With its stacked, biophilic design, this new hotel provides a vision for sustainable high-rise hospitality.
<figure id="attachment_135112" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-135112" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-135112 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Lobby.jpg" alt="Inside the lobby at Pan Pacific Orchard, Singapore." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Lobby.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Lobby-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Lobby-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Lobby-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-135112" class="wp-caption-text">Inside the lobby at Pan Pacific Orchard, Singapore. (All photos: Studio Periphery)</figcaption></figure>
When discussing architecture, Wong Mun Summ likes to reference “systems thinking”—a holistic form of organizational analysis that asks how systems act and influence one another within a larger system. It’s an approach that informs much of the work produced by WOHA, the much-laureled Singapore-based architectural studio Wong cofounded with Richard Hassell in 1994. His latest project, the 347-room <a href="https://www.panpacific.com/en/hotels-and-resorts/pp-orchard-sg.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pan Pacific Orchard</a> (doubles from US$340), is no exception in the way systems thinking is folded deep into the design.
Looking for all the world like the love child of a one-night stand between an Escher print and a Jenga block, the hotel rises 23 stories above the western end of the Orchard Road neighborhood, its perspective-defying silhouette a stark contrast to the more staid skyscrapers around it. And yet, despite its bulk and its room count, the hotel feels intimate, almost cloistered. Standing on a balcony of one of the admittedly compact guest rooms—most of which weigh in at either 25 or 30 square meters—there is the sensation that you’ve just checked in to a much smaller, cozier boutique property rather than one that caters to a broader market.
This sleight of hand is achieved by the novel act of breaking the height of the skyscraper into four stacked volumes, carving out an enormous 26-meter-high void within each L-shaped stack that’s open to the elements, and then inserting guest rooms and other facilities along the interior edges.
This interlocking system, Wong explains, “domesticates the scale” of a large skyscraper hotel, allowing the individual volumes to create the illusion of a more intimate setting. “You wouldn’t know that there are floors and rooms above or below you,” he says.
Each stack features a vast terrace measuring almost 1,350 square meters. They are anchored by a reception area and cascading water plaza on the ground floor; a swimming pool on the fifth story; gardens and fountains on the 11th; and a ballroom, decorative pools, and boxed garden on the 18th. Even more remarkable are the terrace ceilings, which have been entirely clad in polished stainless steel panels. Instantly, the spaces are converted into giant mirrors that reveal their landscapes and activities to the street below and that, by extension, allow the external community to interact with the hotel’s occupants. “This humanizes a skyscraper,” Wong says.
<figure id="attachment_135113" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-135113" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-135113 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard-Day_Suite-Balcony_Night-view-2.jpg" alt="The balcony of a suite at Pan Pacific Orchard, Singapore." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard-Day_Suite-Balcony_Night-view-2.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard-Day_Suite-Balcony_Night-view-2-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard-Day_Suite-Balcony_Night-view-2-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard-Day_Suite-Balcony_Night-view-2-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-135113" class="wp-caption-text">The balcony of a suite at Pan Pacific Orchard, Singapore.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_135114" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-135114" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-135114 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Mosella.jpg" alt="The hotel’s Mediterranean restaurant, Mosella." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Mosella.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Mosella-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Mosella-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Mosella-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-135114" class="wp-caption-text">The hotel’s Mediterranean restaurant, Mosella.</figcaption></figure>
The voids also serve a less obvious, but equally crucial role: their open-air, cross-ventilated yet sheltered spaces provide passive cooling for the building and shade to the guest rooms, reducing the air-conditioning load. This feature is part of Wong’s larger concern—another instance of systems thinking at work—which is to reduce the hotel’s energy consumption, a bête noire of most modern buildings. In turn, the roof is sheathed with photovoltaic cell panels that generate clean energy to power the common areas. Rainwater is harvested to irrigate the gardens, while low-energy dry mist fans cool the air. And in the guest rooms—dressed in light woods, 400-thread count sheets, and attractive furnishings—a built-in water filter does away with single-use plastic bottles.
Meanwhile, the massive support columns at the outer corner of each terrace are lushly entwined with Javanese treebines that, over the coming years, will drop dense strands of vivid red vines like tropical maypoles. Elsewhere, the landscapers have been busy seeding the gardens with an Edenesque bounty of Norfolk Island pine, sweetly scented tabernaemontana, umbrella trees, sea hibiscus, angel wings, satin pothos, and figworts. Besides being a boon for the eyes, the dense foliage, along with the pool and water features, helps regulate the ambient air quality while absorbing carbon dioxide.
Not that Wong bashes you on the head with his greening evangelism. The architect is far too subtle for that. Instead, the Pan Pacific Orchard’s mechanical, environmental, and sustainability features are largely invisible. Most guests will only see the surface aesthetics without ever realizing the deeper functions and the systems thinking underlying the whole experience of their stay.
“When designing hotels, we are very aware that guests are looking for experiences, rather than just a place to spend the night,” Wong says. “Other hotels focus on the gold and marble lobby, but this building proposes new and better ways of living.”
<figure id="attachment_135111" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-135111" style="width: 1380px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-135111 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Exterior_Day.jpg" alt="The eye-catching exterior of Pan Pacific Orchard, Singapore." width="1380" height="920" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Exterior_Day.jpg 1380w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Exterior_Day-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Exterior_Day-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Exterior_Day-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1380px) 100vw, 1380px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-135111" class="wp-caption-text">The eye-catching exterior of Pan Pacific Orchard, Singapore.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_135115" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-135115" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-135115 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Deluxe-King.jpg" alt="A deluxe room at the hotel." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Deluxe-King.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Deluxe-King-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Deluxe-King-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pan-Pacific-Orchard_Deluxe-King-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-135115" class="wp-caption-text">A deluxe room at the hotel.</figcaption></figure>
This article originally appeared in the <a href="http://www.destinasian.com/magazine" target="_blank" rel="noopener">August/September 2023</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Open Plan”).

The eye-catching exterior of Pan Pacific Orchard, Singapore.

A Closer Look at Pan Pacific Orchard, Singapore

With the recent surge of wellness properties opening on the island, it’s never been easier to reset and recuperate in style.
<figure id="attachment_134911" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-134911" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-134911 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-1.jpg" alt="An immunity-boosting loloh (Balinese herbal drink) of cucumber and bitter gourd at Gdas; the bedroom of a teak-walled gladak suite at The Asa Maia." width="1200" height="745" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-1.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-1-300x186.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-1-1024x636.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-1-768x477.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-134911" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: An immunity-boosting loloh (Balinese herbal drink) of cucumber and bitter gourd at Gdas; the bedroom of a teak-walled gladak suite at The Asa Maia. (Courtesy of Gdas Bali; Courtesy of The Asa Maia)</figcaption></figure>
Perhaps no destination is better suited to finding balance than Bali. The confines of its size mean opposing energies constantly commingle. The island’s commanding volcanoes can humble, while its sweet floral breezes uplift. Bright and sunny Bali mornings turn into wet and stormy afternoons. And expat enclaves like Canggu and Ubud bring Western culture right alongside the Balinese-Hindu rituals of traditional village life.
This yin-meets-yang quality draws throngs of visitors to the island each year fleeing stress, burnout, and other symptoms of our frenetic world. To cure what ails them, the average wellness resort won’t cut it. They seek a more spiritual brand of self-care, purveyors of which have proliferated here of late. And while there’s plenty of snake oil to watch out for, some new spaces have managed to get it just right. You could say, they’ve struck the perfect balance.
<a href="https://theasamaia.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Asa Maia</a> (doubles from US$480) in Uluwatu, Bali’s surfer paradise, is one example. Ensconced in tropical greenery, the retreat is an oasis despite being a stone’s throw from the busy surf shops, cafés, and restaurants along Pantai Padang Padang road. Its Sanskrit name means “hope beyond illusion,” representing the renewal that takes place when we feel safe enough to unmask our authentic selves. I experienced this firsthand during a private breathwork session that had me shedding tears I hadn’t known needed to be shed. Breathwork is an ancient healing modality that served the resort’s founder, Martha Booke, when she battled and overcame cancer for the second time in her adult life. Other guided experiences include meditation, hypnotherapy, and contrast therapy by way of daily two-minute dips in a 6°C plunge pool.
Every wellness experience at The Asa Maia has been carefully curated, along with the Indonesian artwork, the books in the resort library (I picked up Jellyfish Age Backwards: Nature’s Secrets to Longevity during my stay), and the copper hardware used throughout the bath facilities, chosen for its natural antimicrobial properties. Each of the 10 guest suites, which occupy a cluster of restored Javanese wooden houses called gladak, features a tub carved from salvaged Belgian bluestone used centuries ago as ballast in Dutch merchant ships. The communal dining table is also intentional, meant to bring guests together to share and celebrate their individual healing journeys. It was around the breakfast table one morning, over green juice and gluten-free banana pancakes, that a fellow guest recommended yet another newly renovated, women-only retreat center, <a href="https://escapehaven.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Escape Haven</a> (six-night retreats from US$2,495 per person).
<figure id="attachment_134912" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-134912" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-134912 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-2.jpg" alt="Escape Haven features a saltwater lagoon pool with a built-in fire pit; a massage treatment for two at The Asa Maia’s spa." width="1200" height="745" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-2.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-2-300x186.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-2-1024x636.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-2-768x477.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-134912" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: Escape Haven features a saltwater lagoon pool with a built-in fire pit; a massage treatment for two at The Asa Maia’s spa. (Photos: Bali Interiors; courtesy of The Asa Maia)</figcaption></figure>
Located in a beautifully appointed 18-bedroom mansion in the Canggu area, Escape Haven feels a bit like a sorority house, if sorority houses also had world-class spa facilities. Having grown up with three sisters and no brothers, I immediately felt at home. Here, women of all ages come together to escape the common pressures placed on them—to get married, be good caregivers, delay aging, and so on. Norwegian retreat leader Emilie Nyman and her incredibly welcoming staff allow each woman to drop those pressures at the door, warmly embracing each one exactly where they are.
On any given week the house is full of women on specialized retreats for detoxing, healing, surfing, or Pilates. When not taking part in designated spa treatments or experiences, they gather in shared spaces for meals, yoga classes, or cozy conversations. The intergenerational groupings impart another meaningful aspect of Escape Haven. While chatting around a beach bonfire or during a cooking class, young women learn from the wisdom of their elders as older women are exposed to new perspectives from Gen Z and millennial guests. In all cases, lifelong friendships are forged here, and Emilie will often receive photos from previous groups of guests who have gathered together again.
The strong bonds guests create at Escape Haven make the ceremonial cacao send-off all the more emotional. Women take turns blessing each other’s cups, sending specific messages of love and encouragement so that drinking the cacao feels like drinking all that supportive energy. A guided meditation follows, and the ceremony concludes with endless rounds of tearful hugs and a bittersweet celebration of shared growth and healing.
<figure id="attachment_134913" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-134913" style="width: 1380px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-134913 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-3.jpg" alt="A two-story pool villa at Gdas Bali overlooks the paddy fields of Ubud’s Mas village." width="1380" height="920" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-3.jpg 1380w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-3-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-3-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-3-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1380px) 100vw, 1380px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-134913" class="wp-caption-text">A two-story pool villa at Gdas Bali overlooks the paddy fields of Ubud’s Mas village. (Courtesy of Gdas Bali)</figcaption></figure>
But perhaps the part of Bali most synonymous with holistic healing is Ubud. Located in the island’s central foothills and awash in ancient temples and fluorescent rice paddies, Ubud has plenty of retreats to choose from. But two newcomers stand out, not least for the famous names attached to them.
American reggae-rock musician Michael Franti and his wife, Sarah, opened <a href="https://www.soulshinebali.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Soulshine Bali</a> (doubles from US$320) in 2016 as a gathering space for close friends. In 2022, however, they expanded with 33 new guest accommodations so others could experience the healing that takes place there. Peace and playfulness exist side by side here. I loved the barefoot luxury, colorful lounge, and communal pool with sunny accents, like the adults-only waterslide. The rooms, on the other hand, induce calm, with each designed to feel more like your best friends’ guesthouse than a resort.
Just up the road is <a href="https://gdasbali.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gdas Bali</a> (doubles from US$300), the new all-vegan wellness resort from music mogul Russell Simmons. Inspired by Simmons’s own healing journey in Bali, guests are treated to a Balinese purification ceremony at Tirta Empul Temple before consulting with a local balian usada, or traditional plant-based medicine specialist, who gives feedback on health conditions in order to curate an appropriately tailored retreat. When the 27-room property completes its wellness center—the largest in Bali—later this year, guests will benefit from a wide menu of East-meets-West therapies ranging from massage and meditation to hyperbaric chambers, cryotherapy, and IV drips.
Reflecting on my experiences at each retreat, I realize they all share a palpable, come-as-you-are hospitality that reveals the secret to living a balanced life: learning to be okay with who you are in any given moment. Feeling accepted by others in that space between settling and striving helps you internalize that acceptance, and imparts an ability to find balance both in Bali, and beyond.
<figure id="attachment_134914" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-134914" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-134914 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-4.jpg" alt="Michael and Sara Franti at their recently upsized wellness resort, Soulshine; dragon fruit limeade and cauliflower poppers at Escape Haven." width="1200" height="745" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-4.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-4-300x186.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-4-1024x636.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Bali-New-Wellness-Retreats-4-768x477.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-134914" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: Michael and Sara Franti at their recently upsized wellness resort, Soulshine; dragon fruit limeade and cauliflower poppers at Escape Haven. (Photos: Bali Interiors; Adam Rasyid)</figcaption></figure>
THREE MORE PLACES TO RECHARGE IN BALI
<a href="https://www.revivoresorts.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Revīvō Wellness Resort</a> 
Nestled in a three-hectare teak forest in the hills of Nusa Dua, this 16-suite property provides a tranquil setting for reviving guests through movement, mindful practices, and nutrition. As well as the regular spa offerings, there’s IV vitamin infusion therapy, a hydrotherapy circuit, and a far-infrared and dry charcoal sauna.
<a href="https://fivelementsbali.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fivelements Retreat</a> 
Its verdant riverside grounds near Ubud are rejuvenating in their own right. But Fivelements also blends traditional Balinese healing philosophies with a modern, holistic approach to wellness, with specialists on hand to guide guests through meditation, yoga, somatic therapy, vibrational healing music, and more.
<a href="https://www.comohotels.com/bali/como-shambhala-estate" target="_blank" rel="noopener">COMO Shambhala Estate</a> 
This longstanding five-star refuge above the Ayung River combines a natural jungle setting with expert spa and wellness facilities. Programs include yoga, Pilates, meditation, rice field walks, massages and body care treatments, and nutrition-optimized cuisine.
This article originally appeared in the <a href="http://www.destinasian.com/magazine" target="_blank" rel="noopener">August/September 2023</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Calm and Get It”).

A two-story pool villa at Gdas Bali overlooks the paddy fields of Ubud’s Mas village.

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Part of the new multi-concept venue Forty-Five, the rooftop terrace of Cardinal Point overlooks the busy streets of Central. (Courtesy of Forty-Five)

