Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2020 i Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia, Hong Kong & Macau

THIS MONTH ON TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM TAIPEI’S FOOD SCENE HEATS UP With a group of young, wildly creative chefs leading the way, the Taiwanese capital is emerging as Asia’s buzziest culinary destination. SEEKING SANCTUARY Whether you want to plunge into sanctified waters or just the depths of your own mind, these wellness retreats around Asia are awash in the philosophy of self-healing. HUE, ONE BITE AT A TIME Vietnam’s last dynasty may have built monuments around its imperial citadel, but the enduring monarchic influence is found in the food of the commonfolk—the banh Hue. LOOKOUT A family travel guide for every type of brood; three new Sentosa stays to check out; take a tour led by a group of deported refugees in Cambodia; the latest travel deals and much more. travelandleisureasia.com DOWNLOAD…

JUST A NOTE, not quite a warning, from our office as we put the finishing touches on this issue: I’m steering clear of our features editor Bek van Vliet Owen. This ordinarily quite calm, suitably together mother of a preschooler, and compiler of the front half of each issue, Bek kicks off—yes, pun intended—this month’s spa update (“A New Age of Spas,” page 51) by pummeling her way through muay Thai sessions in Phuket. She takes part in a host of other activities fit for athletes in training, but it’s her newfound love of kickboxing that has me concerned. At the other end of the brutality scale, I had a spa session in Singapore that incorporates live cello music, which isn’t as crazed as it sounds, particularly because I didn’t…

A LARGE FRESHWATER prawn poked its head out of a coconut-frond basket. Another followed, then another. They shimmied up, then dove to the sandy ground, attempting a run for their lives. Too late, though. Milagros Montero caught them—for the second time that morning, the first being at the river near her home—and put them back. Soon, she would shell and devein them, with lightning dexterity, and feed them through a manual grinder with hot chilis, ginger and shallots. This is how Montero and her son, Jason, make their sarsa na uyang, steamed fish cakes, which sell out by midmorning at the local market. Officially launching with Silversea’s new ship Silver Moon in August, SALT (short for Sea and Land Taste) upends what most of us expect from cruise food. Passengers…

DESPITE ITS OCEANFRONT real estate and proximity to the Great Barrier Reef, the city of Cairns and the surrounding area were always lacking in high-end properties to match those million-dollar views. Now a host of recent arrivals and overhauled stalwarts are rolling out the red carpet—along with initiatives that ensure the delicate reef ecosystem will endure. In Cairns proper, catch views of the glittering Marlin Marina from the updated Shangri-La Hotel, The Marina (shangri-la.com; doubles from A$251). All 255 guest rooms have balconies and a modern, airy aesthetic. The Riley (crystalbrookcollection.com; doubles from A$300) and Bailey (doubles from A$300) are the first of three Crystalbrook Collection hotels in Cairns, all of which emphasize responsible luxury, with local sourcing, plastic-free policies and partnerships with conservation groups such as Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef.…

BOLIVIA’S SALAR DE UYUNI, the world’s largest salt flat, came into view 15 minutes from Uyuni Airport: vast, somber, glinting like an icy lake. We turned off the road to drive across it, and as the salt crunched beneath our tires, it was hard to shake the feeling of leaving terra firma. My seven-year-old son, Santiago, surveyed the horizon. I’d enticed him to spend a few days in mid-May in a place with virtually no plants, animals or buildings by proffering vague promises about llamas. With no llamas in sight, he looked dubious. We arrived at Stairway to Heaven, a public artwork created in 2018 by Gastón Ugalde. The installation consists of 16 steps that ascend skyward from the salt flats, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. By the…

THE TUNGABHADRA RIVER cuts through the boulder-strewn landscape of Hampi, in the South Indian state of Karnataka, like a jigsaw. Twisting back and forth between giant rocks, it has always been a lifeline for the people of this landlocked village—which is why so many of Hampi’s spectacular ruins stand right along its banks. As my family and I approached the river, the sun burning bright overhead, our nine-year-old son, Apollo, pointed to a circular bamboo raft tied up near the shore. “We’re not going across in that, are we?” To say that the raft appeared unseaworthy would be an understatement. The bamboo vessel, known as a coracle, resembled an overgrown fruit basket. No more than two meters across, its rim sat just a few centimeters above the water. “No, no,”…

1 Aaron Joel Santos PHOTOGRAPHER “Funky Town” Page 80 “There’s a real vibrancy and depth to Lao food that gives the impression you’ve never really tasted certain flavors before. The produce just sings. On the last night of our eating tour through Luang Prabang, we had fried burrowing Mekong crickets on a rickety wooden dock on the river with a side of cheap beers and boiled buffalo skin. It was pretty magical. However, I also learned there’s a special dish where you scrape the packed-up poop out of a buffalo’s lower intestines and fry it up. And that’s when I realized I do have a line drawn of things I won’t eat.” Instagram: @aaronjoelsantos. 2 Connla Stokes WRITER “The New Taste of Saigon” Page 18 “Dining in Saigon is evolving…

no. 1 A massage so good it’s heritage listed. KNEADING, STRETCHING, rhythmic prodding—few spa experiences are as invigoratingly uncomfortable as nuad Thai, or Thai massage. With roots in Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine, this healing art has been practiced in Thailand for centuries, and has just achieved UNESCO status as part of the kingdom’s “intangible cultural heritage.” A different beast from passive massages that entail oils, bare skin and drifting off into sleep, Thai massage uses interactive yoga-like pretzel poses to lengthen muscles and increase flexibility, and intense pressure-point stimulation with fingers, elbows and knees. While there are thousands of spas and massage centers across Thailand that offer nuad Thai, there are some spinal twists and stretches with which only therapists certified by Thailand’s Public Ministry of Health should be…

