Word: archipelago
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With over 17,000 islands, the Indonesian archipelago has enough travel possibilities to exhaust a lifetime. But if all you can spare is a few days, consider the microcosm that is Desa Seni, desaseni.com. At this Balinese resort, the accommodation consists of 10 traditional wooden homes, offering one, two or three bedrooms each. Houses are in various ethnic styles and have been imported from different regions of Indonesia before being rebuilt and refurbished. Some are over a century old. They are laid out in the manner of a typical village, and decorated with handicrafts, antiques and paintings from all over...
...That message is being broadcast from thousands of new mosques and Islamic schools, or pesantren, now proliferating across the 17,000-island archipelago. Many are funded by Middle Eastern groups that see Indonesia as fertile ground for spiritual purification. Clerics at these religious institutions preach the Salafi strain of Islam, which advocates a return to the religion as practiced in the era of the Prophet Muhammad. (Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia's strict form of the faith, is considered an offshoot of Salafi Islam.) By contrast, most Indonesians, like other Southeast Asian Muslims, had for centuries practiced a far less orthodox faith...
...Europe for some time, drawing on centuries-old brewing traditions and targeting legions of aficionados. But microbrewing is still virtually nonexistent in Asia, where the market is dominated by mass-produced lagers. "Part of this job is not just to brew beers but also to educate," says Andrea Teo, Archipelago's managing director. "There was a survey here and Singaporeans associate beer with four words: 'fresh,' 'cold,' 'local' and 'imported...
...brewing techniques was Teo's brainchild. A former TV producer, Teo was hired by regional beverage giant Asia Pacific Breweries in 2002 to launch new products. Instead, she began by injecting life into one of its oldest brands. Founded in Singapore in 1931 by German brewers Beck's, the Archipelago Brewery was considered an enemy asset and seized by the British during World War II. In the postwar years, its output shrank to just one product, ABC Stout. Teo's epiphany came about while staring at the word Archipelago on an ABC Stout label during a promotional event. "I thought...
...Allen scoured Pasir Pajang for weeks before beginning his experiments, and found himself hand chopping kilos of coriander and ginger. Some initially promising ingredients-such as kaffir lime-produced undrinkable beer. But months of trial and error paid off, and you can now sample the results at the Archipelago pub near Boat Quay. At over $6 a pint, the new brews are dearer than standard lager, but they're undeniably tastier and more interesting. True to Teo's vision, they feature ingredients like tamarind, palm sugar, ginger, lemongrass and even wolfberries, which are normally used in traditional Chinese medicine...