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This article titled "The world's best hidden beaches: Cape Town" was written by Vanessa Raphaely, for theguardian.com on Wednesday 23rd November 2016 06.30 UTC

Queens Beach

The seaside suburb of Sea Point has many beaches (Sea Point itself, Rocklands, Granger Bay and Saunders beach) that are always busy. But tucked away off its famous promenade is the lovely but forgotten Queens Beach. From the beautifully situated Sea Point public swimming pool, it’s a five-minute stroll to this quiet, wind-free beach. Its overlooked by hotels and apartment blocks – but unbelievably it is also overlooked by most beachgoers. It is only ever really crowded on New Year’s Day, when every beach in South Africa is pretty much bursting at the gills.

Queens Beach boasts what the the locals call a “big and mushy” break for surfers, plus white sand to laze on and, for families, starfish in rock pools, interesting shells and rocks for children to clamber over.

While there are no lifeguards, the swimming is generally safe. Like all Atlantic seaboard beaches, however, the Benguela current means the water temperature is what can only politely be called cold. Although in summer, when temperatures can hit the upper 30s, locals prefer to call Atlantic seaboard swims “refreshing” rather than “refrigerating.”

Getting there: Take the MyCiti bus and alight at the Queens Beach stop, or drive, cycle or walk along the Sea Point Promenade.

When to go: Mid- to late-afternoon, after a morning of shopping in town or at the Victoria and Albert Waterfront. Linger to watch the glorious sunsets.

Glen Beach

While Camps Bay is one of the world’s most famous and glitzy beaches, in season (December and January) it’s very busy, both on the sand and along its strip. On such days, beachgoers looking for something less “pumping” should consider the relative peace and quiet (and also refuge from the wind) at its more laid-back neighbour, Glen Beach. Tucked away behind sand dunes and granite boulders, it’s a spot where local surfers guard its “wedgy right” and, out of season, take their dogs to chase frisbees and socialise. It is surrounded only by small bungalows, and the majestic Twelve Apostles mountains are its looming backdrop.

Vendors sell refreshments by singing decades-old jingles (“Iced-lollies to make you jolly” and “ice-creams to make you dream!”) or it’s a 10-minute stroll over the sand dune to Camps Bay and its takeaways, restaurants, bars and buzz.

Getting there: Take the MyCiti bus, or drive the winding road down from Kloof Nek, through The Glen, towards Camps Bay. Glen Beach is badly signposted, but you will see parking spaces on the side of Victoria Road, before turning left to Camps Bay or right to Clifton. Look out for the two sets of steps either side of the beach.

When to go: Late morning or late afternoon. This side of the mountain gets sun later in the morning, sunsets are superb and Camps Bay has many restaurants and bars for sundowners and dinner.

Beta beach

Beta beach is actually a series of picture-perfect, tiny beaches and coves of white sand and azure water, beneath small, luxury bungalows. The beach has a perfect view of Camps Bay and Lion’s Head and offers peace, fantastic sunsets and safe, though of course, chilly swimming.

Getting there: Follow Victoria Road through Camps Bay, turn right on to Beta Road, park as far along the road in the direction of the beach as possible, then follow the walkway through the bungalows to the beach.

When to go: At low tide; at high tide the beach can be very small and cramped. Check the tides on a reliable site such as Magic Seaweed.

Oudekraal beach

A 10-minute drive along Victoria Road (the dramatic coastal route from Camps Bay) towards the better-known and busier Llandudno, Oudekraal is an exceptionally beautiful little beach, completely off the average tourist’s radar. The surroundings have historical and spiritual significance to the peninsula’s Muslim community, as, at the turn of the 18th century, it was used as a refuge for escaped slaves, among them Muslim spiritual leaders. The ravines of the Twelve Apostles, above the beach, provided seclusion and safety and allowed spiritual leaders to continue teaching Islam to their disciples.

The beach is now best known as a launch spot for scuba divers, but it also offers safe, wave-free swimming and interesting and varied snorkelling, if you can handle cold water.

There are picnic and braai (barbecue) areas above the perfect cove, which is shady and protected, both by massive granite boulders and Milkwood trees. As the beach is part of Table Mountain national park, a conservation fee of 30 rand for adults and 15 rand for children (around £1.70/85p) is payable upon entry.

Getting there: Drive 6km along Victoria Road, the coastal road out of Camps Bay, and look out for signs once you pass the 12 Apostles Hotel.

When to go: Go early in the morning. Anyone who arrives around 9am is almost guaranteed the gorgeous white sand and aqua sea to themselves for at least a couple of hours.

Sandy Bay

A wide sweep of white sand surrounded by boulders and pristine fynbos (the indigenous shrubland of the Cape), Sandy Bay is one of Cape Town’s most unspoiled beaches. Sheltered and secluded, it is also its only nudist beach. More popular with men than women, it is obviously not for everyone. Like at the other Atlantic Seaboard beaches, the water is chilly.

Getting there: Drive out of Camps Bay on Victoria Road. Follow the signs for Llandudno and then the signs down to Sandy Bay. From the parking area, an easy 15-minute amble along the path takes you to the beach.

When to go: During the day, only and always go in groups as there have been muggings along the path. Take care.

Dalebrook

If the Atlantic seaboard is Cape Town’s Riviera, the Indian Ocean suburbs along the False Bay coast (Muizenberg, Kalk Bay, St James, Danger Beach and St James) are its bohemian, shabby-chic relation. But the Indian Ocean coast has one asset the billionaires of Clifton can never buy: warm sea water.

Beachgoers along this stretch of coastline are spoiled for choice: for the bold, the pretty and popular Danger Beach (which gets its off-putting name from its rip current and large waves ) offers lifeguards, charm, rock pools and exhilarating swimming and surfing. Nearby St James is home to the iconic multi-coloured beach shacks so popular on Cape Town postcards. Muizenberg, just beyond Danger Beach, is where everyone learns to surf, but Dalebrook is the tidal pool and beach locals keep to themselves. Visitors duck under a little subway under the railway line to access it.

Never crowded (most people prefer the sociable St James tidal pool) and sheltered, the Dalebrook tidal pool’s manmade concrete retaining walls allow waves to break over its edge, keeping the water clean and the swimming experience both safe and exciting. There is a shower and changing room on the beach and plenty of golden sand.

When to go: In the morning, as the False Bay coast is close to the mountains and loses the sun early. Spend the afternoon exploring the delightful little seaside suburb of Kalk Bay.

Getting there: The adventurous should go by train, alighting at Dalebrook station. But be aware that trains are not the safest form of transport in Cape Town, so take care if you choose this option. Or it’s 45 minutes’ drive from central Cape Town, along the M25 highway to Muizenberg and St James. Park in one of the many designated parking areas, around the sign for Dalebrook, or on the side of the road.

Water’s Edge

There are no private beaches in South Africa but Water’s Edge, near Simonstown (a beautiful hour’s drive south-east from central Cape Town), certainly looks and feels like one. Visitors access the beach through what looks exactly like someone’s garden gate. This is what discourages many people from exploring further and what makes this perfect spot a jealously guarded secret. Don’t be discouraged.

The protected little cove has sweeping views of False Bay and the Hottentots Holland mountain range in the distance. It is perfect for children and safe for swimming, with lovely big boulders to jump off. It also has starfish- and anemone-filled rock pools and crystal clear, warm water, which is perfect for snorkelling.

Getting there: Drive through Simonstown and look for signposts for Seaforth beach and park in front of Seaforth restaurant. Set off in a southerly direction, downhill. Take a sharp right, with the sea on your left. The path will continue: look out for a large slatted gate and the follow the path down to the beach.

