Welcome to the tour, enjoy.

"Cocoa Island, in the Maldives, is home to a 23-room hotel owned and designed by Christina Ong, with architecture by Cheong Yew Kuan. The suites, which resemble local dhoni fishing boats, rest on pine poles set into the ocean floor. Steps lead from each suite right into the water." This location is perfectly private for recent honeymooners.

Udaivilas

Located along Lake Pichole in Udaipur, India, Udaivilas occupies 30 acres and offers 90 rooms, including some very luxurious guest suites. The pool, featured in this picture, borders the guest's rooms and measures more than 800 feet in length.

"It's a juxtaposition of old and new," Peter Silling says of Schloss Velden, the historic castle on Lake Wörth in Velden, Austria, and its new addition, whose interiors he designed. The modern, U-shaped wing, by the Viennese architectural firm Jabornegg & Pálffy, wraps around the rear of the castle, which was originally built by Bartholomäus Khevenhüller. Above: Black marble, custom-ordered for the suite, adds a mirrorlike reflection to the bath.

St. Regis Resort

St. Regis Resort Bora Bora, set on a motu, or islet, on island's coral reef, was created as "a kind of village," says the architect, Pierre Lacombe. Villas, secluded by palm groves, wind along the beaches. On its own island in the lagoon is the Royal Estate, a 13,000-square-foot villa. (April 2008)

Otahuna Lodge

A Queen Anne style house designed by architect Frederick Strouts in 1895, near Christchurch, New Zealand, is now an exclusive seven-suite hotel. Otahuna Lodge's owners, Hall Cannon and Miles Refo, recently renovated the property. They worked with a team of gardeners and consultants to revive the grounds.

Hôtel de la Paix

"I wanted to build on the history of the place," designer Bill Bensley says of the Hôtel de la Paix, in Siem Reap, Cambodia, which was reconstructed in the Art Déco style on the site of the 1950s original. A porte cochere frames the entrance. The hotels amenities trump its competitors by providing guests with a once in a lifetime spiritual visit. I don't know what that means but, it sounds amazing.

Gran Hotel Son Julia

Located in Mallorca Spain this beautifully constructed countryside hotel has 25 lovely
guest rooms and suites , 2 Turkish baths, 3 pools, a gym, 2 restaurants, 2 tennis courts, and an 18 hole golf course just minutes away.

Peninsula Palace Beijing

Modern architecture meets luxury at this 5-star hotel providing every amenity your heart desires. "The hotel also features the most prestigious shopping arcade in Beijing; the Peninsula Arcade includes 50 exclusive designer boutiques." The hotel was designed by Chhada, Siembieda & Associates

Ice Hotel

The Ice Hotel is located in Quebec Canada. This featured theme suite called "Quebec
400"features animal skins for blankets. The ice hotel is built differently every year but, something does remain the same. Each year, the hotel is built with "5oo tons of ice and 15,000 tons of snow" carved into one of the most fascinating hotels on earth. They keep it pretty cozy at 23° to 28° Fahrenheit. However, when you're not freezing your behind off, you can enjoy the many amenities featuring a chapel, a movie theater, an outdoor hot tub, and a bar. You're going to need a bunch of hot chocolate to get through this, I assure you.

Blue Palace

Blue Palace is situated just 3 km away from the village of Elounda and within a few hundred meters of the fishing village of Plaka. The hotel is surrounded by the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea and sits opposite the isle of Spinalonga.

"Spinalonga's story dates back to the Venetians and Turks, conquerors of Crete, and is nowadays a unique historical attraction protected by the Greek Society of Byzantine Antiquities."

 

 

The vessel was old but seaworthy. It sailed out of what was Bombay in those days and took a leisurely 24 hours to make its way to Panjim where it tied up for the day before heading back north.

The passage was cheap no matter which class you chose but there was really only one, especially if funds were tight. Getting on board was the usual tussle, all elbows and knees, babies being surfed over the heads of everyone else along with goats and chickens and nondescript packages that wriggled.

I was travelling in November with little chance of rain but it wouldn't have matter if a storm had lashed down. I claimed my space on the deck on the port side so I could see the coast all the way. With my Gulmarg blanket spread out on the damp planks I built a low partition with my possessions between myself and the open sea as a windbreak. My possessions were meagre, but so fortunately was the wind, even at night when we were far from the warm influence of the land. There was a family camped beside me: father, mother and two children, all spread out on a blanket the same size as mine. They also had a chicken which lay with its legs trussed, accommodatingly quiet for the entire trip.

