-top & Son brewery, which once owned 130 pubs bathtub was hidden behind sliding panel doors. across Kent. A former hedge-fund analyst, Hicks I was a little concerned that we might be in and his wife, Alex Bagner, a former design editor for a sleepless night—we were directly above the at Wallpaper magazine, spent nine months bar, after all, and overlooked the main street. But the double-paned windows and high-thread- count sheets worked their magic—though not even these could quite drown out the cries of the seagulls early the next morning, announcing that it was time for breakfast and a walk on the beach. therosedeal.com; doubles from £90. — R ebecca Rose

from far left: The lobby of the Rose, a renovated pub and hotel in the Kentish town of Deal; the building’s façade. Over the next 15 years, Thyme evolved organically. Properties were added as they became available, and in 2015 a hotel emerged from a collection of barns and cottages, the pub, and a 1623 farmhouse. The most recent addition to Thyme is an old rectory, refurbished in 2017 and now called the Lodge. That building comprises nine additional guest rooms, while a swimming pool, garden cottage and greenhouse make up S outhrop, in England’s Thyme’s restful, cream-and-green-toned spa. bucolic Cotswolds region, The undulating landscape around the The is a gorgeous village with a village is deeply peaceful. Thyme sits by the 12th-century church and a little river Leach, and from the doorstep there country 17th-century pub. At its are many walks to enjoy through meadows and hamlet southern edge, a cluster of outlying fields. But mostly I just wanted to sink Thyme, eight honey-colored stone into this country retreat. Caryn personally Gloucestershire structures—including the designed all of Thyme’s 31 rooms in a style she pub—now make up a describes as “calming but not beige.” My property named Thyme. quarters in the Lodge were sumptuous, with a Founder Caryn Hibbert calls her creation a chandelier in the bathroom and dreamy views “village within a village” rather than a hotel. As across the grounds. I scrunched along the gravel drive on my way to At the heart of Thyme are two once-run- reception, I could see why. In front of me was down barns: a lambing shed is now the sleek a group of barns set within expansive, partially bar, and a cattle barn has become the striking walled grounds: a pastoral world unto itself. Ox Barn restaurant. Here, chef Charlie When Caryn, a doctor, and her husband, Hibbert, Caryn’s son, devises menus based on A bove, from left: Jerry, a film director, bought Southrop Manor Thyme’s abundant garden produce. I dined on A former rectory at (which is still their private home) in 2001, dishes such as cauliflower-and-almond soup Thyme, a hotel in they had no ambitions to run a hotel. Two and local venison with plums and house-made the Cotswolds, years later, they acquired the group of derelict pickles, all of which had a complex array of now converted into guest rooms; a farm buildings next door in order to protect flavors as layered, and as appealing, as Thyme bathroom at them from redevelopment. In one, the vast itself. thyme.co.uk; doubles from Thyme. medieval barn, they set up a cooking school. £300. — Harriet O’Brien

travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 93 Ln o don has seen a rush of high-end hotels springing up in historic buildings. Few, however, have been The quite so keenly anticipated as the Belmond Cadogan. The Belmond historic brand’s first London property stands hotel at a junction that divides two of The Belmond London’s most affluent districts, Cadogan, London Chelsea and Knightsbridge. As I approached the hotel, which occupies several Victorian buildings on a prominent corner, I was able to make out each of its component parts. First, the former Cadogan hotel, which was built in 1887—a wood- paneled, 64-room property that Belmond took over in 2014. Also part of the ensemble: a former bank and three adjoining town houses. It has taken £36 million and three years to turn this gorgeous stretch of prime London real estate into one luxury hotel. There is evidence of historic pedigree everywhere you look: a blue plaque is dedicated to onetime resident Lillie Langtry, actress, socialite and mistress of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII). Oscar Wilde used to live in what was once Room 118 and is now part of the Royal Suite. There are nods, too, to Sir Hans Sloane—the naturalist and collector who in the 17th century established what later became the Cadogan Estate, on whose grounds the S itting on 160 hectares hotel sits—in the form of coral patterns on the carpets of prime Hampshire and a carefully chosen library of botanical books. The countryside, with On my visit, winter sun streamed into the vast new distant views of entrance hall, where a grand central staircase leads up to Country Windsor Castle, the 54 rooms (most of which are suites). Chef Adam Estate Heckfield Place could Handling of the Frog, in London’s trendy Hoxton area, Heckfield Place, have been purpose-built presides over the restaurant, which has an open kitchen Hampshire for international so diners can observe his team at work. The décor is as visitors hankering for a luxurious as you would expect: marble-heavy bathrooms, taste of life in an English huge roll-top baths, and triple-glazed windows that country house. Indeed, as I stepped through the ensure total insulation from the traffic below. My favorite doors of the handsome red-brick main building touch was a wooden bath tray with a perch for my iPad with my husband and two young kids, we were and a slot for a glass of champagne. belmond.com; doubles greeted by staff dressed in Downton Abbey– from £378. — R.R. style attire—bustling underskirts, sensible overgarments and so on. But the illusion ended there. The uniforms, we discovered, were made T he bar at the by on-trend clothing brand Egg, and Heckfield, Belmond Cadogan, which sits a handy 40-minute drive from where original Heathrow, is about as far from the drafty ceiling moldings reality of a country estate as you can get. have been Heckfield was built as a private house in carefully conserved. 1760, and for most of the 19th century was home to the illustrious Lefevre family. Sixteen years ago, it was purchased by the Hong Kong–born, Boston-based financier Gerald Chan, who commissioned a painstaking renovation. The building’s original Georgian features, from the floor-to-ceiling patio doors to the ornate ceiling roses, were all carefully restored. But the décor is nonetheless defined by its simplicity and understatement, giving the hotel a distinctly contemporary feel. The walls are finished in rough lime plaster and painted in a muted A bove, from left: palette: greens, ochers and neutrals in the guest course tasting menu cooked over an open fire. The entrance wings; grays, a forest green and a dusky pink in We ate breakfast and lunch at Marle, a bright, to Heckfield Place, which occupies a the main house. sunny room with an à la carte menu of heritage grand Georgian In the snug Moon Bar, a vast disco ball vegetables and locally sourced organic meats. mansion; Marle, twinkles above midnight-blue walls, and a fire The patriarch of the Lefevre family, the daytime dining sizzles and smokes all day long. Complimentary Viscount Eversley, was a speaker in the House space at the hotel. tea and cake are served in the afternoons, of Commons, and in his day Heckfield was which delighted our children. Chan’s 20th- known for its lively salons and political century British art collection gives the plush conversations—a tradition the hotel hopes to public rooms extra warmth, while corn-husk maintain in its plush theater, which has a dolls for Do Not Disturb signs and key fobs rolling program of talks, films and events. in the form of embroidery samplers made us The gardens were designed by a visionary feel a little like guests in someone’s named William Wildsmith, who created the extraordinary home. estate’s impressive arboretum and two vast Skye Gyngell—the chef behind Chan’s ornamental lakes, one of which now has a London restaurant, Spring, and one of floating dock guests can use to go wild England’s most forward-thinking culinary swimming. The hotel has harnessed his spirit talents—presides over Heckfield’s two in its skin-care products, Wildsmith, which are restaurants, Marle and Hearth, ingredients for made with botanicals grown on the grounds. which are grown at the on-site biodynamic They are used in Heckfield’s wonderful Little farm. At Hearth, a cozy room with exposed- Bothy spa, which is due to be topped off with an brick walls and sheepskin-draped Windsor indoor pool later this year. heckfieldplace.com; chairs, my husband and I feasted on a five- doubles from £300. — R.R.

travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 95 Mexico city T here are few places as dynamic, diverse or mind-bogglingly large as the Mexican capital. In a city layered with history, in which change is an essential part of residents’ DNA, where to begin planning a trip? Michael Snyder gives his breakdown of the eight neighborhoods to visit, whether your focus is shopping, food, art or design.

