Mid-Autumn getaways for the long weekend

If you’re feeling restless after a long hot summer and the Christmas break still feels painfully far away, then it’s high time you reserved a rejuvenating Mid-Autumn getaway to fuel your imagination, soothe your harried soul and take advantage of that long weekend!

Boutique hotel doyens Mr & Mrs Smith have selected three chic and distinctly unique Asia Pacific hotspots – Soneva Fushi, Cabochon Hotel and Anantara Mui Ne Resort & Spa – where you can spot bioluminescent plankton (!), relive the glorious Gatsby days or put your kite surfing skills to the test. Read on and find out which one sounds right up your street…

Best for losing your shoes and snorkelling with mantas: Soneva Fushi, Maldives

Style Barefoot bliss
Setting Private island paradise

Cast away in a Crusoe Villa at Soneva Fushi, where a 24-hour butler will attend to your every impulse and each villa comes with its own private stretch of white sand. The best snorkelling of your life also awaits at this chic Pacific retreat, where manta rays and turtles are commonplace and private snorkelling trips and night swims deliver striking subterranean glimpses of sleeping parrotfish, octopi, lobsters and bioluminescent plankton.

The rustic luxe accommodation takes its design cues from traditional Maldivian houses with their triangular grass roofs and wooden structures, whilst the location – on Kunfunadhoo Island in the Unesco-designated world biosphere reserve of the Baa Atoll – is the stuff of dreams, with sparkling turquoise seas dancing as far as the eye can see. Savour a coconut body scrub or massage at Six Senses (serious spa junkies can attend massage workshops, meditation training and yoga classes too), then enjoy tropical cocktails and popcorn over a movie at the open-air cinema once the sun sets on this utopian gem of an isle.

Best for wannabe flappers: Cabochon Hotel, Bangkok

Style Curiouser and curiouser
Setting Sukhumvit sois

Locate your inner Gatsby by hanging your panama at Bangkok’s Cabochon Hotel, where the suites and studios recreate 1920s Shanghai glamour thanks to its chic location in the Walpole Building, a gorgeous piece of colonial architecture. Featuring reproduction vintage-style beds and trunks for tables, double French doors lead out onto balconies overlooking one of the Big Mango’s hippest districts.

The Thai Lao Yeh restaurant serves up out-of-the-ordinary Thai fare such as Isaan (try the spicy soup with ants’ eggs if you dare) and Laotian dishes; across the way, the Parisian-esque Joy Luck Club serves breakfast and brunch by day, while bartenders mix cocktails under the glassy gaze of a mounted zebra’s head by night. Before you check out of this fab jazz age pad, don your swimmers and climb the wide marble staircase for a dip in the 22-metre pool and drink in the Sukhumvit skyline vistas.

Best for learning to kite surf like a pro: Anantara Mui Ne Resort & Spa, Mui Ne, Vietnam

Style Vanilla nice
Setting Kite-surfing central

One of Vietnam’s best-kept secrets is Mui Ne in the southeast, a kite-surfer hub also home to a shoreline festooned with sleepy fishing villages that can be easily explored by motorbike. Alternatively, simply thrown down your towel at Anantara Mui Ne Resort & Spa where even the entry level Deluxe Rooms feature a basalt stone tub and private balcony overlooking tropical gardens below, where the infinity swimming pool is coolly situated – just the spot to unwind after a day of kite surfing or motorbike venturing!

Gourmets will be impressed by L’Anmien, headed up by chef Alain (who trained under the watchful eye of fellow Frenchman Alain Ducasse) – don’t miss the king prawns in vanilla sauce and cobia fish grilled in banana leaves. As in the kitchen, the Anantara spa makes good use of local vanilla with treatments that smell good enough to eat, and their signature four-hand synchronised massage will take you to nirvana and back.

To bed down with Smith, visit Mr & Mrs Smith or call the expert Travel Team on 800 905 326