When to go: Any time. There is a restaurant at Seaforth, where you can grab an unpretentious plate of fish or seafood, as well as use the ablution facilities.

Windmill Beach

Seeing the penguin colony at Boulders Beach is almost obligatory for any visitor to Cape Town. Boulders itself is a beautiful beach, but in season it gets overrun with tourists – and penguins smell, something most tour guides fail to mention. Once you’ve seen them, I’d suggest returning to the parking space at the bottom of Links Road and following the signs to Windmill Beach.

Windmill is just as beautiful as Boulders, with the same distinctive giant granite boulders and turquoise water, but no penguins. The cove is shallow and safe, and although there are no lifeguards on duty, swimming is safe for small children – though of course they should always be watched. The sand is white, the beach is sheltered from the wind and the rocky, inland reef is an excellent dive site. This is also a perfect beach from which to kayak.

Getting there: Drive on the M4 through Simonstown to Froggy Pond. Take the Bellevue Road down past the golf course and park at the bottom of the road. Be sure not to leave any valuables in your car.

When to go: Morning and early afternoon. The wind can sometimes pick up in late afternoon.

Smitswinkel Bay

Down a steep cliff, just before the entrance to the Cape Point nature reserve, Smits, as it is affectionately known, is reached by a 20-minute hike down a zigzag path. The beautiful, white, sandy beach is protected from the prevailing south-easterly wind and is an excellent spot for a picnic. (Visitors have to take everything they need for a day on the beach, as there are a few privately owned shacks on the beach, but nothing else.) Smits is beloved by locals for its excellent swimming, angling, snorkelling and diving (there are five wrecks, teeming with fish, starfish and other marine life, in the bay). There are rock pools and caves at the south side of the beach to explore at low tide. Visitors should be warned not to feed or fraternise with the baboon troop that calls the mountains above Smits their home.

Getting there: Drive. Look out for signs on the M44, just before the entrance to the Cape Point nature reserve. Parkin the parking space at the top of the path, but be careful not to leave any valuables or food in your car.

When to go: Stay all day! No point in all that effort going up and down the track for anything shorter.

Platboom Beach

There are many beaches to choose from in the Cape Point nature reserve, on the southerly point of the Cape peninsula (such as Diaz, Buffels, Oliphants and Maclear), but Platboom (meaning flat tree) beach in the extreme south of the reserve is particularly spectacular. It’s wild and unspoiled and more popular with birds than humans – terns, gulls, kiewietes (plovers) and sandpipers proliferate. There are large sand dunes to surf down (beg or borrow aboogie board), rock pools to explore at low tide and the conditions are excellent for kite- and windsurfing. Wild animals such as baboons, antelope and even ostrich are often spotted on the beach. However, you swim here at your own risk – the waves are large and there are no lifeguards. Entry to the reserve costs 105 adult and 50 rand child (around £6/£2.90).

Getting there: By car to Cape Point nature reserve.

When to go: It’s easy to spend a whole day here, picnicking and exploring, but there are no facilities on the beach, so take every thing you need.

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This article titled "Inside Vietnam's astonishing caves on a local tour" was written by Liz Boulter, for The Guardian on Sunday 20th November 2016 07.00 UTC

Uy Jang Jong doesn’t look much like a caveman. Instead of a stocky, hairy figure in animal skins, he is slim and sharply coiffed, in hi-tech sportswear. But this smiley 27-year-old is one of the luminaries of Vietnamese, and therefore world, caving.

“I discovered that cave,” Uy says casually, indicating a photograph in a cafe in Phong Nha town. “Wow,” we say. “Is it named after you?” “Nah,” comes the reply. “The first one I found is called Uy cave, but I’ve discovered more since.”

Phong Nha-Ke Bang national park in central Vietnam has long been popular with cavers (most of whom seem to come from Yorkshire) but made news in 2013 when the world’s biggest cave, Son Doong, was opened to (limited) visitors. At 9km long, 200 metres high and 150 metres wide, the cave is a mass of gobsmacking statistics: it’s big enough to swallow a street of tower blocks; a jumbo jet could land in it; it has beaches, a river, jungle, even clouds. (Sunlight gets in through spots where the roof collapsed thousands of years ago.)

Sounds amazing, but it isn’t really why we’re here.

Stunning Karst scenery in Phong Nha-Ke Bang national park. Photograph: Claudio Sieber/Barcroft Images

Like most visitors to Phong Nha, my daughter Laura, 21, and I couldn’t do Son Doong, even if we wanted to: for one thing, it’s a gnarly five-night wild camping trek over pathless terrain, open only to those who can prove they’re scarily fit and won’t freak out if lowered by rope into pitch-black yawning chasms. For another, visits are limited to 500 people a year, and sell out faster than Beyoncé tickets. (For 2018 dates, see oxalis.com.vn.) Locally based, British-run operator Oxalis this year got permission to lead a two-day expedition to two other recently discovered caves in the same area: Hang Va and Hang Nuoc Nut.

Like most visitors, we’ve come for all the other things the national park offers: high limestone peaks, waterfalls, deep river gorges, virgin forest – and at least 400 more caves. (The number keeps rising: it’s said 57 have been found this year.)

In an area where tourism is still finding its feet, arrivals are also rising: visitor numbers for 2015 were around 3 million, double that of the previous year, 50,000 of them foreigners, and the growth has brought prosperity, as well as electricity and better roads. In 2008, there were four hotels in Phong Nha town; today there are more than 100 – mostly small, hostel-type affairs, or homestays.

Jungle Boss Homestay, Vietnam

And that’s how the Jungle Boss wants it to stay. He is Le Luu Dzung, another towering figure in Phong Nha, though he’s small and slight. Passionate about this slice of wild Vietnam, he acquired his nickname when working as a national park ranger, but he now runs a three-room homestay on the edge of town. It’s the sort of place where you can play with the baby, join in family dinner, or borrow a bike to ride into town for a £1 bowl of noodles.

But Dzung fears that as the park’s star rises (it is already Vietnam’s third-most popular Unesco site), it could all go horribly Halong – as in the bay in north Vietnam, where high-rise hotels and casinos crowd the shore opposite the famous archipelago. To try to keep things sustainable, he runs the Phong Nha homestay community and, whenever he hears of a local being offered big bucks for their land by a developer, he offers to help them set up their own homestay instead, so that income stays local.

Jungle Boss Le Luu Dzung at his homestay. Photograph: Liz Boulter

(A scheme to set up an 11km cable car capable of whisking 1,000 visitors an hour up to Son Doong was initially supported by the government but, after a flood of local and international protest, is on hold – for now.)

Laura and I have our own gnarly adventure arranged for a few days’ time, but our first cave experiences are very different. The nearest one to town, Phong Nha cave, is reached by tourist boats that putter along the Son river to where it disappears into a mountain. Cutting the engines and removing the roof covering, the boat woman propels us inside with her single oar as we gaze at hundreds of spot-lit stalactites and stalagmites.

A boat heading into the mouth of Phong Nha cave.
Photograph: Getty Images

Our next cave was first explored in 2005 by the British Caving Association, and was thought to be the park’s biggest (at 31km, it is still the longest). It is now run by one of the conglomerates Dzung worries about, the owner of a luxury beach resort. Souvenir stalls line a coach park where golf buggies wait to run the mostly Vietnamese visitors the 1km to the cave entrance (we walk). Large group holidays seem to be the thing here: a smiling woman called Anh, pitying our little twosome, invites Laura and I to join her party of 70 colleagues from a Saigon fertiliser company. (We tag along for a while but, oops, somehow get separated.)