P HOTOgrapHed BY Lindsay Lauckner Gundlock

A little more than two years ago, I moved to Mexico and, in 1985, a catastrophic earthquake that killed more than 9,000 and City more or less sight unseen, taking it on good faith that this urban decimated much of the historic central borough of Cuauhtémoc. giant could find space for one more body among the 21 million that Thirty-two years later to the day, in 2017, another quake shook the city already called its entire metro area home. I came, like many foreigners to its core, bringing down about 40 buildings and damaging many more. before me, with vague ideas about its vibrant food and art scenes; its Within weeks, the city had bounced back from that, too. Chilangos, as crooked glamour and effortless cool; its rich colonial and modern residents are known, continue to deal with shoddy governance, shoddy architectural landscape. I expected to find moments of enervating infrastructure and fluctuating levels of security. Given the choice, many chaos and sometimes choking smog. But I was rejuvenated by gracious would just as soon return to the villages they left a generation or three parks and sublime weather, by crisp autumn mornings and springlike before. But many more wouldn’t live anywhere else. afternoons, by spasms of rain and hail and thunder that gave way, just No one trip is enough to unlock the city’s many wonders. For a first- in time, to marigold sunsets blooming across the horizon. Mexico City, time visitor, sticking to the leafy neighborhoods in and around the it seems, is able to turn a different face to each of its inhabitants. Delegación Cuauhtémoc offers an ideal introduction: a walkable, That’s because, in the past five centuries, Mexico City has become manageable microcosm of the city’s wild, sophisticated whole. From a master of transformation. Flung wide across a seismic, high-altitude the cockeyed grandeur of the Centro Histórico to the discreet galleries plateau, North America’s largest city has survived colonial conquest, of Santa María la Ribera and the glamorous cafés of Condesa, these years-long floods, a bloody war of independence, a bloodier revolution, are the eight districts every visitor should get to know.

96 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com A building in the Centro Histórico, where young chefs and gallerists are bringing new energy to Mexico City’s oldest neighborhood. CENTRO HISTÓRICO

Late one Sunday morning, I set out from my home on the far side of the Zócalo, Mexico City’s spectacular central plaza, to the Mercado San Juan. It wasn’t a particularly long walk, but, like most routes through the Centro Histórico, it encompassed many pasts, many presents, and many possible futures. Here you’ll find opulent colonial palaces, crooked Baroque churches, murals market on my side of the Centro). I excitement surrounding a restaurant by Diego Rivera at the Palacio had come to eat at Don Vergas, an in this part of town. But in the past Nacional and the Secretariat of eight-seat market stall that, for the year or so, pop-up parties have begun Public Education headquarters, and past year, has been turning out some to appear on rooftops, in basements, the magnificent ruins of the Templo of the best seafood in Mexico City. and at run-down cantinas like the Mayor, the axis of the Aztec Empire’s Chef Luis Valle, who hails from bizarre and beautiful La Faena, religious and political universe. the northwestern coastal state of decorated with dusty shadow boxes Until the late 1800s, the Centro Sinaloa, had opened shop only an of toreadors’ costumes. Edgy art was Mexico City. Then, from the turn hour earlier, but already a rowdy line galleries have appeared in former of the century onward, modernity- had filled the aisle, singing along to office buildings. Bósforo, still the top obsessed elites began abandoning the banda music playing through a place in town for mezcal almost 10 their ancestral homes and moving to loudspeaker perched precariously years after it opened, draws crowds the newly created suburbs in the over the tiny kitchen. “How many on weekends, while the nameless west and south. After the 1985 crab tostadas?” Valle shouted over restaurant next door serves earthquake, the Centro was all but the music. Hands shot up: 15 orders. impeccable Oaxacan food by abandoned. It remained an important I slipped behind the bar to help flickering candlelight. place of protest and celebration, but it squeeze limes and hang out with But despite the fact that a new, was not a place you lingered. Valle, who makes great company, no younger generation is now Entering the open doorway of the matter how busy he is. I asked how gravitating to the Centro, it’s still a Mercado San Juan, I passed vendors many people he would cook for today. place that belongs to everyone. selling rambutans and mangoes, “About 400,” he said. I asked how he Activists stage regular protests in plastic boxes of microgreens, and coped. “I don’t!” he laughed, then the Zócalo. Residents from around giant clams from Baja. But I hadn’t turned back to the crowd, shouting: the city come to shop at stores selling come here to shop (for that I go to “How many scallops?” everything from spices to light Mercado la Merced, the bigger, Even a decade ago, you’d have fixtures and giant handmade candles crazier, more beautiful wholesale been hard-pressed to find such decorated in lacy wax flowers.