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A luxurious train ride down the tracks from Da Nang, this up-and-coming destination on the central coast of Vietnam is the jumping-off point for exploring ancient Cham ruins, tranquil countryside, and some of the country’s best seafood.
Photographs by Christopher P. Hill
<figure id="attachment_133875" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133875" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-133875 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-1.jpg" alt="Cocktail hour aboard The Vietage, en route to Quy Nhon; a housekeeping staffer at Anantara Quy Nhon Villas." width="1200" height="894" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-1.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-1-300x224.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-1-1024x763.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-1-768x572.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-133875" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: Cocktail hour aboard The Vietage, en route to Quy Nhon; a housekeeping staffer at Anantara Quy Nhon Villas.</figcaption></figure>
From my seat at the train carriage’s marble-topped bar, I watch the Central Vietnamese countryside sweep past outside the window: a procession of fluorescent green rice fields speckled with slender white egrets, conical-hatted farmers, and lumbering water buffalo. To the west, the hazy foothills of the Annamite Range stretch along the horizon; to the east are snatched glimpses of a sparkling sea. Save for the occasional river crossing or town, the scenery hasn’t changed much since we pulled out of Da Nang Station five hours ago. But then an ancient brick tower hoves into view on a distant hilltop. “The ruins of Thap Banh It,” says Tien, the bartender. “Welcome to Cham country.”
Were this a typical Vietnam Railways carriage, I’d likely have spent most of the 300-plus-kilometer journey between Da Nang and the port city of Quy Nhon trying to catch up on sleep. But The Vietage is something different. Launched in 2020, it’s an exclusive 12-passenger railcar developed by Thai-based hotel brand Anantara to complement its two resorts in Central Vietnam—one in Hoi An, just south of Da Nang, and the other on the seaside of Quy Nhon. The Vietage is attached to a regular passenger train on the North–South railway, a narrow-gauge line that follows the curving coastline of Vietnam from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. In most other respects, though, it’s its own little world. There are smartly uniformed staff, private booths with woven rattan screens, good Wi-Fi, and a cocktail bar serving freeflow wines and appropriately named tipples like the All Aboard and Off the Rails. I’m handed a glass of bubbly as a welcome drink. Lunch is a treat too: duck foie gras with onion compote followed by a salmon fillet with chili beurre blanc and a chocolate crème brûlée. There’s even a massage chair where attendants offer expert shoulder massages.
By the time Tien mixes up my second whisky sour–ish Off the Rails, we’re already well into Binh Dinh Province, of which Quy Nhon is the capital. A cradle of traditional Vietnamese martial arts, Binh Dinh is also closely associated with the Champa Kingdom, a Hindu civilization that at its height controlled much of what is now central and southern Vietnam. Vijaya, whose lonely ruins lie to the northwest of present-day Quy Nhon, served as the Cham capital for 300 years until the kingdom’s decimation by the Vietnamese empire of Dai Viet in the 15th century. And while the most famous Cham temple site is the UNESCO-listed My Son Sanctuary near Hoi An, it’s Binh Dinh that claims the biggest and best-preserved monuments from that era.
Not long after passing Thap Banh It, the train pulls into Quy Nhon’s Dieu Tri Station and we disembark. The Vietage is unhitched and pushed onto a siding, where it will sit until a north-bound train returns it to Da Nang that evening. Some passengers, like me, are met by BMWs from Anantara Quy Nhon Villas, 40 minutes down the road. A few disperse in the direction of other hotels, as you don’t need to be a guest of Anantara to purchase a ticket.
But you’ll want to be. With just 26 one- and two-bedroom villas overlooking an isolated stretch of golden sand, Anantara’s intimate Quy Nhon property is a perfect base from which to explore the area. Or to just stay put, as I’m tempted to do when I lay eyes on my villa’s beachfront plunge pool and adjacent cabana, which look out across the water to a pair of rocky uninhabited islands.
<figure id="attachment_133876" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133876" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-133876 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-2.jpg" alt="The view from a hillside pool deck at Anantara Quy Nhon Villas; the resort’s Fire Salt restaurant sits next to a palm-studded lawn." width="1200" height="894" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-2.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-2-300x224.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-2-1024x763.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-2-768x572.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-133876" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: The view from a hillside pool deck at Anantara Quy Nhon Villas; the resort’s Fire Salt restaurant sits next to a palm-studded lawn.</figcaption></figure>
Still, after a restful night’s sleep, I venture out the next morning with a young Anantara-arranged guide named Dinh Quoc Thich, who started a private tour company some years ago to cater to Quy Nhon’s quietly growing tourist numbers. “Many people have already visited Da Nang and Nha Trang; now they are discovering Quy Nhon—our history, our food, our landscapes,” he says as we drive 15 minutes into the city. “More hotels and restaurants are opening all the time. I think if you come back in three or four years, you will see a big change.”
For now, Quy Nhon still feels off the radar, even along the lovely palm-lined promenade that runs almost the full length of the city’s seven-kilometer beachfront. Thich and I are the only visitors at the Binh Dinh Museum, a compact repository of Cham-era relics that sits in the shadow of a 43-story hotel tower, one of a handful of new high-rises on the otherwise modest skyline. And aside from a solitary guard dozing in the midday heat, we also have Thap Duong Long to ourselves. This is one of seven Cham sites in Binh Dinh, a trio of 12th-century brick temple towers that jut up 20 meters or more from the flat countryside of the Tay Son district, an hour’s drive inland from Quy Nhon. It seems impossible that we are the only ones here. Tufted with jungle vegetation, the towers look like they could have been plucked from some obscure corner of Angkor.
We do encounter a modest throng of day-trippers at the Quang Trung Museum, which occupies impressive grounds in a nearby township. The galleries here chronicle the Tay Son Rebellion, an 18th-century uprising led by three local brothers who would unite all of Vietnam under their rule. In an adjacent auditorium, a display of the Tay Son style of martial arts performed by teenage boys and girls shows just what fierce fighters the rebels were.
As it turns out, Phuc Tran, the sinewy head of security at Anantara, is also a master of martial arts, and guests can join him for lessons on the resort’s lawn. My own attempts to mimic any of his moves end in ignominy; and when he brings out a pair of lethal-looking bamboo sticks, I know it’s time to throw in the towel. Or rather, exchange it for a beach towel on one of the sun loungers flanking the main pool. Sipping a fruity cocktail, I chuckle at the nearby “weather station”—a coconut hanging on a chain next to a sign that reads COCONUT MOVING: WINDY; COCONUT WET: RAIN; COCONUT INVISIBLE: FOG; COCONUT GONE: HURRICANE. As the sun fades below the hills behind us, I watch as the lights of hundreds of floating squid traps in the bay twinkle to life—a constellation of fallen stars on the darkening sea.
<figure id="attachment_133878" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133878" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-133878 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-4.jpg" alt="Lunching on Quy Nhon’s best banh xeo tom at Gia Vy 2; Cham towers at Thap Duong Long." width="1200" height="894" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-4.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-4-300x224.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-4-1024x763.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-4-768x572.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-133878" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: Lunching on Quy Nhon’s best banh xeo tom at Gia Vy 2; Cham towers at Thap Duong Long.</figcaption></figure>
Another morning, I join Anantara’s Hoi An–born chef Vinh Tran on a visit to Quy Nhon’s wet market, where sidewalk vendors and covered stalls sell all manner of meat, vegetables, and seafood. I’m also introduced to local specialties such as banh it la gai, little banana-leaf pyramids of sticky rice cake stuffed with mung bean paste or shredded coconut; and tre, rolls of fermented pig’s ear wrapped in guava leaves and dry straw. Back at the resort’s glass-walled restaurant, chef Tran disappears into the kitchen with his groceries to whip up an indulgent lunch of sesame-dressed sea grape salad, fried squid in fish sauce, and soya-brushed steamed pomfret.
Tran’s varied menus—Cognac-flambéed lobster bisque, cherrywood-smoked Ibérico pork loin, mushroom risotto drizzled with truffle oil—hardly encourage culinary exploration beyond the resort. But on Thich’s recommendation, I grab a cab into town to a roadside eatery called Gia Vy 2, which he insists makes Quy Nhon’s best banh xeo tom. Here, Vietnam’s ubiquitous rice-flour crepes are topped with sweet, crunchy river shrimp, bean sprouts, and spring onions that you then roll in rice paper with an assortment of herbs, thinly sliced mango, and dollops of fish sauce. As promised, they’re delicious.
On my last afternoon, Thich takes me on a hike up Xuan Van, one of several forested hills that cradle the city. The way is paved with stone steps marked at intervals with plaques representing the biblical stations of the cross. At the top, some 240 meters above sea level, a narrow ridge is dominated by statues of Mary and a crucified Jesus, their plinths festooned with yellow marigolds. Thich says the statues were built in the 1960s by residents of the then Catholic-operated leper colony in the valley to our south. But you don’t have to be a particularly religious person to appreciate the views. Before me is the great arc of Quy Nhon’s seafront, its sheltered harbor backed by a rolling peninsula gilded in the slanting light. It feels like a blessing just to be here.
<figure id="attachment_133879" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133879" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-133879 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-3.jpg" alt="The addictive coconut crème brûlée at the Anantara’s Sea Fire Salt restaurant; a beachside villa at the same resort." width="1200" height="894" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-3.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-3-300x224.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-3-1024x763.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Quy-Nhon-Dispatch-3-768x572.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-133879" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: The addictive coconut crème brûlée at Anantara Quy Nhon Villas’ Sea Fire Salt restaurant; a beachside villa at the same resort.</figcaption></figure>
Quy Nhon Essentials
<h5>GETTING THERE </h5>
<a href="https://www.thevietagetrain.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Vietage</a> (US$400 per person, one-way) travels twice daily between Da Nang and Quy Nhon; the return journey is at night. Flying is also an option, with Quy Nhon’s Phu Cat Airport served by domestic flights from Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Hai Phong.
<h5>WHERE TO STAY </h5>
<a href="https://www.anantara.com/en/quy-nhon" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Anantara Quy Nhon Villas</a> 
Base yourself at this elegant all-villa property for its quiet location, terrific food, and cliff-side spa pavilions (doubles from US$500).
This article originally appeared in the <a href="http://www.destinasian.com/magazine" target="_blank" rel="noopener">June/July 2023</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Next Stop, Quy Nhon”).

The Unsung Charms of Quy Nhon

A year after the legalization of marijuana, the country’s cannabis industry is at an all-time high.
<figure id="attachment_133865" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133865" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-133865 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Thailand-Cannabis-Story.jpg" alt="A cannabis cocktail at the Bong Appétit dinner in Phuket; chef Steven John has a nose for ganja." width="1200" height="794" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Thailand-Cannabis-Story.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Thailand-Cannabis-Story-300x199.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Thailand-Cannabis-Story-1024x678.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Thailand-Cannabis-Story-768x508.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-133865" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: A cannabis cocktail at the Bong Appétit dinner in Phuket; chef Steven John has a nose for ganja.</figcaption></figure>
On a sultry March evening at The Slate resort in Phuket, I joined a group of fellow foodies for a five-course tasting menu orchestrated by guest chef Steven John. There was tuna tataki and 48-hour pork belly, tiger prawn with pineapple and pomelo, and a zesty pesto linguine, all matched with cocktails specially crafted for the occasion. The food, as expected, was delicious; John, a self-taught chef of Thai-Swiss parentage, is well regarded in Bangkok as the founder of the private-dining service Empty Plates. But as the meal progressed and our party grew increasingly euphoric, it was his showcase ingredient that stole the show: cannabis.
Billed as Thailand’s first gourmet ganja dining experience, the menu, named “Bong Appétit,” explored the once-illegal plant’s culinary potential, from CBD-infused sauerkraut puree to hempseed pasta to a “drunken banana” dessert with cannabis crumble. So too did the accompanying cocktails, each garnished with a distinctive marijuana leaf.
“Cannabis is wonderful for fine dining,” said John, who factors customer weight and tolerance into his recipes. “Everybody loves this.”
Welcome to the new weed wonderland of Thailand, where cannabis is all the rage at cafés, clinics, spas, and specialty shops. Anantara hotels around the country, for instance, now offer spa treatments like the Cannabis Stress-Release Journey, which delivers the pain-relieving qualities of CBD via traditional Thai herbal compresses (luk pra kob). Even the relatively buttoned-down Mandarin Oriental Bangkok is in on the act, with a two-hour CBD oil massage designed to mitigate insomnia or jetlag.
Such offerings have swept Thailand since the process of decriminalizing marijuana began in 2018, when it became the first country in Southeast Asia to legalize the plant for medical research and use. Cannabidiol (CBD), a nonpsychoactive compound that, unlike THC, doesn’t get you high, soon began appearing in spa therapies, ointments, and bottled drinks.
Potent pot flowers were finally legalized last June, turning Thailand into the Amsterdam of Asia. Overnight, food trucks added jars of marijuana buds, and dispensaries sprouted alongside hospitals and hostels. The high times have transformed tourist hot spots from Pai in the north to Phuket in the south, where pot shops flourish and cannabis juices up everything from pizza and pasta to coffee and ice cream (though any weed-infused food products must contain no more than 0.2 percent THC to be legally sold). The only remaining restrictions visitors should be aware of are that you can’t smoke marijuana in public and selling is limited to people over 20 years of age.
“It’s the greatest thing to happen in Thailand in years,” says Tai Taveepanichpan, the young entrepreneur behind a quartet of Bangkok cannabis dispensaries called Four Twenty. Even more such shops are run by Thailand’s top pot company, OG Canna, which currently operates nine outlets with names like Mary Jane, Cloud Nine, and Wonderland. American CEO Benjamin Baskins expects that number to grow to 20 by the end of this year. On my recent visit to the Mary Jane shop on Bangkok’s party-centric Sukhumvit Road, eager “budtenders” offered advice about cannabis strains like Apple Crumble, Banana Glue, Galactic Jack, Soul Mango, and Monkey Gelato. Product descriptions detailed THC content and properties like pain relief or “added excitement in the bedroom.”
And this is only the beginning of a Thai pot boom. There are already more than 5,000 pot shops across Thailand—and that’s not counting the 1,000-plus clinics prescribing medicinal marijuana, a business with huge potential in Southeast Asia’s top medical tourism market. Experts predict the pot industry will reach valuations as high as US$10 billion by the end of the decade.
“This will be huge for medical tourism, and treatment,” said Eric Fleischman, former medical director of Bumrungrad Hospital, Thailand’s leading medical institution. “It will be important for so many things—sleep, pain management, inflammation, anti-aging.” Studies have shown CBD to be effective in alleviating side effects from chemotherapy, as well as an alternative to pain medication with no risk of addiction or overdose, he explained.
While the scene is still evolving in these wild, early days of legal pot, marijuana has unquestionably transformed Thai tourism, with new highs to come. OG Canna, which has invested millions in the industry, is part of Panthera Group, the operator of top Bangkok clubs like Levels and Insanity, and Whisgars whiskey and cigar bars. “As soon as it is legally allowed to do lounges and smoking clubs, we’d be looking at that,” Baskins said.
The ganja gold rush sweeping Thailand is not only rejuvenating an economy devastated by the pandemic, but is moving upscale as shopping malls and event planners join the marijuana bandwagon. On April 20, a day celebrated by cannabis enthusiasts worldwide as Weed Day, an event called Cannex Asia kicked off at Bangkok’s ritzy EmQuartier mall for three days of pot-related festivities, including a Cannabis Cup competition that doled out US$5,000 in prize money for the best bud.
<figure id="attachment_133864" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133864" style="width: 1380px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-133864 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Anantara-Spa-Herbal-Compress-Cannabis-Treatment.jpg" alt="CBD oil has made its way onto spa menus in Thailand, such as this 90-minute Cannabis Stress- Release Journey treatment at the Anantara Bophut Koh Samui Resort." width="1380" height="920" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Anantara-Spa-Herbal-Compress-Cannabis-Treatment.jpg 1380w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Anantara-Spa-Herbal-Compress-Cannabis-Treatment-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Anantara-Spa-Herbal-Compress-Cannabis-Treatment-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Anantara-Spa-Herbal-Compress-Cannabis-Treatment-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1380px) 100vw, 1380px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-133864" class="wp-caption-text">CBD oil has made its way onto spa menus in Thailand, such as this 90-minute Cannabis Stress- Release Journey treatment at the Anantara Bophut Koh Samui Resort.</figcaption></figure>
Cannabis cuisine is also on the rise. In late 2021, Ban Lao Rueng in Prachinburi Province became the first Thai restaurant to serve cannabis-infused dishes such as nam prik kapi and tom yum gai soup. Not long after, Bangkok-based fast-food chain The Pizza Company rolled out its Crazy Happy Pizza, a pie topped with a deep-fried marijuana leaf. And while Steven John is leading the way on the gourmet front with his ongoing Bong Appétit dinners, he’s not alone. Another local pot enthusiast is Tim Butler, chef at Bangkok’s Eat Me restaurant. Having invested in pot farms that supply some of Thailand’s top dispensaries, he is keen to explore an herb that was part of Thai cuisine for centuries before being outlawed amid a global campaign against marijuana in the 1930s.
For now, Butler’s experiments are confined to his home kitchen, where I visited him for dinner one night. Famed for his barbecue, the chef sliced some prime wagyu and seasoned it with flakes of different marijuana buds before slapping it on the grill. “As a spice, marijuana is like thyme, but stronger,” he told me, offering samples. “It really brings out the flavor of the meat, doesn’t it?”
Butler doubts that the 0.2 percent THC limit on restaurant meals will be lifted anytime soon. But for home cooks, ganja is fair game, and my meal that night left me not only with a pleasant buzz, but also with a taste of the potential happy times that lie ahead in the Land of Smiles.
This article originally appeared in the <a href="http://www.destinasian.com/magazine" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">June/July 2023</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Green Revolution”).

CBD oil has made its way onto spa menus in Thailand, such as this 90-minute Cannabis Stress- Release Journey treatment at the Anantara Bophut Koh Samui Resort.

