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6 ★ FTWeekend 31 January/1 February 2015 Travel POSTCARD FROM . . . ICELAND C an there be a more perfect antidote to city life than a quick escape to an island retreat? Singapore, the third most-densely populated country in the world, has its own island getaway in Sentosa but that is connected to the “mainland” by a bridge. For a more palpable escape, Singaporeans and visitors take a 45-minute ferry ride to Bintan, an Indonesian isle to the southeast. The journey from city chaos to coddling calm is supremely painless, with the city’s skyscrapers shrinking to a miniature outline as the catamaran skirts past legions of tankers and container ships. For anyone in need of rapid relaxation after a business trip to the city or between long-haul flights, it is a boon. In less time than it takes to digest a paper from cover to cover, the boat docks on Bintan’s sleepy northwest coast. A broad chunk of the north of the island is taken up with tropical beach resorts, homes, golf courses and shops but the Sanchaya, launched last month, is the first luxury resort to open on the island for a decade. The property is owned by Natalya Pavchinskaya, a Rus- sian businesswoman with a background in art history who moved to Singapore in 2006 and used to visit Bintan at week- ends. In 2011, she heard of a nine-hec- tare parcel for sale in Lagoi Bay and fell for the plot, located in the middle of a gently curving crescent with a clutch of uninhabited islands just offshore. Work began soon after but the planned com- pletion date of September 2013 was repeatedly pushed back . The hotel experience starts at Bintan’s Bandar Bentan Telani ferry terminal, where guests are welcomed into a spare, white-on-white lounge with a chilled, scented towel while immigration for- malities are handled by hotel staff — Sanchaya is the only property to have its own lounge. From here, the 10-minute drive to the resort takes in towering palms and hills covered in dipterocarps. Sanchaya, Sanskrit for “collection”, claims the cultures of Southeast Asia as inspiration but its look equally cele- brates British colonialist architecture. The first glimpse of the property, built on an old coconut plantation, is the Great House, its black-and-white exte- rior mimicking the houses where gov- ernment officials and British army offic- ers lived in Singapore. Home to nine suites, the dining room, bar, library, wine room and meeting space, it deliv- ers a suitably dramatic first impression out front, with a landscaped courtyard anchored by a tiered fountain. At the back is the classic beach-idyll view with a reflecting pool that seemingly blends into a 50m saltwater infinity pool and then the emerald-cyan sea. The villas, 21 of them, form a loose semi-circle around the Great House, each display- ing influences from various Southeast Asian nations, including Thai-style pitched roofs with six layers of cedar shingles and masculine dark teak interi- ors, Khmer glazed pottery jars, Burmese colonial window frames, and Laotian temple ornaments. Rooms come in colours atypical for a beach resort, elegant white and steel- grey, and supply the usual drool-worthy accoutrements: Egyptian cotton sheets, Lefroy Brooks claw-foot tubs, Bang & Olufsen televisions and sound systems, Chinoiserie-style cabinets, polished chrome floor lamps. And while these touches might sound like excess, the rooms never seem fussy or overly designed, more like the well-curated country home of a tasteful, flagrantly rich relative who’d spent some fine years in the colonies. Suites have roomy ter- races that are especially inviting during those quick, raging tropical downpours, when the sea and sky merge in the dis- tance. “Companions” trained by the British Butler Institute — yes, such a thing exists — attend all rooms. Hotel insider | Doing business or changing planes in Singapore? A new resort offers a tropical island escape just outside the city. By Sanjay Surana The common areas continue the colo- nial theme. The bar recreates a late- 1800s explorers’ club, with vintage prints, antique telescopes and com- passes, a reassuringly worn Gray-Nicolls cricket bat, and custom furniture. The Dining Room, where patrons are cooled by ceiling fans with palm-leaf-shaped blades, has French doors, gauze linen curtains, brass teapots in display cabi- nets, boxed frames of star anise, bam- boo and rattan chairs. Food spans conti- nents, from contemporary European (watermelon soup with truffle oil) to a tongue-tingling, tonsil-tickling South- east Asian mee mamak goreng (fried noo- dles with chicken, prawn, egg, and