Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2016 i Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia, Hong Kong & Macau

THIS MONTH ON TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM 5 HOT SINGAPOREAN RESTAURANTS From celebrity chef outposts to gourmet pizza, we check out the Lion City’s coolest new eateries. SOUTHERN CHARM IN TAIWAN Kaosiung, Tainan, Taitung and the southern coast offer plenty to lure travelers, from surfing to contemporary art. 4 BUZZING BARBER SHOPS These retro salons around the region aim to bring back the good old days of men’s grooming. LOOKOUT Melbourne goes nuts for Singaporean cuisine; how to be an eco-friendly traveler; a new beachside rum bar on Koh Samui; the latest travel deals and much more. travelandleisureasia.com DOWNLOAD US T+L TABLET EDITIONS Available on iOS, Android, Win 8 and Zinio Desktop Reader. FOLLOW US TWITTER.COM/TRAVLEISUREASIA FACEBOOK.COM/TRAVELLEISUREASIA PINTEREST.COM/TRAVLEISUREASIA INSTAGRAM.COM/TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA KEEP UP WITH US Sign up for our newsletter for monthly highlights and offers…

The latest must-have for your carry-on: coloring books designed for adults, featuring complex illustrations ranging from forest fauna to architectural wonders. Research suggests that coloring can lower stress levels, and these books will fill hours of flight time. Our current favorite, Gulliver’s New Travels (Barron’s Educational Series; US$13), depicts Lilliputian worlds. Pair it with a Prismacolor pencil set (prismacolor.com; US$10 for a set of eight)—the brand of choice for devotees, with fine-point pencils that allow you to fill in every last detail.…

THE STATED PROMISE of 24 summer days aboard the Seabourn Quest was the raw Arctic scenery of the “Route of the Vikings,” a 10,315-kilometer crossing from Copenhagen to Montreal via Iceland and Greenland. Sailing past icebergs and pods of whales would be thrilling, though not nearly as thrilling, to me, as the bigger, unwritten promise of spending nearly a month at sea. These days, cruises are sold either for their jam-packed itineraries or their over-the-top amenities—as if being at sea were a constant struggle against boredom. Not everybody who gets on a ship, however, sees it this way. Cruising was once the definition of leisure. Years ago, trips like a winter sailing to South America from New York aboard one of the great Moore-McCormack liners, or an around-the-world voyage on…

If you can take advantage of price fluctuations in travel, you can get more bang for your euro. Skyscanner shows us the average costs of flights from Singapore to European cities this May, while Booking.com provides the average costs of a weeklong stay in 11 different destinations. Highlights to note: While hotel prices are mostly rising, you can offset at least some of the costs with cheaper flights to many cities—with the notable exceptions of London and Rome, both on the rise overall. Data courtesy of Skyscanner and Booking.com. The average cost of a seven-day hotel stay is based on four- to five-star accommodations.…

SUPER SAVER The Olympian, Hong Kong Get exclusive access to the private lounge at West Kowloon’s newest boutique hotel and the residential-style accommodation complete with a kitchenette and Acca Kappa bath amenities. The Deal Introductory offer: a night in a standard room, from HK$1,600 for two, through June 30. Save up to 39%. theolympianhotel.com. DINING PHUKET Banyan Tree The all-pool-villa resort centered around a saltwater lagoon serves new food-andbeverage offerings by executive chef Alfonso de la Dehesa Montes, which you can savor at 20-percent discount with this promotion. Plus, get 20 percent off massages at the award-winning Banyan Tree Spa and complimentary round-trip transfer to Phuket Old Town or Patong. The Deal Summer Sensation: four to five nights in a Banyan Pool villa, from Bt48,960 for two, through October 31.…

1 Melanie Lee WRITER Fun on the Farm Page 61 — As our guinea pigs touring farms in Singapore’s rural Kranji, Lee and her son both loved the frog farm, though for different reasons. “The café sold fresh hashima (frog’s fallopian tubes), a chilled dessert, supposedly good for the skin and the respiratory system,” she says. The whole region was full of good eats, in fact. “We made pit stops between farms to pluck duku fruit, growing randomly along the road. They were some of the sweetest I’ve tasted.” For incity family fun, Lee and son suggest eco-friendly kids’ creative space Playeum, at Gillman Barracks. Instagram: @melanderings. 2 Scott A. Woodward PHOTOGRAPHER North Korea Page 92 — Woodward says his minders asked little about his life in Canada or Singapore.…

