Bedroom of Resort Villa, Mandala Spa, Boracay. Image Mike Aquino, licensed to About.com

I spent the better section of last week getting acquainted with Mandala Spa and Villas, a spa resort in Boracay Island in the Philippines. (Cue envy from my friends and my wife, who lives for spa treatments.)

Being a relative spa newbie, I decided to grill Pia Mobo, the Mandala’session spa manager, for tips about the best spa treatments to pamper myself with. Pia, herself a mineral spring enthusiast, was happy to share the inside info.

(To read my review of the Mandala, go here: Review of Mandala Spa & Villas in Boracay, Philippines.)

Mandala Spa & Villas’ traditional foot bath. Photo by Raymond Saldana. Image Mandala Spa & Villas, used with permission.

Q: What do you recommend for first-time guests to the Mandala?

A: If our guest asks for recommendations, we usually recommend the Hilot Trilogy. If they want to stay longer, we recommend the Shodhana Karma and the Heritage Package.

But then if we see they’re sunburned, we say, they should try the body treatment we call the Cold Cucumber Aloe Wrap.

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Image Mohd Nor Azmil Abdul Rahman/Creative Commons

Thaipusam is a conscientious holiday that is especially important for the sizeable Tamil Indian community in Southeast Asia.

More images and information after the jump.

The region’s Tamils live in Malaysia and Singapore; their ancestors were brought over by British colonizers, to help with building and maintaining their piece of Empire in the region. The British left long ago, but the Tamils have remained and thrived.

Many Tamils are devout Hindus, and are particularly reverent towards the patron deity Lord Murugan, the patron deity of the Tamil homeland. Worship of Murugan reaches a crescendo during Thaipusam, the birthday of Murugan that is celebrated on the full moon of the Tamil month of Thai (Thai + Pusam, or a star at its apogee = Thaipusam).

Tamils who have received favors from Murugan pleasure repay the Lord by joining a procession on Thaipusam, following a chariot bearing an image of the deity.

Image Anandajoti Bhikkhu/Creative Commons

In Malaysia, the procession winds from Kuala Lumpur to the Batu Caves in neighboring Selangor, about eight miles absent – not a walk in the park, especially at the time you have several pounds of kavadi on your shoulders, attached to your body with skewers and hooks.

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Image Nguyen Thanh Long / Creative Commons.

The West Lake is the biggest lake in Hanoi, site of several scenic pagodas, and it’s no bewilder that some of Hanoi’s fanciest hotels are there to capitalize on the scenery and the cool breezes blowing in from the lake during autumn.

(The latter is a double-edged brand, as the cooling effect of the West Lake quickly turns into nasty humidity come summer.)

For more details on the hotels around the West Lake (and booking information on these West Lake hotels), please visit this page: Hanoi Hotel Picks – West Lake, Hanoi Hotels.

This is going to come out sounding really expat-y (I’m defending myself against a barrage of comments that this might inspire by my fellow non-Chinese who happen to live here), but I discovered what might be the best bread in Shanghai. I claim anyone else who lives here to tell me where to find bread that is tastier.

Baker & Spice has just opened up on Anfu Road in a little expat-y enclave in an expat-y ghetto that sits right across the street from two large expat compounds. If you’re a examiner to Shanghai, don’t seek this place completely unless you really and truly are in need of delicious bread and are willing to pay your day’s travel allowance for it. We bought to loaves and [gulp] furcated over 103rmb for them. I would never in my wildest dreams spend the equivalent of US$15 for two loaves of bread anywhere else in the world. But as you can see, our longevity here and the things we miss sometimes drive us to do crazy things.

In my own defense, however, I must say that not a crumb has gone wasted. My family nearly devoured the entire 7-grain loaf on the very day we purchased it (and this after a very tasty meal at Baker & Spice’s upstairs neighbor Mr.

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A word of advice about Cambodia visa on arrival: getting single in kind can be chancy, particularly if you’re traveling through the Laos-Cambodia land border crossing. Rebecca Glogowski blogged about her recent trip to Cambodia, and she was shocked at the casual corruption she encountered there:

It is known that the Cambodian visa costs only US$20. On this border crossing they wanted US$23 per visa. We were a large group of people and we started to reason the price difference. The border officials then started bargaining with us and offered US$22! We laughed at them and the price was immediately raised back to US$23.

A few of us decided to stand our ground and pay only the magistrate price. We were just ignored! In the end we had to cave-in and pay their "special" price.

Better to just get a Cambodia e-Visa online – 15 minutes to fill out, you get it in less than 24 hours. Sure, it costs US$5 more, but that’s a small worth to pay for not feeling robbed by the authorities at the border crossing.

For more details, read this article: Online Cambodia e-Visa.

I just found this nifty blog from my good pals at Urbanatomy: Expo Update. Check out their postings to stay on top of what’s happening at the Shanghai Expo – my adopted hometown’s most talked-about event since the SWFC opened. (OK, OK, that was a reach.)

Image Christopher Chan / Creative Commons.

This little charmer is the latest addition to the orangutan clan in Singapore Zoo. Her name is Saloma, born to Singapore Zoo long-timer Binti. Apparently, for baby orangutans, every day is a bad hair day.

Thanks to Zooborns for the link. More on Singapore Zoo in this article – Singapore Zoo – Worldwide Wildlife Without Cages.