98 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com show me around the latest edition of three sisters from Guadalajara; and her pop-up shop, Momo Room—one embroidered linen kimonos dyed of a growing number of nomadic with indigo and cochineal from local retail spaces now at the vanguard of label Korimi Kids. None of these Mexico’s fashion scene. designers had a brick-and-mortar This iteration, she explained, shop. After all, in a city obsessed with was inspired by Juan Rulfo, the mid- collaboration, and replete with 20th-century writer whose works spectacular spaces ideal for short- are widely considered to be among term group exhibitions, what would the finest ever written in Mexico. be the point? Rulfo set two of his most important When Mexico City was named the books in a fictional town in the small World Design Capital for 2018, many coastal state of Colima. Among ascribed the distinction to an objects selected from local designers, aesthetic that brings Mexico’s Castera had scattered photographs of disparate creative traditions—from Colima, burlap sacks of the state’s textiles and earthenware to the great famous sea salt, and handwoven Modernist boom of the 1950s—into straw hats. There were also playful conversation with one another. F rom far left: Scallop ceviche at sunglasses from French-Mexican Though that sensibility has existed Don Vergas, in the collective Stromboli Associates; in Mexico for generations, it is newly Mercado San Juan; handmade box bags in wood and fashionable in Roma and Condesa, the Palacio de leather by Aurelia, a brand run by two of the capital’s most Bellas Artes, one of the most iconic buildings in the Centro; a lounge area at Ignacia Guest House, which inhabits a converted town house in the style-centric neighborhood of Roma.

Government workers stop in at century-old cantinas for an afternoon beer (try La Ópera for gilded old-world opulence, or Salón España for the city’s best tequila list). Even the exorbitantly expensive Mercado San Juan, where Luis Valle slings his seafood, has a raucous weekend party. Nowhere in this immense, stratified city is more democratic or more beautiful.

R OMA & CONDESA

At the northern edge of Colonia Roma, a trickle of young, stylish people wandered in and out of a heavy glass door that swung open onto Calle Puebla. They followed a bend of stairs past tall white gallery walls and out onto a sunny roof terrace surrounded by treetops. Monserrat Castera, beer in hand, led me from the open patio into a small, glass-walled room at one corner to design-forward neighborhoods. You white plaster exteriors, you might SANTA MARÍA LA can witness it at stores like quirky not know that anything had clothing boutique Hi-Bye, at the happened here at all. RIBERA & SAN shops lining the uneven sidewalks of And while the dialogue between the beautiful Calle Colima, and at tradition and innovation found its RAFAEL Ven a Mi—an appointment-only way into restaurant kitchens at least showroom selling unusual crafts a decade ago in places like Enrique Not long after I moved to Mexico City, from around the country. Olvera’s Pujol, in the swanky Polanco I climbed a flight of terrazzo stairs After the 1985 earthquake, many area, Roma and Condesa have taken leading to a buzzing, dimly lit terrace residents fled Roma, and it was more the lead in translating it into more in Santa María la Ribera, an than a decade before artists and casual—though no less ambitious— otherwise quiet residential designers began moving back into its settings. At Meroma, wife-and- neighborhood northwest of the gracefully dilapidated Beaux-Arts husband team Mercedes Bernal and Centro. Glamorous in its turn-of-the- mansions. Condesa, which was the Rodney Cusic offer some of the 20th-century heyday, Santa María, city’s most cosmopolitan area during neighborhoods’ most refined cooking, the first planned suburb of the the 1930s and 40s, experienced a taking inspiration from local Centro, was, by the 1950s, shorter decline, having rebounded by ingredients, rather than traditional the mid 90s. With its pretty Art Deco dishes, to create a subtly eclectic and Mission-style apartments and menu. And at El Parnita, a family- even prettier residents, Condesa is run taco joint that got hip as the today the grande dame of Mexico City district did, young diners line up for colonias—stylish, elegant, but never a lunch of fish tacos and craft beer. trying too hard. Condesa and Roma And at the chaotic, nameless open were also among the areas most kitchen next door, a young chef heavily damaged in the 2017 named Jesús Salas Tornés creates earthquake, but this time both consistently delicious, interesting returned to life with remarkable dishes that bring the flavors, speed. Were it not for a handful of techniques and oddball informality empty buildings dotting the area, of the countryside straight to the deep cracks running through their heart of the city.