It probably takes a lot to impress a Yorkshire speleologist, but the ones who surveyed this space immediately called it Paradise cave. As we descend (on wooden steps, not ropes) into caverns 100 metres high and often half as wide again, we struggle to take it all in: rock formations resemble meringues, dinosaur scales, velvet curtains, moss, broccoli, coral, bones, lace, icicles, mushrooms … Ripples of gold on high white expanses put me in mind of baroque cathedrals. But where they took only decades to build, this lot was formed over millions of years. We’re in the bowels of the Earth and it feels like it: the linked chambers could be the innards of something organic.

Hieu, Luan and Liz on motorbikes. Photograph: Laura Boulter

At least we’d got here under our own steam, sort of. As part of his sustainability effort, Dzung arranges for local rice farmers to earn extra income (and be less tempted by poaching or illegal logging) from ferrying tourists around on their motorbikes. Hieu and Luan, both in their 30s, appear at the homestay with motorbikes and spare helmets. Suppressing thoughts about insurance, liability and what I’ll tell my husband if Laura’s in an accident, we climb on and are off into the jagged green hills.

After the cave, Hieu and Luan take us to a place that, aiming at the backpacker market, calls itself The Pub with Cold Beer. Though the beer is cold, it’s not a pub, but a farmhouse, and the food on offer is chicken – as we’ve never had it. Out the back is a large shed from which the young owner extracts a bird. Within minutes he has neatly slit its throat, plucked it and gutted it. It’s all accomplished swiftly, without seeming distress or violence, and I feel this is probably a kinder way of consuming chicken than I’ve experienced before. Barbecued with chilli and lime and served with rice and a fantastic peanut relish, it’s chewier than western chicken but makes a fine lunch for four.

Next day, it’s time for less-trodden caves with an expedition to the Abandoned Valley, a trail Dzung devised last year, though we’re being led today by our old friend Uy. I soon see why we had to sign a disclaimer: the first stretch is an hour’s vertiginous scramble. As I struggle inelegantly – on my bottom over big drops – I spot Uy strolling down, oh so coolly, literally hands in pockets.

Into the blue … swimming at Hang E cave in the Abandoned Valley Photograph: PR

A narrow jungle trail over several streams – wet feet are a given – takes our group of 12 westerners to the “back door” of Hang Toi, or Dark cave. Its main entrance, on the other side of the mountain, is now a backpacker attraction, with mud bath, zipwire and kayaks, but this end is wild and quite challenging. Pulling on helmets, headtorches and gloves, we follow Uy into the darkness. A jagged gash in the hillside, the cave doesn’t have a floor as such, just sheets of sloping rock, black pools and barely a centimetre of level ground. The mouth is soon hidden from view and I’m thankful for the helmet: my scalp would otherwise be cut to ribbons. It takes almost an hour to clamber and wade the half-mile to the back of the chamber.

Once we’re all there, Uy gets us to switch our headtorches off. Whoa! The darkness is shocking and made blacker by the thought that daylight is so far away.

Back outside, more jungle paths lead to a river cave, Hang E, and lunch. While the porters barbecue pork and tofu and set out rice, chilli sauce, more peanut relish and greens just plucked from the forest, we strip to swimwear and plunge in. The water is a shimmery blue (from algae, we’re told) and delightfully cool, though few are brave enough to swim far into the dark depths.

Jungle BBQ at Hang E cave. Photograph: Liz Boulter

I learn later that these tracks formed part of the Ho Chi Minh trail, the supply route through Laos to south Vietnam during the “American war”. Dzung’s mother-in-law remembers Uncle Ho coming to inspect bamboo replanted after US planes sprayed defoliant. Dzung tells us that to avoid overstressing the delicate ecology of the Abandoned Valley, he is devising an alternative adventure day to a cave called Tra Ang, in a different valley.

That evening we meet another Ho, Ho Khanh, the man who first came upon Son Doong cave, almost 25 years ago, and Howard Limbert, the former biochemist from Bradford who, in 2009, asked him to try to find the spot where he’d sheltered from a thunderstorm and heard wind and rushing water deep in the rock. As I snap his picture, Ho Khanh wryly comments that if he had a dollar for each time that’s been done, he’d be rich. As it is, he makes money from his own homestay, in a peaceful riverside spot.

The park recovered from bombs and herbicides, but now that news of its wonders is out, it seems all that stands between Phong Nha and potentially more lasting destruction is this handful of doughty cavemen. They deserve our support.

Way to go

The trip was provided by Bamboo Travel (020-7720 9285, bambootravel.co.uk) whose Adventures in Vietnam tour includes three nights each at the Jungle Boss homestay, Hanoi and Hoi An, plus three days exploring north Vietnam’s Pu Luong valley, from £2,495pp including flights from London with Vietnam Airlines.

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This article titled "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – discuss with spoilers" was written by Ben Child, for theguardian.com on Wednesday 16th November 2016 13.12 UTC

It has conjured up an impressive 90% “fresh” rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, making Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them easily one of the year’s best-reviewed mainstream movies so far. But is this first of a whopping five planned instalments about swashbuckling magizoologist Newt Scamander and his witchy pals good enough to follow the Harry Potter saga into the record books? Here’s a chance to give your own verdict on the movie’s key talking points.

The new team

Harry, Ron and Hermione who? JK Rowling’s famous key trio of Hogwarts students haven’t even been born in the new timeline and setting – a fearful and terrifyingly polarised 1920s New York riven by a series of apparently sorcerous events. But any misgivings over their absence is more than made up for by the addition of a brand new quartet: Eddie Redmayne’s Newt joins magical sisters Porpentina and Queenie Goldstein – respectively a former auror at the Magical Congress of the United States of America (Macusa) and a Monroesque mind-reader – and the portly No-Maj (American muggle) Jacob Kowalski, who’s just trying to get his bakery business off the ground when he accidentally swaps briefcases with Scamander and finds himself plunged straight down the wizarding rabbit hole.

Related: Why Fantastic Beasts is a trump card for progressive youth | Catherine Shoard

Is this the team that will head up all five Fantastic Beasts adventures? Rowling hinted so at a recent fan event, and on this evidence we’re in excellent company. Redmayne’s all dithering young fogey charm, Katherine Waterston’s Tina is sharp-minded and serious without being remotely Hermione-esque, Alison Sudol’s Queenie is a flirty, sophic sweetie and Dan Fogler’s genial, hearty Jacob is surely the find of the franchise. Now Rowling just has to work out how to write him back in for part two.

The staggering special effects

Fantastic Beasts’ creature designers surely deserve at least 50 points in the Hogwarts house cup for magicking up some of the most marvellous monsters ever seen on the big screen. The Harry Potter films featured perfectly passable beasties, even if Rowling occasionally borrowed too much from Tolkien and ancient Greek mythology. But creatures like the kleptomaniac Niffler, disappearing Demiguise and majestic Thunderbird seem to have emerged from some uncharted, deeper level of digital Wonderland, so stupendously rendered are they. Moreover, there’s an urgency to the CGI-work in Fantastic Beasts that’s entirely suitable for a movie set in the adult wizarding world. Disapparating sequences now resemble almost instantaneous supercharged whirlwinds, while the “obscurial” released by Ezra Miller’s poor Credence Barebone is like a searing, teeming, chaotically evil black gas. It is cinematic defibrillation of the highest order: Rowling’s new tale might hail from perennial Potter director David Yates, but the boy wizard’s adventures were never this viscerally intense.

From a deeper level of digital wonderland … the disappearing Demiguise. Photograph: Allstar/Warner Bros.

