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Huangshan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was a major inspiration for the fantasy world of Avatar, and no wonder. When shrouded with clouds, the jagged granite peaks look positively dreamlike floating in midair. And this happens pretty often – clouds sink down upon Huangshan roughly 200 days of the year. Hike your way up, stay a night or two on the mountain and feel the scenic bliss descend upon you as you look out over the majestic peaks.
An early wake-up in the Russian holiday hotspot of Nha Trang isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Beat the heat and the tourists by rising at 5am and wandering down to the beach to experience exercise time in full swing. Swim with the locals flocking down for a pre-sun dip, dance in one of the many rotundas with your choice of salsa or techno music, or show off your muscles on one of the many exercise machines. Morning time is exercise time – so flex, bounce, bend and stretch your way around as you watch the sunrise!
Flames flare across a pit of boiling mud in the heart of Turkmenistan’s Karakum Desert. Derweze, or the ‘door to hell’ as locals know it, is a glowing 70-metre-wide sinkhole and a sinister legacy to gas mining.
The crater formed when the ground beneath a rig collapsed as Soviet geologists drilled for resources in one of the largest natural gas reserves in the world. The pit devoured the machinery and methane gushed into the air, threatening a nearby village. To truncate the flow, geologists set the deposit alight, assuming it would burn off in several days. Fed by rich natural gas, the fire continues to burn decades later.
Sometimes the most memorable nights out end in the bathroom, so why not cut out the middle man and open a bar in an old Victorian public lavatory?
Embedded in the heart of Kentish Town, the underground toilet-tavern of Ladies & Gentlemen is all kinds of cosy – think intimate candlelit tables, soft jazz tunes and friendly staff who’ll make you feel like a regular beneath a smattering of (squeaky clean) cisterns.
The cocktail list is bursting with homemade liqueurs and gin straight from a 16-litre copper still. Each is infused with locally sourced botanicals, including the bar’s very own Highwayman Gin. There’s also a Gin Club every Tuesday night, where you’ll learn how to perfect the art of distilling spirits – you even get a small takeaway bottle to enjoy at home.
Pull up a stool in this tiny bar and settle into another epoch. Bar Trench has been sliced from turn-of-the-century Paris and grafted into an alley in the Ebisu district of modern-day Tokyo.
A huge windowpane overlooks an interior of wood, exposed brick and dapper clientele sipping homemade ginger ale, exclusive whisky and finely crafted cocktails – many with an Absinthe bent.
Order an in-house creation – the Go Lassi!!! (a blend of Absinthe Clandestine, lime, dill, yogurt and cucumber) is a must if you’re game – then test your recollection of the classics with boozy quotes from Hemmingway and Sinatra printed on coasters. Best of all is the chance to tap into the mind of the English-speaking Brazilian–Japanese mixologist and owner, who’s happy to share his seemingly endless knowledge of grog.
The term bathtub gin first appeared in the USA in the 1920s as a reference to the homemade, low-quality hooch furtively brewed during the reign of Prohibition. Tucked away behind the facade of an inconspicuous coffee shop in the Big Apple, Bathtub Gin is an old-fashioned speakeasy with a twist.
Among oversized armchairs and fringed lampshades, the bar’s most prominent feature is the gold-plated bathtub that dominates the space with a rather literal interpretation of its name. Wait staff don vintage flapper attire, while barkeeps shake up high-quality cocktails – no rotgut here – paying homage to recipes from the pre-Prohibition era. If gin’s your thing there are 30 choices on the list, as well as plenty of varieties of wine and a selection of beer.
Close encounters of the thick-skinned kind are frequent on this 163-kilometre paddle down the mighty Zambezi. It’s not uncommon to manoeuvre around partially submerged hippos, glide past elephants bathing in the shallows or observe crocodiles sunning themselves on the banks during this six-day aquatic adventure with River Horse Safaris.
There’s no other tour that takes visitors into this part of Zambia, traversing the entire floodplains of the Lower Zambezi and journeying through isolated Mupata Gorge before ending where the Zambezi meets the Luangwa River. Each day, the camp is packed up before dawn, everyone climbs into twin canoes and the journey begins before the heat kicks in. Wildlife abounds here, where humans are few and the landscape is vivid and unexpected. Vast walls of volcanic rock rise from the water in the Great Rift Valley, and estuaries running off the main river feel as though they’re completely unexplored.
At night, tents are set up on the sandy banks of the river and everyone helps out by preparing dinner or cleaning up. There’s also the chance to go on game drives and walks, looking out for animals that make their home further away from the river’s edge. With a maximum of 12 guests on any given adventure, this is an intimate way to observe the vast African wilderness.
There’s definitely an advantage to appearing as though you’re an animal while trying to get up close to another. At the Ant Collection, the horses used for riding safaris graze and wander the bush with the wildlife you’re hoping to see – including rhinos, giraffes and zebras – so none of them feel threatened by the presence of ponies.
Ant’s has about 90 horses (most of them thoroughbreds or Arab-Boerperd crosses), so there’s one to suit any level of rider, including those who’ve never saddled up before. Two guides accompany each safari through the private game reserve: one to canter along ridges and sandy tracks with the experienced equestrians, the other to hang back with the novices.
When you’ve had enough time atop your mount, head back to Ant’s Hill lodge, built on the edge of a cliff, with a pool and deck overlooking Waterberg National Park. Meals, including high tea before the afternoon ride, are a highlight, and each of the rooms and cottages is decked out with African fabrics, daybeds and touches of luxury. After dark you can enjoy a wine tasting, head out on a night drive or learn about the stars.
Imagine sitting in your own private hot tub watching the sun dance off the water of a picture-postcard bay. You’ll never want to leave.
That’s the secret to a brilliant pousada, and Maravilha sets the bar high when it comes to gorgeous lodgings you’ll want to call home forever. There are only eight rooms here, so you’re guaranteed privacy and tranquility. Sink between Egyptian cotton sheets in your king-size bed, lounge in the hammock on your balcony and don’t forget about that alfresco tub.
When it’s time to venture beyond your room (go on, you should), cool off in the infinity pool, feast on mango shrimp salad and island fish at the restaurant, and rejuvenate at the spa, all while enjoying spectacular views of Sueste Bay.
Maravilha is located on the island jewel of Fernando de Noronha in the 21-island archipelago of the same name. Brazilian beauties don’t come much better than this.
All along the main road that leads down to Boston Bay, sturdy home-made grills sit in front of brightly painted shacks, deep grey smoke billowing from the hot coals. It carries with it the smell of spiced, blackened meat and fish, for this is the birthplace of the Jamaican specialty ‘jerk’. Jerk chicken, jerk pork, jerk fish – it’s all served up here, with generous helpings of dumplings, plantains and vegetables best washed down with a cold Red Stripe.
But the tasty grub is not the only reason to venture this far east – well beyond the traditional tourist hot-spots of the west and north. Boston Beach itself is a pretty and undeveloped stretch of sand with a fraction of the tourists who spread out their towels at Negril. It’s pretty popular with locals though, with tunes pumping and vans parked nearby serving snacks and drinks. It’s also something of a surf hot-spot. Here, Jamaicans and travellers wade into the turquoise waves with their boards from the shore, or jump off from a rocky outcrop further out.
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