Thailand Rekindles Its Relationship with a Once-Forbidden Plant

Move over Canggu—Bali’s hippest locale is now just up the coast in neighboring Pererenan.
<figure id="attachment_133760" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133760" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-133760 size-large" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pererenan-Desa-Hay-Pool-and-Canggu-Yoga-Centre-1024x636.jpg" alt="Poolside at six-villa hideaway Desa Hay; the lobby of the Canggu Yoga Centre in Pererenan." width="750" height="466" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pererenan-Desa-Hay-Pool-and-Canggu-Yoga-Centre-1024x636.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pererenan-Desa-Hay-Pool-and-Canggu-Yoga-Centre-300x186.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pererenan-Desa-Hay-Pool-and-Canggu-Yoga-Centre-768x477.jpg 768w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pererenan-Desa-Hay-Pool-and-Canggu-Yoga-Centre.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-133760" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: poolside at six-villa hideaway Desa Hay; the lobby of the Canggu Yoga Centre. (All photos courtesy of their respective establishments)</figcaption></figure>
Since Bali reopened to overseas tourists in early 2022, the beachside neighborhood of Pererenan has turned from a sleepy village into a bustling enclave of top-notch eateries, bars, shops, and wellness centers. Unlike adjacent Canggu, however, the traffic here is calmer and the beach is more serene, making Pererenan a top choice for your next visit to the island’s southwest coast.
Coveting a keepsake silk dress, cotton playsuit, or linen onesie? Head to the eponymous boutique of American designer <a href="https://myrahpenaloza.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Myrah Peñaloza</a> for a line of yoga-inspired apparel that speaks to the island’s heart and soul—sustainability, female empowerment (30 local women are employed as home-based tailors), and comfortable everyday fashion. The store is set in a traditional Javanese joglo house that imbues it with a gallery-like aesthetic, which also makes an ideal fit for displays of handcrafted jewelry from local labels like Elektra and Elppin.
Bali’s ubiquitous red clay bricks have been put to contemporary use at new <a href="https://barverabali.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bar Vera</a>, a buzzing wine bar and French restaurant right on Pererenan’s main street. Founder Benjamin Cross, a well-known figure in Bali’s food and beverage scene, has enlisted talented Scottish-born Kiwi chef Keir Ballantyne to blend French culinary techniques with locally sourced ingredients. The result is pretty special. Think: steak tartare with sambal and green mustard, prawns with warm polenta and lime, and pineapple mille-feuille. Drinks follow suit with a serious but creative cocktail lineup and happily Euro-centric wine list.
<figure id="attachment_133762" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133762" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-133762 size-large" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Home-by-Chef-Wayan-1-1024x683.jpg" alt="The semi-outdoor dining area at Home by Chef Wayan in Pererenan." width="750" height="500" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Home-by-Chef-Wayan-1-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Home-by-Chef-Wayan-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Home-by-Chef-Wayan-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Home-by-Chef-Wayan-1.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-133762" class="wp-caption-text">The semi-outdoor dining area at Home by Chef Wayan.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_133765" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133765" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-133765 size-large" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Home-by-Chef-Wayan-2-1024x763.jpg" alt="Home by Chef Wayan's pan-roasted pork belly; chef Wayan Kresna Yasa with the Balinese cookbook he co-authored, Paon." width="750" height="559" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Home-by-Chef-Wayan-2-1024x763.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Home-by-Chef-Wayan-2-300x224.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Home-by-Chef-Wayan-2-768x572.jpg 768w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Home-by-Chef-Wayan-2.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-133765" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: Home by Chef Wayan’s pan-roasted pork belly; chef Wayan Kresna Yasa with the Balinese cookbook he co-authored, Paon.</figcaption></figure>
Down the road, the more modest <a href="https://www.instagram.com/home.by.chefwayan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="broken_link">Home by Chef Wayan</a> is perhaps Pererenan’s worst-kept secret. With a simple streetside shopfront cluttered with motorbikes, this open warung-style eatery doesn’t stand out from the crowd, but the Balinese and Indonesian cuisine sure does. Chef Wayan Kresna Yasa, who can be seen rattling the pans most days, has headed up some of Bali’s best Indonesian restaurants. He’s also the co-author of Paon, the lauded Balinese cookbook that hit the shelves last year. He and his business partner and wife Mary have mastered the art of keeping things simple while plating to a five-star standard. Their pan-roasted pork belly (babi guling) is a fine example.
Devotees of more energetic hot yoga styles point their mats in the direction of Pererenan’s concrete-and-glass <a href="https://www.facebook.com/cangguyogacentre" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Canggu Yoga Centre</a>. The timetable can make you sweat just looking at it, with Bikram Yoga, Hot Warrior Yoga, and Hot Sculpt being the classes of choice. Cool down the pace with hatha and ashtanga classes or just hang in the lobby café under the neon sign that says HOT, even if you’re not.
Closer to the beach, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/barobakery/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="broken_link">Barō Bakery</a> is an unassuming but comfortably cool café and patisserie. Owner Emerson Manibo’s bigger, bolder Starter Lab was the first bakery in Canggu, but this more local offshoot is all about sipping on a Melbourne-standard coffee and munching on a sticky cardamom bun, before picking up an ancient-grain sourdough loaf to take home for lunch.
<figure id="attachment_133764" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133764" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-133764 size-large" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Baro-Bakery-and-Bar-Vera-1024x636.jpg" alt="Barō Bakery’s Emerson Manibo; pork jowl skewers at Bar Vera." width="750" height="466" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Baro-Bakery-and-Bar-Vera-1024x636.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Baro-Bakery-and-Bar-Vera-300x186.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Baro-Bakery-and-Bar-Vera-768x477.jpg 768w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Baro-Bakery-and-Bar-Vera.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-133764" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: Barō Bakery’s Emerson Manibo; pork jowl skewers at Bar Vera.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_133763" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133763" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-133763 size-large" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Desa-Hay-Premium-Jabu-1024x683.jpg" alt="A Batak-inspired jabu villa at Desa Hay, Pererenan." width="750" height="500" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Desa-Hay-Premium-Jabu-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Desa-Hay-Premium-Jabu-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Desa-Hay-Premium-Jabu-768x512.jpg 768w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Perenenan-Desa-Hay-Premium-Jabu.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-133763" class="wp-caption-text">A Batak-inspired Premium Jabu villa at Desa Hay.</figcaption></figure>
Accommodation options in Pererenan tend to be smaller and more intimate than their Canggu counterparts, with architecture and landscaping that blends into the tropical surrounds. <a href="https://www.desahay.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Desa Hay</a> (doubles from US$400) slots in nicely. A member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World’s eco-minded Considerate Collection, the property has just six villas inspired by the traditional Batak jabu houses of North Sumatra. Impeccable modern amenities and furniture have been effortlessly fused with locally carved wooden doors and fittings and stonework bathrooms. If the in-villa plunge pool and cocktail bar don’t monopolize your time, the breezy pavilion restaurant by the main pool will.
Such are Pererenan’s streetside attractions, it can be easy to forget you’re on the beach. Not so at <a href="https://solbali.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sol Rooftop</a>, a panoramic two-level bar and pool venue with golden glow sunsets to boot. Sit on recliners under thatch umbrellas to sip on jalapeño margaritas and lychee martinis, or gather at tables to nibble on small bites like mini fish tacos and aioli-topped calamari. On the lower level, the swimming pool sees preening party people partaking in a swim—or at least looking like that’s their intention.
<figure id="attachment_133759" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133759" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-133759 size-large" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pererenan-Bar-Vera-1024x683.jpg" alt="Kitchen staff in action at Bar Vera, Pererenan." width="750" height="500" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pererenan-Bar-Vera-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pererenan-Bar-Vera-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pererenan-Bar-Vera-768x512.jpg 768w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Pererenan-Bar-Vera.jpg 1380w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-133759" class="wp-caption-text">Kitchen staff in action at Bar Vera.</figcaption></figure>
This article originally appeared in the <a href="http://www.destinasian.com/magazine" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">June/July 2023</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“The Next Beach Over”).

A Guide to Pererenan, Bali

Goa to Gokarna—feature story by Chris Schalkx.

Discovering India’s Sun-Kissed Shores, from Goa to Gokarna

The island’s latest fine-dining destination puts a creative spin on local ingredients.
<figure id="attachment_133656" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133656" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-133656 size-large" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Sunflower-Amazake-Bee-pollen-1024x683.jpg" alt="Sunflower-seed amazake parfait with a crust of bee pollen." width="750" height="500" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Sunflower-Amazake-Bee-pollen-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Sunflower-Amazake-Bee-pollen-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Sunflower-Amazake-Bee-pollen-768x512.jpg 768w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Sunflower-Amazake-Bee-pollen.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-133656" class="wp-caption-text">Sunflower-seed amazake parfait with a crust of bee pollen. (All photos: Diego Arenas/Courtesy of InterContinental Phuket)</figcaption></figure>
To enter the new fine-dining restaurant at InterContinental Phuket Resort, you must pass between tall walls covered in a disco-ball mosaic, similar to the enclosures that separate Thai temples from the secular world. The glittering passage leads you to the wing-roofed, all-white Sawan Pavilion, which calls to mind the ethereal Wat Rong Khun in Chiang Rai.
Might <a href="https://www.hom-restaurant.com/homepage" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hom</a> be a temple to fermentation? The moment you’re greeted with a welcome bite and drink, the team sets out to extol fermentation’s ability to elevate flavors. And throughout the 10-course tasting menu it is reiterated that each dish includes some element of fermentation, whether as a marinade, in garum, or delicately infused in oils. The team approaches this culinary alchemy with some seriousness.
But chef Ricardo Nunes, with his Michelin-starred background, also revels in playful surprises. Three of the dishes are delectable morsels that you eat with your hands, in a delightful sub- version of fine-dining protocols. There’s a slow-cooked quail egg pickled in cascara kombucha; slivered razor clams barely poached in a citrus broth atop a sourdough cracker crisped in chicken fat; and sublime crab rissole that nods to the more humble rissóis served at bars in Nunes’s hometown of Lisbon.
Never mind if you can’t keep track of all the fermentation sources (pandan vinegar, red-bean miso, lacto-fermented tea leaves) at play here. What commands attention are the extraordinary combinations and the meticulous use of local ingredients—a gentle reminder that Hom is, at its core, a Thai restaurant. One course features smoked caviar (from a sturgeon farm in Hua Hin) nestled in a young coconut shell that you scoop up with flecks of makrut lime leaves and salted macadamia cream. It evokes the essence of an ancient dip known as lon, yet emerges as a truly novel creation.
Nunes’s commitment to locavorism shines particularly brightly in Duck &amp; Greens. The dish presents an array of the season’s freshest vegetables: wing-bean, okra, ridge gourd, and long bean, likely procured from a roadside vendor. The greens, paired with the succulent, slow-cooked local duck, are pulled to- gether by a puree of sataw “stink beans.” Unexpected but delicious, it’s Phuket on a plate.
<a href="https://www.hom-restaurant.com/homepage" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hom-restaurant.com</a>
<figure id="attachment_133657" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133657" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-133657 size-large" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Chef-and-team-1024x683.jpg" alt="Chef Ricardo Nunes (front left) and his team." width="750" height="500" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Chef-and-team-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Chef-and-team-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Chef-and-team-768x512.jpg 768w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Chef-and-team.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-133657" class="wp-caption-text">Chef Ricardo Nunes (front left) and his team.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_133658" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133658" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-133658 size-large" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Black-grouper-cabbage-pandan-1024x683.jpg" alt="A course featuring local black grouper, cabbage, and a foamy pandan sauce." width="750" height="500" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Black-grouper-cabbage-pandan-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Black-grouper-cabbage-pandan-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Black-grouper-cabbage-pandan-768x512.jpg 768w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Black-grouper-cabbage-pandan.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-133658" class="wp-caption-text">A course featuring local black grouper, cabbage, and a foamy pandan sauce.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_133655" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-133655" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-133655 size-large" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Exterior-1024x683.jpg" alt="The Sawan Pavilion that Hom calls home." width="750" height="500" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Exterior-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Exterior-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Exterior-768x512.jpg 768w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hom-Restaurant-Phuket-Exterior.jpg 1380w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-133655" class="wp-caption-text">The Sawan Pavilion that Hom calls home.</figcaption></figure>
This article originally appeared in the <a href="https://www.destinasian.com/magazine" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">August/September 2023</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Ferment Believers”).

In Phuket, Hom is a Must-Visit for Gourmands

Luxury travel inspiration from the Asia-Pacific region

DestinAsian

Across India, a new cohort of designers and creators are finding contemporary inspiration in the ancient craft traditions of their homeland.
<figure id="attachment_128198" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-128198" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-128198" src="https://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Indian-Makers-and-Designers-DA_1-665x443.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="443" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-128198" class="wp-caption-text">Block printing at Jodi. (Photo courtesy of Jodi)</figcaption></figure>
<h5>Jodi</h5>
Having discovered a mutual love for India’s rich handicraft traditions, former fashion stylists Gauri Verma and Karuna Laungani quit their magazine jobs eight years ago to found a clothing label that celebrates the centuries-old art of block printing through a contemporary lens. Working with wholly natural Indian fabrics and skilled hand-block artisans in the Rajasthani city of Jaipur, they turn out flowy, happily hued dresses, shirts, jackets, and nightwear embellished with floral and animal motifs — think parrots, pomegranates, pineapples, and Bengal tigers — inspired by their travels across the subcontinent. For those looking to accessorize, Jodi also carries a line of handcrafted jewelry.
<a href="https://thejodilife.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">thejodilife.com</a>
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<figure id="attachment_128199" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-128199" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-128199" src="https://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Indian-Makers-and-Designers-DA_2-665x443.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="443" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-128199" class="wp-caption-text">A red-lacquer Channapatna Chair by Sangaru. (Photo courtesy of Sangaru)</figcaption></figure>
<h5>Sangaru</h5>
Sandeep Sangaru’s deep commitment to Indian craftsmanship began almost two decades ago during a visit to Srinagar, where he first encountered the Kashmiri woodworking techniques of khatamband (ceiling ornamentation) and pinjrakari (latticework). Since then, the Bangalore-based product designer has channeled his creative energies into reinterpreting — and reinvigorating — vernacular crafts for contemporary usage in a range of furniture and objects. Standouts include a run of lacquered chairs that draws on the 200-year-old wooden toy-making traditions of Channapatna in Karnataka, and his Truss Me line of bamboo pieces created by young artisans from Tripura.
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/sangarudesignobjects" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fb.com/sangarudesignobjects</a>
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<h5>Injiri</h5>
Chinar Farooqui grew up in Rajasthan, a state steeped in indigenous handicrafts, where she developed an early appreciation for India’s textile heritage. Her clothing brand, Injiri (which takes its name from a colloquial West African term for plaid fabrics imported from South India in the 18th century), aims to build and sustain long-lasting relationships with rural artisans producing Madras checked cotton, Kutch bandhani tie-dyed fabrics, chikankari embroidery from Lucknow, jamdani muslin, and Bhujodi turban weaves. The resulting range includes relaxed dresses, jackets, and stoles in vibrant color combinations as well as timeless, hand-woven pieces for the home.
<a href="https://www.injiri.co.in/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">injiri.co.in</a>
<figure id="attachment_128200" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-128200" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-128200" src="https://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Indian-Makers-and-Designers-DA_3-665x440.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="440" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-128200" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: An indigo-accented dress from Injiri’s Neel collection; Dhora’s Trishul necklace is set with semiprecious stones. (Photo courtesy of Injiri; courtesy of Dhora)</figcaption></figure>
<h5>Dhora</h5>
Inspired by the elemental desert landscapes (dhora means “sand dune”) and Rajput architecture of her home state of Rajasthan, Aavriti Jain’s handcrafted jewelry is simultaneously raw and refined, with an understated elegance that lends itself to everyday pieces. Her line has evolved from minimal brass ornaments to ones that honor age-old techniques such as jadau (wherein precious gems are embedded into gold) and kundan (which sees glass and gemstones set between gold foils) to lift motifs from her grandmother’s traditional, heavy necklaces into simpler creations. Her pendants, bracelets, and earrings have adorned Bollywood stars such as Alia Bhatt as well as international celebrities like Kim Kardashian. Teatro Dhora, the brand’s flagship store in Jaipur, also stocks clothing, accessories, and home decor by other Indian designers and artists.
<a href="https://www.dhoraindia.in/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dhoraindia.in</a>
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<figure id="attachment_128201" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-128201" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-128201" src="https://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Indian-Makers-and-Designers-DA_4-665x443.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="443" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-128201" class="wp-caption-text">Concrete-and-rattan nesting tables from Vakr. (Photo courtesy of Vakr)</figcaption></figure>
<h5>Vakr</h5>
Architects and partners Nehit Vij and Debyani Gupta couldn’t find innovative furniture in India so they started their own experimental design studio, Vakr. Their first collection, Lehar, debuted in 2020 and pairs rattan and molded concrete in a series of curvilinear coffee tables, consoles, and shelving units that obscure the line between sculpture and furniture. It also serves to empower a community of rattan weavers from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, who were recruited to apply their vanishing craft to the collection’s gentle wave-like wicker components.
<a href="https://www.vakrstudio.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">vakrstudio.com</a>
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<h5>Ikkis </h5>
Design maverick Gunjan Gupta has seen her fantastical chairs displayed at the prestigious Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and the Vitra Design Museum in Germany. But for more accessible work, look to her homeware brand Ikkis, which elevates commonplace Indian items to glamorous 21st-century design objects. The humble balti (bucket), for instance, is deconstructed into a vase of marble and brass elements, while earthen kullars (teacups) are reimagined as terra-cotta–coated copper goblets and diya oil lamps become elegant candleholders. Gupta’s Unlimited collection is machine-made but finished by artisans who specialize in enamel, terra-cotta, and cane weaving. She also produces a limited-edition range of decorative pieces fashioned entirely by the hands of master craftsmen working in bidri metalwork, stone carving, and pottery.
<a href="https://ikkis.in/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ikkis.in</a>
<figure id="attachment_128202" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-128202" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-128202" src="https://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Indian-Makers-and-Designers-DA_5-665x413.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="413" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-128202" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: Brass and enamel tableware by Ikkis; NASO perfume. (Photo courtesy of Ikkis; courtesy of NASO Profumi)</figcaption></figure>
<h5>NASO Profumi</h5>
At its factory in Lucknow, India’s first “green” perfumery utilizes the age-old technique of making attars (traditional perfume oils) in a degh, or copper still. But there’s a modern sensibility at work as well. Inspired by her college years in Milan, founder Astha Suri produces gender-neutral fragrances from a blend of aromatic Indian ingredients — vetiver, say, or sandalwood — and Italian neroli, bergamot, and eucalyptus, to name a few. NASO’s perfumes are also formulated to have healing properties based on the principles of Ayurveda; a blend of mint, rose, and lemon, for example, provides a boost of energy, while Kashmiri saffron infused in musk and amber helps stave off feelings of stress and anxiety. There’s a strong commitment to sustainability, too; from composting and rainwater harvesting to solar panels and eco-friendly product packaging, the company runs an entirely clean production cycle.
<a href="https://www.nasoprofumi.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">nasoprofumi.com</a>
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This article originally appeared in the <a href="https://www.destinasian.com/magazine" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">December 2022/February 2023</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Makers’ Marks”).

