Travellers' checks

The newest Aman resort (www.amanresorts.com) is due to open in Turkey next month, on the Bodrum Peninsula. Amanruya (above) will offer 36 cottages, each with a private garden, a pool, a four-poster bed, a traditional charcoal fireplace, Turkish rugs and all the expected mod cons. The hillside location, on the Aegean coast, looks spectacular, with good ocean views, pine forests and olive groves surrounding it, and is a 30-minute drive from the city of Bodrum. Turkish Airlines flies six times a week from Hong Kong to Istanbul, from where there are several connecting daily flights to Milas-Bodrum Airport. Free car transfers to the resort are provided by Amanruya. If you're looking for Aman levels of style and luxury for an Istanbul stopover, try the Ajia Hotel (www.ajiahotel.com), a 16-room boutique hotel occupying an Ottoman-era mansion on the Bosphorus shoreline. Fans of heritage hotels, incidentally, will be pleased to learn that Amanresorts recently won the contract to redevelop and manage the old Crag Hotel in Penang, Malaysia. Located atop Penang Hill, the Crag was opened in the late 1890s as a health resort by the Sarkies brothers, but has been derelict for sometime. If all goes to plan, it will reopen as Amancrag in a couple of years.

Ferries running between India and Sri Lanka were once popular with independent travellers, but all services were suspended with the start of the Sri Lankan civil war in 1983. Now the crossing is open again and the first ferry to make it docked in Colombo from the Indian port of Tuticorin last month. The overnight trip aboard the Indian-owned Scotia Prince (below left) takes 14 hours, much longer than the old northern route, which ran between Rameswaram and Talaimannar, but it offers more facilities, including restaurants, bars and a casino. A Sri Lankan-operated ferry is due to start services between Rameswaram and Talaimannar - once part of the old Indo-Lanka railway connection - later this year. See www.flemingoliners.com for details and sailing times for the Scotia Prince.

All the Japanese member hotels of the Preferred Hotel Group are offering a special rate of 10,000 yen (HK$965) per night, as part of the country's ongoing efforts to get its tourism industry back up and running. Reservations must be made from Wednesday to July 15, but you can stay anytime until the end of this year. Participating hotels include the Hotel New Grand Yokohama (above right), the old wing of which dates back to 1927; Capitol Hotel Tokyu, which opened late last year on the site of the old Tokyo Hilton in Akasaka; Oriental Hotel Hiroshima; and Keio Plaza in Sapporo. For a look at all the hotels and to make reservations, visit www.phgoffers.com/kizuna.