The wizarding world-building

So where do we go from here? Rowling says that, just as with the Potter books, she already knows the basic outline of her final chapter, who dies and who makes it all the way to the end credits. We also know that each of the five Fantastic Beasts movies will take place in a different major city, conjuring up the tantalising prospect of a huge expansion of the wizarding world into all corners of the globe.

What’s already certain is that this new magical saga already stands on its own feet. It may have started out as an accident, but Rowling’s latest creation is far more than just a clumsily manufactured Harry Potter prequel series, a cheap conjurer’s trick to keep the money rolling in. This is a fully fledged new franchise with its own uniquely pitched personality, written directly for the screen and working much better there than its novel-sourced predecessor ever did.

The adult cast probably helps. Daniel Radcliffe admits he still winces when he watches some of the Potter films, but none of the key Fantastic Beasts cast are ever likely to look back in dismay. Five movies, at this stage, looks easy peasy.

Related: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them review – JK Rowling goes steampunk

The revelation that Johnny Depp’s Grindelwald was lurking beneath Percival Graves’s skin

It may not be the best time in Depp’s life for him to play a villain, and some critics have mused that the late reveal could have been better handled. But presuming it was always Rowling’s plan to unveil Colin Farrell’s Graves as the dark wizard in disguise, how else could it have been done? There was an element of Scooby Doo-style “I would have got away with it if it hadn’t been for you pesky kids” to the big moment, but I thought a fittingly jowly Depp gave good sneering villain in his brief cameo. Will his escape from Macusa’s clutches spark Newt into rendezvousing with Tina and the New Yorkers once again in part two?

JK Rowling the multitalented

Some doubted Rowling’s credentials as a screenwriter when Fantastic Beasts was first announced. But the success of her debut film surely proves the author is well positioned to work her magic.

Hollywood will surely be beating a path to the writer’s door if Fantastic Beasts repeats the huge success of the Potter films at the box office, even if she will presumably be kept busy writing the next four instalments in the series. Rowling the film-maker is already a thing. Rowling the director? Stranger things have happened.

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This article titled "How the fashion industry is rebuilding Rome" was written by Eva Wiseman, for The Observer on Sunday 13th November 2016 07.00 UTC

In July, Kendall Jenner walked across a glass-topped Trevi Fountain in a blue astrakhan coat with full swing skirt. Fendi had hired private jets to fly guests from the couture shows in Paris straight to Rome, where the label had recently invested €2.5m into the fountain’s 18-month rehab. “It will go down,” wrote Nicole Phelps in Vogue, “as one of the most majestic show venues ever.”

Three months later I’m pushing politely through thousands of American tourists to see the renovated fountain for myself. People lean in with waterproof selfie sticks, queuing for a chance to grin beside the gleaming horses. Visitors throw in almost €3,000 a day. During its renovation, the water was drained from the fountain, but a small basin was set up so tourists wouldn’t miss out on any potential luck.

“The city is part of our creative heritage,” said Silvia Venturini Fendi, third-generation member of the family fashion house. “It’s like an open-air museum where inspiration can come from anywhere.” Fendi is not the only fashion house investing in Italy’s monuments: Bulgari has donated €1.5m to restore the Spanish Steps, and Tod’s, of loafer fame, has put up €25m to repair the Colosseum.

In the pink … the opening ceremony of the Spanish Steps after the restoration work financed by Bulgari. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

It seems apt that this city, its story so tightly wound with ideas of luxury and taste, can be propped up by fashion brands in a way that, say, London can’t. The idea of Topshop sponsoring a clean-up of Nelson’s Column is almost unthinkable.

It’s a short walk from the Fountain to the Steps, the air warm and thick with the smell of candied peanuts and drains. On the way, I meet a woman briskly directing her young daughter through the dawdling tourists. Marta has lived in Rome all her life, and watched the renovations with some suspicion. “Oh, they’re beautiful,” she says, “but they’re not for us.”

The Spanish Steps are at the heart of our history

Preserving Italy’s landmarks is crucial for the businesses whose heritages are invested in it. “The Spanish Steps are at the heart of our history,” explained Lucia Silvestri, creative director of Bulgari. ‘‘They’re between Via Sistina, where Sotirio Bulgari opened in 1884, and our flagship in Via dei Condotti.” But what their investment says to locals, believes Marta and her friends, is that the government can’t be relied upon to protect their monuments, let alone improve their transport system or police the streets. “And even when it looks like something is changing to improve Rome” – meaning the place her child goes to school, rather than “Rome”, the place of honeymoons and prosecco – she adds, “the red tape means it takes forever.”

Monumental achievement: renovation of the Colosseum in Rome. Photograph: Sigurcamp/Getty Images

The Spanish Steps were unveiled at the end of September, just before Bulgari’s accessories presentation in Milan. The project involved more than 80 restorers, who repaired the 32,300 sq ft of travertine stone. In the bright autumn light, they gleam grey-white between the tired legs of slumped, lunching tourists, despite Mayor Virginia Raggi having ordered police to stop people “loitering”.

Following their restoration, Paolo Bulgari (chairman of the jewellery house) told La Repubblica that their restorers had removed coffee, wine, chewing gum, “but now I am worried. If we don’t set strict rules, the steps will go back to being used as a camping site for barbarians.” A Plexiglas barrier, he said to waves of controversy, “doesn’t seem like an impossible task”. Perhaps, I wonder, as I climb the steps and look out on the selfie-stick sellers and tourists kissing, it’s the inevitable consequence of luxury brands taking over a city. The introduction of VIP areas.

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This article titled "Planet Earth II: the most amazing places, chosen by producers" was written by Isabel Choat, for theguardian.com on Tuesday 8th November 2016 11.27 UTC

Zavodovski Island, Southern Ocean

Chosen by Elizabeth White, producer, Islands

I can vividly remember the knot in my stomach as we approached the steaming, malevolent-looking crater of Zavodovski Island, 1,300 miles east of the Falklands in the Southern Ocean. The trip had taken more than a year of planning and caused many sleepless nights (even before the seven-day rough sea crossing), and my first impression was, “Gosh, I hope this is worth it!” But sometimes the things that push you out of your comfort zone become the most poignant.

As we boarded the inflatable and took our first steps on the island, I knew I was going to fall in love with the place. Zavodovski Island is home to the largest penguin colony in the world; it’s a wave-battered volcano covered in penguins. To many people, the rawness of this land of mud, smoke and penguin carcasses would be anything but beautiful (and yes, the place does stink) but there is something exciting about being in a place where so few humans have set foot. Places that are truly wild and untouched are very hard to find.

Watching the penguins going about their daily lives in this rugged and brutal landscape was a humbling experience. It’s a strange vision of paradise, but to me – and to the 1.5 million penguins that nest there – there’s nowhere like it on Earth.

• There are no commercial trips to Zavodovski Island, but several operators offer cruises that take in South Georgia. Discover the World has an 18-21-night Antarctic, Falklands and South Georgia tour from £6,700pp

Gokyo Valley, Khumbu Himalaya, Nepal

Peak experience … Gokyo Valley, in the Khumbu region of the Nepal Himalayas. Photograph: JKboy Jatenipat/Getty Images

Chosen by Justin Anderson, producer, Mountains
The Gokyo Valley is beautiful. It has sweeping glaciers and Cho Oyu – the sixth-highest mountain in the world – at its end. It’s home to the sherpa people, some of the warmest and most hospitable you will meet, anywhere. It took six days to trek there, carrying all our kit, so to arrive was an incredible feeling. We saw lots of wildlife, from Himalayan tahr to the exquisite monal pheasant, Nepal’s national bird – and one of the most colourful you can find.