Seven Pioneering Indian Makers to Watch

Charting the Rise of Modern Indian Cuisine

Clamorous, vibrant, and redolent with exotic aromas since the heyday of the Mughals, Delhi’s Khari Baoli market offers a deep dive into the world of Indian spices.
<figure id="attachment_98831" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-98831" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-98831 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/41-DSC00268-665x443.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="443" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-98831" class="wp-caption-text">From red chilies to pepper corns to coriander seeds, a kaleidoscope of spices await at Khari Baoli.</figcaption></figure>
Divided and subdivided over the years, the narrow shop we’re in—one of dozens packed in along this street—has been reduced to a mere meter wide. Yet its selection of nuts, dried fruits, and spices gratifies even the most exacting cook in India.
Few countries make use of as many spices. Not all are grown here, of course, but many have found some of their fullest expression in Indian kitchens. When cooks in <a href="http://www.destinasian.com/?s=delhi">Delhi</a> want to get the finest cumin, coriander, cardamom, and dozens of other spices they so copiously use, they head for Khari Baoli at the western end of Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi. Running since the 17th century, it is the largest spice market in Asia.
My Virgil through the belly of Indian seasonings is Marryam H. Reshii, the formidable Times of India food critic and author of the award-winning The Flavour of Spice: Journeys, Recipes, Stories.
<figure id="attachment_98832" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-98832" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-98832 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/10-DSC00182-665x443.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="443" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-98832" class="wp-caption-text">Burlap sacks bursting with brilliant ruddy-red chilies.</figcaption></figure>
“You get the best spices in <a href="http://www.destinasian.com/?s=india">India</a> here,” Reshii explains as we move to another shop, and then another. From home cooks like Reshii to celebrated chefs like Dum Pukht’s Ghulam Qureshi, people come to this warren of alleys and courtyards for the quality, variety, and prices available.
“This way,” she beckons, leading me through an unassuming tunneled arch. Squeezing past sack-laden porters, groaning handcarts, and merchants with leather briefcases, we are hit by a wall of spice dust. Coughing, throat clearing, and sneezing echo around us. We have just left the retail part of the market and entered its wholesale heart.
India produced a staggering 8.5 billion kilograms of spices last year, and imported enormous quantities more from around the globe. The wholesale trade today is centered on Gadodia Market, a large complex built in the 1920s. Centered on a vast courtyard, it’s a mix of commerce, storage, and residences, with apartments along the top two of the market’s four floors. The style is a fusion of colonial and Indian architecture, with repeating four-petaled floral patterns, ornate carved brackets supporting overhanging eaves, and lovely raised canopies at the corners of the flat roof.
<figure id="attachment_98833" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-98833" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-98833 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/15-DSC00137-665x494.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="494" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-98833" class="wp-caption-text">Different hued rock salts for sale at Khari Baoli.</figcaption></figure>
Over the years, the courtyard has been nearly filled in with buildings, leaving a crowded, square-shaped path running around it. Lining it are more narrow shops, often with little more than a desk, a few chairs, and some samples in the front. In the rear of each is a godown (warehouse) stacked high with bags of spices.
We step around burlap sacks bursting with brilliant ruddy-red chilies. The country harvested over 2.3 billion kilos of chilies last year. They dominate the market as they do the Indian spice box.
“Chilies override every other spice,” Reshii says. “They are literally in almost every dish.” She notes a damning indictment of any cook: Namak mirchi kam hai. “It means, ‘There’s not much salt or chilies in this dish.’”
Among the most striking spices for sale are bright yellow turmeric roots. The ground spice is not only important to countless dishes, it also transcends the kitchen and has many spiritual uses for Hindus—Reshii motions toward a trader with a yellow mark on his forehead. Another elemental spice is cumin, which is found in everything from curries to the popular crunchy snack chaat to being deep-fried and sprinkled onto yogurt.
<figure id="attachment_98835" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-98835" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-98835 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/52-DSC00231-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-98835" class="wp-caption-text">Overlooking the central courtyard at Gadodia Market.</figcaption></figure>
Next, we stop at a vendor who specializes in coriander seeds. Asked which of the four types on display is best, he scoops up a handful of yellowish-green pods. “You can tell by the color,” he says, then seeing my eager look, adds, “The minimum purchase is forty kilograms.”
Chili, cumin, turmeric, and coriander are what Reshii calls “the Big Four” of Indian spices, and they are indeed plentiful in Godadia. But so is every other conceivable spice, from a shop with seven different types of rock salt (black, amber, purplish …) to asafetida, a pungent, grayish-white resin that smooths out when cooked, to kewa, an essence of screw pine used to aromatize biryani.
“There’s no spice you can’t find here,” one vendor tells me. When pressed for a number, he says, “A hudred-plus. At least.” But that doesn’t account for varieties. “You can find 10 to 15 different types of cumin.”
To get a better view of the market, and to clear our sinuses, Reshii and I climb to the roof. A number of kite flyers are practicing their sometimes-dangerous hobby. Each year people die from kite strings that have been coated in a mixture of glue and crushed glass in order to sever the strings of rival kites.
<figure id="attachment_98837" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-98837" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-98837 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/19-DSC00153-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-98837" class="wp-caption-text">A spice porter on a break.</figcaption></figure>
Godadia Market abuts Fatehpuri Masjid, a red sandstone mosque built in 1650 by Fatehpuri Begum, a wife of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. We lean on the railing and look out over its vast courtyard. A pair of lithe, towering minarets flank an onion-shaped dome that rises just in front of us. “This is the heart of Mughal Delhi,” Reshii says.
We sit and talk about her fascination with spices. In her book, she wrote, “It is not a static subject, but one that changes constantly from one part of India to the next, and from one period of history to another. In each era, in each incarnation, it changes our palates, and our lives, in irrevocable ways.” That is the beauty and magic of spices.
Her initial interest was twofold, she explains. One was visual, in the sheer beauty she saw in South India of them growing and in the markets. The other was as an inquisitive cook and eater. “There is no one in India who does not use spices. But most people don’t know where they come from.”
While she traveled widely around spice-producing regions to research her book, back in Khari Baoli she had an incomparable pool of experts. Many of the merchants are fifth- or sixth- or even tenth-generation spice traders, and offered answers to every question she could ask.
<figure id="attachment_98839" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-98839" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-98839 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Marryam-Reshii-28-665x443.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="443" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-98839" class="wp-caption-text">Spice expert Marryam H. Reshii at her home office.</figcaption></figure>
Back down on the ground floor, we make another loop around the market. It is afternoon teatime, and a number of porters are sipping India’s ubiquitous drink, masala chai, laced with cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, and black pepper.
We exit through an arched tunnel and are soon heading along Chandni Chowk. Authorities have begun an ambitious project to pedestrianize the busy 1.5-kilometer stretch between Fatehpuri Masjid and the Red Fort. But for the moment, we inch ahead in a cycle rickshaw, snared in a tangle of people, carts, and assorted vehicles.
I sit back in regret that we didn’t first stop for a glass of chai, so I’d have a palatable memory of the market’s spices lingering on my tongue.
This article originally appeared in the <a href="http://www.destinasian.com/magazine">August/September 2019</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Spice World”).

Delving into a Famed Delhi Spice Market

Inside the Movement to Save Kolkata’s Historic Buildings

The principalities of India’s largest state may be a thing of the past, but their once-royal cuisine lives on in the kitchens of aristocrats turned hoteliers.
<figure id="attachment_95108" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-95108" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-95108 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/IMG_3836-1-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-95108" class="wp-caption-text">A lunch spread at Shahpura Bagh includes gobi tamatar (cauliflower with tomatoes), minced lamb kebabs, raita with chickpea crisps, and baingan bharta, a mash of roasted eggplant.</figcaption></figure>
Despite all my reading up on the place, I simply wasn’t prepared for Rajasthan. How could I have been? That unending horizon of burnt orange; the sudden flash of saffron and deep blue saris on the edge of dun-hued roads; camels accessorized with henna tattoos and beaded bridles; crimson- robed sadhus (holy men) who lingered outside temples and stared up at the sun. I’d never seen, let alone imagined, a land so enigmatic and exotic.
And then there’s the food: the soft creamy hues of dhal, the charred perfume of deep purple eggplants crackling on an open flame, the dark wheat breads still warm and smoked from the tandoor. As I would learn during my stay at a clutch of royal residences turned bijou hotels, Rajasthan’s cuisine is not only incredibly spiced, but it also carries the deep imprint of geography and history.
<figure id="attachment_95110" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-95110" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-95110 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/GettyImages-475126764_edit-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-95110" class="wp-caption-text">The bar at Ramathra Fort.</figcaption></figure>
A vast swath of rocky desert and dry scrub-cloaked hills in northwest India, Rajasthan is truly ancient. Though the border lies just a few hours’ drive from New Delhi, it might as well be another world altogether. Here, 6,000 years ago, the Indus Valley civilization took root, incubating and nurturing some of the finest elements of Indian religion, literature, arts, and music.
At least 21 kingdoms—some dating back two millennia—claimed Rajasthan as their ancestral home. Which explains why the state is so crowded with old forts and palaces. That so many have survived remarkably intact or well maintained is due to the kind of hardy resourcefulness that still permeates their kitchens. Rajasthan’s flat plains are cut through by the Aravalli Hills and scored by the sand dunes of the Thar Desert. There is no moisture in the air and the land seems to be in a perpetual state of arid dryness. This, along with the scarcity of fresh vegetation, especially during the extreme heat of summer, led intrepid chefs to create a cuisine based on dishes that could be stored for days and served without reheating. The scarcity of water also meant that dairy products such as ghee, milk, and paneer were used in its place, while dried beans and legumes like lentils and chickpeas formed an unusually delicious foundation that has lasted to this day.
<figure id="attachment_95112" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-95112" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-95112 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/DJI_0008-665x443.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="443" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-95112" class="wp-caption-text">A bird’s-eye view of Chhatra Sagar, a tented camp that sits atop an 1890-built stone dam.</figcaption></figure>
One late-summer morning in a grassy clearing where royal elephants were once stabled, I watched as Gitanjali Raj Pal, the doyenne of Ramathra Fort, supervised the preparation of lunch. After being blistered on an open flame, large eggplants embedded with garlic cloves were mashed and then fried with turmeric, red chilies, and fresh coriander. On another flame, minced mutton was sautéed with bay leaves, cardamom, peppercorns, fresh peas, and yogurt.
“None of these recipes is documented,” Gitanjali told me. “You could have eight to ten versions of the same keema matar we’re cooking. If you like the dish to be whiter, you add more yogurt. Redder, add more chilies.”
Her cook, she noted, is of the second generation to serve her family. “You will find it’s mostly men who do the cooking here. The women have no time—they’re too busy with the animals, tending the fields, raising the children, and all the other housework!”
<figure id="attachment_95114" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-95114" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-95114 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Cooking-Demo-4-1-665x443.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="443" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-95114" class="wp-caption-text">A meal in the making at Shahpura Bagh.</figcaption></figure>
We ate well during our stay at Ramathra Fort, a 17th-century citadel that sits on a hilltop overlooking eastern Rajasthan’s Kalisil Lake and a vista of scrubby flatlands straight out of a Paul Scott novel. Every meal was a feast of flavors—thinly cut emerald green baby okra spiced with dried red chilies, fried yam chips, paneer stewed with peas—all souped up with mango and lemon chutneys.
Gitanjali’s husband, Ravi Raj Pal, a charming man with a majestic mustache, comes from a long line of thakurs (feudal lords) who claim descent from Lord Krishna. The renovation of the fort, he told me, took 17 years, and today, it’s supplemented by an organic farm at the foot of the hill where his father lives in a low-slung mansion and oversees 1,500 fruit trees and fields of cabbages and radishes.
With Ramathra Fort as the template, the rest of our trip unfolded in a procession of passing landscapes that led, always, to a jeweled residence and another spread of home-cooked meals made from recipes that have been passed down through uncounted royal generations.
<figure id="attachment_95115" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-95115" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-95115 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/GettyImages-475126722-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-95115" class="wp-caption-text">Accommodations at Ramathra Fort include six Rajput-style tents set up in the 17th-century citadel’s inner courtyard.</figcaption></figure>
Some 250 kilometers to the southwest at Shah-pura Bagh, we were welcomed by Mandvi Singh Rathore, the bubbling mistress of the house and niece-in-law of Rajadhiraj Indrajit Deo, the 16th raja of Shahpura. “I hope you like to eat,” she said as she showed us around the family’s 150-year-old estate, which opened its doors to paying guests in 2005. “Our previous cook came here as a boy and worked for four generations of our family. He died last year. But he trained our current cook.” With a cheerful tilt of her head, she added, “He’s very good.”
And so he was. In a garden courtyard shaded by mango trees, we ate like pretenders to the throne as barefoot retainers and an elderly majordomo nattily done up in a Nehru jacket presented us with a succession of dishes. Each was extraordinary, whether the minced lamb kebabs, curries of spinach and yellow split peas, baingan bharta (a mash of roasted eggplant), unleavened chickpea pancakes topped with turmeric and coriander, or boondi dumplings.
When we left the next day for the three-hour drive to Chhatra Sagar, Mandvi reminded us to say hello to her cousin, who was married to one of the tented camp’s owners. “We’re all related!” she smiled, referencing the dynastic web that still binds Rajasthan’s extant nobility, many of whom are now hoteliers.
<figure id="attachment_95117" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-95117" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-95117 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/DevShree-Cooking-1_OK-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-95117" class="wp-caption-text">A cooking demo at dev Shree with owner Shatrunjai Singh, his wife Bhavna kumari, and his mother.</figcaption></figure>
The road to Chhatra Sagar cuts through rocky granite ranges and towns thick with red dust, angular one-humped cows, and black-haired pigs. It’s a landscape that probably hasn’t changed that much since at least 1890, when, at a cost of 100,000 rupees, the then Thakur of Nimaj dammed a stream flowing through his estate to collect the monsoon rains.
The resulting lake is, today, the spectacular setting for 11 perfectly conceived white canvas tents that stretch along the length of the stone barrage. Here, the thakur’s descendants—brothers Nandi and Harsh Rathore and their cousin Raj Rathore—preside over a wildly beautiful aquatic landscape fringed with marshlands roamed by antelopes, leopards, and hares. “We stopped farming the land 15 years ago to attract wildlife. The boars have returned,” Nandi said with satisfaction.
In the evenings, after preprandial drinks by a blazing campfire, we dined by candlelight on rice studded with capsicums and carrots, lentil nuggets cooked with spinach and cumin, vegetable stews of small white onions, tomatoes, melons, and green beans, raita spiked with pomegranate and sprouted lentils, triangles of millet and maize breads, and lotus-seed pudding sweetened with rose water and milk. Every bite, every meal was a revelation. “These are all family recipes,” said Raj, who also leads afternoon bird-watching tours through the 400-hectare estate. “The vegetables come from the local farms.”
As memorable as the meals had been to this point, we were floored by the quality of the kitchen at our last stop, Dev Shree. Situated three hours north of Udaipur on the outskirts of Deogarh, this seven-room Relais &amp; Chateaux property feels completely out of time, a sepia-tinted relic of a bygone era when sari-clad maharanis trailed through marbled corridors out onto lawns where guests played croquet and the family dog chased peacocks and waterbirds into the mirror-flat Ragho Sagar lake.
<figure id="attachment_95120" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-95120" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-95120 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/IMG_3915_OK-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-95120" class="wp-caption-text">Utensils and spices used during the same cooking session.</figcaption></figure>
A surprise, then, to learn that Shatrunjai Singh only built this handsome yellow mansion in 2010, albeit on land that, along with 210 neighboring villages, had either been owned by, or connected to, his royal family since 1670. “Actually, we trace our family tree all the way back to the fifth and sixth centuries,” Shatrunjai said with all the nonchalance of a titled scion. As it turns out, his family and the Rathores at Chhatra Sagar all went to the same boarding schools in Ajmer, India’s equivalent of Eton. “Yes, we all know each other. Or we’re related.”
His wife Bhavna, meanwhile, mines old family recipes and ancient cookbooks to set on the table a cornucopia of Rajasthani delicacies. One after another, the dishes emerged from the kitchen—an avalanche of pappadams folded into curries to thicken the gravy, a vegetable pulao of peas and carrots, clouds of fried poori paired with gourd and potato curries, and bright-red sweet tomato chutney. 
Tomorrow, I swore to myself, even as I helped myself to a second serving of spinach halva—thick, green, sweet, and utterly addictive—tomorrow, I start the diet.
Address Book
<a href="http://chhatrasagar.com" class="broken_link">Chhatra Sagar</a> 
Pali-Marwar; 91-9414-123118; doubles from US$578, full board.
<a href="http://devshreedeogarh.com">Dev Shree</a> 
Deogarh; 91/9929-172000; doubles from US$328.
<a href="http://ramathrafort.com">Ramathra Fort</a> 
Karauli; 91/8448-285351; doubles from US$230.
<a href="http://shahpurabagh.com">Shahpura Bagh</a> 
Shahpura, Bhilwara; 91/9587-004999; doubles from US$342.
This article originally appeared in the <a href="http://www.destinasian.com/magazine">February/March 2019</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Relishing Rajasthan”).

Savoring the Royal Cuisine of Rajasthan

Making a Splash in the Andaman Islands

In the state capital of Tamil Nadu, neglected heritage buildings are getting a new lease on life.
<figure id="attachment_91982" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-91982" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-91982 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Ahalya-1-665x443.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="443" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-91982" class="wp-caption-text">Local designer Ahalya Sakthivel, whose two brands have their flagship at Kingsley.</figcaption></figure>
India’s fourth-largest metropolitan area may have been renamed Chennai in 1996, but traces of old Madras remain in its wealth of architectural treasures. What began in 1640 as a fortified trading post of the British East India Company on a strip of coastal land—then named Madarasapatinam—evolved into the leading colonial city of South India. It was in Madras that British architects and engineers pioneered the Indo-Saracenic style, and a trove of Art Deco buildings testify to its commercial importance in the early 20th century. But these monuments to Madras have come under increasing pressure in the face of runaway urban growth. While the municipal and state governments’ disregard for preservation has meant the loss of some of the city’s most significant colonial landmarks in the past decade, a growing crop of entrepreneurs is restoring precious heritage structures and adapting them to the tastes of contemporary Chennai.
One of the movement’s trailblazers is Kiran Rao, who relocated her popular café-boutique from her grandmother’s century-old ancestral house to the central neighborhood of Royapettah eight years ago. Insulated from the din of traffic by a luxuriant garden, <a href="http://amethystchennai.com">Amethyst</a> (11 Whites Rd.) has revived a dilapidated 1930s godown once used for storing newsprint. Visitors here can wander a series of retail spaces comprising a pottery store, a florist, and an upper-floor boutique that offers curated apparel, jewelry, and home accessories. Downstairs, art- and antiques-strewn Wild Garden Café beckons with overstuffed sofas and a wraparound veranda, where patrons tuck into all-day breakfasts and pastas while admiring the lotus ponds dotting the lush grounds.
<figure id="attachment_91984" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-91984" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-91984 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/IMG_5290-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-91984" class="wp-caption-text">The breezy veranda at Luz House.</figcaption></figure>
Another dining venue of note is <a href="http://fb.com/mangotreechennai">Mango Tree</a> (31 Jambulingam St.), which opened last March inside a charming heritage house in upscale Nungambakkam. Proprietor Chitra Ramu has retained the original doors, windows, and red-oxide flooring, while sepia photos and Chettinad-style furniture set the mood for authentic home-style Chettinad cuisine, staying faithful to the recipes of Ramu’s own mother. Standouts include deep-fried beetroot and lentil dumplings, the melt-in-the-mouth mutton dosa, and thalich idiyappam—string hoppers infused with buttermilk or coconut milk that are plated up with a delicate eggplant-based gravy. Don’t miss chef Dhanashree Anand’s inspired coconut mousse, served in a coconut shell and sprinkled with tiny nuggets of jaggery.
Tucked down a narrow lane in Mylapore, a 20-minute drive to the southeast, 250-year-old <a href="http://theluzhouse.com">Luz House</a> (176 Luz Church Rd.) started out as a barracks for Portuguese soldiers guarding a nearby 16th-century Baroque church, before serving as the family home of a translator for the prominent Madras-based business Parry &amp; Co—one of the oldest in the Indian subcontinent. Buchi Babu, the father of South Indian cricket, was born and raised here, and every room is a storehouse of memories. Generations of the sporting family lived and laughed within its walls, raised horses in the stables, and played tennis on its courts. Today, sixth-generation owner Abhimanyu Prakash Rao, Buchi Babu’s great-grandson, has made a determined effort to return the house to its former glory.
<figure id="attachment_91986" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-91986" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-91986 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Amethyst-Boutique-12-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-91986" class="wp-caption-text">Inside the boutique at Amethyst.</figcaption></figure>
Luz House now hosts weddings, yoga classes, photography exhibitions, and small concerts; there are plans for a future café or restaurant, plus luxury lodgings upstairs. Inside, the combination of planters’ chairs and other antique furniture, red-oxide floors, and distinctive Madras roofing—achieved with the use of broken bricks and lime mortar supported by teak beams—makes the property a popular filming location for Tamil movie directors.
One of Chennai’s most eye-catching heritage conversions is <a href="http://kingsley.co.in">Kingsley</a> (60 Spur Tank Rd.), a former Chettiar bungalow set back from the banks of the Cooum River. Replete with a circular driveway and a garden planted with mango and jackfruit trees, the house serves as the flagship location for high-end designer Ahalya Sakthivel’s two brands: Ahalya, for bespoke jewelry, and Kanakavalli, which curates exclusive silk saris hand-woven according to the Kanjivaram technique.
<figure id="attachment_91989" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-91989" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-91989 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Kingsley-4-665x374.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="374" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-91989" class="wp-caption-text">Kingsley’s neoclassical portico.</figcaption></figure>
It was by chance that Sakthivel found the century-old colonial-style house, then in a sad state with a sagging roof and badly cracked walls. Within days, she roped in her architect cousin Gayathri Selvan and interior designer Elamma Kuruvilla, an old friend, to bring her vision to life. Kingsley opened in 2015 after an extensive restoration lasting just five months; newly installed features included the landscaping, checkered marble flooring throughout the main house, and a sympathetic extension housing the Kanakavalli boutique. Given its airy, high-ceilinged halls and tranquil garden setting, Kingsley has also become a natural venue for occasional concerts—a show of the enthusiasm among 21st-century Chennaiites for the architecture and atmosphere of old Madras.  
This article originally appeared in the <a href="http://www.destinasian.com/magazine">October/November 2018</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Madras Makeover”).