sliv- ers of fiery red chillies). From Rome: Ponza Tiny Ponza is the island the Romans don’t want the rest of us to know about. In summer you can hardly move for designer-clad Italians schmoozing in the pavement cafés, tanning themselves on the pebbly coves and snorkelling in the clear Mediterranean waters. But outside of August it’s the perfect antidote to traffic-choked Rome. Hire a Vespa and go in search of an empty cove or take a boat trip to the gorgeous, uninhabited isle of Palmarola, with its underwater grottoes and rock pillars. Where to stay: Ponza has no five-star resorts but the Chiaia di Luna is one of the better options, with bright and breezy bedrooms, an outdoor pool and beautiful hillside position (doubles from €100, hotelchiaiadiluna.com) How to get there: The Vetor hydrofoil (vetor.it) takes just over an hour from Anzio, which is a half-hour train ride from Rome. From London: Osea Island Driving across the old Roman causeway on to Osea feels like leaving the 21st century behind. There are no shops, bars, restaurants or surfaced roads on this estuary island in Essex — just a handful of weather-boarded cottages, an Edwardian manor house with tennis court and pool, an overgrown orchard and four miles of unspoilt beaches. There’s nothing low-key about the guest list, though. The island, which is owned by record producer Nigel Frieda, is home to two recording studios and is a popular filming location. So don’t be surprised if you bump into the odd celeb. Where to stay: The Sweetshop is a charming cottage for two (from £325 for two nights, oseaisland.co.uk). How to get there: Trains from London Liverpool Street to Witham station take less than 50 minutes, then it is a 15-minute taxi ride to the island (crossing at low-tide). From New York: Long Island When New Yorkers get a craving for sand dunes and salty air, Long Island is their first port of call. Stretching 190km east from New York harbour into the Atlantic Ocean, the island has a resort for everyone, from the chi-chi Hamptons to the surfers’ hangout of Montauk. In recent years several of the island’s old-school motels have been given a new lease of life as hip hotels and beach clubs, attracting a livelier crowd. Where to stay: The Maidstone has brought a touch of Scandi-chic to East Hampton with cosy, colourful rooms, bikes for hire and yoga in the garden (doubles from $545, themaidstone.com). How to get there: The Long Island Rail Road departs from Penn Station in Manhattan (mta.info/lirr). On summer weekends, its high-speed Cannonball service reaches Westhampton Beach in 94 minutes. From Hong Kong: Lantau Island Lantau is twice the size of Hong Kong Island but has only a fraction of the population, with miles of walking trails winding between monasteries, beaches and fishing villages. It’s no forgotten outpost: you’ll also find Hong Kong Disneyland, the Big Buddha of Po Lin Monastery and the Ngong Ping 360 cable car. Where to stay: The slick new Auberge Discovery Bay opened last year on a prime waterside site, with 325 rooms and an impressive spa (doubles from HK$961 (£81), aubergediscovery bay.com). How to get there: Regular catamaran (30 mins) and traditional ferry services (50mins) run between Hong Kong Island and Lantau. From Vancouver: the Southern Gulf Islands The Southern Gulf Islands, off the coast of British Columbia, are a playground for outdoor-loving Canadians, who come here to hike and camp in the pristine forests and kayak, scuba dive and sail in the sheltered waters. There are more than 200 isles to choose from but Salt Spring Island is one of the most accessible and rewarding for visitors, with artisan shops, galleries, farmers’ markets and wineries. Where to stay: Hastings House is an elegant country house hotel with spacious suites, a spa and manicured lawns overlooking the harbour (doubles from C$395, hastingshouse.com). How to get there: Saltspring Air runs daily seaplanes from Vancouver with a flight time of around 35 minutes (saltspringair.com). Joanne O’Connor From downtown to seashore: more island retreats within easy reach i / DETAILS Caroline Eden was a guest of Visit Iceland (visiticeland.com). Double rooms at Fosshótel Austfirðir (fosshotel.is) cost from £120 per night. Return flights with WOW Air (wowair.co.uk) from London to Reykjavik cost from £98; Air Iceland (airiceland.is) flies between Reykjavik and Egilsstadir in eastern Iceland from £104 return. For further information about the region, visit east.is T he village of Fáskrúðsfjörður is remote, even by Icelandic standards. Shouldering the frigid north Atlantic in the far east of the