From far left: A temporary exhibit by the artist TO at Museo Experimental El Eco, in San Rafael; chicken with mashed potatoes and tortillas with octopus at Salón Ríos, in Colonia Cuauhtémoc; overshadowed by neighborhoods like the Angel of Roma and Condesa. On that chilly Independence, evening, however, it was hard to on Paseo de la Reforma in Juarez. imagine anywhere more elegant. In the 17 years since Zonamaco, the city’s mammoth weeklong art fair, launched, Mexico City has become an essential stop for regulars on the international art circuit and young artists looking to create and show work in a dynamic, affordable environment. A few nights before the gathering on the terrace, Art Week had started—an annual event that includes Zonamaco and its daring younger sibling, the Material Art Fair. Around me was a crowd of local gallerists, artists from Mexico and

travelandleisureasia.com / april 2019 101 abroad, and assorted global movers and shakers. They’d come to celebrate the recent opening of the Mexico City outpost of Casa Wabi, the Tadao Ando–designed artists’ retreat in Oaxaca, on Mexico’s southern coast. Mezcal flowed freely as fairy lights twinkled along with the neon sign for a cheap hotel across the street. Between them, Santa María and the adjacent area of San Rafael are home to more than a dozen galleries and art spaces. Some represent internationally recognized artists, but most are like Casa Wabi: alternative, informal spaces for young Mexican artists. On a recent morning, I stopped by the gallery to see an exhibition of earthenware pieces by a Swiss resident at the Oaxaca center, displayed alongside Midcentury Modern furniture sold by the design shop Decada. The small space on the ground floor showed From left: Grilled work by a photographer from the lamb at Meroma, in Roma; Salón Ríos, northern state of Sonora—endless in Colonia Cuauhtémoc, serves updatedd Mexican staples; the neighborhood of Condesa, near the Parque México.

Mexican design. Around Santa neighborhood tamale shop, Cintli, María’s gracious alameda, or central is my favorite in all of Mexico City. park, families move up and down the Beer and tequila abound at the local marble stairs of the gorgeously old- cantina Salón París, and La Polar in fashioned Geology Museum, built in San Rafael serves steaming bowls of 1910, while old couples dance beneath birria, a regional beef stew, the flamboyant glass dome of the accompanied by raucous mariachi Moorish Kiosk, erected here in the bands playing late into the night. same year. The Art Nouveau towers of the Museo Universitario del Chopo, JUAREZ & COLONIA an important center for contemporary art, soar over a street CAUHU TÉMOC desert horizons punctuated by that, in the early 1980s, was the locus fragments of industrial architecture. for the city’s punk and goth scenes. The glass-and-steel towers lining “Mexico City is a nursery for the rest The ruins of Cine Opera, a now- Mexico City’s grand ceremonial of the country,” said Carla Sodi, defunct Art Deco cinema, stand like a avenue, Paseo de la Reforma, burst director of the Casa Wabi sentinel at San Rafael’s northern from the low-slung concrete grid like Foundation, as we sat one morning edge. And the abstract minimalism volcanic peaks, monuments to on a balcony overlooking an ordinary of the Museo Experimental El Eco, globalist prosperity erupting from street that was waking to the built in the 1950s by the celebrated the city’s ancient lake bed. Reforma working day. “Eventually, these artist and designer Mathias Goeritz, connects the Centro to the Bosque de artists will go back home and plant brackets San Rafael’s south. Chapultepec, the city’s biggest park, those seeds.” Yet despite all these monuments, and the trio of important art Santa María and San Rafael have both neighborhoods remain typical institutions clustered at its northern always been low-key repositories for middle-class barrios. Santa María’s section—the Museum of