Reviving the Charm of Old Madras

Despite their hardscrabble existence in the high-altitude desert of India’s remote Ladakh region, the cashmere goat herders of the Changthang Plateau produce some of the world’s softest and most highly prized wool.
Photographs by David De Vleeschauwer
<figure id="attachment_90316" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-90316" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-90316 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/7-CASHMERE-Spinning-of-the-wool-DSX_4044-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-90316" class="wp-caption-text">An artisan spins cashmere wool.</figcaption></figure>
Veronique Vermussche had her first brush with cashmere during a trekking trip in the Himalayas. Stuck for hours in Lhasa’s airport between flights, the self-taught Belgian designer came across a wool shawl in a gift shop. Knitted by a Tibetan artisan, its fabric was so delicate and warming that it gave her goose bumps. It also gave her an idea: to create a line of chic, contemporary cashmere apparel made from the finest goat’s wool. Launched in 2016 with a collection of shawls, capes, and cardigans, that brand—Tuinch—is now one of Europe’s most exclusive luxury knitwear labels, showcased in designer shops from London to New York and Hong Kong.
Working with traditional artisans in <a href="http://www.destinasian.com/?s=india">India</a>’s Kashmir Valley, Veronique says Tuinch is one of the few fashion labels to source its wool directly from Himalayan herders. That commitment has brought her back to the region often in the pursuit of the softest and purest cashmere and pashmina wool. I had read of her arrival on the fashion scene with great interest, so when Veronique invited my photographer husband David and I to join her on a summertime trip to northern India, we quickly packed our bags. The itinerary included visits to her Kashmiri knitting factories and a four-by-four expedition out to the Ladakhi part of the Changthang Plateau, where we’d be visiting the seasonal camp of nomadic Changpa goat-herders. Who could say no to that?
<figure id="attachment_90314" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-90314" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-90314 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/12-CASHMERE-ESX_5479-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-90314" class="wp-caption-text">Wooden printing blocks at a textile workshop in Srinagar.</figcaption></figure>
Our first stop is Srinagar, the summer capital of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Situated on the banks of the River Jhelum in the Kashmir Valley, the mountain-ringed city is at its prettiest on the shores of Dal Lake, a shimmering expanse dotted with bright lotus flowers and cedarwood houseboats framed by intricate fretwork. In the terraced Mughal gardens built centuries ago around the water’s edge, schoolchildren scamper among the fountains and ponds as resplendently dressed Kashmiri women admire the season’s roses. For all its reputation as a restive region, the Kashmir Valley feels like the most tranquil place in India. This is especially so amid the gardened grounds of our hotel, the Lalit Grand Palace. Originally built as the residence of a maharaja in 1910, it is still adorned with handsome furnishings, carpets, and handicrafts by local artisans. That night, we drink gin and tonics in the hotel’s old-worldly Dal Bar. Through the windows, we can see the distant lights of houseboats glinting like stars above the darkened lake.
Early the next morning, we drive to the Old Town area of Srinagar just as it awakens: tiny shops slowly open their doors and the narrow streets come alive with prospective buyers. Ancient-looking wooden houses that I wrongly assume to be abandoned soon morph into busy workshops and ateliers where Kashmiri men embroider gorgeous woolen and cotton fabrics, or block-print lustrous pashminas. We then stop by the banks of the Jhelum, where small groups of men are washing raw cashmere in the olive-brown waters. They strike the wool against the rocks with full force and then tumble them in creaking old drying apparatuses. The near-violent action on the riverbank is a stark contrast to the serene silence we later find in one of the rural workshops Veronique works with. Here, Kashmiri women spin wool without saying a word, their fingers gliding over the fine strands as the spinning wheel hums a hypnotic tune. We also visit a factory where young men dye the cashmere in bubbling pots before it’s hung outside to dry in the scorching afternoon sun.
<figure id="attachment_90325" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-90325" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-90325 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/123-CASHMERE-Veronique-helping-with-the-plucking-of-the-goats-near-Tso-Moriri-Lake-ESX_7187-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-90325" class="wp-caption-text">Veronique Vermussche at a Changpa camp helping out with the combing process.</figcaption></figure>
We’re back in Srinagar’s Old Town the next day to meet some male weavers who create beautiful cloths from pashmina yarn on traditional floor looms. David and I observe them in complete silence. The artisans’ deep concentration and solemnity makes the weaving seem almost a sacred activity. There are no radios playing in the background or cell phones beeping; just the sound of the loom’s gently clanking harnesses and the whisper of the shuttle through the weft. Inspired, Veronique sits down with the weavers and starts to knit with her own needles and pashmina. Every now and then the men look up from their work, peering from behind their small eyeglasses to watch her.
<figure id="attachment_90312" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-90312" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-90312 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/127-CASHMERE-changpa-nomads-in-local-dresses-near-Tso-Moriri-Lake-ESX_7297-665x443.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="443" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-90312" class="wp-caption-text">Changpa nomads in traditional dress near the shores of Tso Moriri, one of the highest lakes in the Indian Himalayas.</figcaption></figure>
Veronique loves knitting and does it whenever she has the chance, even on planes. “When I fly, I always seem to be surrounded by businessmen in dark suits,” she tells me. “They must think it’s very funny to see this single lady knitting away in her seat. But you know, it’s the best meditation.” Veronique says this cheerfully as she works on a fleecy scarf. “This will come in handy where we’re going. It’s going to be cold at night on the Changthang Plateau.”
From Srinagar, we make our way 400 kilometers east to Leh, the onetime capital of the former Himalayan kingdom of Ladakh. Located 3,500 meters above sea level in a high-altitude desert, the town feels a world away from India’s teeming crowds. In June, the vast, cloudless sky above the Himalayas is a deep blue color, the perfect backdrop for the pale white monasteries dotting the arid landscape.
Soon after arriving at the airport, we are whisked away in a four-by-four along the Indian Army–built Leh–Manali Highway as it follows the meandering Indus River. Tonight, we are bedding down at the luxurious Chamba Camp near Thiksey Gompa, a monastery that’s one of the most important religious sites around Leh. To make the most of our scenic surroundings, we are sleeping in tents. These are no ordinary tents, mind you, but custom-made canvas suites with hardwood floors, four-poster beds, and Raj-era trunks.
<figure id="attachment_90323" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-90323" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-90323 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/98-CASHMERE-baby-kashmir-goat-DSX_5555-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-90323" class="wp-caption-text">A baby cashmere goat in the arms of a Changpa nomad.</figcaption></figure>
Chamba Camp is really the only luxury option in Leh and the surrounding area. It’s also the perfect base for exploring the town, hiking, biking, or rafting on the Indus River, or spending a day with the monks of Thiksey Gompa. Once checked in, we regularly spot the building, perched on a small hill, from the camp’s voluptuous gardens. From our breakfast table on the deck of the restaurant tent, I can even hear the sound of the shankha, a horn made out of a conch shell, during the call for prayer or before a puja, a sacred ceremony.
After visiting the monastery, it’s time to trade our luxury tent for a simpler version. We’re moving to the remote Changthang Plateau, which extends from the wilds of eastern Ladakh deep into Tibet. Categorized as a cold desert, it is one of India’s five listed biodiversity hot spots, with short summers and blisteringly cold Arctic-like winters. But in spite of its harsh climes and sparse vegetation, a unique biotope has emerged, supporting animals like endangered black-necked cranes, elusive snow leopards, and Himalayan blue sheep. It is also the traditional home of the Ladakhi-Tibetan Changpa nomads, whose way of life—and the supply of the world’s finest quality pashmina wool—depends on their ability to continue grazing their herds of goats on its thin, top-soiled grasslands, which sometimes stand more than 5,000 meters in altitude.
<figure id="attachment_90317" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-90317" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-90317 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/165-CASHMERE-DSX_6387-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-90317" class="wp-caption-text">Portraits at Nimmu House, a heritage hotel outside Leh.</figcaption></figure>
We’re able to get in close contact with this community because we’re traveling with Veronique. She’s picky about where her designs are sold but even more so when it comes to sourcing cashmere. For the rest of the journey, we have to pack oxygen bottles, warm clothes, and a good sleeping bag. Our drive will take a full day from Leh via mountain passes and twisting gravel roads. We will be going entirely off the grid, just the way we like it.
Before the crack of dawn, the four-by-fours are packed and ready to go. Our final destination is Tso Moriri, a lake spread over an area of 120 square kilometers at a dizzying elevation of 4,525 meters above sea level. Perched on the lake’s northwestern shore, the hamlet of Karzok is nothing more than a collection of shabby mud-brick houses, most in need of serious repair. There are a couple of small shops and two guesthouses. It’s basic, but for true adventurers the views over the often crystal-clear and tranquil Tso Moriri are magical.
<figure id="attachment_90329" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-90329" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-90329 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/113-CASHMERE-ESX_7090-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-90329" class="wp-caption-text">Cashmere goats are well adapted to the harsh Himalayan conditions.</figcaption></figure>
We’ve come at just the right time: there’s a small festival and the Changpa nomads have all descended on Karzok to perform a ceremony with much singing and dancing. Everybody is dressed according to their tribe and which corner of the Changthang region they come from. Their wrinkled, sun-beaten faces—and their attire—are a portrait of the harsh lives they live. Some men are dressed in heavy jackets with layer upon layer of sheepskin; some women wear thick felt coats. Their silver jewelry and headwear is brightly adorned with mountain coral, Himalayan lapis, and even animal teeth. I’m struck by the fact that these simple Buddhist families supply the world with its most delicate and expensive wool.
During the winter, when temperatures plunge far below zero, the Changpa nomads take shelter with their goats in small hamlets. But warmer months are spent on the endless pastures of the Changthang Plateau, living in yurt-like tents that offer protection from the icy wind and chilly, starry nights. Their goats roam the valleys and fertile riverbanks before returning home at dusk. The whole family helps out with the affair—even the kids take care of the baby goats who stay behind while the adult goats leave to graze. Far from the busyness of our lives in Europe, Veronique, David, and I fall into a gentle rhythm dictated by nature, sharing yak-milk tea with the nomads in their warm tents when the wind picks up and freezes our hands and cameras. We bring them cookies bought from the only shop in the village and they pour us more buttery tea. At night, we lie freezing in our beds, once in basic tents in a small tourist complex, days later in an unassuming guesthouse, wondering how cold it must get in the yurts of our new friends.
<figure id="attachment_90319" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-90319" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-90319 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/20-CASHMERE-ESX_5631-Edit-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-90319" class="wp-caption-text">Dyeing the fabric.</figcaption></figure>
Next to Tso Moriri sits the camp of one nomadic family with hundreds of goats; this being June, it’s shearing time. But the goats are not really shorn. They are taken one by one onto the laps of the Changpa and gently combed to remove the best and most delicate plucks of wool. Veronique joins in—it’s about as close as a designer can get to the start of their supply chain. “The Changpa respect these animals,” she tells us. “They are their life, their livelihood.”
<figure id="attachment_90321" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-90321" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-90321 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/143-CASHMERE-ESX_7704-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-90321" class="wp-caption-text">On the road between Leh and the high-altitude lake of Tso Moriri.</figcaption></figure>
After each goat is combed, it is marked with a dab of paint and released again to join the herd. Tea is drunk and more cookies are handed out. We spend the whole day with three generations of this nomadic family who live together in the same camp but in different yurts. When all the wool has been collected, they sell it for a fixed price per kilo to a cooperative owned by the government. 
Through a translator, I ask one of the nomadic ladies if she would like to live a more modern and comfortable life. Her answer, together with a shy smile, is a decisive “no.” This is their life, together with their beloved cashmere goats up here in the Himalayas, far away from the mad world beyond this wild mountain range.
<figure id="attachment_90327" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-90327" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-90327 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/122-CASHMERE-the-tools-to-pluck-the-wool-from-the-kashmir-goats-DSX_5849-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-90327" class="wp-caption-text">Tools used for plucking wool.</figcaption></figure>
The Details
Getting There 
<a href="http://jetairways.com">Jet Airways</a> is one of five Indian carriers that service both Srinagar and Leh from Delhi, which has nonstop flights from most major Asian cities. If you’re pressed for time, <a href="http://airindia.in">Air India</a> flies direct between Srinagar and Leh.
Where to Stay 
Set back from the southern shore of Dal Lake, The Lalit Grand Palace Srinagar (91-194/250-1001; doubles from US$233) has 113 well-appointed rooms and suites.
Outside Leh, <a href="http://tutc.com">Chamba Camp Thiksey – Ladakh</a> (91/801-090-2222; all-inclusive multi-day packages from US$1,573 per person) offers three- to seven-night stays in deluxe tents. Rates include all meals, a private tour manager, chauffeur and vehicle, plus ground experiences in the itinerary. The camp is typically open from May 15 to October 10 each year.
Resources 
Tailor-made experiences in Kashmir and Ladakh can be booked through <a href="http://ampersandtravel.com">Ampersand Travel</a>, a luxury tour operator that has been organizing trips to India since 2003.
This article originally appeared in the <a href="http://www.destinasian.com/magazine">August/September 2018</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Fleece Offerings”).

