YANGSHUO, CHINA - My “Huckleberry Fung” adventure starts when I board a small bamboo raft on the banks of the Little Li River in this southeast China outpost. “Fung” is the tall slender man piloting the precarious-looking craft that’s tied together with simple bailing wire. But my Chinese Tom Sawyer assures me the raft is seaworthy before he pushes off from the muddy shore with the aid of a long bamboo pole.

BANGKOK - I follow Etienne de Villiers through the flower-filled lobby of the legendary Mandarin Oriental Bangkok — the most welcoming entrance in the industry — and up a staircase to the property’s mezzanine.

SHENZHEN, CHINA - As the late day November sun begins to dip behind the jagged mountains surrounding Genzon Golf Course, I fear the rapidly fading light will prevent me from completing my round at the best golf complex in China — if not all of Asia.

WUZHEN, CHINA - On a Mid-Autumn Festival morning, the residents of this ancient Yangtze River Delta water town are up early getting ready to welcome the hordes of weekend tourists.

KARUIZAWA, JAPAN - Excitement builds in Car 8 as the Shinkansen (bullet train) rumbles out of Tokyo Station. The usually reserved elderly Japanese are in a festive mood; lively chatter and laughter fills the car as the high-speed train whizzes past the lush rice fields that dominate the countryside just outside the capital.

TOKYO - When we reach the landmark Nihonbashi Bridge that crosses Tokyo’s fabled river of the same name, we find ourselves standing in the centre of Japan, literally.

PUDONG, CHINA - The closest most foreigners get to this futuristic city, whose skyline looks like it jumped off the pages of a sci-fi comic book, is from the observation boardwalk on the Shanghai side of the Huangpu River.

HONG KONG - While strolling through the forest of glass and steel towers that have taken root in this bustling world city, I discovered a “house.

GUANGZHOU, CHINA - Train No. T818 cuts through valleys lush with tropical vegetation and the jagged landscape known as the New Territories just outside Hong Kong whizzes past my window as the Guangzhou Express rushes towards the Chinese border.

HONG KONG - Because this Asian beauty is one of the world’s great culinary cities, it’s important that visitors sample as many of Hong Kong’s traditional and neighbourhood restaurants as possible.