country, it is 650km on the winding coastal road from Reykjavik, Iceland’s only major city. This is a quiet farming and fishing community, though the area is best known among Icelanders for the Eistnaflug — a heavy metal festival nearby, whose name literally translates as “the flying testicles”. A new arrival, however, is putting the village on the tourist map, by drawing on Fáskrúðsfjörður’s unlikely French connection. The Fosshótel Austfirðir is not so much a hotel as a museum with rooms, showcasing a bygone era when fishermen from France set up a second home here. To explain more, local volunteer guide Hafþor Eide leads me into the hotel’s freshly painted reception. Wall- mounted photographs show the building, completed in 1904, was once a hospital where French nuns nursed scurvy-ridden fishermen who had arrived here despite thick fog, drifting icebergs and frequent shipwrecks. It takes a leap of imagination to connect this history with the setting we’re in, a minimalist 26-room Scandinavian- A new arrival is putting the remote village on the tourist map, by drawing on its unlikely French connection style hotel with a French restaurant and views over the fjord. Entering the first room of the basement museum, we meet a cluster of startlingly realistic silicone figures. The fishermen are reclining on life- sized wooden bunks and dressed in thick Icelandic socks, their faces lit by dusty lanterns. Sounds of creaking wood and crashing waves fill the room. “If our visitors feel seasick, then we have done our job,” Eide says. “The gloves they wear were knitted by local women in exchange for biscuits and red wine,” says Eide. “They put two thumbs on each glove, as the men wore them out so fast.” The second room explains how, in 1616, French boat owner Jean de Clerc sent seven boats to Iceland for whaling. Later, Breton fishermen — immortalised in Pierre Loti’s 1886 novel, Pêcheur d’Islande — made the brutal three-week long journey back and forth, between February and September, until the start of the second world war. Setting forth from Brittany, the ships skirted the west coast of Ireland before striking out for Iceland. Despite being battered by storms, each man would catch about 3,000 cod. “La Paimpolaise”, a maudlin ballad written by Théodore Botrel in 1895, plays out from the final room, drawing us in. It is a sad, homesick refrain dedicated to the French fishing village of Paimpol in Brittany, also featured in Loti’s book. Projecting on to the wall, a grainy black-and-white film plays, showing mustachioed faces, swinging cognac bottles and crashing waves. It is a powerful, moving arrangement. Emerging from the museum, I take a short walk around the village with Berglind Osk Agnarsdottir, a professional storyteller and guide from Meet the Locals (meetthelocals.is), a new grassroots tourism initiative. At a nearby stream, she points out giant engraved pebbles that list the names of French fishing boats lost at sea: “Abeille, 1867” and “Hygie, 1910”, read two. “These are just the names we know of — about 400 ships went down,” Agnarsdottir says, as the clear water sloshes over the letters. Many more French memories and myths abound around the fjord today. “People still joke about how, if their grandparents misbehaved as children, they were warned they’d be handed over to the Frenchmen who’d use their fair hair as fishing bait,” she adds. The village, covered with blueberry bushes and blustery cotton flowers, is eerily quiet. To our left, a sign points in the direction of Gravelines, Fáskrúðsfjörður’s sister town in France. Beyond, a French flag flutters, below it, white crosses mark where 49 fishermen lie, the only bodies to come ashore out of the 5,000 lost at sea. In the evening, Hafþor Eide, the local guide, joins me for dinner at the hotel’s restaurant, L’Abri. As plates of cod, fondant potatoes and glasses of French wine arrive, Eide tells me he never tires of the village’s French connection. “This history rewards us,” he says. “It is strange to think that some people wanted to burn this old hospital down. When they see it today though, they swallow their words.” Caroline Eden Snapshots of local culture make cameos — at breakfast the Jamu Gen- dong, or herbal drinks lady, hawks a basket filled with recuperative concoc- tions, like an earthy turmeric and tama- rind shot beneficial for the immune sys- tem. Elsewhere, and depending on the hour, guests find themselves sipping cold-pressed fruit juices, coffee from the Indonesian islands of Java and Lombok, fragrant teas from Nepal, and cocktails made as they should be — on the spot after a little back-and-forth