In Search of the Best Cashmere in Ladakh

While Delhi’s rich architectural legacy has yet to receive the attention it deserves, a nascent conservation movement is giving heritage buffs good reason to linger.
Photographs by Justin Rabindra
<figure id="attachment_81475" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-81475" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-81475 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Destinatsian-16-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-81475" class="wp-caption-text">An alcove at the restored Haveli Dharampura.</figcaption></figure>
From the rooftop of Haveli Dharampura, Old <a href="http://www.destinasian.com/?s=delhi">Delhi</a> stretches toward the horizon. Turning slowly, I can pick out the towering minarets of the Jama Masjid, the red Lego blocks of the Shri Digambar Jain Lal Mandir temple, the gleaming onion domes of the Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib, and the bustling market of Chandni Chowk. As dusk falls, the sky is fluttering with hundreds of kites, and the neighborhood pigeon caller is readying his birds for flight. It’s a glimpse of a culture that has endured for hundreds of years, practically since the days of the fifth Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, whose architects built much of what is still sometimes called Shahjahanabad in the early 17th century.
First settled in the sixth century B.C., Delhi has been the capital of a dozen-odd empires dating back to the dynasty of the Pandavas, the five sibling heroes of India’s ancient Mahabharata epic. Remnants of that storied past are scattered throughout the city—some dating to 300 B.C., others from the medieval and colonial periods. But so far, the government has failed to capitalize on this rich trove of monuments, which could make Delhi a tourist center on the order of Athens or Rome. Until now, perhaps.
<figure id="attachment_81477" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-81477" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-81477 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Destinatsian-4-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-81477" class="wp-caption-text">The 16th-century tomb of Humayun, the second Mughal Emperor.</figcaption></figure>
Old Delhi, in particular, is always slated for a grand redevelopment. One year it’s the centerpiece of a pitch for UNESCO World Heritage City status; the next, it’s the focus of a movement to increase tourism arrivals and create jobs. Like most of India’s best-laid plans, however, these schemes rarely progress beyond spreadsheets and white papers. Which is why Haveli Dharampura is so inspiring.
“From a traveler’s perspective, this is a unique place where you can truly live in Old Delhi—in what you eat, what you see, in everything you do—in a luxurious setting,” explains the owner’s daughter and “designated storyteller” Vidyun Goel as she shows me around the former mansion, or haveli, an old Persian word meaning “enclosed space.” “The success of this private restoration will increase the government’s confidence in the public-private partnership model. There’s a long, long way to go. But in some ways, this is the first step.”
<figure id="attachment_81479" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-81479" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-81479 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Destinatsian-7-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-81479" class="wp-caption-text">A recess in the arcaded base of Humayun’s Tomb.</figcaption></figure>
Opened as a 14-room boutique hotel in March 2016, Haveli Dharampura is one of the flagships of a nascent heritage renaissance underway across Delhi, a movement facilitated by the Internet, corporate sponsorship, and private initiatives. Another is the dramatic transformation of the area surrounding Humayun’s Tomb and the Nizamuddin Dargah shrine, where the Aga Khan Trust for Culture completed a massive restoration and expansion project in 2013 in an effort to create a template for conservation that could be emulated across the country. Other endeavors—sometimes haphazard, sometimes centralized—have also turned once-ignored monuments like the ruined 13th-century mosque and madrasa of South Delhi’s affluent Hauz Khas neighborhood and the colonnaded colonial center of Connaught Place into thriving entertainment hubs.
A growing environmentalist movement, meanwhile, has made strides toward restoring this surprisingly leafy city’s natural heritage, through the conservation of the 80-hectare Mehrauli Archaeological Park as well as the creation of the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary and the Yamuna Biodiversity Park—projects that have involved uprooting invasive species and clawing back forests from slums and garbage dumps.
<figure id="attachment_81482" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-81482" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-81482 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Destinatsian-3-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-81482" class="wp-caption-text">Inside the domed main chamber of Humayun’s Tomb.</figcaption></figure>
As a longtime resident of Delhi, I had witnessed all this without really registering what was going on. That’s probably because when you are surrounded by its whirling throng, India’s capital always seems to be coming apart at the seams. Up close, it looks like nothing is changing or ever will change. But after living in the city for close to a decade, I moved to Berlin for 18 months—just enough of a hiatus for me to register the transformation I’d missed upon my return in early 2015. This summer, I revisited some of my favorite haunts and discovered a new sense of optimism.
A late Mughal–style mansion built in 1887 in the Chandni Chowk area, Haveli Dharampura is among the few local conservation projects to turn heritage into a straightforward commercial proposition. So-called “heritage hotels” have become the lynchpin of neighborhood conservation in Rajasthan, where, in 1971, former prime minister Indira Gandhi inadvertently created a new generation of hoteliers when she abolished the privy purses awarded to the state’s erstwhile royals. Haveli Dharampura marks the first significant hotel-conversion project in the historic center of Delhi.
Fronted by a massive arched gateway, the mansion had been carved up into warehouses and shoebox apartments when Vidyun’s politician father (and current minster of state) Vijay Goel acquired the property in 2010. The weight of the roof was causing the building to collapse on itself, and most of the original fixtures had been stripped away and sold. Perhaps even worse, a thicket of well-intentioned government regulations designed to protect heritage buildings paradoxically made every attempt at renovation a maze of bureaucratic hurdles.
Formerly a parliamentarian representing the constituency of Chandni Chowk, Goel understood those obstacles as well as anyone. He had initiated the first, halting efforts to restore the 17th-century bazaar district to its former glory in 1998, spearheading a government-led effort to repaint the facades of all the buildings along the main road from the Red Fort to the Fatehpuri Masjid and remove the rats’ nests of improvised electrical wiring strung overhead for a first-of-its-kind cultural festival that attracted some 500,000 visitors. But since then, he’d seen dozens of grandiose plans to turn the city’s historical center into a top-flight tourist attraction broken by their own ambition. Every square meter of Chandni Chowk is occupied by shops and residences. Nobody has any money (or much motivation) to invest in renovation. And the city’s strong culture of tenant rights makes evicting people to make way for historical restoration all but impossible.
Rather than a grand plan, therefore, Goel envisioned an anchor project that would be like throwing a pebble into a pond, sending ripples outward into the city even as it inspired like-minded entrepreneurs to develop their own heritage properties.
“Ten years ago, my father brought me and my brother here and told us he was taking us to the Taj Mahal of Delhi,” Vidyun recalls as we sit beneath one of the scalloped arches in Haveli Dharampura’s ground-floor restaurant. “I was standing in this complete ruin! It was ready to fall apart at any time.”
<figure id="attachment_81484" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-81484" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-81484 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Destinatsian-10-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-81484" class="wp-caption-text">The grand entrance of Haveli Dharampura.</figcaption></figure>
Today, the property is a stunning example of late-Mughal architecture. Over six years, Goel and his son, Siddhant, painstakingly reviewed documents and photographs and scoured the country for artisans to recreate the original structure, replacing the terrazzo and sandstone flooring, stripping out partitions, and restoring the original scalloped arches, columns, and marble latticework. 
“They didn’t want to restore it to how it was 10 years ago, but to how it was 100 years ago,” Vidyun says.
You can already see the impact the hotel is having on its neighborhood, in the form of new businesses catering to the comparatively well-heeled guests Haveli Dharampura attracts to an area that had hitherto featured only backpacker accommodations. While it’s a long way from the posh medieval lanes of Italy’s Siena or even the rebirth that turned Beijing’s hutong district into a warren of art galleries and hip restaurants, it offers just enough evidence to inspire hope that such a revolution could be possible for Old Delhi, where as many as 200 historic havelis survive in a sad state of neglect. (One notable exception is the Seth Ram Lal Khemka Haveli, a private residence in the Chhota Bazaar area that was recently restored using traditional building materials and techniques—including grout mixed in a specially made circular mill—by young Delhi architect Aishwarya Tipnis.) But first, the bureaucrats will need to get out of the way.
“The government should come to the support of the people,” Vijay Goel says. “We should relax the rules that have prevented renovations and give concessions to people who want to restore other havelis.” 
Neither Goel nor many other Delhiwallahs expect that kind of government support to materialize anytime soon. But across town in another of the city’s remarkable historical centers, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) has demonstrated that civil society can accomplish the same kind of transformation, combining conservation with urban renewal.
<figure id="attachment_81486" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-81486" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-81486 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Destinatsian-17-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-81486" class="wp-caption-text">The bedroom of a Shahjahan suite at Haveli Dharampura.</figcaption></figure>
Despite achieving World Heritage status in 1993, the 16th-century Humayun’s Tomb complex has never drawn as many visitors as the Red Fort or Qutub Minar, the city’s other two UNESCO sites. That’s in part because of the name, explains AKTC’s Ratish Nanda, who has devoted most of his career to the site’s restoration. While the Taj Mahal is also a burial site, it’s known as a “palace,” not a “tomb,” and promoted as a testament to emperor Shah Jahan’s love for his favorite wife. For some reason, the Empress Bega Begum’s devotion to her late husband, Humayun, has never attained the same cachet.
To me, though, that has always made Humayun’s Tomb and the neighboring Nizamuddin Dargah more exhilarating. On the off-season morning when I meet Nanda for a walking tour of the restoration project, I am one of perhaps a half-dozen tourists exploring the 12-hectare Persian-style garden that surrounds the massive, domed tomb of India’s second Mughal emperor. It’s not always so deserted, Nanda assures me. The number of visitors has increased from around 200,000 to more than a million per year thanks to the restoration project. But because the complex is so large, you don’t get the fish-in-a-barrel feeling that hits you amid the thicket of touts at the Taj Mahal.
<figure id="attachment_81488" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-81488" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-81488 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Destinasian-25-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-81488" class="wp-caption-text">Vidyun and Siddhant Goel.</figcaption></figure>
A sandstone precursor to the white marble Taj, Humayun’s Tomb had deteriorated steadily even after it was named a World Heritage site in 1993. Poorly planned and underfunded preservation efforts using cement had marred the main structure and devastated some of the 100-odd outlying monuments, while overlooked stone walls and gardens had simply decayed into ruin. Using funds donated by the Aga Khan on the 50th anniversary of India’s independence, in 1997, Nanda undertook the restoration of the gardens surrounding the building. Then, when that project was successful, he began a comprehensive restoration of not only the tomb itself but also the adjoining neighborhood—a medieval colony surrounding a vibrant shrine to the Sufi saint Muhammad Nizamuddin Auliya that is now essentially a slum, though it is nevertheless interesting to visit.
According to Nanda, the idea was to counter the perception that conservation was the opposite of development. Bringing in artisans from all over the country, the 200,000-man-hour project created employment and reestablished a sense of ownership among community residents. “Almost 75 percent of our budget goes to wages for our craftsmen,” Nanda says. Along with restoring buildings, the trust improved access to education and healthcare and invested in parks and other public infrastructure, including performance areas for Qawwali music, a devotional genre that began here in the 14th century and is still popular today. (Every visitor should take in a Thursday-night Qawwali performance at the shrine; they’re one of the city’s cultural highlights).
Like the owner of Haveli Dharampura, though, Nanda is equal parts optimistic and pessimistic about the future of similar conservation projects. He’s convinced the AKTC project has ably demonstrated the way forward, and he is encouraged that corporate funding has poured in since the government ruled that heritage conservation projects qualified under a recent law requiring companies with a turnover of more than one billion rupees (US$150 million) to give at least two percent of their profits to charity. Low-cost airline IndiGo, for instance, is sponsoring the restoration of the tomb of Abdul Rahim Khan-I-Khannan, who was a prominent courtier during the reign of Akbar the Great. And the chari-table arm of Mumbai-based conglomerate Tata Group partly funded the restoration of Humayun’s Tomb.
Nanda, however, remains skeptical that anyone will pick up the torch when the AKTC project—which was recently extended another five years to undertake the restoration of more monuments in the area surrounding the tomb—officially comes to an end.
“This cannot go on in perpetuity,” he says pensively as he shepherds me through the warren-like Nizamuddin shrine. “There will be things left undone.”
Among other issues, AKTC is only responsible for the restoration project. Though Nanda is working on a 1,000-square-meter museum that promises to improve the standard of curation and interpretation (a weak point here as at most Indian historical sites), the job of running the complex as a tourist site falls to the overburdened and underfunded Archeological Society of India (ASI). This leaves it vulnerable to the same pressures that have allowed ill-informed and irritatingly aggressive freelance guides to take over so many of the country’s remarkable landmarks.
Fortunately, the Internet has facilitated a boom in “software” that more than compensates for the city’s failures in the “hardware” department. Facebook-based event calendars and dedicated websites like Meetup.com now make it easy for travelers to find guided food tours, heritage walks, and nature hikes organized by young volunteers or nonprofit groups like the Bombay Natural History Society and the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).
<figure id="attachment_81489" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-81489" style="width: 665px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-81489 size-large" src="http://www.destinasian.com/travel/wp-content/uploads/Humayun-15-665x831.jpg" alt="" width="665" height="831" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-81489" class="wp-caption-text">The Nizamuddin Dargah shrine.</figcaption></figure>
Perhaps more than anything else that has happened over the past decade, this has liberated visitors to Delhi from the tyranny of touts and package tours, says INTACH’s Alisha Pathak. “The most exciting thing about it is that now Delhi is discoverable on foot,” she tells me.
Every few weeks, for instance, the Bombay Natural History Society organizes a morning hike of some kind through the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary, where not long ago I joined an excursion to search for proof that the park has attracted its first leopards. Each winter, the Delhi Walk Festival inaugurated in 2016 by the nonprofit Delhi, I Love You group now offers some 85 culinary, architectural, and bird-watching walks through some of the city’s most fascinating neighborhoods, led by volunteer historians, gourmands, ecologists, and flaneurs. And groups like Delhi By Foot and INTACH itself organize similar outings on a weekly basis that have earned local experts like historian Sohail Hashmi and environmentalist Pradip Krishen a cult following.
“If you walk around the hinterlands of Delhi, you keep stumbling on forgotten monuments that are intimately connected to the city’s history,” Pathak says.
To me, that’s the most amazing part of this renaissance. I’ve lived in Delhi for more than a decade now, and every year I continue to “discover” major archeological sites such as the 12th-century Qila Rai Pithora (the fortified citadel of the so-called Slave Dynasty) or the 17th-century tomb of the Mughal general Azim Khan.
Now, everyday visitors to India’s capital have the chance to discover these hidden gems too—and it finally looks as though they may survive to make Delhi a rival to the other great ancient cities of the world.
This article originally appeared in the <a href="http://www.destinasian.com/magazine">December 2017/January 2018</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Restoration Drama”).

The Hidden Historical Gems of Delhi

India

<h5>Why stay?</h5>
While the term “iconic” may be overused when speaking about Tokyo’s landmarks, The Okura is without question an establishment that lives up to its icon status. Indeed, it occupies a special place in the city’s modern history. Originally launched as the Hotel Okura Tokyo ahead of the 1964 Olympic Games, the original property was a modernist masterpiece that captivated design aficionados the world over. So when the owners announced a complete rebuild in time for the 2020 Summer Olympics, there were fears the landmark’s inherent charm would be lost. Happily, the 2019 rebirth strikes a perfect balance between maintaining the artisanal elegance of its predecessor and bringing the storied hotel into the 21st century, embodying the old-meets-new ethos of Tokyo itself.
<h5>The neighborhood</h5>
The Okura is located in the skyscraper-filled Toranomon business district, a corner of central Tokyo frequented by the city’s elite and affluent. Notably, the American Embassy lies just down the road and the U.S. ambassador’s residence stands across the street from the hotel entrance. A 10-minute stroll to the south will bring you to the upscale neighborhood of Roppongi, home to countless fine-dining restaurants and world-class galleries. Three metro stations—Kamiyacho, Toranomon Hills, and Roppongi-itchome—are all within easy walking distance from the hotel, while another two can be found about 15 minutes away on foot.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-135118 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Okura-Tokyo-Prestige-Corner-King-Room.jpg" alt="A Prestige Corner (King) room at The Okura Tokyo." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Okura-Tokyo-Prestige-Corner-King-Room.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Okura-Tokyo-Prestige-Corner-King-Room-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Okura-Tokyo-Prestige-Corner-King-Room-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Okura-Tokyo-Prestige-Corner-King-Room-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />
<h5>The feel</h5>
Don’t be fooled by the sleek glass-and-steel facades of the two towers that make up the property. Stepping into The Okura Tokyo feels like traveling back in time while experiencing Japan at its most modern. Yoshio Taniguchi, son of the architect who was among those responsible for the original hotel, oversaw the design of the new build to ensure it stayed as true to form as possible. Hence the careful reconstruction of the famed lobby with its matcha- and sand-hued checkered carpets, geometric latticework, and fine art details (the distinctive pendant lights and mid-century modern armchairs were thoughtfully retained). That painstaking precision and attention to detail is woven throughout the public and private spaces. Traditionalism lives strong here, but it’s a melding of eras that never feels unharmonious.
<h5>Guest quarters</h5>
Split between The Okura Prestige Tower—a 41-story mixed-use skyscraper—and its 17-floor counterpart The Okura Heritage Wing, rooms and suites unite timeless Japanese luxury with up-to-date features designed for the modern traveler. More Western-inspired spaces abound in the Prestige Tower, where rooms feature elements you’d expect from international luxury hotels, like neutral textiles, soft carpets, cushiony sofas, and warm, soothing lighting. As its name suggests, the Heritage Wing is more reminiscent of traditional Japanese aesthetics but with a contemporary twist: think plush oversize beds framed by shoji-inspired sliding partitions, and minimalist wooden furnishings. All the rooms have an uncluttered layout and floor-ceiling windows that wrap around the spaces, framing vistas of the surrounding cityscape.
<h5>Food and drink</h5>
Seven restaurants and bars take up residence across the two buildings. The Heritage Wing has the bases covered for rich French cuisine and high-end Japanese classics like sushi and tempura with Nouvelle Epoque on the fifth floor and Yamazato at ground level. The Prestige Tower is where you’ll find the rest of the hotel’s dining destinations. On the top floor, teppanyaki restaurant Sazanka serves up sizzling plates with a side of sweeping city views. Next door at the aptly named Starlight Bar and Lounge, you can sip cocktails while marveling at the glittering lights of Tokyo at night. On the sixth floor is Toh Ka Lin, which offers excellent Chinese cuisine. A delicious and satisfying buffet breakfast awaits at international all-day dining venue Orchid, and for some 1960s-style elegance, you can’t miss the hotel’s flagship Orchid Bar, which has been faithfully recreated using original fittings from the old Okura.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-135117 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Okura-Tokyo-Yamazato-Chirashi-Sushi.jpg" alt="A box of delicate chirashi sushi served at Yamazato, The Okura Tokyo’s high-end Japanese restaurant." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Okura-Tokyo-Yamazato-Chirashi-Sushi.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Okura-Tokyo-Yamazato-Chirashi-Sushi-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Okura-Tokyo-Yamazato-Chirashi-Sushi-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Okura-Tokyo-Yamazato-Chirashi-Sushi-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />
<h5>Wellness factor</h5>
The Prestige Tower has a large fitness center on the 26th floor, complete with a 25-meter lap pool bathed in natural light, a rectangular jacuzzi, and deck chairs for soaking up the incredible city views. Upstairs, the spa is staffed by bilingual professionals; in the seven treatment rooms, customized facials and therapies inspired by the five elements of nature utilize products by beauty brand Annayake. One of these full-body treatments combines Japanese and Western massage styles.
<h5>Family matters</h5>
Kids’ amenities including pajamas, slippers, toothbrushes, and towels are available; in-room babysitting can be arranged. Orchid offers a breakfast and special menu for junior guests, while all other restaurants except for Nouvelle Epoque allow children under 12, with kid-size tableware, cutlery, cups, and chairs provided on request. The Club Lounge welcomes under-13s until 5 p.m.
<h5>Sustainability cred</h5>
Half of the development’s site area has been turned into two publicly accessible parks. Inside the hotel, single-use plastic items are being replaced with more eco-friendly options, while The Okura has also introduced rainwater harvesting and energy-saving equipment. Aside from reusing furnishings from the original building, the new design incorporates traditional crafts from Japan’s 47 prefectures.
<h5>What else?</h5>
Next to Yamazato, the hotel’s secretive and reservations-only tea room has been recreated to conjure up the elegant charms of its predecessor. Book a tea ceremony session in conjunction with lunch or dinner at Yamazato for the full Okura experience. Guests are eligible for free admission to the on-site Okura Museum of Art, home to a priceless trove of Japanese paintings, sculpture, and calligraphy.
Reviewed by Lucy Dayman
<a href="https://theokuratokyo.jp/en/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">theokuratokyo.jp</a> 
+81 3 3582 0111 
<a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/17Q9mUi7g1AWvpVG7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2-10-4 Toranomon, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan</a>

The 1960s lobby of The Okura Tokyo’s storied predecessor has been recreated in the Prestige Tower.