The boat pushed off and started to rise and fall as it left the shelter of the harbor and headed out into the open Arabian Sea. I love traveling by boat. I don't mind bad weather, I enjoy storms, but this was no more than a slight swell with a gentle sun falling down to bless us.

Towards evening my thoughts turned to food. I'd brought water with me but that was all. For the first time I took a good look at my ticket and realized that a meal was included in the cost and I headed to where everyone else seemed to be heading and found a large dining hall set out much like a school refectory.

Dinner was rice and fish. The man in the queue in front of me got the jackpot - a fish head, and he was well pleased. It was a substantial enough meal but could have done with a bit more flavor, maybe a vegetable or two in the fish stew. But I enjoyed it.

I lay all night on the deck, under the clearest sky I had seen since a trip across the Indian Ocean when I was so far from land. The stars were spectacular and I could see that they were not just stuck onto a black background, but that they were actually suspended in space. The other passengers quietened down and fell into slept: the two children beside me had slept from very early, exhausted from the excitement of the journey. Their parents spoke no English; no-one seemed to.

At some remote hour during that magnificent night the boat slowed and dropped anchor off the coast, some way from a small town whose few lights twinkled in the distance like low-hung stars. A small motor boat chugged out through the shallows bringing a few more passengers and parcels. They boarded with not much noise and the boat sailed on.

At dawn we were closer than I expected to the shore. The Western Ghats rose out of the misty surface of the water and the smoke from the funnel left a faint graying smudge against the colorless, cloudless, sky. For the first time I felt the air as something cold. I lifted the blanket from the deck and wrapped it around my shoulders and watched Goa come into view.

1. Per capita, New Zealand contains more bookshops and more golf-courses than any other country in the world. The image of New Zealand as ‘just a sporting nation’ is actually false. New Zealanders are intelligent too.
2. Per capita New Zealand has more sheep than any other country in the world. (The Japanese tourists go crazy over them.) In recent years the highest number of sheep the country had was some 70 million in 1981. The sheep population, however, has dwindled since then, so that by 1999 there were only around 45 million. That’s still around 11 sheep per man, woman and child.
3. New Zealand is the first country to see the sunrise, and consequently was the first country to see in the new Millennium. That’s officially correct only because the first place in the world to see the sunrise each day, the Chatham Islands, belongs to New Zealand. The three islands making up New Zealand itself are some 45 minutes behind the Chathams.
4. New Zealand has the most southerly railway station, vineyard and pub in the world. These are all in the South Island. The most southerly capital city in the world, Wellington, is in the North Island.
5. This same capital city, Wellington, has more restaurants per capita than any other city in the world - including New York. Either Wellingtonians are a hungry lot and eat out frequently, or else there are plenty of restaurants that don’t do very well.
6. Auckland, which some New Zealanders (mostly Aucklanders) consider should be the capital city, has more boats per capita than any other city in the world. Auckland has several fine harbours, and of course, the Americas Cup was hosted there with great success in the past.
7. Per capita, New Zealanders have more access to the Internet than any other country in the world. This is not to say that every New Zealander has broadband, or even good access to the Net. Some enterprising New Zealanders have found their own way to get access, with more or less success. And Wellington gets in on the act once more: it’s the most wired city in the world - per capita.
8. Per capita, New Zealanders have the second highest rate of car ownership in the world. Fortunately, New Zealanders are spread over the land fairly thinly, so there are still plenty of places where you can drive for miles without seeing another car.
9. New Zealand was the first country in the world to give women the vote, to adopt the eight-hour working day, to operate a tourist board and to introduce the retirement pension. Unfortunately, these great gains have been eroded somewhat over the last few decades. Women, of course, still have the vote - in fact, New Zealand has had two female Prime Ministers - but many people work longer hours for less money now. With the advent of retail weekends, where shops are expected to be open at all hours, many people in retail have lost their right to any sort of proper weekend. And the retirement pension, which used to be set at 60, is now up to 65 - and may climb higher. For better or worse, people in New Zealand are just living longer.
10. The Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed entirely in New Zealand, in spite of concerns from the American producers, in spite of the fact that the director, Peter Jackson, had never directed one film of that scale before, let alone three, and in spite of the fact that they all said it couldn’t be done. ‘They’ were wrong as usual. New Zealanders aren’t the sort of people who give in easily.