with the cheery barman, not thoughtlessly plucked from a multipage menu. There’s a pretty Lilliputian spa with dedicated freestanding pavilions for Thai massages and a fledgling garden of herbs and flowers. The rota of beach resort activities departs from the norm: croquet with tea or Pimm’s, archery with a traditional bow, pétanque with Ponza, near Rome — Getty Images Osea, 70 minutes from London 50km MALAYSIA SINGAPORE INDONESIA The Sanchaya Tanjung Pinang Bintan Batam Bandar Bentan Telani ferry terminal pastis. The staff — some raw, clearly new to the hotel industry’s dynamics and rhythms, others with global experience — are a young, sweet, upbeat bunch. Yet despite the obvious comfort, expense, and warmth of the property, the most memorable moments are those cloaked in quiet. Enjoying the lin- ear, sculptural beauty of the palm trees that line the beachfront; lying on the pool loungers, listening only to the wind rustling through palm fronds; walking to Pulau Batu (rocky island), a hillock of an isle surrounded by boulders that’s accessible on foot at low tide. Climbing to the top, past the charred remnants of a campfire, you’ll feel like you’re on a desert island. And isn’t that the greatest escape of all? From top: view from the rear of the Great House at the Sanchaya; a bedroom in one of the villas An hour from the city Matthew Cook i / DETAILS Sanjay Surana was a guest of the Sanchaya (thesanchaya.com); suites cost from $520 and one-bedroom villas from $593, including tax and transfers from the ferry terminal. For details of ferries from Sinagpore to Bintan, see brf.com.sg
Transcript of composite FT150131UK 1106 WKDBatam Bintan Bandar Bentan Telani ferry terminal...
6 ★ FTWeekend 31 January/1 February 2015
Travel
POSTCARD
FROM . . .
ICELAND
C an there be a more perfectantidote to city life than aquick escape to an islandretreat? Singapore, the thirdmost-densely populated
country in the world, has its own islandgetawayinSentosabutthat isconnectedto the “mainland” by a bridge. For amore palpable escape, Singaporeansand visitors take a 45-minute ferry rideto Bintan, an Indonesian isle to thesoutheast. The journey from city chaosto coddling calm is supremely painless,with the city’s skyscrapers shrinking toa miniature outline as the catamaranskirts past legions of tankers andcontainerships.
Foranyone inneedofrapidrelaxationafter a business trip to the city orbetween long-haul flights, it is a boon. Inless time than it takes to digest a paperfrom cover to cover, the boat docks onBintan’ssleepynorthwestcoast.
A broad chunk of the north of theisland is taken up with tropical beachresorts, homes, golf courses and shopsbut the Sanchaya, launched last month,is the first luxury resort to open on theisland for a decade. The property isowned by Natalya Pavchinskaya, a Rus-sian businesswoman with a backgroundinarthistorywhomoved toSingapore in2006 and used to visit Bintan at week-ends. In 2011, she heard of a nine-hec-tare parcel for sale in Lagoi Bay and fellfor the plot, located in the middle of agently curving crescent with a clutch ofuninhabited islands just offshore. Workbegan soon after but the planned com-pletion date of September 2013 wasrepeatedlypushedback.
Thehotelexperience startsat Bintan’sBandar Bentan Telani ferry terminal,where guests are welcomed into a spare,white-on-white lounge with a chilled,scented towel while immigration for-malities are handled by hotel staff —Sanchaya is the only property to have itsown lounge. From here, the 10-minutedrive to the resort takes in toweringpalmsandhillscoveredindipterocarps.
Sanchaya, Sanskrit for “collection”,claims the cultures of Southeast Asia asinspiration but its look equally cele-brates British colonialist architecture.The first glimpse of the property, builton an old coconut plantation, is theGreat House, its black-and-white exte-rior mimicking the houses where gov-ernment officials and British army offic-ers lived in Singapore. Home to ninesuites, the dining room, bar, library,wine room and meeting space, it deliv-ers a suitably dramatic first impressionout front, with a landscaped courtyardanchored by a tiered fountain. At theback is the classic beach-idyll view witha reflecting pool that seemingly blendsinto a 50m saltwater infinity pool andthen the emerald-cyan sea. The villas,21 of them, form a loose semi-circlearound the Great House, each display-ing influences from various SoutheastAsian nations, including Thai-stylepitched roofs with six layers of cedarshingles and masculine dark teak interi-ors,Khmerglazedpottery jars,Burmesecolonial window frames, and Laotiantempleornaments.
