News from tsunami-hit Phuket: a luxury resort, Trisara, recently opened by ex-Amanpuri manager Anthony Lark is offering not-to-be-repeated discounts on its infinity-pool suites. The resort has 33 pool villas and a handful of privately owned residences in a forest above a private bay, 15 minutes from the airport.
Until October 31, the rate is $495 per night (plus tax and service) for an Ocean View Pool Villa (double occupancy) based on a minimum stay of three nights. The price includes B&B, suite upgrade, a 90-minute in-room spa treatment, and airport transfers. Normal rate is US$575 per night room only, rising to US$975 once the winter season kicks in on November 1.
· Trisara.com.
A Fyne romance
I'd like to alert you to two recent gastronomic discoveries in one of the places highlighted by our French cousins as a culinary desert: Scotland.
Firstly, the Loch Fyne Oyster company, which is not new - some 20 years old in fact - but what started as a small outfit selling oysters from a shed is now a sizeable company with several restaurants south of the border and a home delivery service. Its original oyster bar on the edge of Loch Fyne (pictured above), just outside Inverary, is now a beautiful shop and restaurant (with plans to build a small upper-level dining room next year with views of the loch), where I've just enjoyed wicked food (bradan rost - kiln-roasted salmon, served hot or cold, with whisky and horseradish for under a tenner). If there were a few more places like this on Scotland's main routes, it would revolutionise motoring holidays here.
A little further north in Oban I discovered Ee Usk, largely because I missed the Mull ferry. Oban is an unpromising town if ever I've seen one, but Ee Usk is a bright and modern waterfront restaurant (so you can watch your ferry heading out of the harbour) and dishes up such delights as smoked haddock chowder, and mussels and chips. Again, most dishes cost less than a tenner, and the oysters are £6.95 for half a dozen.
· Loch Fyne Oyster Bar, Cairndow, Argyll (01499 600236, lochfyne.com). Ee Usk, North Pier, Oban (01631 565666).
Open houses
There are still some holiday houses up for grabs from the following companies: Tuscan Holidays (015394 31120, tuscanholidays.co.uk) can squeeze you into a rustic farmhouse, from £621 per week for four excluding flights. (Ryanair still has Stansted-Pisa seats in high summer.) Or try Cottages to Castles (01622 775217, cottagestocastles.com) for Italy and Croatia: one week in an Istrian farmhouse with flights and car costs £477pp, based on four sharing. Heart of the Lakes (015394 32321, heartofthelakes.co.uk) still have proprties available for the last weeks of the school holidays.
The reel thing
Reel Adventures is a new collection of holidays based around classic movies. A Thelma and Louise road trip in America's southwest comes as no surprise - 14 days across seven states in an open-top car - but how about From Russia with Love (10 days, six countries, by car, boat and train) or Roman Holiday - perfect right now, three nights with flights and scooter hire, from £750pp, in centrally located apartments (but note, speeding fines are not included).
· Wild Frontiers, 020-7736 3968, wildfrontiers.co.uk.
Walking in style
Hot off the press from that clever small hotel collection, Welsh Rarebits, comes a Luxury Walking Breaks brochure. This is for people who own nice shoes as well as walking boots, and feel that a good day's yomping in the Beacons or on the Glamorgan coast should be rewarded with a civilised dinner rather than spag bol on an enamel plate in a windswept tent. This doesn't mean, of course, that you can't still stay in one of Welsh Rarebits' country houses and do absolutely nothing at all.
· For your copy, call 01686 668030, or visit welsh.rarebits.co.uk.
