Wed. Wanderings
From cities to countryside, from regions to continents, find those nooks and crannies that other magazines miss.
Policy: we pay for the goods and services we review in this section. If we review a hotel, we paid the bill. although we have to say that we do sometimes get a media discount (common practice). If we review a restaurant, we not only paid the bill, we didn't even tell them it was a review. Our views are totally independent and are not influenced by freebies. So you can be confident in this: if we say it's good, it really is good. And if we say we will go back, we will. And we'll spend our own money that time, too.
Raffles: the spirit survives – at least in one corner
There's a man at Raffles Hotel in Singapore that the management needs to find and make a fuss of. Of, not about. For on a recent trip into one of the world's most famous hotels, that one man turned an awful experience into one to be remembered.
Ex post facto: the Fullerton, Singapore.
There's something strange about The Fullerton. It's like The Grosvenor in Chester and a handful of other hotels that you walk in and instantly feel that you know it well.
Sydney – the biggest little city in the world?
Sydney – famous for its Harbour Bridge, its Opera House and Bondi Beach is a small city that punches well above its weight.
Marvellous Margate
On the coast of North Kent in South East England is what computer people would call a "legacy" town - it's a town that time forgot. Margate has hardly changed for decades - and that is a very good thing.
Vietnam's Typhoon Damage
The blue skies over the Hanoi Opera belie the devastation just an hour south of the Capital.
Penang's little Tze-cret
Nestled amongst Penang's early 20th Century shop houses and late 19th Century Colonial buildings are delights such as this former bank where the new pride on Penang can be seen by the three men squatting on the pavement cleaning between the tiles. Renovation is in vogue as Penang realises that its biggest asset is probably its heritage and in a move directly opposite that of most of the country sets about preserving some of the most attractive cityscape remaining in the East.