Rooms come in colours atypical for abeach resort, elegant white and steel-
grey, and supply the usual drool-worthyaccoutrements: Egyptian cotton sheets,Lefroy Brooks claw-foot tubs, Bang &Olufsen televisions and sound systems,Chinoiserie-style cabinets, polishedchrome floor lamps. And while thesetouches might sound like excess, therooms never seem fussy or overlydesigned, more like the well-curatedcountry home of a tasteful, flagrantlyrichrelativewho’dspentsomefineyearsin the colonies. Suites have roomy ter-races that are especially inviting duringthose quick, raging tropical downpours,when the sea and sky merge in the dis-tance. “Companions” trained by theBritish Butler Institute — yes, such athingexists—attendall rooms.
Hotel insider | Doing
business or changing planes
in Singapore? A new resort
offers a tropical island escape
just outside the city.
By Sanjay Surana
The common areas continue the colo-nial theme. The bar recreates a late-1800s explorers’ club, with vintageprints, antique telescopes and com-passes,areassuringlywornGray-Nicollscricket bat, and custom furniture. TheDining Room, where patrons are cooledby ceiling fans with palm-leaf-shapedblades, has French doors, gauze linencurtains, brass teapots in display cabi-nets, boxed frames of star anise, bam-boo and rattan chairs. Food spans conti-nents, from contemporary European(watermelon soup with truffle oil) to atongue-tingling, tonsil-tickling South-eastAsian mee mamak goreng (friednoo-dles with chicken, prawn, egg, and sliv-ersof fieryredchillies).
From Rome: PonzaTiny Ponza is the island the Romansdon’t want the rest of us to knowabout. In summer you can hardlymove for designer-clad Italiansschmoozing in the pavement cafés,tanning themselves on the pebblycoves and snorkelling in the clearMediterranean waters. But outside ofAugust it’s the perfect antidote totraffic-choked Rome. Hire a Vespa andgo in search of an empty cove or takea boat trip to the gorgeous,uninhabited isle of Palmarola, with itsunderwater grottoes and rock pillars.Where to stay: Ponza has no five-starresorts but the Chiaia di Luna is oneof the better options, with bright andbreezy bedrooms, an outdoor pooland beautiful hillside position(doubles from €100,hotelchiaiadiluna.com)How to get there: The Vetor hydrofoil(vetor.it) takes just over an hour fromAnzio, which is a half-hour train ridefrom Rome.
From London: Osea IslandDriving across the old Romancauseway on to Osea feels like leaving
the 21st century behind. There are noshops, bars, restaurants or surfacedroads on this estuary island in Essex— just a handful of weather-boardedcottages, an Edwardian manor housewith tennis court and pool, anovergrown orchard and four miles ofunspoilt beaches. There’s nothinglow-key about the guest list, though.The island, which is owned by recordproducer Nigel Frieda, is home to tworecording studios and is a popularfilming location. So don’t be surprisedif you bump into the odd celeb.Where to stay: The Sweetshop is acharming cottage for two (from £325for two nights, oseaisland.co.uk).
How to get there: Trains fromLondon Liverpool Street to Withamstation take less than 50 minutes,then it is a 15-minute taxi ride to theisland (crossing at low-tide).
From New York: Long IslandWhen New Yorkers get a craving forsand dunes and salty air, Long Islandis their first port of call. Stretching190km east from New York harbourinto the Atlantic Ocean, the island hasa resort for everyone, from the chi-chiHamptons to the surfers’ hangout ofMontauk. In recent years several ofthe island’s old-school motels havebeen given a new lease of life as hiphotels and beach clubs, attracting alivelier crowd.Where to stay: The Maidstone hasbrought a touch of Scandi-chic to EastHampton with cosy, colourful rooms,bikes for hire and yoga in the garden(doubles from $545, themaidstone.com).How to get there: The Long IslandRail Road departs from Penn Stationin Manhattan (mta.info/lirr). Onsummer weekends, its high-speedCannonball service reachesWesthampton Beach in 94 minutes.
