Asia

Exclusive guide to the best holiday destinations in Asia, independent reviews from award-winning travel writers

Exploring Honshu beyond Tokyo

Exploring Honshu beyond Tokyo. Immerse into Japan’s serene countryside.

The colourful chaos that is Tokyo with its high rises, nightlife and neon is stuff of legend, but no more than an hour outside of the city, Japan’s countryside is another world entirely. Andy Mossack goes exploring Honshu beyond Tokyo.

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Spectacular Mysore Dasara Festival

Even on normal days the palaces and colourful markets of Mysore, in southern India, tend to make a big impression on visiting travellers. During the ten-day Mysore Dasara festival caparisoned elephants, tribal dancers and traditional musicians are just a handful of the photogenic sights that make the city

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Kambala Buffalo Racing in South India

In India’s palm-rich south, where Karnataka and Kerala meet, kambala rather than cricket, is the most popular sport.Two pairs of buffaloes are raced head-to-head along specially prepared twin tracks in kambala, the sport of the people in the rural districts around Mangalore. Crowds of up to 20,000 people gather on race days. People cheer while men sprint with their buffaloes along the jodukere kambalas, deliberately waterlogged, 450 feet (137 metres) long tracks prepared in river beds or the sodden mud of paddy fields. This is Kambala Buffalo Racing in South India.

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The Adonis Hotel Singapore

The Adonis Hotel Singapore. A true boutique hotel experience.

I could recite the Oxford dictionary definition, without hesitations: “It’s a stylish small hotel, didah, didah, didah…..” But my true answer is “I don’t know”. Really, I don’t but unfailingly I’ll recognize one, when I’ll see one. In my opinion, half the hotels claiming being Boutique, just aren’t. Yes, they might well be small or located in a fashionable area or even both but that doesn’t win them the title.
The Adonis Hotel Singapore is. In fact, it’s the epitome of this elusive classification.

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Hello to Hanoi. Hanoi trafficPG

Hello to Hanoi. 5 top tips. Unmissable Insider guide.

For me, saying hello to Hanoi for the first time was like opening up a box of chocolates; it all looked good, but until you took a few bites you wouldn’t know if you were going to enjoy it. I had my doubts, after all, it was, before unification, Ho Chi Minh’s seat of power as the communist capital of north Vietnam, and although Vietnam remains a communist country, it doesn’t really feel like one, if my experiences in Ho Chi Minh City and Hoi An were anything to go by.

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Ho Chi Minh City insider travel guide smiling Vietnamese girl

Ho Chi Minh City insider travel guide. 6 unforgettable things to do.

My Ho Chi Minh City Insider travel guide has, for me, put even more colour on a city reborn after such a turbulent past. Yes you can visit Saigon’s typical tourist hot spots, but uncovering the real Saigon is an experience not to be missed.

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