Indholdsfortegnelse for Dec2019/Jan 2020 i DestinAsian

I’m of the opinion that the journey matters just as much as the destination—and I don’t mean that purely as an airline enthusiast. To pause and look back in retrospect, to understand the road we’ve taken is only natural, especially as we are mere weeks from the close of 2019 and the dawn of a new decade. How did we get here? And from a traveler’s perspective, how do places end up the way they are now? In Indonesia, intrepid surfers have often been the first to bring tourism to the shores of remote islands and even not-so-remote locales. Bali’s Bukit Peninsula was a hot spot for wave-riders long before hotels and day clubs staked their claim to the cliff tops of Uluwatu. For our cover story, Claire Knox charts…

Once a tiny riverside village in the fertile expanse of northeast China’s Manchurian Plain, Harbin is now a metropolis of 10 million with a unique hybrid identity. Large-scale Russian immigration in the early 20th century has left its mark on the hearty local cuisine—evident in the prevalence of khleb bread and wood-smoked sausage—as well as the facades along pedestrian-only Central Avenue, while the city’s undisputed symbol is the onion-domed St. Sophia Cathedral. The onetime “Moscow of the East” is arguably at its most endearing in the coldest months of the year, when residents and tourists alike brave subzero temperatures to attend the Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival. Held from January 5 through February, it’s considered the largest winter carnival in the world. Gargantuan snow sculptures and LED-illuminated ice lanterns…

With sea foam washing against its vibrant hull art, the 17th ship in the Norwegian Cruise Line fleet left the German port of Bremerhaven in late October on its inaugural voyage to Southampton, England, from where the vessel proceeded to Miami for a season of sailings in the eastern Caribbean. Christened the Norwegian Encore, this is the fourth and final addition to NCL’s Breakaway Plus class, a billion-dollar colossus with room for almost 4,000 passengers, more than 1,800 crew members, and myriad entertainment, leisure, dining, and cabin choices. Together with a host of fellow journalists and industry guests, I was aboard the Encore for its two-night run across the North Sea—not long enough to preview every offering, but enough to know that even on a week-long cruise, no one’s likely…

Marking the first foray of Malaysian airline mogul Tony Fernandes into the world of luxury hospitality, the December opening of The Chow Kit - An Ormond Hotel (thechowkit.com; doubles from US$48) looks set to inject a dose of sophistication into the gritty, eponymous Kuala Lumpur neighborhood. It’s the maiden property of the newly minted Ormond Hotels brand, which takes its name from a Victorian-era Dublin institution known for its literary connection to James Joyce that Fernandes and his partners are currently redeveloping. The ultimate aim is to bring the “Ormond spirit” to a collection of individually designed hotels in city-center districts around the world, each one inspired by stories of local heroes and misfits. So it should come as no surprise that Brooklyn-based firm Studio Tack mined Chow Kit’s colorful…

Northern Japan’s abundant snowfall doesn’t just make for ideal skiing conditions—it also results in creative ways to celebrate the winter season. Throughout February, KAI Tsugaru (kairyokan.jp), a hot-spring resort in Honshu’s Aomori Prefecture, will be running a nighttime experience centered on igloo-like snow huts known as kamakura. The water garden here will be transformed into a lantern-lit wintry playground, where guests can book a kamakura to warm up with chocolate and hot cocktails made using Aomori-grown apples, while playing a locally inspired card game.…

Yangon–Seoul Myanmar gets its first nonstop flights to Korea. Carrier: Myanmar Airways International Launch date: December 3 Aircraft: Airbus A319-100 Distance: 3,741 kilometers Flight time: 5 hours 30 minutes Frequency: Four times weekly Hanoi–Macau Vietnam’s national carrier adds a new short-haul destination in time for the year-end holidays. Carrier: Vietnam Airlines Launch date: December 15 Aircraft: Airbus A321-200 Distance: 812 kilometers Flight time: 1 hour 30 minutes Frequency: Daily Kuala Lumpur–Taipei–Naha Malaysian travelers can now fly direct to Okinawa, and at wallet-friendly prices. Carrier: AirAsia X Launch date: January 22 Aircraft: Airbus A330-300 Distance: 3,894 kilometers Flight time: 7 hours 25 minutes Frequency: Four times weekly…

