“Caroline Phillips is a tenacious and skilful writer with a flair for high quality interviewing and a knack for making things work.”
“And on the left there’s a fake customs booth. It’s got ‘Customs Arrivals from the EU’ and ‘Keep Ou…’ written on it, with the ‘T’ missing,” says a guide, leading a man with a white stick around the galleries. We’re at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. The sightless man, it turns out later, is blind artist David Johnson. And the customs booth is a Banksy, about which more later.
The allure of travelling to Stratford in London’s East End for a play that’s three and a half hours long isn’t instant. But King Hedley II —written by Pulitzer-prize winner, August Wilson and starring Lenny Henry —is more than well worth the journey.
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We’re going to search for cave elephants – the elusive quadruped Babars found ‘tusking’ salt off cave walls. There’s just basic camping on offer. And malaria and yellow fever aren’t a lure either. But I’m a mahout manqué and will do (almost) anything to see elephants. Even hike for four days from a little-explored part of Uganda to Kenya.
That’s why my 22-year-old daughter Anya and I are being driven 165 miles from Entebbe to Mount Elgon in Eastern Uganda. Past Lake Victoria, egrets and bamboo forests.
Facialogy? What’s that? It’s a combo of a blissful Vaishaly Signature Facial with a relaxing, health-promoting reflexology treatment.
Tourism to Myanmar is up and the 21st century has barely intruded. There are majestic rivers, thousands of temples and Buddhism is still a way of life. It will be quite unlike any land you know about.
We’re cruising downstream past majestic mist-tipped mountains, buffalo wallowing at the riverside and long tail ‘taxi’ boats. Beside rubber plantations, banana trees and bamboo stilt houses. Fishermen casting out traditional nets from deserted white beaches. Mahouts bathing their elephants. And locals sieving for gold. The stuff of Asian adventure stories or Oriental fairy tales, perhaps.
Peeping out above a pine forest, Oberoi’s mountain retreat in the foothills of the Himalayas can’t help but sweep you off your feet. Built on the site of Lord Kitchener’s summer residence, it’s Alpine lodge meets colonial old-world charm. The 85 rooms with marble bathrooms are calm, neutral and cosy with Burmese teak panels, roaring fires and polished parquet floors. Best of all are the floor-to-ceiling windows which max out the spectacular snow-capped view.
It’s a haunting place, if not haunted. You can almost hear the Tudor hounds and patter of paws past. This is Hales Hall near Norwich, Norfolk, a drop-dead gorgeous medieval estate in formal gardens of topiary, box hedging and lavender avenues. It boasts nine acres of moated meadowland and buttercups with fairytale cottages and a Great Barn (perfect for parties) – offering overall accommodation for 25.
If you want to zzzz in a 12th-century former nobleman’s castle – set in 740 tranquil acres of rolling hills – then try Castello del Nero’s new Sleep Retreat created with ESPA. Bag a suite with Pompeian-style, 18th-century frescoes and let the butler draw you a steaming, essence-infused bath strewn with rose petals.
I am lying on a wooden massage bed as two women rub my naked body with hot pouches of cooked rice, milk and medicinal herbs. They massage in tandem my legs, hip joints and up to my neck. A little gloop escapes the poultice bags each time and soon my body is covered with a gluey white residue. This is navarakizhi, a treatment claimed to reduce joint stiffness and relieve depression.
I’m at Soukya, a health retreat outside Bangalore that offers traditional Indian cures for conditions from hay fever to diabetes and strives to “restore the natural balance of your mind, body and spirit”.
Imagine a palm-fringed beachfront retreat. An 8,500 sq/ft tropical villa built in 2005. One boasting a massage temple – with sides open to the jungle foliage – and a colonnaded walkway. An outside sitting room with a chandelier and a 49ft dining room overlooking monkeys swinging in the Khomba tree and the courtyard swimming pool. Add to this six colonial bedrooms with soaring ceilings and inside/outside bathrooms open to the fireflies that sparkle in the inky sky.
Sunday 14 December. It’s a perfect afternoon: sun, sand, surfers. I’m in Sydney visiting my two Londoner daughters who are here living the Australian dream. My 28-year-old, Ella, is at the beach with friends; her elder sister Anya, 30, is out with her boyfriend. So I go for a swim alone at…
My life is currently as challenging as a long-haul budget flight full of stag-party revellers, hope mislaid like lost luggage. The reason? My marriage is…
Facialogy? What’s that? It’s a combo of a blissful Vaishaly Signature Facial with a relaxing, health-promoting reflexology.