The area is not famous for its snow leopards but in the last 10 years there is evidence that their numbers here may be growing. We filmed jumping spiders there: the world’s smallest but highest-living animal mountaineer. The valley has some famous viewpoints: Gokyo Ri at 5,360m is the highest point any of the Planet Earth crew reached in filming mountains. It’s a peak that towers over the Ngozumba glacier. You have to start the climb early in order to see the sunrise over Everest and, depending on your fitness, it can take several hours.

We had a wonderful time with our sherpa crew. On our last night they invited us to a cultural exchange. We listened to our head guide Nima sing and dance a traditional sherpa story about a spider. After the applause died down it was our turn but we got embarrassed and passed on the opportunity. After several more attempts to get us to perform (and a fair amount of home brewed “chang”) our cameraman Jonathan Jones burst into a rendition of You’ve lost that lovin’ feeling, and the rest of us had little choice but to join in. The sherpas seemed pleased with our efforts and soon were demanding we teach them a “traditional dance” of our own. So, we ended up with the whole room doing the hokey cokey. I like to think we did something to spread British culture to the remote Himalaya.

Other encounters weren’t so pleasant. We were camping and without fail every night a large yak would try and come into my tent. The first night was like a scene from a horror film with me screaming as I had no idea what this heavy breathing, snorting, hairy visitor was. I sat bolt upright and for a second thought it might have even have been a yeti. I have no idea why the animal was so attracted to my tent.

• KE Adventure Travel’s 20-day Ultimate Everest Trek takes in the Gokyo and other Khumbu valleys, climbing the Gokyo Ri and Kala Patar peaks and Everest Base Camp, via the Cho La pass from £2,545pp, including international and internal flights, guide, porters and all meals

Madagascar

Hear my song … Indri are the largest of all Madagascar lemurs. Photograph: Tom Hugh-Jones/BBC Natural History Unit

Chosen by Emma Napper, producer, Jungles
Working in Madagascar was a real highlight for me. We went to film indri, the biggest and the most-engaging of the lemur family. Each day we trekked through hilly jungle before dawn to find the indri, accompanied by our expert Malagasy guide. Indri are not too hard to find because, as the sun rises, they sing, to tell rival indri families that this is their patch of forest. It’s a beautiful and plaintive sound and incredibly loud.

However the jungle is dense and the trees tall, and while indri can dance effortlessly through the trees, we can’t. So we had to wait patiently for the family to come to areas where we could film. Luckily, waiting in the forest in Madagascar is a treat. The jungle is full of strange insects, reptiles and birds; they are hard to spot at first, but having the friendly, knowledgeable guides meant we could find and film some unexpected jungle gems.

There is a satanic leaf gecko that lives there. It is disguised as dead leaves with a face like Dragon from the movie Shrek. There’s another leaf-tailed gecko that is so beautifully disguised – to look like the green and gold of tree bark – that you can be standing 10cm away from it and still not be able to see it. Eventually, it will lift a leg or blink and then you start to see it! The guides love showing this to tourists and seeing how long it will take them to spot. We also filmed a stick insect that looked like a green twig but revealed bright red patterned wings when it walked, presumable to scare away predators. None of the guides had seen that before.

• Naturetrek’s 14-day Madagascar’s Lemurs tour includes a visit to the Perinet park to hear the cry of the indri. From £3,395 full-board, including flights and all meals

Skeleton Coast, Namibia

Empty promise … Namibia’s Skeleton Coast. Photograph: Stefano Gentile/Getty Images

Chosen by Ed Charles, producer, Deserts
This has to be one of the wildest and most undisturbed places I have ever been: you could drive for days and not see another human being. The vastness of the landscape and its stark beauty were breathtaking, and although it was largely empty, there were pockets of life, usually around dry riverbeds, where there was just enough water beneath the ground to support life.

Here you’d see elephants, oryx and lions right in the heart of the desert, but our best moment was when we saw a cheetah. Cheetahs in the heart of the desert are incredibly rare, but one day we rounded a corner and came face to face with a beautiful female in mid-hunt. I’m not sure who was more astonished, us or the cheetah, but there followed an incredible moment where neither party dared move. It probably only lasted a few seconds but it seems to stretch on for minutes. Unfortunately, the spell broke when we went to get our camera: the movement caused her to run off into the desert. We never saw her again, but knowing she was out there was an incredible privilege.

• Reef and Rainforest’s Wonderful Wildlife and Nature of Namibia trip is a 15-day self-drive tour taking in the dunes of Sossusvlei, Damaraland and its desert- adapted elephants, Etosha national park and Okonjima game reserve, home of conservation and rehabilitation foundation AfriCat. It costs £2,757pp including flights

Kaziranga national park, Assam, north-east India

Pond life … a rhinoceros in Kaziranga national park, India. Photograph: Chadden Hunter

Çhosen by Chadden Hunter, producer, Grasslands
Walking beneath the towering elephant grass of Kaziranga national park, it’s hard not to feel as small as an insect. The grass, the tallest in the world, is more than three times the height of a human. The dense green blades arch high over the path, creating a tunnel kept open by animals that also dwarf us – generations of elephants and buffalo. Their secretive labyrinth is shared by more than 2,000 rhinoceros, more than all other Asian rhino put together. If you include the swamp deer, wild boar, hornbills, gibbons and sloth bears, you can see why they call it the Serengeti of Asia. Looking from one watchtower with my binoculars I counted 25 rhino – there’s nowhere in Africa you can do that.

Most magical are the Kaziranga dawn safaris, taken sitting with a blanket over your lap in the back of an open-top jeep, a crimson disc sitting low in the sky as you sip sweet local Assam tea. The prize for most visitors is spotting a Bengal tiger, found here in higher densities than in any other protected site in the world. Their stripes evolved to camouflage them brilliantly in the tall grass, and as they slink off into the labyrinth, it’s nice to be reminded, in age of ever-more-intimate wildlife filming, there are magical places where creatures keep their secrets.

• TransIndus’s 16-day tour of Assam includes three days in Kaziranga national park and costs from £2,845pp, including flights to Kolkata and breakfast

Harar, Ethiopia

No laughing matter … Spotted hyenas on the streets of Harar, Ethiopia. Photograph: Paul Thompson/BBC Natural History Unit

Chosen by Fredi Devas, producer, Cities
Travelling to Harar was like travelling back in time. It’s a beautiful city, and the warren of cobbled streets are so narrow that cars can’t go down them, so food is brought in on donkeys. It’s considered Islam’s fourth holy city, and the old town has 99 mosques. It’s a place where you feel history exuding from the walls.

I had heard about spotted hyenas roaming the streets at night but it was not until a group of eight of them brushed passed my leg on a narrow cobbled street at 1am, that I realised exactly how true this was. Spotted hyenas are the second largest land predator in Africa: they’ve been known to kill people. It was at first frightening to be encountering them on small dark streets in the middle of the night, but after seeing how comfortable the locals are with their company, I soon became accustomed.

A few nights later, I was surrounded by more than 100 fighting hyenas as two clans battled for access to the city. My lack of fear in this scenario is testament to the extraordinary peaceful pact that exists between man and beast in this city. The locals welcome them into their city, and have done for centuries. It’s an astonishing coexistence between people and perhaps the most vilified animal in our planet … and it shows us just how possible it is for us to share our streets with wild animals.

