Word: banyan
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...agree as I settled back in my canvas chair, gin and tonic in one hand, up to my ankles in black volcanic sand, peeping through a curtain of banyan leaves at the gentle splendor of sunset. This was Sea World Club, Maumere's premier dive resort: an unpretentious place with neat thatch-roofed bungalows, where sarong-wrapped staff, flashing wide smiles, shuffle along paths paved with blue pebbles...
During a mid-1880s visit to Shamian, the Shaoguan-based Wesleyan missionary John Turner described "a beautiful island, fronted with lawns and flower gardens, with the foreign consular and merchants' houses standing behind them, on either side of an avenue of banyan trees." That quaint scene greets today's visitors, too, thanks largely to late-'90s restoration, a combination of government and private initiatives. All of the old buildings now bear plaques describing their history, which makes a walking tour of the 3-sq-km island both possible and pleasant...
...heads. A cry attracts a crush of butting bodies and cameras, trying to steal the squealer's view of this miracle of botany. A sort of stop-start rhythm develops. "Eek!" jostle, click. "Eek!" bustle, click. I can just about make out what all the fuss is about. The banyan does have four roots that could be legs and a longer one that might be a trunk. But where's the tail? Or the tusks? Or the ears? On the other hand, it is a spitting image compared with "the tree that is a forest," another banyan, meant...
...forest canopy for around $25 a night. Take a guide and venture deep into the forest to try to see the wild elephants?and even, it's rumored, the odd tiger?that still live in the park. Here, too, strangely shaped trees abound. As before, however, games of banyan make-believe are recommended only for the severely suggestible...
...call (960) 444-888. "Often we greet guests at check-in and don't see them again until they check out," notes Kraenzlin with a proud smile. "They take all meals in the rooms. They live on the balcony, staring into the sky and the sea." Try also the Banyan Tree on nearby Vabbinfaru Island. This exquisite resort offers no air-conditioning but features conical huts that stay cool naturally. Doubles begin at $425 a night; call...