102 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com Anthropology, the Museum of inexplicably pleasing) hodgepodge of SAN MIGUEL Modern Art, and the Tamayo architectural styles from France, Museum for contemporary art. Italy, Britain and Spain. C HAPULTEPEC For much of the last century, the In the evenings, crowds spill onto neighborhoods that flank Reforma— the broad pavement of Plaza The long communal table that runs Colonia Cuauhtémoc to the north and Washington from the garage-like down the center of the restaurant Juarez to the south—were the center edifice of Cicatriz, an all-day café run Masala y Maíz had been laid out with of the city’s international population. by a sister-brother team of American bowls of spices—some of them Wealthy Mexican families, expats, Scarlett and Jake Lindeman. familiar to Mexican palates (cumin, foreigners and diplomats were Most of their customers—who come cinnamon, cloves and black pepper), drawn here by embassies and banks for coffee and cocktails, natural others (coriander seed, ginger and and streets named for the great wines, and fried-chicken star anise) less so. Chefs Norma rivers and cities of the world they sandwiches—wouldn’t look out of Listman, originally from the nearby once called home: Ganges, Danubio place in New York, Los Angeles, town of Texcoco, and Saqib Keval, and Rhin; Londres, Hamburgo and London or Paris. That’s because born in northern California to an Berlín. From their development in many of them hail from just those Indian family from East Africa, the early 20th century onward, these places: the most recent group of circulated, greeting guests. Seated areas have expressed Mexico’s global immigrants to call Juarez home. at the center of the table, the ambitions. They still do. Ryo Kan, a streamlined, new guesthouse in Cuauhtémoc, takes its neighborhood’s global spirit to heart, bringing the intimate calm of the traditional Japanese inns it’s named after to the heart of the Mexican capital. While other new boutique hotels in the city revel in Mexico’s mid-century elegance, Ryo Kan is tranquil and subdued, compact and efficient, a meditation in pale oak and terrazzo. “Japan and Mexico have a lot in common—our ceramics, our textiles, our uses of natural materials. We wanted to find those parallels,” says Regina Galvanduque, the lead architect on the Ryo Kan project, which has 10 rooms and an onsen on its roof-deck. Ryo Kan is the most recent of a number of Japanese-inspired businesses to open along Cuauhtémoc’s subdued, tree-lined streets. In the past six years, the Edo Kobayashi restaurant group, run by Edo López, has created a small empire there, with an izakaya and ramen spot called Rokai, a tiny bar called Le Tachinomi Desu serving sake and natural wines, and a listening bar inspired by Tokyo’s Ginza Music Bar. Wander a few minutes south into the Zona Rosa, the historic gay neighborhood at the center of Colonia Juarez, and you’ll find it hard not to feel transported. Banners for cheap cafés, Korean lunch joints and neon- lit gay bars obscure the façades of old houses built in an inexplicable (and C hefs Saqib Keval and Norma Listman of Masala y Maíz restaurant, in San Miguel Chapultepec.