• Harar is not included in recent warning by the FCO against certain parts of Ethiopia but many UK tour operators have cancelled all trips to the country in light of the changed advice

Planet Earth is on BBC1 on Sundays at 8pm until 11 December. Episode one is now available on BBC iPlayer

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This article titled "10 of the best women-only activity holidays" was written by Rachel Dixon, for The Guardian on Monday 7th November 2016 06.30 UTC

Via ferrata, Italy

Desperately Seeking Adventure runs active trips for small groups of women of all ages – the oldest participant so far was 72. There are two via ferrata trips to Italy: a five-night taster around Lake Garda, with low-level routes for beginners to intermediates, and a more challenging seven-night adventure in Cortina in the Dolomites – both full-board in four-star accommodation. Alternatively, there is a six-night walking, yoga and meditation break in the Dolomites; walking and wild camping trips to the Lake District; and an expedition to Morocco to climb Mount Toubkal in the Atlas range, the highest peak in North Africa.
• From £475pp for five nights in Italy, excluding flights, desperatelyseekingadventure.co.uk

Trekking, worldwide

Trekking on the Great Wall Of China. Photograph: Joerg Fockenberg/Getty/EyeEm

World Expeditions is launching 21 treks for women only next year, starting with Tasmania (6 days, £1,370) and Nepal (12 days, £1,390) in March. Subsequent trips include treks along the Great Wall of China (8 days, £1,290), in the Canadian Rockies (6 days, £1,250), to Machu Picchu (7 days, £1,350) and up Kilimanjaro in Tanzania (10 days, £2,690 including entry fees). Most trips will be led by a local female guide, and accommodation is in a mix of hotels and camping on the trail. The company says that the proportion of female bookings has increased from 38% in 1996 to 54% today, and the new itineraries are designed to encourage even more women to sign up.
• Prices are per person and do not include flights worldexpeditions.com

Surfing and yoga, Lanzarote

Birgit and Julika, AKA the WaveSisters, run fun surf camps for women in Famara, Lanzarote. They cite studies that show women learn more quickly in an all-female environment – and they are on a mission to increase the number of female surfers (only about 10% of surfers are women). Kids are welcome, too: there is childcare for children of three and over, and surf courses for those of six and above. A typical week includes 20 hours of surf lessons and three 90-minute yoga sessions, staying in a shared apartment. The WaveSisters add: “For those who are missing the guys already: they turn up en masse on the beach, in bars and in the water.”
• €425 for surf course, yoga, seven nights accommodation, surfboard and wetsuit, excluding flights, wavesisters.com

Skiing, French Alps

Ski Goddess trips to Chatel in the Portes du Soleil combine intensive lessons with a fun holiday. The holiday starts at home when instructor Katie calls for a pre-trip chat, and gives techniques to practise. On the slopes, there are full days of skiing, with lots of skills and exercises in the morning. Back at the chalet, a daily video analysis session highlights each person’s strengths and weaknesses – in a friendly, supportive way. One nice touch is that a range of ski boots are brought to the chalet and Katie is always checking that everyone has the best fit, which can make all the difference to performance.
• Four-night course from £945pp/five from £1,075 (sharing a room), including catered luxury chalet, excluding flights, skigoddess.co.uk

Dog-sledding, Norway

Nature Travels, which runs outdoor and adventure holidays in Sweden, Norway and Finland, has two women-only dog-sledding tours in Trøndelag, central Norway. Amateur mushers learn how to harness a team of huskies and handle the sled, before heading off on the snow. The five-day trip includes a longer journey (up to 35km) into the wilderness where reindeer roam, and a night in a mountain cabin. Lunches are eaten outside over an open fire or in a lavvu (tipi), and accommodation is a modern chalet.
• Three days £784/five days £1,454, including all meals, guides and equipment, excluding flights, naturetravels.co.uk

Active holidays, various countries

Walking Women started running walking holidays in 2000, and while this is still their main business, they have since branched out into all kinds of women-only trips: culture and wildlife in Rajasthan, India; bird-watching in Costa Rica; a safari in Swaziland; sailing in Turkey; and wild swimming in the Lake District. More than 1,000 women travel with them every year, the vast majority solo travellers.
• Prices vary; four/five nights in the Lakes from £385/£525; seven nights walking and sailing in Turkey £800 full-board, excluding flights, walkingwomen.com

Walking, Spain

Camino Ways, which runs guided walks on the many Camino de Santiago routes across Spain, Portugal and France, started women-only trips for the first time this year. The route follows the last 100km of the Portuguese Coastal Way (which crosses into northern Spain) from Baiona to Santiago, with fantastic sea views and interesting overnight stops, including Vigo and Pontevedra. Some walkers are pilgrims; other are looking for a physical challenge or a cultural experience. Daily walks are between 15 and 28km, and accommodation is in family-run hotels and guest houses.
• From €760 half-board, including luggage transfers, excluding flights, June and September, caminoways.com

Mountain biking, Scotland

Go-Where’s Mountain Lassie mountain bike weekends are three days of tight, twisty trails in the Tweed Valley, Scotland. Riders become more mountain savvy, learning how to plan big rides, read the local conditions and terrain, and carry out repairs on the trail. There are visits to the pub in the evening, and lodge accommodation close to the riding. New this year are Soul Trails – week-long biking breaks with cyclist-specific yoga. They are based on a farm in the Cairngorms national park, with rides in the local area, and also in Highland Perthshire, the Monadhliath mountains, Lochaber and Glencoe.
• £345pp for a weekend, £995 for a week,including B&B or lodge accommodation, female guides and trip photos, go-where.co.uk/mountain-lassies

Relaxing retreats, Wales

Sisterhood runs creative retreats, workshops and suppers for women. The retreats, held at a forest camp on the outskirts of Cardigan, are designed to be relaxing breaks where participants can learn new skills, reconnect with nature and eat delicious food. This month’s winter retreat is sold out but places are available on the summer retreat in June, which involves morning yoga, golden-hour photography (just after sunrise/just before sunset), foraging, fire pits, workshops and discussions. All meals are included and the glamping accommodation offers a choice of domes, cabins and lofts.
• From £450 for three nights, 22-25 June, sisterhoodcamp.co.uk

GI Jane Bootcamp, Kent

At the opposite end of the relaxation and activity scale to the Sisterhood retreat, GI Jane Bootcamps are intense: rise and shine at 5.30am and lights out at 8pm – with barely a moment to catch your breath in between. The packed timetable includes circuit training, boxing, assault courses and Ironman drills – and to ease aching muscles, there’s a mandatory daily soak in cold water. Women endure this for three, four or seven days in Kent – though the new bootcamps in Koh Samui, Thailand, might be more tempting. Food is predictably healthy, with no alcohol, caffeine, refined carbs, processed food or sugar.
• From £299 for a weekend, £445 midweek, £995 full week in Kent, or from £795 for a week in Thailand (excluding flights). Prices are for full-board in shared accommodation, with nutritional advice, life coaching, and training, gijanebootcamp.co.uk

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This article titled "Hong Kong shopping guide: the markets of Mong Kok" was written by Derek Guthrie, for theguardian.com on Monday 31st October 2016 06.45 UTC

At weekends, the vibrant, crowded streets of Kowloon intensify in Mong Kok to a point where the footfall outpaces London’s rush hour. In the heat and high humidity, it occasionally seems difficult to breathe. Weekdays are busy, too. By rights, the markets here should be extinct, gone the way of rickshaws and shophouses thanks to gentrification, air-conditioned malls and the internet. Instead, they thrive.

Two years ago, Mong Kok made international news when the “umbrella revolution” arrived, student-led occupations and protests aimed at bringing the city to a standstill. Weeks of stand-off followed, then violence erupted as police clashed not only with the students, but traders and triad gangsters frustrated by gridlocked traffic and political deadlock. Today, despite supermarkets eclipsing many of the food stalls, hordes of Hongkongers and visitors still descend on this Kowloon district in search of a bargain.