Since its founding in the 12th century, only four names have been associated with the ownership of Castello Del Nero, a 300-hectare estate in the Chianti hills of Tuscany roughly midway between Florence and Siena. The first was Del Nero, a high-ranking family that built the estate’s ocher-hued castle as their country residence in the early days of the Florentine Republic. In 1825, the property passed through marriage to the Torrigiani clan, which owned it until Robert Trotta, an American real estate developer of Italian descent, bought the crumbling old manor and its surrounding olive groves and vineyards in 2000 and spent the next six years transforming it (under the watchful eye of the Italian Fine Arts Commission) into a 50-room hotel and spa. Now, it all belongs to COMO…

On the last day of 1869, Henri Matisse was born in his grandparents’ dirt-floored weaver’s cottage in the rural French town of Le Cateau-Cambrésis, not far from the Belgian border. The future Fauvist would spend the next 20 years of his life in the area, a largely flat, nearly tree-less expanse of broad fields and small villages marked at the time by factory effluent and the smoking chimneys of beet-sugar refineries and textile mills. It is either an irony or an impetus that, from this drab landscape at the edge of the Flanders plain, Matisse emerged with his magnificent joy of colors. The artist’s later life on the French Riviera is well documented. But the northeastern towns of his youth remain mostly unsung and largely unvisited. Last March, ahead of…

01 THE NEWT Two decades ago, Babington House, an outpost of London’s exclusive Soho House in the Somerset hinterland, set the standard for a new breed of English country-house hotels with its relaxed and chintz-free take on a Georgian manor. So it’s only fitting that an equally game-changing property has opened just 30 minutes down the road. Perhaps there’s something in the air? At The Newt in Somerset, that “something” is just as likely to be the spicy scent of freshly crushed apples at the on-site cidery as it is the aroma of wet meadow grass, the herbal tang of the kitchen gardens, or the whiff of mud-caked Wellingtons. This is country air as you can only imagine it, as befits a working farm. And it’s but one of many…

DURING HIS EPIC VOYAGE along the west coast of North America in 1542, Spanish explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo supposedly called southern California the “land of everlasting summers.” True or not, those words fittingly describe my April cruise across San Diego Bay aboard a replica of Cabrillo’s flagship, the San Salvador. The sky is cloudless, the sun is plentiful, and temperatures are warm enough for shorts and T-shirts. “I wasn’t planning on raising the sails today,” says Captain Jack Pinhero from his perch on the upper deck, “but I don’t wanna waste this breeze.” So up they go, great rectangles of parchment-colored canvas hoisted into place by the crew and a few eager passengers. Sailing through the harbor entrance at the end of Point Loma, the 200-ton galleon—a relatively recent addition…

JOE YOGERST Wrote “A San Diego State of Mind,” p. 88 Born and raised in San Diego, Yogerst spent 20 years roaming Asia, Africa, and Europe as a freelance writer and magazine editor before moving back to his hometown. Between assignments for the likes of National Geographic and CNN Travel, he penned Nemesis: A Novel of Old California, a murder-mystery set in 1880s San Diego, when the city was a rowdy seaport just as notorious as Deadwood or Tombstone. “Writing Nemesis gave me an opportunity to deep-dive into local history and re-explore some of the neighborhoods where I hung out as a kid. Right away it was clear that I didn’t know nearly as much about my hometown as I liked to think. Outsiders tend to assume that because the…

RIVERSIDE RENAISSANCE China has an abiding love for all things big, and Shanghai is no exception, as evinced by the emergence of a 940-hectare cultural district on former industrial land stretching more than eight kilometers along the Huangpu River. Its newest addition? The 22,000-square-meter West Bund Museum (westbund.com), home to the first-ever Asian outpost of the Centre Pompidou. Celebrated British architect David Chipperfield gave the building its understated appearance, responding to the triangular site by spinning three rectangular, 17-meter-high exhibition halls off a central atrium. Each one is clad in translucent recycled glass and punctuated by large windows that frame views of the river and the city, providing a blank canvas for what’s been billed as a major cultural collaboration between France and China. The first of three semi-permanent exhibitions…

