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On tour at the Byron Bay Writers Festival, the Miles Franklin-winning author of Ghost Cities and his literary agent embark on the next instalment of Eat, Pray, Bruv.
There’s a version of Nashville everyone thinks they know. Cowboy hats. Bachelorette sashes. Dolly Parton smiling down from every wall in town. Hot chicken that fights back. Keith Urban sightings. The neon stretch of Broadway blasting country covers into humid Tennessee nights.
The Kriya Spa at the Grand Hyatt Bali in Nusa Dua appears to have been designed on the ambitious premise that you may arrive as one person and leave as a loosely assembled collection of very happy limbs.
Some places announce themselves with fireworks and enough polished surfaces to make a person feel underdressed by the time they have located reception. Arjan Cave at Kamalaya does something far more interesting. It sits at the centre of the retreat, faintly amused, as if it has watched centuries of human fuss come and go and has decided silence remains the best review.
There are some cultural events that require careful intellectual preparation and a willingness to discuss postmodern symbolism over a lukewarm chardonnay. Then there is Harry Potter: The Exhibition, which requires only that you choose a Hogwarts house, and accept that at some point you may find yourself queuing cheerfully to be photographed in a cupboard.
On tour at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, the Miles Franklin-winning author of Ghost Cities and his literary agent embark on the bromantic sequel to Eat, Pray, Bruv.
The first thing to know about The Ritz-Carlton Bali is that it is not Mandapa. Let us clear that up before anyone starts packing linen trousers for Ubud and preparing to commune with a rice field. This is the Ritz-Carlton in Nusa Dua, perched in that gloriously polished corner of Bali where the ocean sparkles like it has been briefed by management, and even the golf carts seem to glide about with a quiet sense of purpose.
There are two things Anastasia has in common with Taylor Swift and I feel both are worth celebrating. First, glitter. And when has glitter ever made anything worse? Second, American accents. Which, in a musical about Russia and France performed in Sydney by Australians, did initially make my brain do a tiny, confused pirouette.
Grand Hyatt Bali sweeps you up in a kind of tropical operetta involving parasols, palms, polished stone, and the sudden conviction that your normal life has been an administrative error.
Packing traditional hats usually involves building a protective nest of socks and T-shirts and hoping nothing heavier lands on top. With the Bahama Fedora, the process is far less dramatic. It folds down, slips easily into a suitcase, and reappears at your destination looking ready for a holiday.
Every year, when winter finally loosens its icy grip on the Great Plains, North Dakota wakes up like someone who’s had a very long nap and suddenly remembers they own several thousand square kilometres of spectacular wildlife habitat.
There are ski holidays. And then there are ski holidays where the snow is so light and perfect it makes you question every previous life decision that did not involve being strapped to two planks in Japan.