The Okura Tokyo

<h5>Why stay?</h5>
Alila means “surprise” in Sanskrit and given the wow factor of the resort’s minimalist design and maximal location, the name is spot on. Located on Bali’s Bukit Peninsula and just a 30-minute drive from Ngurah Rai International Airport, this eco-chic retreat by Singapore-based WOHA Architects sits on the edge of Uluwatu’s dramatic limestone cliffs. Its contemporary flat roofs, geometrical pools, cloud-reflecting ponds and exquisitely framed lines-of-sight over the Indian Ocean give it an architectural edge like no other.
<h5>The area</h5>
The resort’s cliff-edge locale covers 14.4 hectares of gardens festooned with flora native to Uluwatu. Using permaculture principles, landscapers have made use of plants, creepers, and trees that can survive typically dry and rainy seasons, along with aesthetically pleasing ponds and flowing subak (traditional Balinese irrigation channels) for a water-wise natural approach. The Bukit Peninsula’s famed Uluwatu Temple is 15 minutes away as is Jalan Labuansait, a charismatic road punctuated by local warung eateries, fancy cafés and diners, and shops with an “island life” aesthetic.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-134988 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Alila-Villas-Uluwatu-6.jpg" alt="Alila Villas Uluwatu is at its most magical at dusk." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Alila-Villas-Uluwatu-6.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Alila-Villas-Uluwatu-6-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Alila-Villas-Uluwatu-6-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Alila-Villas-Uluwatu-6-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />
<h5>The feel</h5>
Alila’s villas, tucked into the natural landscape under lava rock rooftops, enjoy a rare sense of escapist privacy. They’re sustainably designed to “disappear into the hillside” so only the recycled timber poolside cabanas rise from the greenery. Countering this is the sleek modernity of the main resort, with its orthogonal water gardens, white stone corridors and picture-perfect pin-thin coconut trees. A stay here makes the most of both vibes.
<h5>Guest quarters</h5>
Of the 65 pool villas, it’s the enormous three-bedroom villas that have incredible oceanfront views. But most guests stay in one of the 56 one-bedroom hillside abodes measuring a generous 290 square metres. The look is mod-masculine luxe with dark-toned woodwork and furniture softened by white stone tiled walls and occasional Balinese accents such as batik fabrics. Guests seeking downtime could fill their days lounging in the cabana, dozing in pool recliners, soaking in the two-person bath and spread-eagling on the bed without feeling the need to ever leave the villa.
<h5>Food and drink </h5>
The Warung is as much a favorite of guests as it is a go-to for island residents craving authentic Indonesian and Balinese cuisine with a refined touch. The culinary journey begins with a sambal taster platter and continues with choices like sate lilit ikan (grilled minced fish wrapped around a lemongrass stalk), soto ayam (herbed chicken soup), and dadar gulung (coconut crepe filled with coconut and palm sugar). Cire, the Mediterranean and Pan-Asian restaurant, scores just as highly for its fresh produce and organic approach. Jutting over the cliff edge, Sunset Cabana Bar is the place for a day-end tipple with the sea breeze blowing and the sound of the waves crashing below. Open until midnight, cozy indoor bar Batique specializes in top-notch Scotch and cigars.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-134989 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Alila-Villas-Uluwatu-7.jpg" alt="Balinese cuisine as served at The Warung; an aerial view of Alila Villas Uluwatu." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Alila-Villas-Uluwatu-7.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Alila-Villas-Uluwatu-7-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Alila-Villas-Uluwatu-7-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Alila-Villas-Uluwatu-7-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />
<h5>Wellness factor</h5>
Western-style massage, facials, scrubs, and manicures are outshone by Eastern modalities with a local touch. Balinese beauty rituals include a traditional lulur body scrub, said to remedy aching joints and skin problems, and a creambath to hydrate hair and indulge the scalp. Free daily hatha yoga classes are offered on the dramatically positioned cliff-edge yoga shala, while guests can also book private meditation and mat Pilates sessions.
<h5>Family matters</h5>
Kids are well catered to, from the Twinkle Toes spa pedi to activities such as a “movie under the stars” set up on the terrace of your villa. The latter is among a quintet of stimulating half-day experiences, with archery and gardening being two of the other choices.
<h5>Sustainability cred</h5>
From its design stages, Alila Villas Uluwatu opted to be at the forefront of regenerative tourism in Bali. This plays out with a no-plastics policy, an on-site water purification plant and the Sustainability Lab where all waste streams—from ear buds and toothbrushes to left-behind shoes—are processed for reuse, recycling, or upcycling. It’s genuinely impressive.
<h5>What else? </h5>
The Bukit Peninsula’s legendary surf breaks are hands down the best in Bali, rolling onto the nearby beaches of Jimbaran, Balangan, Bingin, and Padang Padang. Explore them onshore with a professional surf coach or onboard a traditional jukung fishing boat.
Reviewed by Penny Watson
<a href="https://www.alilahotels.com/uluwatu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">alilahotels.com</a> 
+62 361 848 2166 
<a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/1uH5UbK3sFpcbtJ5A" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jl. Belimbing Sari Tambiyak, Pecatu, South Kuta, Bali, Indonesia</a>

An indoor-outdoor living space at Alila Villas Uluwatu's three-bedroom Hillside Villa.

Alila Villas Uluwatu

Bustling Berawa, in the happening hub of Canggu, is known for its international restaurants and world-class bars, of which Bella is a shining example of both. The colorful fit-out features mosaic floors, velvety bucket chairs, sparkly fittings, and art installations that manage to garner attention even in the low lighting. The open kitchen is another focal point. Executive chef Oğuz Karadoğan has drawn on his Turkish roots to create a menu that favors cuisine from the Mediterranean and Anatolian regions. Start with house-made sesame bagels and a smoky aubergine dip, then share a plate of chargrilled octopus with potato cream and harissa. For mains indulge in truffle steak tartare with cognac, mustard, and salted capers; and crab ravioli with Parmigiano cheese and caviar. Turntables and a DJ make Bella an all-evening kind of place. Indulge in dinner, sip on a coffee martini cocktail, and stay up all night dancing. —Penny Watson
<a href="https://bellacanggu.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bellacanggu.com</a> 
+62 811 3988 2777 
<a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/7kzj8YFzkHMmUHnb7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jl. Pantai Berawa No.99, Canggu, Bali, Indonesia</a>

An appetizer at Bella, a new Canggu restaurant.

Bella

Sprawling across 850 hectares of uplands on Mount Kawi in East Java, Kawisari Coffee Plantation was founded in 1870, making it the island’s oldest. The Bali branch of the eponymous Farm Shop and Eatery—just meters from Batu Bolong Beach and next door to the Tugu Hotel—pays homage to its long history. Downstairs, a coffee lounge and shop are replete with old tin coffee cannisters, antiquated furniture, and the bump and grind of a barista-manned coffee machine. Upstairs, the new café has the air of a bygone era, thanks to teak floors and wooden fittings and arched windows. Double doors open to a pretty umbrella-shaded deck where cane chairs with floral cushions set the scene. The brunch and lunch menus have something for everyone. Homely Indonesian dishes include bubur (congee), soto ayam (chicken soup) and nasi campur (a mix of rice and various Indonesian sides). Western favorites get a look-in too: smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, juicy wagyu cheeseburgers, wraps and salads. Check out the storyboards around the walls for a backgrounder on the 150-year-old plantation. —Penny Watson
<a href="https://kawisaricoffee.com/cafe-outlet/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">kawisaricoffee.com</a> 
+62 811 3883 553 
<a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/9hnhAe3CpkhK2RBA7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jl. Pantai Batu Bolong, Canggu, Bali, Indonesia</a>

The upstairs café at Kawisari Coffee Farm Shop & Eatery Bali.

Kawisari Coffee Farm Shop & Eatery Bali

Quirky old warehouses, design stores, furniture showrooms, and creative studios are all on the itinerary of Bali’s newest tours hosted by Interior Design Retreats. Founders Henne Mercer and Anna Powers, both long-time Bali residents and interior designers by trade, saw the need for an insider experience that taps into the heart of Bali’s design and creativity in all its forms. Their full-day itineraries focus on different neighborhoods across the island (namely Sayan and Mas in Ubud, Canggu, Kerobokan, and Sanur), giving design-lovers and interiors-shoppers a shortcut to creative inspiration. According to Mercer, “visitors often sign up to more than one tour. Some people have done them all.” On the Krazy Kerobokan tour, for example, design hot spots include Budiman Ong’s Ong Cen Kuang lighting studio; Nyaman Gallery, which has art from across the Indonesian archipelago; and a business specializing in locally sourced petrified wood and the fast-cooling volcanic lava known as obsidian. —Penny Watson
<a href="https://www.interiordesignretreats.com/private-tours/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interiordesignretreats.com</a> 
+62 878 0321 2953

Scenes from the full-day tours led by Interior Design Retreats.

Interior Design Retreats

Bali’s regenerative rice-growing movement is small but evolving and offers visitors to the island a unique and inspiring peek into local life, culture, and traditions. One of the best ways to immerse, quite literally, is by getting your feet dirty in the rice paddies and permaculture garden at the Subak Uma Lambing farm in Sibang Kaja village. On the half-day experience, social enterprise Astungkara Way encourages participants to kick their shoes off and roll up their sleeves for a rice-growing 101 that might include (depending on the rice cycle) growing or planting seedlings, ploughing a field with the help of a cow, and harvesting ripened stalks. The affair starts with a blessing ceremony at the family temple and ends with a delicious communal meal cooked by the owner and served in the family compound. Converts can extend the outing by making it an overnight adventure by sleeping under mosquito nets in the farm’s thatched-roof bamboo pavilion. —Penny Watson
<a href="https://www.astungkaraway.com/farm-experiences-bali" target="_blank" rel="noopener">astungkaraway.com</a> 
+62 813 3784 5937 
<a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/kyCc9eQWLytv6sNm8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jl. Raya Sibang Kaja No.68, Sibang Kaja, Abiansemal, Bali, Indonesia</a>

An aerial view of the Subak Uma Lambing farm run by social enterprise Astungkara Way.

Astungkara Way—Farm Experiences

<h5>Why stay?</h5>
This reliable beachfront haven—which first opened in 1991 as one of the first international resorts in the swish Nusa Dua enclave—has emerged from a lengthy transformation that saw its rooms, suites, villas, and public facilities thoroughly updated in a bright and contemporary Balinese style with nautical touches. New look aside, the biggest drawcard is undoubtedly the seven lagoon pools set in manicured tropical gardens—a wonderland of waterfalls, soaring coconut palms, and mature frangipani trees.
<h5>The area</h5>
Looking out to the Indian Ocean, The Laguna sits on the edge of cream-hued Nusa Dua Beach. It’s walking distance from Museum Pasifika, whose collection spans Bali-focused works by both local and foreign artists, the creations of renowned Indonesian painters, and indigenous artifacts from the South Pacific. Less than 15 minutes on foot down the coastal promenade is cliff–girded Peninsula Island with expansive lawns where families can roam and admire the sunset views back toward the beach. A short drive will bring you to the 18-hole Bali National Golf Club, while the journey to the airport takes about half an hour via the overwater Bali Mandara Toll Road.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-134883 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Laguna-Nusa-Dua-Kulkul-Beach-House.jpeg" alt="A seating area at Kulkul Beach House in The Laguna, Nusa Dua." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Laguna-Nusa-Dua-Kulkul-Beach-House.jpeg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Laguna-Nusa-Dua-Kulkul-Beach-House-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Laguna-Nusa-Dua-Kulkul-Beach-House-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Laguna-Nusa-Dua-Kulkul-Beach-House-768x512.jpeg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />
<h5>The feel</h5>
Travelers are welcomed to The Laguna with the sound of a gong. A nostalgic charm suffuses the renovated open-walled lobby, which nods to the forests outside Ubud by way of dark wood lattice screens, high timber rafters, and a top-lit chandelier designed to mimic a cascade of ylang-ylang flowers. The resort’s decades-old centerpiece is a striking white stone relief depicting the Balinese water goddess Dewi Danu above the reception area. The main guest wings at the property have been laid out in a U-shaped arrangement around a lush courtyard garden and the freeform swimming pools.
<h5>Guest quarters</h5>
All rooms feature a balcony or terrace for savoring the sea breeze. Indoors, the revamped accommodations combine a sense of quiet sophistication with design details inspired by island traditions and stories. There are checkered saput poleng textiles, wood- and rattan-backed loungers, and embroidered fabric wall panels behind the beds; elements like vertical shiplap walls and custom-made lamps allude to seaborne explorations. Butler service is offered no matter which category you book. Most of the ground-floor rooms and suites come with direct pool access, and for extra privacy, The Laguna has 11 standalone pool villas set in their own walled gardens.
<h5>Food and drink</h5>
Guests will find a quintet of dining and drinking venues at their disposal. Styled as a modern boathouse, Arwana is a casual restaurant by the beach where you can watch chefs preparing meat and ocean-fresh seafood on Basque grills. Arwana’s succulent flame-cooked steaks and lamb chops are complemented by a diverse list of Old and New World wines. Also fronting the sand, Kulkul Beach House serves up signature cocktails and global bites in a chic yet laid-back poolside setting. Breakfast-and-dinner venue Banyubiru has a show kitchen and buffet counters inspired by the warung stalls that are a common sight in Indonesian towns and villages. Cornerstone Deli, meanwhile, is an all-day eatery for baked treats and homemade ice cream. Last but not least, the open-air De Balé Lounge &amp; Bar specializes in theatrically presented drinks made with spice-infused spirits—it’s a gorgeous place to unwind with sundowners while watching a Balinese dance performance.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-134885 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Laguna-Nusa-Dua-Garden-Yoga.jpg" alt="Yoga sessions are held at The Laguna’s on-site temple garden." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Laguna-Nusa-Dua-Garden-Yoga.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Laguna-Nusa-Dua-Garden-Yoga-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Laguna-Nusa-Dua-Garden-Yoga-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Laguna-Nusa-Dua-Garden-Yoga-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />
<h5>Wellness factor</h5>
Beside a waterfall flowing into one of the larger pools, Lagoon Spa delivers age-old healing rituals like traditional Balinese massage and a boreh body scrub. Full-body treatments include coconut- and chocolate-themed options, as well as a “master therapy” that combines reflexology, acupressure, energy healing, and more. A pair of sea-facing treatment gazebos allow spa-goers to enjoy massages alfresco.
<h5>Family matters</h5>
There might not be a kids’ club at The Laguna, but younger guests can splash out in the children’s pool and partake in age-appropriate craft workshops. These run the gamut from making bracelets, paper masks, and traditional kites to natural batik printing and painting bottle-shaped money banks. Two hard courts cater to budding tennis players; a resident coach is on hand to help improve their game.
<h5>Sustainability cred</h5>
Sea turtles typically nest on the Nusa Dua coast from May to August, and The Laguna protects the eggs until they hatch and the turtles are ready to be released into the wild—an activity guests are welcome to join. As part of broader efforts to eliminate single-use plastics, a high-tech bottling plant supplies the rooms and restaurants with drinking water. The resort also partners with the Scholars of Sustenance foundation, which provides free meals to thousands of underprivileged families and individuals around Bali.
<h5>What else?</h5>
Foodies should not miss the opportunity to join one of the chefs on a visit to Kedonganan Fish Market, followed by a hands-on Balinese cooking class and lunch prepared using your own hand-picked ingredients. Another recommended experience is the jamu ritual and Ramayana show at De Balé, followed by a blessing ceremony at the on-site temple garden.
Reviewed by Riga Ramadhan
<a href="https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/dpslc-the-laguna-a-luxury-collection-resort-and-spa-nusa-dua-bali/overview/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="broken_link">thelagunabali.com</a> 
+62 361 771 327 
<a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/ipXCC2PxhjS7HTTn7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kawasan Pariwisata Nusa Dua Lot N2, Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia</a>

One of the seven lagoon pools at The Laguna resort in Nusa Dua, Bali.