A 50-minute flight is all that separates Bali from the eastern Indonesian island of Sumba, and yet it feels as though you’ve landed in a different country. The landscape is not characterized by towering volcanoes but undulating savanna-clad limestone hills; its rugged coastline remains wild and untamed; and the island’s age-old tribal heritage is underpinned by Marapu, the animistic belief system still practiced here despite a widespread conversion to Christianity in recent decades. Sumba has been touted as the next big thing in Indonesian tourism for some time now, and the road from Tambolaka airport, where I fly in, was recently widened in anticipation of new developments along the southwest coast. Case in point? The first luxury resort on the island by an Indonesian hotelier. Named Lelewatu (“stone bracelet”) after…

One of Sydney’s most storied addresses is now home to one of the city’s newest bars, with Reign (reignqvb.com.au) holding court on the upper floor of the 1898-built Queen Victoria Building. All marble, brass, and blush, the light-filled lounge features more than 150 champagnes and sparkling wines, many of which are poured by the glass. That said, champagne connoisseurs may want to opt for the tasting flight of non-vintage and reserve cuvées from G. H. Mumm. The best tables are by the arched windows over-looking Town Hall and George Street; pull up a chair here for weekend brunch, or settle in for “high cheese,” which swaps scones and sandwiches for fromage and lavosh. Buzzy new wine bar and restaurant the Prince of York (princeofyork.com.au) also occupies historic quarters, spread over…

1/United States PHANTOM RANCH One of the few ways to get to this rustic 1920s lodge, the sole accommodation option at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, is by saddling up on a mule. The five-and-a-half hour ride along the Bright Angel Trail includes a lunch stop at the Indian Garden—so named for its creek-side profusion of wild grasses, willows, and cottonwood trees—and guests must then brave a narrow suspension bridge over the Colorado River to reach their home for the night. grandcanyonlodges.com 2/Indonesia FOUR SEASONS RESORT BALI AT SAYAN Those arriving from the Four Season Sayan’s sister property on the shores of southern Bali’s Jimbaran Bay can add a dose of adrenaline to the journey with a two-hour rafting adventure down the Ayung River. After tackling Class III rapids…

Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai is upping the wow factor in its barbecues thanks to the launch of grill-focused dining venue Char by Four Seasons (fourseasons.com). Designer extraordinaire Bill Bensley looked to the large lotus pond in front of the restaurant to create a whimsical lotus-like fire pit as its centerpiece. Beneath an impressive stainless steel, tin, and aluminum canopy made by Phuket-based Australian artist John Underwood, chefs grill and roast all manner of specialties—among them rack of lamb, steaks, and whole seabass—over an open flame. Smoked and flambéed desserts carry on the fiery theme, as do cocktails made with ingredients like charred local pineapple.…

THREE YEARS AFTER AMAN DEBUTED ITS SECOND JAPANESE OUTPOST, AMANEMU, THE BRAND HAS NOW PUT DOWN ROOTS IN THE COUNTRY’S CULTURAL CAPITAL. THE LATE AUSTRALIAN ARCHITECT KERRY HILL IMPARTED ON AMAN KYOTO (AMAN.COM; DOUBLES FROM US$1,014) A MINIMALISTIC FLAIR, DRAWING INSPIRATION FROM ITS GARDEN SETTING WITHIN A 32-HECTARE FOREST NOT FAR FROM THE GILDED TEMPLE OF KINKAKU-JI. A PROMINENT MOTIF? KOSHI, OR WOODEN LATTICES ON THE MACHIYA TOWNHOUSES THAT WERE ONCE A COMMON SIGHT ACROSS THE CITY. WHILE EACH OF THE 26 ROOMS AND SUITES HAVE GLASS-TO-CEILING WINDOWS, PERHAPS THE BEST PLACE FROM WHICH TO ADMIRE THE AMAN’S VERDANT BACKDROP IS THE TERRACE OF THE CENTRAL LIVING PAVILION, WHERE CHEF KENTARO TORII PLATES UP SEASONAL KYOTO CUISINE.…

“This one tastes like chocolate pudding,” says the chipper, check-shirted server as she arranges a wooden platter on our picnic table. “And that one, like caramel. Oh, and if you like custard…” Her voice trails off as she notices my expression, which I suppose is one of bafflement, because this is no dessert board she’s describing. Rather, it’s a kaleidoscope of glistening tropical fruits, only a few of which I recognize. Shrugging, she points to a ruby-red berry and adds, “Eat this, and everything else will taste sweet. Even”—and here she flourishes a wedge of citrus—“lemons.” Truth be told, my expectations for Tropical Fruit World were not high. With its petting zoo and boat rides and tractor trains, the 65-hectare fruit farm sounded like the sort of tourist attraction I…