restaurant’s first artist in residence, Here, huevos rancheros come with Pritzker-winning 20th-century Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, began her South Indian uttapam flatbreads in architectural master Luis Barragán, talk on the origins of Indian chai. place of tortillas. Giant prawns are lies just beyond the colonia’s western The conversation then segued to the coated in Ethiopian berbere and edge, and the renowned Archivo de spices in front of us and how some of served with jicama and rose water. Diseño y Arquitectura exhibition them had made their way into Patra de hoja santa, a riff on an space sits right next door to Mexican kitchens. Indian snack of spiced chickpea Barragán’s house. Masala y Maíz had opened a few batter, trades the traditional taro leaf San Miguel is a perfect place for months earlier in the quietly elegant for southern Mexico’s emblematic peaceful walks past magnificent colonia of San Miguel Chapultepec, a herb, hoja santa. private homes secreted away behind triangle of leafy streets that San Miguel was not an obvious humble Neocolonial façades, for separates Condesa from the Bosque choice for this kind of restaurant. whiling away hours in quiet corners de Chapultepec. Right away, it was a Peaceful and residential, the area is of the Bosque de Chapultepec, or for space obsessed with hybridity: an best known for its access to the sipping hibiscus mead brewed right artists’ residency, an ambitious full- Bosque de Chapultepec, never more here in the city, a specialty at Masala service restaurant, and a coffee shop than a few blocks away; for the pretty y Maíz. It’s also a perfect place to serving house-made doughnuts from cobblestoned lanes that line its reflect on something Chilangos have a window connecting the kitchen to southern side; and for the beloved known for ages: that Mexico City isn’t the street. That evening, it was also a white-tablecloth cantina, El Mirador just the capital of the Spanish- workshop for a handful of curious de Chapultepec, that has been a speaking world, or the biggest city in people, an event that was local in its favorite among city politicians for North America. A city of immigrants reach, yet cosmopolitan in its vision. decades. It’s also notable for its and innovation, built and rebuilt For Listman and Keval, the menu proximity to several essential design with a zealous lust for the new, at Masala y Maíz is a reflection of the institutions, including the influential blasted by tragedy, sustained by mestizaje, or cultural mixing, that gallery Kurimanzutto, which turns passion and pragmatism—Ciudad has defined Mexican culture and 20 this year. Casa Luis Barragán, the de México is, and always has been, cuisine since the Spanish conquest. former home of Mexico’s the great city of the Americas.

104 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com Plan a perfect stay

Santa in mexico city María la For a manageable microcosm of this vast metropolis, stick to these Ribera parts of the historic Cuauhtémoc borough. Pick one as your base, and spend your days exploring the others. San Rafael