From Hong Kong: Lantau IslandLantau is twice the size of Hong KongIsland but has only a fraction of thepopulation, with miles of walking trailswinding between monasteries,beaches and fishing villages. It’s noforgotten outpost: you’ll also findHong Kong Disneyland, the BigBuddha of Po Lin Monastery and theNgong Ping 360 cable car.Where to stay: The slick new AubergeDiscovery Bay opened last yearon a prime waterside site, with 325rooms and an impressive spa (doublesfrom HK$961 (£81), aubergediscoverybay.com).
How to get there: Regular catamaran(30 mins) and traditional ferryservices (50mins) run between HongKong Island and Lantau.
From Vancouver: the SouthernGulf IslandsThe Southern Gulf Islands, off thecoast of British Columbia, are aplayground for outdoor-lovingCanadians, who come here to hike andcamp in the pristine forests andkayak, scuba dive and sail in thesheltered waters. There are more than200 isles to choose from but SaltSpring Island is one of the mostaccessible and rewarding for visitors,with artisan shops, galleries, farmers’markets and wineries.Where to stay: Hastings House is anelegant country house hotel withspacious suites, a spa and manicuredlawns overlooking the harbour(doubles from C$395,hastingshouse.com).How to get there: Saltspring Air runsdaily seaplanes from Vancouver witha flight time of around 35 minutes(saltspringair.com).
Joanne O’Connor
From downtown to seashore: more island retreats within easy reach
i / DETAILS
Caroline Eden was a guest of Visit Iceland(visiticeland.com). Double rooms at FosshótelAustfirðir (fosshotel.is) cost from £120 per night.Return flights with WOW Air (wowair.co.uk) fromLondon to Reykjavik cost from £98; Air Iceland(airiceland.is) flies between Reykjavik andEgilsstadir in eastern Iceland from £104 return.For further information about the region,visit east.is
T he village ofFáskrúðsfjörður is remote,even by Icelandicstandards. Shouldering thefrigid north Atlantic in the
far east of the country, it is 650km onthe winding coastal road fromReykjavik, Iceland’s only major city.This is a quiet farming and fishingcommunity, though the area is bestknown among Icelanders for theEistnaflug — a heavy metal festivalnearby, whose name literally translatesas “the flying testicles”.
A new arrival, however, is putting thevillage on the tourist map, by drawingon Fáskrúðsfjörður’s unlikely Frenchconnection. The Fosshótel Austfirðir isnot so much a hotel as a museum withrooms, showcasing a bygone era whenfishermen from France set up a secondhome here.
To explain more, local volunteerguide Hafþor Eide leads me into thehotel’s freshly painted reception. Wall-mounted photographs show thebuilding, completed in 1904, was oncea hospital where French nuns nursedscurvy-ridden fishermen who hadarrived here despite thick fog, driftingicebergs and frequent shipwrecks. Ittakes a leap of imagination to connectthis history with the setting we’re in, aminimalist 26-room Scandinavian-
A new arrival is putting
the remote village on
the tourist map, by
drawing on its unlikely
French connection
style hotel with a French restaurantand views over the fjord.
Entering the first room of thebasement museum, we meet a clusterof startlingly realistic silicone figures.The fishermen are reclining on life-sized wooden bunks and dressed inthick Icelandic socks, their faces lit bydusty lanterns. Sounds of creakingwood and crashing waves fill the room.“If our visitors feel seasick, then wehave done our job,” Eide says.
“The gloves they wear were knittedby local women in exchange forbiscuits and red wine,” says Eide.“They put two thumbs on each glove,as the men wore them out so fast.”
The second room explains how, in1616, French boat owner Jean de Clercsent seven boats to Iceland for whaling.Later, Breton fishermen —immortalised in Pierre Loti’s 1886novel, Pêcheur d’Islande — made thebrutal three-week long journey backand forth, between February andSeptember, until the start of the secondworld war. Setting forth from Brittany,the ships skirted the west coast ofIreland before striking out for Iceland.Despite being battered by storms, eachman would catch about 3,000 cod.
