www.sanctum-inle-resort.com

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APRIL / MAY 2015
Mergui
Magic
Island-hopping
in Myanmar’s
idyllic archipelago
SHENZHENAUSTRALIALIMACAMBODIAKATHMANDUMOROCCO
SHENZHEN AUSTRALIA LIMA CAMBODIA KATHMANDU MOROCCO

2. 16 17
DESTINASIAN.COM – APRIL / MAY 2015 APRIL / MAY 2015 - DESTINASIAN.COM
GOOD TO GO UPDATE
TOUR DE FORCE
Lavishly illustrated with
period photos and antique
maps, The Romance of
the Grand Tour – 100
Years of Travel in South
East Asia (Talisman
Publishing) is a nostalgic
exploration of the region’s
legendary port cities
during the colonial era.
A director at Singapore’s
National Heritage
Board, author Kennie
Ting retraces the steps
of an East of the Suez
Grand Tour that takes in
old-world Rangoon and
Singapore through to the
Dutch East Indies cities of
Batavia and Surabaya. If
the Merchant Ivory team
had ever written a travel
guide, it would probably
have looked a lot like this.
—Daven Wu
ISLAND FLAVORS
The first ever Ubud Food Festival is being held this year, putting the
theory that food is the window into a culture into practice. Headed by
the same folks behind the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival, the event
will explore the diversity of Indonesian cuisine, filling the central
Balinese town of Ubud with three days of panels and tastings led by
restaurateurs and food specialists, farmers’ markets, and cooking
demonstrations and master classes taught by some of the best chefs
in the region (June 5–7; ubudfoodfestival.com). —GL
WHIT LARGE
At the point where Lower Manhattan’s Meatpacking
District of list-only clubs and designer flagships begins
transitioning into the West Village’s brownstones and
cafés, the Whitney Museum of American Art opens
the doors of its new, ultra-contemporary home by
the Hudson River on May 1. With one of the world’s
foremost collections of its kind numbering 21,000
works and counting, the bastion of 20th- and 21st-
century art had long outgrown its uptown address at
the Marcel Breuer building, which the Metropolitan
Museum of Art will take over as an outpost of its own.
The Whitney’s new Renzo Piano–designed digs more
than doubles the museum’s former size at nearly
20,000 square meters, including indoor and outdoor
exhibition spaces overlooking the High Line, a 170-
seat theater, and two eateries conceived by famed
New York restaurateur Danny Meyer. The inaugural
exhibition America Is Hard to See (through September
27) focuses on American art from 1900 onward,
including works by Hopper, O’Keeffe, and Calder.
Call it a modern housewarming (99 Gansevoort St.;
1-212/570-3600; whitney.org). —Gabrielle Lipton
COURTESYOFWHITNEYMUSEUM;COURTESYOFTALISMANPUBLISHING;COURTESYOFMATTOLDFIELD/UWRF.
OPPOSITE:COURTESYOFHEREMES;COURTESYOFSANCTUMINLERESORT
OntheMove
The downtown
home of New
York’s Whitney
Museum.
P.S. May also ushers in the fourth annual Frieze New York
art fair, showcasing more than 190 of the world’s leading
galleries in a custom-built tent on Randall’s Island in the
East River (May 14–17; friezenewyork.com).
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70 Collyer Quay, #01-03 Customs House,
Singapore 049323
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INDONESIAN INSPIRATION
Once fashioned into the kimonos of Japanese nobility and
gowns of Marie Antoinette, the intricately dyed and woven
threads of ikat—Indonesian for “to tie”—are nothing new in
the realm of status symbols. Most recently, their hazy, cloud-
like patterns are the inspiration for Hermès’s new tableware
collection, Voyage en Ikat. Made in the French porcelain
capital Limoges, the pieces comprise a dinner service set
ranging from saucers to a soup tureen, each with beautiful
jewel hues of emerald, sapphire, and ruby bleeding across
their surfaces, touched with 24-karat matte gold hand-applied
by Hermès craftsmen (from US$230; hermes.com). —GL
LAKESIDE LUSTER
As one of Myanmar’s
biggest draws, Inle
Lake has no shortage
of hotels on its shores.
But with the opening
of Sanctum Inle Resort
comes a refuge unlike
the rest, modeled after a
European monastery with
96 rooms often featuring
vaulted ceilings and arched
windows. Given its cigar
lounge, wine list, gardens,
and spa, Sanctum is a far
cry from asceticism, but
after days spent on its
tours of the lake, a nearby
winery, and Kakku Temple,
who would want to return
to anything less? (Maing
Thauk Village; 95-1/860-
4945; sanctum-inle-
resort.com; doubles from
US$484) —David Tse