For once, I don’t have any insider tips to share, or advance word as to which cool new hotel is opening its doors. I just spent 10 days in Myanmar, my first time in a country that is beginning to open up to tourism for a number of reasons that range from political to infrastructural. Unlike...
Hotel Wars
Grand Hyatt, Erawan Bangkok
Pullman Bangkok Hotel G
The Location
Right on the Sukhumvit BTS line (SO convenient), the hotel is surrounded by high-end shopping malls and named for the active little shrine nearby.
Newly opened last fall, this hotel is in the thick of the...
Going Green in Singapore
Opening this month in the Lion City is a hotel that makes the awesome “vertical garden” in our own Hotel Icon look like a potted plant. The Park Royal on Pickering was designed to appear as if it were plopped down right in the middle of a lush garden. The 367-...
New Year, New Hotel, New You
That adage might be trite, but it’s true that at the start of every annum folks get more serious about taking care of themselves. A brand-spankin’-new hotel in Koh Samui, one of Starwood’s high-end Luxury Collection properties called Vana Belle, is...
After 1949, communism was going to be a problem. My parents wanted to leave [China], but they left me behind in Guangzhou. They had to get me out through Macau, because the border to Hong Kong was closed. They pretended our close friends were my parents because they were Macau residents.
I was...
The Buzz in Bangkok
Bangkok's another popular choice for Christmas or New Year's getaways, so if you're looking for a place to while away the holiday hours with a cocktail (or six), then check out one of these three rooftop bars that have opened in the last year. The Speakeasy (www....
Advice From a Travel Guru
A few weeks ago, I got to sit down with Tony Wheeler, who founded the ubiquitous, quasi-biblical Lonely Planet series of guidebooks. He never expected the franchise (which BBC bought out last year) to be the juggernaut that it is today—it started when he and his wife...
What’s a sure-fire way to get the hell outta town when everyone else is fleeing to warmer climes on trips they planned months in advance? Make a beeline for Macau, of course. It’s cheap, convenient and there’s as much hoopla about the holidays there as there is here. Sure, Senado...