“La Paimpolaise”, a maudlin balladwritten by Théodore Botrel in 1895,plays out from the final room, drawingus in. It is a sad, homesick refraindedicated to the French fishing villageof Paimpol in Brittany, also featured inLoti’s book. Projecting on to the wall, agrainy black-and-white film plays,showing mustachioed faces, swingingcognac bottles and crashing waves. It isa powerful, moving arrangement.
Emerging from the museum, I take ashort walk around the village withBerglind Osk Agnarsdottir, aprofessional storyteller and guide fromMeet the Locals (meetthelocals.is), anew grassroots tourism initiative.
At a nearby stream, she points outgiant engraved pebbles that list thenames of French fishing boats lost at
sea: “Abeille, 1867” and “Hygie, 1910”,read two. “These are just the names weknow of — about 400 ships wentdown,” Agnarsdottir says, as the clearwater sloshes over the letters.
Many more French memories andmyths abound around the fjord today.“People still joke about how, if theirgrandparents misbehaved as children,they were warned they’d be handedover to the Frenchmen who’d use theirfair hair as fishing bait,” she adds.
The village, covered with blueberrybushes and blustery cotton flowers, iseerily quiet. To our left, a sign points inthe direction of Gravelines,Fáskrúðsfjörður’s sister town inFrance. Beyond, a French flag flutters,below it, white crosses mark where 49fishermen lie, the only bodies to comeashore out of the 5,000 lost at sea.
In the evening, Hafþor Eide, the localguide, joins me for dinner at the hotel’srestaurant, L’Abri. As plates of cod,fondant potatoes and glasses of Frenchwine arrive, Eide tells me he never tiresof the village’s French connection.
“This history rewards us,” he says.“It is strange to think that some peoplewanted to burn this old hospital down.When they see it today though, theyswallow their words.”
Caroline Eden
Snapshots of local culture makecameos — at breakfast the Jamu Gen-dong, or herbal drinks lady, hawks abasket filled with recuperative concoc-tions, like an earthy turmeric and tama-rind shot beneficial for the immune sys-tem. Elsewhere, and depending on thehour, guests find themselves sippingcold-pressed fruit juices, coffee from theIndonesian islands of Java and Lombok,fragrant teas from Nepal, and cocktailsmade as they should be — on the spotafter a little back-and-forth with thecheery barman, not thoughtlesslypluckedfromamultipagemenu.
There’s a pretty Lilliputian spa withdedicated freestanding pavilions forThai massages and a fledgling garden ofherbs and flowers. The rota of beachresort activities departs from the norm:croquet with tea or Pimm’s, archerywith a traditional bow, pétanque with
Ponza, near Rome — Getty Images
Osea, 70 minutes from London
50km
MALAYSIA
SINGAPORE
I NDONES IA
The Sanchaya
Tanjung Pinang
BintanBatam
Bandar BentanTelani ferryterminal
pastis.Thestaff—someraw,clearlynewto the hotel industry’s dynamics andrhythms, others with global experience—areayoung,sweet,upbeatbunch.
Yet despite the obvious comfort,expense, and warmth of the property,the most memorable moments arethose cloaked in quiet. Enjoying the lin-ear, sculptural beauty of the palm treesthat line the beachfront; lying on thepool loungers, listening only to the windrustling through palm fronds; walking to Pulau Batu (rocky island), a hillock ofan isle surrounded by boulders that’saccessible on foot at low tide. Climbingto the top, past the charred remnants ofa campfire, you’ll feel like you’re on adesert island. And isn’t that the greatestescapeofall?
From top: view from the rear of the Great House at theSanchaya; a bedroom in one of the villas
An hour from the city
Matthew Cook
i / DETAILS
Sanjay Surana was a guest of the Sanchaya(thesanchaya.com); suites cost from $520 andone-bedroom villas from $593, including tax andtransfers from the ferry terminal. For details offerries from Sinagpore to Bintan, see brf.com.sg
JANUARY 31 2015 Section:Weekend Time: 29/1/2015 - 16:18 User: stokest Page Name: WKD6, Part,Page,Edition: WKD, 6, 1