Toy collectibles

Browsing In’s Point toys.

The modern Mong Kok marketplace is above ground, forced upwards into the area’s tenement buildings by increased rents. Hong Kong’s property boom isn’t just at the top end (the world’s most expensive street, Pollock’s Path, is less than five miles away), so many stallholders now lease space in cheaper, upper floors. Anonymous doorways can lead to a variety of curiosity shops.

The two floors that make up In’s Point are crammed with new and used toy collectibles; acres of lego, game characters and movie merchandise, stacked floor to ceiling, in clear perspex stalls. Masses of Iron Man masks, retro money-eating monsters, Batmen and Supermen. Some stalls are sublet, divided into smaller perspex cubes, where amateur collectors display and sell on their fantasy trove to the likeminded. Many are online, such as tokyostation.com.hk.

The Bruce Lee Club is in In’s Point too. Photograph: Allstar/Warner Bros

But it’s not just about toys: fashion, retro Japanese shoes, antiques, vintage wear and The Bruce Lee Club are squeezed in here, too. Similar, but roomier, is the nearby CTMA Centre: six floors of tailoring, prototype and retro toys, boutiques, manga comics and anime DVDs.
• In’s Point, 530-538 Nathan Rd; CTMA Centre, 1N Sai Yeung Choi Street South

Other multistorey markets …

The Mongkok Computer Centre (8 Nelson Street) for technowizardy old and new; The Sino Centre (582 Nathan Road) for Asian pop culture and secondhand CDs; Trendy Zone (580A Nathan Road) – think TopShop/Primark, but cheaper.

Sneaker Street

Myriad trainers in a Sneaker Street outlet. Photograph: Alamy

A 200-yard stretch at the southern end of Fa Yuen Street is rammed with every sneaker, plimsoll, running shoe design ever made: Nike Air Max, Converse Wedges, Supra Skytops, Vans or those silver-brogued trainers you’ve been dreaming of are here, leaving JD Sports on the starting block. New products arrive the instant they’re launched, anything considered five minutes ago is shunted to the back. Older styles are heavily discounted (50% is common) in outlets like SMS Crew (“Super Mad Sneakers”) and Dahood. There are no fakes, partly because the manufacturers themselves are now jostling for shop space.
• Sneaker Street, at the southern end of Fa Yuen Street, between Argyle Street and Dundas Street

Fa Yuen Street Market

Fa Yuen Street Market. Photograph: Stefan Mokrzecki/Getty Images

The northern end of the street has stalls and shops piled high with pants and bras, trousers and tops, bags, accessories and myriad leopard-skin mobile phone covers. Shoes in small stores, such as Red Bee, start at HK$29 (about £3). Silvered leather is clearly a thing right now.

It’s all mixed up with kitchen gadgets, exotic vegetables, a small bakery for fresh mooncakes, and one stall loudly demonstrating the rich variety of karaoke microphones available today. The corner at Mongkok Road houses a covered wet market, where mongers eschew ice in favour of compartmentalised counters holding enough shallow water for fish to wriggle energetically until purchased.
• Fa Yuen Street Market, between Prince Edward Road West and Mongkok Road

The Ladies Market

Ladies Market in Mong Kok. Photograph: Alamy

Once the flagship thoroughfare, brassily boasting fashions knock-offs, handbags and watches. There are still clothes – Chinese old-lady-style silk dresses and wide-leg culottes – but the fakes are hidden from view in response to the law. No shortage of verbal offers (“Copywatch! Copywatch!”) but only the occasional stallholder is foolhardy enough to display any glittering contraband. One stall had counterfeit canvas artworks of Yue Minjun, China’s best-known contemporary painter, whose grinning self-portraits realise millions at auction: after a few seconds haggling, the asking price of HK$300 (about £30) tumbled to HK$120 (£12). Mens’ “Ralph Lauren” polo shirts are four for HK$100 (£10).

There’s jade (a separate jade market is well known for selling fakes), mobile phone accessories, collectibles and leather goods. It’s not all tat, by any means. If you really do want to bring back souvenir mahjong sets, or decorative chopsticks, they’re cheaper here than the tourist shops in Central. In the evening it gets very busy – and be prepared for robust argument over prices.
• Ladies Market, Tung Choi Street, between Dundas Street and Argyle Street

Goldfish Market

The Goldfish Market. Photograph: Alamy

There’s no other market street like this anywhere, certainly not in the west. Several blocks of tiny shops display dozens of water-filled plastic pouches in their doorways, holding all manner of brightly coloured fish, on sale for pennies. They’re interspersed with pet shops, with small dogs in the windows. Others showcase miniature turtles and tortoises, large insects and small kittens. Sacks of pet food, boxes and cages spill out higgledy-piggledy onto the pavement. Inside, miniature menageries sell rodents, insects, more puppies, rabbits and yet more kittens. In the Harbour Koi Centre (no 174), a tank of giant koi carp were priced at HK$2,000 (£200) each. Gifts for the dedicated aquarist include underwater Chinese pagodas, bonsai trees, wrecked junks and replicas of SpongeBob SquarePants.
• Goldfish market, northern end of Tung Choi Street, between Mongkok Road and Prince Edward Road West

Shanghai Street

Woks outside a kitchen shop in Shanghai Street. Photograph: Alamy

The southern end is where to go for kitchen equipment: woks and chopsticks, steamer baskets and bowls, porcelain ladles and all manner of other gadgets. Man Kee at No 342 has beautifully crafted chopping boards. You may also be interested in catering equipment, knives and machetes (or possibly not).

Further north, (numbers 600 to 626) is a row of 10 scruffy looking “shophouses”, which date from the 1920s and are Grade I listed, a reminder to modern Hongkongers in high-rise towers of a recent past, when tenants would mostly live and work in tiny rented apartments above narrow shops.

At 481, a store window is filled with what appears to be a large display of bright yellow Cheesy Wotsits but is, in fact, fish maw, dried swim bladders which are the buoyancy controllers of large fish. Rich in collagen and gelatin, maw is feted in China as a healthy ingredient for soups and stews, and is reputed to be the secret of shining, healthy skin. Shelves groan with large jars of other fresh and dried health supplements; abalone, ginseng, goji berries, sea cucumbers, mandarin peel and clipped-off bull tails, which are apparently a gentleman’s aid …

English is not spoken and although prices start at a few pounds for each item, they climb steeply, according to age and quality, peaking at several hundred pounds a kilo. (Across the bay at Sheung Wan there’s a dedicated market, “Dried Seafood Street”, and, elsewhere, a profitable illegal trade in maw from endangered species.)

Flower Market Road

This is half a mile of cheap blooms and plants with large numbers of orchids and bonsai trees – the clue’s in the name. The pavements are crammed with greenery, the air heavily scented. It’s a welcome oasis in the midst of Mong Kok’s overcrowded thoroughfares. At the centre is Brighten, a three-storey, air-conditioned supermarket of dried-flower sprays for every occasion, Christmas decorations (from August), mid-autumn festival bouquets, giant paper rabbits and silk flowers aplenty.

