Singapore and Hong Kong

Singapore and Hong Kong are the two cities in Asia where the grand hotel never went out of fashion. Both have colonial houses that still serve afternoon tea with white gloves, and both have towers where the lobby sits above the 100th floor and the swimming pool looks over a harbour. Singapore adds garden hotels around Orchard Road and a cluster of small design houses in the shophouses of Chinatown and Kampong Glam. Hong Kong keeps its best addresses on the Kowloon waterfront and along the Central escalator, with quieter houses on the south side of the island and on Lantau.

Both cities are humid all year and rarely cold. Regulars come between October and March, ask for a harbour or Marina Bay view on a high floor, and use the hotel pool early. In Hong Kong they take the ferry rather than the tunnel, and in Singapore they eat at the hawker centre before the hotel restaurant.