GOOD THINGS come in small packages and The Birder’s Lodge (66-44/300-185; fb.com/thebirderslodge; lodges from Bt3,000) will steal your heart with its perfectly appointed, pint-sized cabins. This rustic retreat, just a few hours drive from Bangkok, is right on the outskirts of Khao Yai National Park, a woodland felicity. The burgeoning tourist scene has seen a number of sleek hotels set up shop but for those seeking something a little different, The Birder’s Lodge brings homelike elegance to the great outdoors. Simplicity may be prioritized here, but it doesn’t come at the cost of style. During my stay I was struck by the clever design of the houses—with angular corners, weathered wooden exteriors and vast windows— catering to a pared-down, hipster asceticism. Each of the five homes, ranging in size from 30…

Filipina chef Margarita Forés (margaritafores.com) founded her food empire by bringing Italian cuisine to her home country after stints living in Florence and New York, but lately she’s pivoted towards discovering and exporting Philippine flavors. Though European dishes still dominate at her 10 restaurants, you can experience her new creations at Grace Park (63-2/843-7275), where local spices shine in recipes she’s been perfecting since childhood. Here she shares her journey through the country and her favorite finds along the way. Davao, 2011 | “During my visits I met Olive Puentespina of Malagos Farmhouse [malagos farmhouse.com]. She was just starting to make her cheeses, with techniques she learned from a Swiss master. Her family had a goat farm and she now makes very complex French-style cheeses using the local milk. It’s an exciting discovery…

MOST TRAVELERS come to Vienna for its old-world architectural glories, music and history of fin de siècle intellectualism. But there’s a bracingly young side of the city, too, particularly in the fourth district— which locals call Wieden—just a short stroll from Belvedere Castle. The newfound buzz comes largely from an influx of students, including aspiring artists and architects. “It has been a favorite of authors and intellectuals for a few years,” says Helena Hartlauer, a Vienna native who works with the tourism board. “There’s a mix of this older group and young students, which has made it dynamic, unusual and harmonic.” The neighborhood’s appeal starts with its shops, a departure from normally conservative Viennese fashion. Flo Vintage (flovintage.com) sells jumpsuits and sparkly frocks, and Jutta Pregenzer’s (pregenzer.com) cocoon coats and chartreuse…

IN ENGLAND, ARTISANAL FOOD and drink have become almost commonplace. From rare-breed meats to regional cheese and cider, visitors have had access to the fruits of high quality, local production for years. But they probably couldn’t define the country’s terroir. Now that’s changing, as English sparkling wines begin to catch the eye of wine critics and enthusiasts around the globe. England’s first modern vineyards were established in the 1950s. Battling the damp, cloudy climate, winemakers struggled to produce anything that measured up to vintages from sunnier southern Europe. Then, in the 1980s and 90s, a group of enterprising wineries discovered that the low sugar and high acidity of grapes grown in England’s cool weather were ideal for sparkling wine. This, coupled with a few warm summers and a small but…

IT WAS OVER BOWLS OF ICE-COLD WATERMELON FRAGRANT WITH MINT that I sat chatting with Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi, an award-winning Mumbai novelist who had recently relocated to Goa. We were on the veranda of his 100-year-old villa in the hamlet of Moira where, from our elevated perch, I could just glimpse a cruelly tempting lap pool, beyond which rice fields glowed electric green. Just a few years ago, this unspoiled Goan village was best known for an unusually large variety of banana. The state’s beaches— arranged along a lush, 102-kilometer stretch of India’s palm-laced western shore—were most commonly associated with low-end, backpacker tourism. Now, certain beaches and inland villages are becoming seriously fashionable. Such is Goa’s newfound status as a locus of Indian cool that hamlets like Moira fall in…

“Stop being a fool or it will bite you.” My companion and voice of reason is right: trying to grab a baby blacktip shark by the tail is an act of pure madness. But conformity and safety be damned, for I have never swum that close to such a fearsome but elegant creature before, in the emerald green waters of Pulau Payar, midway between the better-known Malaysian islands of Penang and Langkawi. I’m not crazy, just overcome by temptation. Wherever I wade in this sea, a missile-shaped baby shark comes wriggling its tail in front of my nose, and the game’s on. It zooms forward, circles around the pier’s poles, and then loops back, darting all around me. From the water, the shark looks as if it were an unruly…

ONE OF THE THINGS TO LOVE ABOUT TRAVEL IS THAT SENSE OF SEEING a place for the first time. I’m speaking not of a destination’s postcard impressions, but its essence. If you’re lucky, the truth of a place is something you may catch sight of on your first visit. This was the case recently for Scott A. Woodward, whose photo essay from North Korea (page 92) ever-so-slightly peels back the veneer of that secluded country, challenging many of the assumptions of those of us who have never been. Travel aims to open doors and, in North Korea’s case, those portals are a tough ask, but Woodward’s eye and his genuine curiosity do offer a glimpse. We spend a lot of time in this issue digging deeper. Think of Goa, for…