IT USED TO BE that visitors to Cape Town who wanted a taste of the wine and wild coastal landscapes outside the city would tack on a road trip through the beloved Garden Route. But over the past decade or so, the Garden Route, which runs around the southern tip of South Africa from Mossel Bay to Port Elizabeth, got a little crowded. These days, tuned-in travelers are heading inland, to the agricultural heartlands of the Cape and its lesser-known southern shores—home to some of the most appealing hotels in South Africa, as well as traditional farming villages, fashionable new restaurants, and award-winning vineyards. With the easy-to-navigate Route 62 (route62.co.za) at its heart and a host of quaint guesthouses at which to spend the night along the way, this trip showcases…

I ARRIVED IN THE CITY of Trondheim just in time for the 17th of May—known to Norwegians as Nasjonaldagen, or National Day. Every year, the country celebrates the 1814 signing of its constitution by throwing a joyous street party. Men wear their best suits, while women and children dress in traditional folk costumes: sweeping blue capes and embroidered vests and skirts. And parents let their kids eat ice cream with abandon. I may have been a little delirious from jet lag, but as I wandered through Trondheim, it was impossible not to get swept up by all the pomp-free pageantry and collective high spirits. I stopped to watch a morning procession of flag-waving schoolchildren and, later, a jolly, everyone’s-welcome parade of marching bands, acrobats, and organized groups of local enthusiasts,…

It is barely past sunrise at Luang Prabang’s morning market, but my guide, Phouvy, is in the mood to get down. “This is padek,” he says, gesturing to a vat of potent-smelling mud-brown liquid percolating at an old woman’s feet. “It adds funk to our food.” Made from fermented or pickled river fish cured with rice bran or husk, the dank brew looks like agricultural run-off after the monsoon season, and it smells like rotting French cheese. As the lady spoons portions into a clear plastic bag, I recoil from the aroma and the sight of bobbing fish chunks. This umami-laden elixir, though, is a key to Lao cuisine’s singular groove. “You know a dish is Lao if it has padek in it,” Phouvy says. “It looks disgusting, but no…

MORE THAN A CENTURY ago, a cosmopolitan cuisine was simmering in pots and pans all across Saigon—but it wasn’t in the kitchens of the swankiest French eateries, where colonials and émigrés from the Third Republic were eating generic staples made from canned goods. No, it was far from the city’s genteel boulevards that Vietnamese and Chinese chefs, armed with fish sauce, spicy peppers and indigenous ingredients, were gamely tinkering with French fare to satisfy the tastes of their Asian clientele. And now? The old colonial outpost, once billed as “Paris of the East,” is a teeming multicultural city where local chefs, more inspired than ever, are redefining the fine-dining scene smack in the heart of downtown District 1. “We’re not hiding in the back of the kitchen anymore,” says Le…

WHEN FRENCH NATURALIST Henri Mouhot explored Siem Reap’s moated cities, palaces and temples in 1860, his reports on Angkor unleashed Cambodia’s first tourism boom. In 1907, the city’s annexation to French Indochina further enforced Angkor’s reputation as an adventure destination, and by the late 1920s, up to 3,000 visitors per year were strolling the dirt lanes from temple to temple. As he shows me around the Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor (raffles.com; doubles from US$404), which reopened last fall after an extensive redo, Saravann Mouth, the property’s first in-house historian, explains that this was one of five premier hotels in Indochina planned by the French-colonial government to house the growing influx of arrivals. Designed by Ernest Hébrard, Hanoi-based architect and town planner for all of French Indochina, the 62-room Grand Hotel…

SUPERSAVER Oakwood Premier AMTD Singapore Have the club lounge come to you with a package that includes unlimited cocktails and canapés from the new Oakwood Mobile Bar. Lounge treats are brought to your door from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., and you receive daily breakfast, laundry and pressing, and 20 percent off in-room dining. The Deal Club Room Package rates start from S$423 per night, valid until December 31, 2020. oakwoodasia.com. GROUP MALDIVES Soneva Fushi Plan a girls’ getaway to remember at the original Maldivian eco-resort in UNESCO-listed Baa Atoll. The new “BFF” package puts an idyllic spin on bridal and hens’ parties, reunions and birthdays with an all-inclusive stay in one of the resort’s sprawling beachfront villas. Included: full board in select restaurants, all-day house drinks across the resort…