Travel
Southeast Asia’s holiday hotspots
Beyond Southeast Asia’s bustling cities there are so many temples, picturesque towns and natural attractions that it can be hard to know where to start. None of these iconic places will leave you disappointed.
HA LONG BAY, VIETNAM
In the ‘Bay of Descending Dragons’, a unique karst topography juts out of the sea and forms some 2000 limestone islets. A cruise among the formations is a magnificent way to spend a few days or more, landing on the islets for further exploration and rock climbing. Beware the season, though. Monsoons from June through September and again from January to March can limit visibility.
ANGKOR ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARK,
CAMBODIA The Temples of Angkor are situated in a massive complex, the sheer size of which is bound to impress. This also means that tourist hordes are thinned out. They tend to congregate around the main attractions: Angkor Wat, Bayon and the vine-covered Ta Phrom. But there is much to discover. Generations of Khmer rulers built hundreds of architecturally jaw-dropping temples around the site.
BANAUE RICE TERRACES,
PHILIPPINES Supposedly entirely built by hand, the 2000-year-old stone- and mud-walled terraces that layer the impossibly steep slopes of
the Ifugao region in the Philippines are irrigated by mountain streams and springs. During harvest season, when the rice plants are bright green, the valleys practically glow in the sunshine, and trekking around the hillsides is a surreal experience.
TEMPLES AT BAGAN, MYANMAR
The appeal of the Buddhist temples at Bagan lies not in their individual majesty, but rather in the highdensity and endless array of similar structures thrusting up from the plains. Some 2000 of the 13,000 temples that used to stand in the city of Bagan still remain, and it's this spiritual plenitude that makes a trip to Bagan unmissable.
MOUNT KINABALU, MALAYSIA
The common refrain you hear in promotional material for Mount Kinabalu is that on a good day you can see all the way to the Philippines. Chances are that you won’t see the Philippines from the peak because of frequent fog and rain, but that doesn’t mean you should forget about climbing Borneo’s highest mountain. The ascent is technically straightforward and it’s one of the most accessible mountains in the world. However, it’s still an exhausting excursion to the summit of the 4095-metre peak.
LUANG PRABANG, LAOS
This UNESCO World Heritage site is almost an entire city. It’s rare to turn a corner here and not be confronted with remarkable colonial and Lao architecture. Outside of town in the surrounding jungle, you can find surprisingly powerful waterfalls, bathing pools and echoing caves.
KRABI PROVINCE, THAILAND
Home to some of the best sand and water in the world, it’s no wonder that everyone jets off for Krabi Province. Ko Phi Phi Leh, where the movie The Beach was filmed, is packed with tourist hordes, but Ko Lanta’s equally beautiful long, white-sand beaches are relatively devoid of tourists. If beach lounging isn’t quite your thing, some of the best scuba diving in Southeast Asia can be found on Ko Lanta.