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DECK P LAN The Crystal Esprit—Crystal Cruises’ new 31-suite yacht equipped with a submarine, water skis and kayaks— is now sailing the Mediterranean, with stops in Slovenia, Montenegro and Cyprus (crystalcruises.com; six days from US$3,240 per person). What to wear when activities range from lying by the pool to rafting on the rivers of Croatia? A versatile Lisa Marie Fernandez suit with nautical details (lisa marie fernandez.com; US$445) or classic gingham trunks from Ralph Lauren (ralph lauren.com; US$350). POOL PARTY The Grace Santorini (grace santorini.com; doubles from US$657) unveils a full renovation this summer, but the best part of the Greek hotel remains unchanged: its views. The rooftop infinity pool is built into the cliffs, and looks out on the caldera. In typical Santorini fashion, the color palette is blue…

“CHINATOWN IS ALWAYS CHANGING,” says Victor Hierro, who runs Spanish tapas bar El Chiringuito with his Thai wife, Sudaporn Sae-ia. The formerly shuttered old shophouses near Hua Lamphong Station have begun reopening as some of the city’s coolest art galleries, pubs and shops, giving the Nana neighborhood new cachet. Not to be confused with the nefarious Nana red-light area off lower Sukhumvit, this Nana is the latest blossoming rose of Bangkok’s Chinatown, a collection of architecturally intriguing buildings that feature a blend of Chinese gabled roofs with striking colonialtropical deco lines. While the majority of residents are Thai-Chinese who were born and raised here, the new multicultural buzz is bundled in three shorts blocks, bookended by an old Chinese Baptist church and cheap-eats diner Lad-na Heng Yod Pak. Many establishments…

AS THE 4 X 4 BOUNCED along a rutted dirt track, I gazed through swirling dust at an untamed landscape: cork trees, parched chaparral bushes, outcrops of golden rock. Fernando Romão, our guide and driver, pointed out short-toed eagles wheeling overhead as the vehicle lurched up a dry trough, engine roaring. In the front passenger seat, Simon Collier, a former safari guide from South Africa, wore a broad grin. “This is what Land Rovers are made for!” We were in eastern Portugal’s Côa Valley, a four-hour drive from Lisbon. It had taken only an hour to get from the medieval fortress town of Castelo Rodrigo, where I’d spent the morning, to the heart of the 890-hectare Faia Brava Nature Reserve. Having reached higher ground, we parked and strode across dirt…

MY SON, CHRISTIAN, has been bugging me to bring him to farms “just like my storybooks.” Amazingly enough, after some queries with my resourceful mommy network, I discover that a few farms in Kranji (kranjicountryside.com), in Singapore’s northwest corner, do cater to rambunctious toddlers. We pack our hats, sunscreen and water one weekend to channel our inner Old MacDonalds. BOLLYWOOD VEGGIES. “I feel like a real farmer!” The four-hectare farm raises vegetables and fruits free from fertilizers, pesticides and growth hormones. That matters little to Christian, who is more taken with zipping through the rows of plants, chasing birds around the lotus pond and traipsing around the children’s garden just outside its restaurant, Poison Ivy. There’s a tree house and a retired miniature tractor there, which means we parents get to…

How to Pedal Appropriately in AMSTERDAM Amsterdammers ride their bikes the way New Yorkers walk and Germans drive: fast and aggressively. Cycling etiquette isn’t always obvious (and locals are often the first to violate it), but Veronique Klomp of Amsterdam bike-rental chain MacBike offers a couple pointers. Do use hand signals before changing directions or lanes, and obey the bicycle traffic lights. It’s not just polite: breaking a biking rule can cost you €60—or, worse when abroad, cause an accident. Don’t ride side by side, blocking the passing lane, or otherwise hold up traffic. Doing so will earn you peevish glares and angry mutters. “We locals cycle to get from A to B,” Klomp says, “as quickly as possible.” How Not to Be a Jerk in DENMARK The Danes are…

LOW-COST CARRIERS DOMINATE EUROPEAN SKIES WITH THEIR BIG NETWORKS AND TOO-CHEAP-TO-BE-BELIEVED FARES. OUR CHEAT SHEET HELPS YOU DECIDE WHEN IT’S WORTH IT. TAP FOR TIPS With tipping now de rigueur in much of Europe (yes, really), you could probably use a good app to navigate the expectations of servers and bellhops. Perfectionists should try the Europe Tip Calculator (US$0.99, iOS). Choose the category, the country, the purchase or luggage amount, and the quality of service; the app uses local standards to calculate the gratuity, down to the euro-cent. Piper (free, iOS) gives quick, general advice for each country.…