As the morning mist burns off the jungle canopy, I hear the bamboo flutes: a haunting sound believed to be the voices of ancestral spirits in this far-flung region of Papua New Guinea. Then a looping line of dancers appears. Waving palm fronds and crowned with sky-scraping headdresses made from black cassowary feathers, they move as though in a trance, mimicking the high-stepping gait of crocodiles. Together with my husband and our two young sons, I’m waiting for eight local men to take their first steps outside after being confined in a thatch-roofed haus tambaran (spirit house) for the past six weeks. We’ve traveled by canoe far up the Sepik River—at more than 1,100 kilometers the longest in Papua New Guinea—to witness this age-old initiation ceremony in Kanganaman village. It’s…

/Thailand/ PHULAY BAY, A RITZ-CARLTON RESERVE Ritz-Carlton’s first ultra-luxe Reserve property is celebrating its 10th anniversary this winter with a special Anniversary Package valid from December 21–23. Guests who bed down for a minimum of two nights at the seaside resort in Krabi will receive a 20 percent discount on the best available rate, alongside a slew of benefits such as round-trip airport transfers, savings of 20 percent on retail products and spa treatments, and the same discount on the 10th anniversary festivities—an all-day bash in which revelers enjoy traditional Thai dance performances, a cocktail reception, and a sumptuous dinner with live music (ritzcarlton.com). Indonesia RAFFLES JAKARTA Those who book an Artist, Gallery, or Garden View suite through the Raffles’ Short and Suite package don’t just enjoy return airport transfers…

Few names in Bangkok’s culinary scene are as revered as Nahm, the signature Thai dining room at the COMO Metropolitan hotel. Opened by Australian chef David Thompson in 2010, it has received scores of accolades—including a Michelin star—for its finely plated but real-deal Thai fare. So when Thompson announced his departure last year, foodies were shocked. Succeeding him was Pim Techamuanvivit, a California-based Bangkok native who had forged a career in Silicon Valley before moving on to open a casual Thai restaurant called Kin Khao in San Francisco. She had no formal culinary training, though that didn’t stop Kin Khao from bagging a Michelin star in 2015. Nahm was to be her first foray into the world of fine dining, and an opportunity to spend more time in the city…

Flanked by bamboo forests that were the backdrop for a pivotal fight scene in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the lakeside Alila Anji (alilahotels.com) recently introduced several new activities to immerse city-dwellers in the mountain scenery of China’s Zhejiang Province. A sidecar ride through a tea plantation brings guests to a farmhouse, where local dishes like fish-head soup star on seasonal menus. Just as inviting is a lake cruise aboard the Alila Fushi, a 12-seater electric boat featuring a small bar, with the option of high-tea nibbles by the resort and Belgian chocolate brand Godiva.…

New Cabin Qantas Fresh from a multimillion-dollar revamp, the first of Qantas’s upgraded Airbus A380s recently debuted on the Kangaroo Route between Sydney and London via Singapore. Seats across all cabins have been redesigned or refreshed, and those in business class can look forward to direct aisle access thanks to the introduction of the Qantas Business Suites. On the upper deck, the expanded onboard lounge serves light meals and snacks by the Rockpool group in a wood-paneled setting fitted out with leather couches (qantas.com). New Lounge Swiss Business-class travelers passing through Terminal A at Zurich Airport should check out the brand-new Swiss Alpine Lounge. Designed as a modern take on a mountain hut, the rustic-chic space seats up to 100 passengers, with bespoke furniture and cushion covers handmade by Swiss…

GERRY LOPEZ WASN’T LONG OUT of the icy waters of Bells Beach on Australia’s rugged southern coastline when he first set eyes on Uluwatu. The year was 1974, and Lopez, a tawny-haired 25-year-old from Oahu, was renowned throughout the surfing world for his masterful tube-riding skills. “Mr. Pipeline,” they called him. His peers—people like surf photographer Jeff Divine—spoke admiringly of the meditative, almost Zen-like movements he applied to the sport. Lopez traveled frequently between Hawai‘i and Australia to compete in prestigious surf competitions, and on this occasion, he was in Torquay, Victoria, for the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach, now among the most coveted trophies on the World Surf League championship tour. He didn’t win the contest that season, but over dinner one night at fellow surfer Jack McCoy’s vegetarian…