Centro colonia Histórico Cuauhtémoc Juarez Getting Around com; suites from US$350) are D espite its size, Mexico City is two of the city’s prettiest Roma relatively easy to navigate. boutique hotels, while Condesa DF (condesadf.com;​ doubles San Miguel Condesa Comfortable year-round Chapultepec temperatures make it a great from US$200) is all about city for walking. The Metro is the minimal chic. most efficient way to cover E at + Drink longer distances, though it’s Join the area’s stylish residents Mexico best avoided at rush hour. Uber is city also a good option here. at lunch spot El Parnita (elparnita.com; tacos around US$3). The open kitchen at the Centro histórico unnamed spot next door (84 Yucatán; small plates US$3–$7) Hotels serves some of the most US$7) makes superb birria (spicy extraordinary collection of The Downtown Mexico interesting dishes anywhere in beef stew). Mesoamerican artifacts. Next (downtown​mexico.com; doubles town. In Condesa, Molino El door, Museo Tamayo (museo​ see + Do from US$230), set in a 17th- Pujol (fb.com/molinopujol)​ tamayo.org) shows modern, century palace, has an elegant offers a taste of celebrated chef T he magnificentGeology contemporary and folk art. The rooftop bar and pool. Enrique Olvera’s signature Museum (geologia.unam.mx/igl/ Museo de Arte Moderno (mam. snacks, and Baltra Bar (baltra. museo), in Santa María’s main inba.gob.mx) focuses, as its E at + Drink bar) mixes fantastic cocktails. In plaza, has a beautifully name suggests, on modern art. A rrive early to avoid the crowds Roma, Meroma (meroma.mx; displayed collection. For at Don Vergas (21 Ernesto mains US$14–$18) makes for an contemporary art, don’t miss S uan Mig el Pugibet; mains US$7–$32), a elegant, low-key alternative to Casa Wabi (casawabi.org) and Chapultepec stall in the Mercado San Juan the flashier restaurants in the the Museo Experimental El Eco that serves some of the city’s high-end Polanco district. (eleco.unam.mx/eleco), a best seafood. Dip into a historic masterpiece of mid-century Eat + Drink cantina like Salón España (25 see + do Mexican design. T he menu at Masala y Maíz Avda. República de Argentina), S hop for whimsical fashion (masala​ymaiz.com; small La Ópera (10 Cinco de Mayo) or at Hi-Bye (hibye.world), ju arez & Colonia plates US$5–$9) explores the La Faena (49 Venustiano and pick up a bottle of mezcal at Cuauhtémoc commonalities among the Carranza) to break up a day of Sabrá Diós (15 Avda. Veracruz), cuisines of Mexico, India, and East Africa, while El Mirador sightseeing. For dinner, stop at in Condesa. If you’re interested Hotels the beloved mezcal bar Bósforo in local crafts, make an de Chapultepec (cantina​el​ (31 Luis Moya), then try the chic, appointment to visit the T he newly opened Ryo Kan mirador.com; sharing plates nameless restaurant next door showroom at Ven a Mi (ryokan.mx; doubles from US$7–$10) is one of the city’s (mains US$8–$12). (instagram.com/venami_mx) and US$150) brings Japanese classic cantinas. tranquility and onsen culture to keep an eye out for retail pop- see + Do see + do ups like Momo Room (momo- the city’s business district. Book well in advance for a S tart in the Zócalo, or central room.com). E at + Drink plaza, then see the Diego Rivera tour of Casa Luis Barragán You’ll find some of Mexico City’s (casa​luis​barragan.org), former murals at the Palacio Nacional S anta María la ribera (palacio​nacional​demexico.mx) best international restaurants in home of the Pritzker-winning & San Rafael these neighborhoods, from and the Secretariat of Public architect. Nearby, Casa Gilardi small plates at natural-wine bar Education headquarters (fb.com/casagilardi), the last (28 Avda. República de Hotels Le Tachinomi Desu (edo​ house Barragán built before his Argentina), the Aztec ruins at the T he boutique hotel El Patio 77 kobayashi.com; small plates death, also offers tours by US$5–$8) to a remarkable Museo del Templo Mayor (elpatio77.com; doubles from appointment. Next door to the (templo​mayor.inah.gob.mx), and US$125) makes for a peaceful omakase at Sushi Kyo (edo​ Barragán house is the Archivo kobayashi.com; set menus from the Baroque Metropolitan base in a central but relatively de Diseño y Arquitectura US$75). (218 Río Cathedral (catedral​ unexplored area. Salón Ríos (archivonline.org), a small metropolitana​cdmx.org). Lerma; mains US$8–$30) is a exhibition space and reading E at + Drink great place for updated Mexican room devoted to Mexican design Find the best tamales in the city classics; Cicatriz (cicatriz​cafe. with a beautiful garden in back. R oma & Condesa at Cintli (174 Calle Sabino), a com; mains US$3–$6) is ideal for Twenty years after opening, no-frills storefront in Santa a salad or an evening cocktail. Kurimanzutto (kurimanzutto. Hotels María la Ribera. Salón París (152 see + do com), in the neighborhood’s R oma’s Ignacia Guest House Jaime Torres Bodet) is a great peaceful heart, is still among The Anthropology Museum (ignacia.mx; doubles from traditional cantina, while La the most influential galleries in (mna.inah.gob.mx) has an US$300) and La Valise (lavalise. Polar (lapolar.com.mx; birria North America. — M.S. wish you were here

Venture around Bali to any one of its smaller villages, and you’ll likely come across a proud elder and his sabung, a specially bred cock like I Wayan Kenyur’s here. Cared for with the utmost respect, and likely outliving its cousins who are destined for the dinner table, the rooster is part of the island’s cockfighting tradition. Today, it’s mainly practiced as part of a temple festival or a religious purification ceremony as a means to expel evil spirits through tabuh rah, or the spilling of blood. — jill gocher

106 april 2019 / travelandleisureasia.com

SOME CHEFS COOK THEIR BEST AT 30.000 FEET

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