The Laguna, a Luxury Collection Resort & Spa, Nusa Dua, Bali

<h5>Why stay?</h5>
Niccolo Hotels’ chic flagship property, The Murray stands out as a conversion of a 27-story modernist office block built in 1969 for Hong Kong’s then-colonial government. Its smartly remodeled interiors by Foster + Partners have a streamlined, ultra-luxe feel, with light-filled rooms that are both restful and generously sized. Another drawcard is the glass-walled rooftop bar and restaurant Popinjays, whose wraparound terrace overlooks a forest of skyscrapers (including Foster’s revolutionary HSBC Building), two nearby green spaces, and the jungled hillsides of Victoria Peak.
<h5>The neighborhood</h5>
The Murray occupies a sloping site on the edge of the Central financial district, opposite the lower Peak Tram terminus and right across a four-lane avenue from Hong Kong Park. On the other side of banyan-lined Garden Road stands St. John’s Cathedral—one of the city’s oldest British-era landmarks—while the American Consulate and the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens lie just uphill. The Central MTR station at Statue Square is an easy stroll away via a network of covered footbridges and escalators.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-134834 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Murray-Hong-Kong-Lobby.jpg" alt="Inside the elegant lobby of The Murray, Hong Kong." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Murray-Hong-Kong-Lobby.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Murray-Hong-Kong-Lobby-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Murray-Hong-Kong-Lobby-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Murray-Hong-Kong-Lobby-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />
<h5>The feel</h5>
Foster + Partners’ sleek design for the hotel is predominantly black and white with gold accents: this has been achieved with acres of marble, polished metals, and reflective surfaces. The new-look spaces inside and out accentuate the distinctive features of the original Murray Building, which was the brainchild of British architect Ron Phillips. Most notable are the large square windows, recessed and set at an angle to avoid the harsh midday sun, and the three-story arches ringing the former driveway, now repurposed as an events space. At ground level, the studio has injected a welcome dose of street life and greenery into what was once a soulless car park.
<h5>Guest quarters</h5>
Muted tones and plenty of natural light give The Murray’s residential-style rooms a calming atmosphere. Furnishings have an elegant midcentury-modern appeal: gray armchairs, glossy black desks with gold stainless steel trim, midnight-blue sofas, and tan rugs are balanced with abstract artwork and pops of vibrant color on the cushions and bed scarves. It’s possible to customize your sleep experience as the hotel offers no less than 16 choices on its pillow menu. The smart glass sliding door between the bedroom and bathroom turns opaque at the flick of a switch; freestanding oval tubs are guaranteed for all N2 Grand rooms and above. Suites, which measure between 75–225 square meters, add to the luxe quotient with black herringbone wood floors, glass-topped marble coffee tables, and walk-in closets illuminated by motion-activated bulbs and strip lighting. Booking a suite will give you complimentary access to the second-floor Cassia Lounge.
<h5>Food and drink</h5>
Popinjays is a must-visit at sundown, when you can watch the surrounding skyscrapers light up while sipping on an artisanal G&amp;T or one of the signature cocktails; the restaurant’s Italian-leaning menus deliver such delights as hand-cut beef tartare in tangy tonnato sauce and cavatelli with tiger prawn. Lobby-level bar Murray Lane dispenses creative concoctions that use ingredients like oolong tea and Sichuan peppercorn; the diverse whisky selection represents distilleries in Japan, Taiwan, India, and Australia. Directly upstairs, Garden Lounge plates up afternoon tea and semi-buffet seafood dinners; its neighbor The Tai Pan turns out comforting bistro fare, sometimes with an Asian touch. (Hence the creamy “mushroom cappuccino” soup featuring a translucent mushroom dumpling, and delicate coconut crab salad flecked in yuzu pearls, with a tin of Amur caviar.) The alfresco Cotton Tree Terrace recently installed a pizza oven—try the Peking duck–inspired pie with hoisin sauce and crème fraiche. Rounding out the culinary lineup is contemporary Chinese restaurant Mián, which occupies its own two-story pavilion.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-134842 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Murray-Hong-Kong-Pool-Area.jpg" alt="A view of the indoor pool area at The Murray." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Murray-Hong-Kong-Pool-Area.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Murray-Hong-Kong-Pool-Area-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Murray-Hong-Kong-Pool-Area-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Murray-Hong-Kong-Pool-Area-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />
<h5>Wellness factor</h5>
Alongside a bright, inviting gym, The Murray contains four spa suites, two of which come with a private sauna or steam room. Facials use products by Dr. Barbara Sturm and organic Australian brand Grown Alchemist; other wellness experiences range from fitness classes and half-hour express massages to a “mindful calligraphy” session. There’s also an indoor lap pool on the ground floor, and beside it, a former security post has been transformed into a round, double-height space for the spa-like “chilled relaxation pool.”
<h5>Family matters</h5>
The hotel provides kid-size toothbrushes, slippers, and bathrobes. Summertime weekend brunches at The Tai Pan feature a children’s menu and a rotating roster of activities from August through October: think donut- and mocktail-making workshops and miniature electric car races around Cotton Tree Terrace. Parents wanting to give their kids an early start on mindfulness should book an all-ages meditation class at the spa. The Murray welcomes furry friends, too, with no size restrictions on dogs and a pet’s menu offered at The Tai Pan and Garden Lounge.
<h5>Sustainability cred</h5>
The original building’s eco-friendly characteristics (such as the deep-set windows) have been thoughtfully retained. Restaurant and banquet menus are shark-free. Waste reduction initiatives include the daily collection of long-lasting excess foodstuffs for hunger relief charity FoodLink, and periodic shipments of worn towels and old newspapers to the SPCA. The parking area comes with electric vehicle charging stations. Working together with the Project WeCan foundation, The Murray holds workshops and career talks for disadvantaged students.
<h5>What else?</h5>
Guests can join a daily art and heritage tour that lasts 30 minutes, taking in various architectural features and contemporary pieces around the hotel; look out for Korean artist Bahk Seon-Ghi’s charcoal-and-nylon installations in the lobby and the stainless steel Awilda’s White Head by Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa, inspired by a nine-year-old refugee from the Dominican Republic. The Murray is especially proud of its Old and Valuable Tree, a majestic Cassia Javanica that has stood on this site for at least a century. Come between late April and the end of May and you’ll likely see the tree in bloom with white and pink blossoms.
Reviewed by James Louie
<a href="https://www.niccolohotels.com/en/the-murray-hong-kong" target="_blank" rel="noopener">niccolohotels.com</a> 
+852 3141 8888 
<a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/MuU88WBWuwWMx5DL8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">22 Cotton Tree Dr., Central, Hong Kong</a>

The Murray, Hong Kong occupies a reimagined modernist 1960s office block.

The Murray, Hong Kong

<h5>Why stay?</h5>
Established in 1885, the property was the first by the illustrious Armenian Sarkies brothers—Martin, Tigran, Aviet, and Arshak—who built some of Asia’s finest heritage hotels, including Raffles Singapore and Yangon’s The Strand. With a blazing white facade on the George Town waterfront, Mughal-inspired cupolas, a domed lobby, sweeping views over the Strait of Malacca, and lawns studded with old java trees and bougainvillea, the E&amp;O, as it is commonly known, has long been a focal point for Penang’s glitterati. In 1927, it was even marketed as the ‘The Premier Hotel East of the Suez.’ Alongside well-heeled travelers and colonial administrators, the hotel played home to global celebrities like Charlie Chaplin. Today, the Eastern &amp; Oriental is an elegant all-suite affair that matches old-world style with modern comforts; its historic main structure emerged from a US$10 million renovation in late 2019.
<h5>The neighborhood</h5>
The hotel sits inside the buffer zone of George Town’s World Heritage district. It’s an easy five-minute stroll to reach key tourist sites including the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion and the terrace houses and art deco buildings of Muntri and Campbell Streets, the quaint Indian workers’ cottages sitting side-by-side with ornate Taoist clan temples in Little India; the decidedly unimposing Fort Cornwallis, built by the British East India Company in the late 18th century as a deterrent for pirates and other European powers in the region; and the Esplanade’s grand Victorian- and Edwardian-era government buildings.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-134654 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Eastern-Oriental-Hotel-Straits-Suite.jpg" alt="The living room of a Straits Suite at Eastern &amp; Oriental Hotel, Penang." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Eastern-Oriental-Hotel-Straits-Suite.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Eastern-Oriental-Hotel-Straits-Suite-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Eastern-Oriental-Hotel-Straits-Suite-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Eastern-Oriental-Hotel-Straits-Suite-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />
<h5>The feel</h5>
Two wings make up the Eastern &amp; Oriental: the four-story Heritage Wing and the Victory Annex, which was first added in the 1920s before being redeveloped into a 15-story tower in 2013. The two connect via a shaded walkway lined with restaurants, bars, event spaces on one side and luxuriant seafront lawns on the other. Interiors maintain a colonial vibe with lofty ceilings, polished wooden floors, and foliage-print furniture, but the Heritage Wing has the upper edge, thanks to its sweeping driveway, old cannons rescued from Fort Cornwallis, faultless service, and a stunning pool nudging the waterfront.
<h5>Guest quarters</h5>
Expect four poster beds, marble bathrooms, and all manner of Asian-themed artworks and furniture: there are cherry blossom prints, hand-painted Chinese cabinets, carved wooden chairs, gold-flecked room dividers, antique pottery, and original botanical sketches from Malaysia. Book a sea-facing suite to watch the ships glide past from your private balcony. Guest rooms in the Heritage Wing also include access to The Cornwallis—a clubby private lounge for breakfast and cocktail hour—and use of the hotel’s legendary oceanfront pool, shaded by a towering java tree planted in 1885.
<h5>Food and drink</h5>
The restaurants and bars in the Heritage Wing were completely rebuilt during the recent renovation. Among these venues, the most notable is Farquhar’s Bar with its forest green Chesterfield lounges, long wooden bar, Cuban cigars, and simple but well-thought-out list of classic cocktails, like the Negroni with vermouth aged in oak barrels, and the Gimlet, which was the tipple of choice for British navy officers during the early days of the Eastern &amp; Oriental. Next door, Java Tree offers classical British-style dishes that are well cooked but would benefit from higher quality ingredients. The grain-fed meat in the beef Wellington lacks the flavor of grass-fed bovines; hydroponic tomatoes used for salads are bland and waterlogged. A better bet is to drop by Palm Court, the glamorous brasserie with tile floors, plantation windows, and rattan furniture for cucumber sandwiches and other high tea treats served with prosecco and a dash of pomp.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-134659 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Eastern-Oriental-Hotel-Spa-Couples-Room-and-English-Afternoon-Tea-at-Palm-Court.jpg" alt="A couples’ treatment room at the E&amp;O’s spa; English afternoon tea at Palm Court." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Eastern-Oriental-Hotel-Spa-Couples-Room-and-English-Afternoon-Tea-at-Palm-Court.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Eastern-Oriental-Hotel-Spa-Couples-Room-and-English-Afternoon-Tea-at-Palm-Court-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Eastern-Oriental-Hotel-Spa-Couples-Room-and-English-Afternoon-Tea-at-Palm-Court-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Eastern-Oriental-Hotel-Spa-Couples-Room-and-English-Afternoon-Tea-at-Palm-Court-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />
<h5>Wellness factor</h5>
The Victory Annex contains a small spa with five treatment rooms; therapists use botanical-based products from the Panpuri brand by Thai socialite Vorravit Siripark. The spa menu is not long, but offers a range of massages, facials, and other indulgences using traditional Thai, Ayurvedic, and Balinese techniques. (Japanese shiatsu also makes an appearance.) Staff at the Eastern &amp; Oriental say that all towels, sheets, and bathrobes at the spa are made from organic cottons.
<h5>Family matters</h5>
When the Heritage Wing reopened at the close of 2019, it was adults only. These days the baby ban has been lifted and kids of all ages are welcome to hang out by the pool and in the lounge. Across the hotel, there is no kids’ club or children-specific activities on offer.
<h5>Sustainability cred</h5>
The Eastern &amp; Oriental is in the process of phasing out single-use plastics in line with targets set out by the Malaysian government. For now, some guest rooms offer refillable glass bottles, although plastic bottles are also still in use. Aside from standard waste reduction practices like recycling and an ongoing push to go paperless, the property collects fats and cooking oils from its kitchens to be made into biofuels.
<h5>What else?</h5>
For a dash of literary inspiration, book one of the four Writers Suites in the Heritage Wing, a nod to the plethora of big-name writers who have stayed here over the years, including Rudyard Kipling, Somerset Maugham, Noel Coward, and Hermann Hesse. The latter passed through while researching his 1922 novel Siddhartha. The E&amp;O Gallery, a museum-like space in the Victory Annex, displays mementos and personal artifacts contributed by hotel guests and staff members alike.
Reviewed by Leisa Tyler
<a href="https://www.eohotels.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">eohotels.com</a> 
+60 4 222 2000 
<a href="https://goo.gl/maps/PXfuVAXJFNGR1LYr5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">10, Lebuh Farquhar, Penang, Malaysia</a>

A view of the sea-facing pool at the Heritage Wing of Penang’s Eastern & Oriental Hotel.

Eastern & Oriental Hotel

<h5>Why stay?</h5>
“Rasa Sayang” is a Malay-language folk song and its meaning, “loving feeling,” captures the essence of this lush seaside sanctuary. Opened back in 1973, it was the very first resort by the Shangri-La Group; past guests have included Malaysian and Saudi royalty, as well as Princess Margaret. From the retro seventies furniture in certain rooms to the mature tree canopies, there’s an undeniable charm that instantly makes people feel at home. The five-star retreat has cultivated a loyal following of travelers who return decade after decade, this writer’s family included.
<h5>The area</h5>
A 30-minute drive northwest from the center of George Town, Rasa Sayang is a world of its own in the suburb of Batu Ferringhi, which serves as the gateway to Penang National Park (with its hiking trails and secret beaches) and nearby durian plantations. “Batu” means rock in Malay, while “ferringhi” was a term used to describe the Portuguese; its two-kilometer stretch of fine golden sand was once a stopover for European explorers and merchants who sailed through the Strait of Malacca in search of spices. Locals would climb the big rock by the curve of the shore and swing kerosene lamps so sailors could see where they were going.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-134633 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Shangri-La-Rasa-Sayang-Penang-6.jpg" alt="On the verdant grounds of Shangri-La Rasa Sayang, Penang." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Shangri-La-Rasa-Sayang-Penang-6.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Shangri-La-Rasa-Sayang-Penang-6-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Shangri-La-Rasa-Sayang-Penang-6-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Shangri-La-Rasa-Sayang-Penang-6-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />
<h5>The feel</h5>
With over 12 hectares of 200-year-old rain trees, hibiscus, bougainvillea, and birds of paradise, the grounds are a habitat for monitor lizards and the black-and-white dusky leaf monkey. Look out for betel nut palms—the tree on the flag of Penang. Wandering through these tropical gardens, you’ll be soothed by an ever-present soundtrack of ocean waves and chirping birds. The resort is divided into the Garden Wing and the more exclusive Rasa Wing with its fan palm–shaded adults-only pool. Artwork depicting local folklore and culture have been thoughtfully woven throughout the resort: a carving of the Tree of Life done in wayang kulit (shadow puppet) style is the centerpiece of the Garden Wing lobby, while gorgeous Peranakan hairpins adorn the Rasa Wing walls. At the Rasa Wing’s reception area, a large hand-carved wooden sculpture of a coral reef alludes to the area’s natural beauty.
<h5>Guest quarters</h5>
The 189 rooms in the Garden Wing were overhauled in 2015 with neutral tones: think timber-trimmed cream walls and blond-wood floors. Sofas in each room convert into an extra bed; guests can order from a pillow menu to ensure a good night’s sleep. Over in the Rasa Wing, which was last revamped in the mid-2000s, sea-facing Deluxe and Junior suites have spacious balconies with a day bed and soaking tub. Little touches such as gecko-shaped door handles allude to the critters that roam the gardens. Room 2450 is the enormous one-bedroom Penang Suite, where views of coconut trees and the sand beckon from a wraparound balcony, and original wood-and-rattan furniture from the ’70s give the living area a homely feel.
<h5>Food and drink</h5>
An on-site spice and herb garden provides ingredients for Rasa Sayang’s three restaurants. The fine-dining Feringgi Grill has been around since day one, and longstanding chef Yeoh Chee Teong—who has helmed the kitchen for the past three decades—pioneered signature dishes such as the pepper steak flambé and the tomato soup cooked tableside and set ablaze with Beefeater Gin. Cocktails and fine single-cask whiskies are on the drinks list at the adjoining Feringgi Bar. The all-day Spice Market Café serves local specialties including Penang assam laksa and prawn noodle soup, alongside Western, Japanese, and Indian fare. It’s especially popular for its seafood buffets from Fridays to Sundays. Right next door, FIP (the acronym stands for Fun, Interactive, and Play) is a family-friendly lounge with live music performances twice a week. Casual beachside venue Pinang Restaurant and Bar offers the perfect spot for an apéritif as you watch the sun sink over the sea and the jungled hills to the west. Patrons here dine alfresco or in a series of thatched pavilions; the diverse menu spans burgers, pastas, and chicken kapitan curry.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-134634 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Shangri-La-Rasa-Sayang-Penang-7.jpg" alt="A cream of mushroom soup served at Rasa Sayang; inside a garden villa at Chi, The Spa." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Shangri-La-Rasa-Sayang-Penang-7.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Shangri-La-Rasa-Sayang-Penang-7-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Shangri-La-Rasa-Sayang-Penang-7-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Shangri-La-Rasa-Sayang-Penang-7-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />
<h5>Wellness factor</h5>
While the 24-hour gym features a yoga studio and floor-to-ceiling windows that frame ocean vistas, the real highlight is Chi, The Spa. Guests enter through a curved wooden passageway by the beach, and half of the 22 spa villas come with their own frangipani-fringed garden. The hourlong signature Propolis facial alternates between hot and cold sensations; locally inspired treatments harness the healing properties of indigenous herbs and rhizomes like ginger, lemongrass, and pandan.
<h5>Family matters</h5>
Spice Market Café and Pinang Restaurant and Bar both offer a kids’ menu. Accommodation options at the Garden Wing include three kinds of family rooms and two categories of connecting rooms. Downstairs, children can try their hand at water volleyball and make use of the ping-pong tables by the Garden Wing pool. FIP has board games and a big-screen TV that plays cartoons. There’s also an indoor Adventure Zone (complete with rainbow-hued drop slides) shared with next-door sister property Shangri-La Golden Sands. Keep an eye out for Mr. T, the resort’s roving turtle mascot, and his girlfriend, Sandy.
<h5>Sustainability cred</h5>
Batu Ferringhi Beach was a sea turtle nesting site until the ’80s when poachers sold the eggs at markets. Rasa Sayang stepped in and helped with the relocation of the endangered reptiles to the national park’s Pantai Keracut (aka Turtle Beach), where the resort runs a hatchery and education center. Transportation and guided tours are best arranged through the concierge. On-site environmental practices leave no stone unturned, whether it’s wooden room keys, drinking water in glass bottles, or sensors that shut off the air-conditioning when balcony doors open. Only organic fertilizers are used for the gardens; an inspector regularly checks on the rain trees and applies eco-friendly treatments.
<h5>What else?</h5>
Rasa Wing guests enjoy complimentary high tea, scones, and sandwiches at the Rasa Lounge from 3–4 pm and cocktails and tidbits such as lobak (five-spice meat rolls) and karipap (curry puffs) from 5:30–7 p.m every evening. Also on the grounds is a nine-hole pitch-and-putt golf course ensconced in verdant greenery. For those wanting to explore the historic sights of the city, a twice-daily shuttle bus runs to sister hotel JEN Penang Georgetown.
Reviewed by Dana Ter
<a href="https://www.shangri-la.com/en/penang/rasasayangresort/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shangri-la.com</a> 
+60 4 888 8888 
<a href="https://goo.gl/maps/u7gBwvjajJnbFrNbA" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Batu Ferringhi Beach, Penang, Malaysia</a>

The bedroom of a Garden Wing Terrace suite at Shangri-La Rasa Sayang, Penang.