The adjacent shops on Prince Edward Road West are equally interesting. Zen in 5 Seasons produces its own healthy elixirs (schisandra and momordica fruits, self-heal spike tea; honeysuckle, Chinese wolfberry and chrysanthemum tea). Next door, Natural Cha Cha has unusually sublime indoor/outdoor ceramics and objets, and Farm Direct is a healthy chain of shops specialising in pesticide-free, hydroponically grown fruit and veg, sold either unadulterated or fashioned into lettuce noodles or kale spaghetti. Next door is Maria’s, a home bakery with a fine line in delicious, not quite so healthy, soft and fluffy mini cheesecakes plus Fong’s egg cake (on sale every day from 3pm).
• flower-market.hk

Bird Market

Birds in cages hanging at the Bird Garden and Market in Yuen Po Street. Photograph: Getty Images

At the eastern end of the flower market can be heard the twittering of small birds – hundreds of them. The commercial side does nothing to alleviate concerns about caging birds: lots of small birds temporarily housed in very small, yellow, plastic cages are not a pretty sight. There’s bird food for sale, including bags of live locusts, which one stallholder has to extract from a large cage by hand, an act which owes more to the bushtucker trials of I’m a Celebrity … than avian or insect husbandry.

Adjacent to this is the garden (bird-garden.hk), where elderly men bring their tiny winged companions in delicate cages, to sit and listen in contemplation. Away from the crowds and the traffic roar, in the shade of the trees, the garden offers respite, a rare moment to consider the most pleasurable tweets in Hong Kong – without a smartphone in sight.
• Yuen Po Street Bird Garden and Market, Yuen Po Street

Going to market

The markets of Mong Kok are best reached by the Hong Kong MTR subway system, stations Yau Ma Tei, Mong Kok and Prince Edward on the Tsuen Wan (red) line. The markets are open every day, starting around noon and closing in the late evening (times vary)

• Accommodation was provided by the Hotel Jen, 508 Queens Road West, Western District, Hong Kong, doubles from £98 B&B. Flights to Hong Kong were provided by Virgin Atlantic, UK return flights from £437

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This article titled "The spectre of stagflation looms over the economy. This time it’s scarier than ever" was written by , for The Observer on Sunday 30th October 2016 06.00 UTC

As we near Halloween night, there is a growing sense of foreboding about the economy’s prospects next year, even among Brexiters. The one word that is having a chilling effect – stagflation – is best known from its 1970s incarnation, when it wrought havoc throughout the land.

The combination of stagnant GDP growth and high inflation pushed the country to the edge of bankruptcy and forced the then chancellor, Denis Healey, to call the International Monetary Fund for a bailout loan. Its resurrection can only spell bad news.

The former Bank of England policymaker Adam Posen is past trick-or-treating and is not known for scaremongering, but he was doing his best Jack-Nicholson-in-The-Shining impression last week when he said Britain would suffer “permanent damage” from the Brexit vote.

The economist, who is back in his native US running a thinktank, likened the UK to an athlete who injures an ankle and gets arthritis. They limp on. “They’re not dead,” he said, but can’t run with the major league players any more. What word summed up the nightmarish future? Stagflation, he sighed.

The increase in inflation is a global trend made worse by the 18% fall in the pound since the referendum

At the heart of this argument is a forecast for rising inflation and slowing wage rises in 2017 that will kill off today’s healthy GDP growth. The increase in inflation is a global trend driven by higher oil and commodity prices, made worse by the 18% fall in the pound since the referendum. Slowing wage rises follow the uncertainty that infects all business investment decisions in the UK, as firms delay or cancel the purchase of new equipment that enhances productivity.

This could all be set aside as a temporary situation, much as it was in 2011 and 2012, when Posen was a member of the Bank’s monetary policy committee and inflation stood at 5%.

Back then the political situation was stable, and interest rates were not just at rock bottom, they were priced by the markets as being low for the next 30 years.

To boost growth, the Bank began a second phase of quantitative easing, taking the total stimulus package to £375bn, safe in the knowledge that politicians and central bankers were aligned.

Related: Vince Cable: assurances to Nissan means UK will stay in customs union

The backdrop to the Brexit vote is different. For one thing, the political situation is full of uncertainties. Businesses rightly ask whether Theresa May wants to stay inside the European Union’s single market or the customs union or neither.

There was a clue in the deal with Nissan, which was widely interpreted as signalling that she wants to stay in the customs union. But it could be that she panicked when faced with the closure of a world-beating car factory and carved out a special package offsetting the impact of Brexit.

May has refused to shed any light on the details of her apparently cosy deal with the Japanese carmaker, and so speculation fills the void, emphasising the lack of coherent thinking at the top of her government. Worse, May and some former colleagues have painted Threadneedle Street as the enemy of good government, adding to the unease.

Investors are also concerned about the impact of rising yields on government bonds, which determine the rate at which nations can borrow. UK gilt yields have doubled since the vote, forcing the Treasury to pay more to finance its debts.

And there are more threats waiting in the wings. The US central bank is poised to raise interest rates in December after third-quarter growth beat expectations to hit an annualised 2.9%.

Higher interest rates across the Atlantic will attract money away from the UK to US banks, pushing the pound down further. If this feeds into higher import prices and ratchets up inflation, disposable incomes will slump even more.

As we saw from the UK’s third-quarter GDP figures last week, the economy is currently buoyant, but almost entirely dependent on consumer spending and without it will probably begin to slowly contract.

If this all sounds overly gloomy, it doesn’t to Posen and many other economists in academia and the City. They’ve seen a ghost of Christmas future, and it scares them.

Related: UK economy shrugs off Brexit uncertainty with 0.5% growth

RBS can’t wind up the spinoffs

When the European Union was handing out punishments for the bailouts of Britain’s banks during the 2008 crisis, one of its wheezes was to force the two institutions which had been the recipients of most of the cash to spin off branch networks. The aim was to create new competitors on the high street and, no doubt, inflict a bit of pain on the way.

Roll on eight years from the drama of the bailouts, and one of those branch networks has emerged. Lloyds Banking Group stripped out TSB in 2013 and floated it on the stock market in 2014, before it was taken over by Sabadell of Spain. It is alive and kicking and grabbing market share in current accounts. It is still tied to its former parent by an IT system, but is trying to cut itself loose.

Contrast that with Royal Bank of Scotland, which has now admitted it will not meet a deadline of the end of 2017 to carve out 300 branches, focused more on small businesses. It has been a messy affair and costs have reached £1.7bn in attempting and failing to meet this deadline. A sale to Santander was aborted. Then there was to be an attempt to float the branches on the stock market – a bit like TSB – by reviving the old brand name of Williams & Glyn. That was abandoned in the summer. Now hopes are on a trade buyer who might be able to cherrypick the most attractive branches.

While this is a costly problem for RBS, which at one point deployed 7,500 on the task of creating a standalone branch network, it is one that has also deprived bank customers of an extra competitor on the high street. Ross McEwan, the RBS chief executive, has admitted that the UK’s departure from the EU is not a cue to give up on the process – and Brussels may not be in the mood to look kindly on Britain’s bailed-out bank during the exit negotiations. It is a mess, and one which could get dirtier if the EU decides to impose its own rules on the selloff process.

Paula Nickolds will have her work cut out at John Lewis. Photograph: Greg Funnell/PA

John Lewis mustn’t become a soulless profit machine

She’s landed one of the most coveted jobs in retail, but when new John Lewis boss Paula Nickolds takes the helm in January she’ll have her hands full. Profits were already falling in the first half of this year, and the decline of the pound in the wake of the Brexit vote will only add pressure.

Some analysts believe Nickolds needs to do more ruthless cost-cutting than her predecessor, Andy Street. But it’s worth remembering that John Lewis navigated the last downturn successfully precisely because it invested when others cut back.

Cheery, knowledgeable staff in stores and a big step up in online capability proved winners. John Lewis’s partnership model, under which staff own the business, allows for long-term thinking. Staff and customers will thank Nickolds for nurturing its special feel, not turning John Lewis into a soulless profit machine.

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