The Complete Guide To: Rajasthan, India

Saturday, 29 March 2008

INDIA'S MOST ROMANTIC STATE? If romance could be manufactured, Rajasthan would be a good place to locate a bottling plant. With its wild desert scenery, ancient sandcastle forts, pastel-coloured cities, dust-speckled light and its swathes of scarlet, fuschia and marigold textiles, India's largest state is sure to induce a bout of wanderlust.

City Breaks: To find cool Tokyo, tap Marunouchi into a GPS

Sunday, 16 March 2008

Waiting at the kerb with the other obedient pedestrians, I asked a young woman for directions to the Shin-Marunouchi building, one of Tokyo's new breed of urban malls. She pulled out a regular-looking mobile phone, punched in the name and switched to GPS, which displayed a digital map of the area, our location and the destination. Damn, that was good.

Vintage Point: Anthony Rose drinks in Japan

Saturday, 15 March 2008

Sitting in the lofty Peak Lounge of the Park Hyatt where Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson cosy up in Lost in Translation, you can just about make out the distant pyramid of Mount Fuji. From one spectacular peak to another a couple of hours' drive away, I found myself standing at the foot of the sacred volcano itself, in a vineyard planted with tender shoots of the native koshu grape. I was in Tokyo as a judge at the Japan Wine Challenge, a competition to reward the best wines on the Japanese market. It was an unmissable opportunity to find out with my own eyes, nose and palate to what extent a beer and sake-suffused culture is absorbing wine, not least its own home-grown product.

China: a difficult place to travel, a glorious country to explore

Sunday, 2 March 2008

Ian and I had had visions of ambling across the dunes on our camels like Lawrence of Arabia, wrapped in colourful scarves to protect us from the searing desert sun. Unfortunately, we arrived in Urumqi, the capital of the Turkic region of Xinjiang in the far northwest of China, to freezing sleet, and had to spend our first day there searching for down jackets, warm gloves and thermal underwear. It was a fitting start to a trip that was as bizarre as holidays in China usually are.

The Complete Guide To: City chic in China

Saturday, 1 March 2008

Japan: land of the falling snow

Saturday, 23 February 2008

Beneath a Turkish-delight sky filled with tumbling snowflakes, I am deep in conversation with a woman about the vagaries of the weather. Slightly less conventionally, we are sitting with nothing but white towels on our heads in a steaming hot spring on the slopes of an active volcano.

The Travel Issue: Vietnam in November

Saturday, 2 February 2008

The sight of a man manoeuvring his little motorbike, loaded with a washing machine, through the traffic should have been dismissed as a surreal mirage, brought on by the intensely humid weather in Ho Chi Minh city. Yet there was a stream of such people motorbiking past our bus with an assortment of impossible loads. Whole families whizz by on the flimsiest of carriers, all apparently unconcerned by the proximity of the hard road rushing away inches from their exposed limbs.

The Travel Issue: Maldives in December

Saturday, 2 February 2008

The pale sea stretches below, punctuated by flashes of green and gold where reefs and sunlight collide. As the plane tumbles forwards, pockets of land, so tiny they are barely visible, emerge from a blanket of blue.

Hotel Of The Week: A sophisticated welcome in Osaka

Sunday, 27 January 2008

Usually thought of as Kyoto's ugly, mercantile neighbour, Osaka is gaining a reputation as one of Japan's most dynamic cities – not least because of its exciting food scene.

Why the heart of the Punjab beats to a drum

Saturday, 26 January 2008

The sight of Indian and Pakistani soldiers marching provocatively towards each other is not unusual at the Indian frontier town of Attari and its Pakistani counterpart, Wagah. But this show of national competitiveness has nothing to do with heightened international tension or political uncertainty on the western side of the border. The daily ritual is a flag-lowering ceremony, greeted by the crowds who gather every day at 4.30pm with an enthusiasm that is usually associated in this part of the world with supporters at a test match. While the spectators arrive to watch the ceremony, patriotic music is played. The arrival of the regular Delhi to Lahore bus is greeted with a roar, and two runners carrying Indian flags are urged to the border gates with a rapturous whoop.