Where to break your New Year’s Resolutions in style
OK, let’s be honest here. Despite having made a number of highly worthy New Year’s Resolutions, you know in your heart of hearts that there’s very little chance of you actually keeping them beyond the middle of January. So why embark on that slow, grinding road to self-defeat? If you’re going to crack, you may as well do it in style. And here’s how…
I will go on a diet
All that dieting can make you terribly hungry, and in Singapore there is practically no chance of sticking to it – the whole country is one giant food court. On just about every corner are a series of hawker stalls, dishing out thoroughly tasty dishes from around Asia. And then, once you’ve finished gorging yourself on every foodstuff from Karachi to Bali, you can hit a proper restaurant for one of the island’s signature crabs, covered in lovely, fattening chilli sauce.
For thorough gluttony, however, you need to head to the Land of The Fat (or, Free, as they prefer). The US is the home of both the all you can eat gutbuster and ludicrously unhealthy meals. The big (creamy) cheese of these competitive eating establishments is Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub in Clearfield, Pennsylvania. Denny’s started off with a challenge to eat a six pound (2.72kg) burger with a veritable salad bar of trimmings, and has since continued to raise the bar in the face of competition from other establishments wanting the world’s biggest burger record. The largest at Denny’s now stands at a ludicrous 100lbs (45kg).
I will get more exercise
Two visits to the gym is quite enough, thank you. After all that hard work a bit of pampering is in order. There are beach resorts all over the world where you can be fantastically lazy, but the most slothful of all has to be the Sandals Negril Beach Resort in Jamaica. Providing you’ve got the requisite bags of money, you can secure a room right on the beach, enabling you to just crawl out onto the sands and lie there all day. As it’s an All-Inclusive resort, there’s no lead to actually leave it for anything and, best of all, butler service is available for those too lazy to run their own bath or unpack their luggage.
I will give up smoking
Not in Morocco or Egypt you won’t. In both popular spots, as with in most Arabic countries, hookah cafés fill much the same social function as bars and pubs do in Western countries. Essentially, hookah (or shisha) pipes are water-powered smoking machines that lend themselves to being used amongst friends.
Whilst most have tobacco thrown into the mix, the things that elevate it above chain-smoking Winfields are the range of flavourings used to complement the evil weed and the communal factor. There’s a world of difference between having a quick drag stood in the street and the soothing bubbling sounds of an apple hookah by the tableside.
I will drink less
In recent years, the title of Europe’s ‘party capital’ (a euphemism for the place where most people turn up to get utterly slaughtered on cheap beer) has passed from Prague, Czech Republic to Riga, Latvia. A somewhat entrepreneurial spirit has seen much of the populace take to the rampaging hordes with gusto, and the city is now full of bars catering to groups of thirsty tourists. The tourist board are obviously keen to promote a more sophisticated side to the Latvian capital, but that’s not what many are coming for.
As the city becomes more prosperous, however, the baton is likely to be passed on elsewhere in the next year or so. But where? Well, it could be Chişinău in Moldova. The country relaxed many of its visa restrictions last year, drink prices are dirt cheap and there is a distinct attitude whereby anyone stumbling home before 6am has somehow failed.
Should you wish to pretend that your excessive drinking binge is some kind of cultural pursuit, why not turn it into a round-the-world challenge? The Délirium Café in Brussels, Belgium has 2004 beers available at any one time, and sources them from countries as diverse as Angola, the Faroe Islands and Kiribati. It’d be rude to leave before trying one from every nation available, surely?
I will save some money…
Kept to the budget for a week or two? Well why not head to Dubai for the mother of all blow-outs? Nowhere in the world has such ludicrously huge, lavish and extensive shopping malls, and they just keep getting more outlandish. Those going for the bling should head to the Gold Souk in Deira. With around 300 jewellery shops, it is the world’s biggest gold market, although it has attempted to retain the look of a typical Arabic souk.
But it’s further west where the fun really starts. The Ibn Battuta Mall is essentially six shopping centres in one, all themed on a different country, from Spain to China. Meanwhile the Madinat Jumeirah is thoroughly upmarket – they’ve made a huge Arabic castle from scratch, and filled it with waterways and boats as well as innovative clothing, fragrance and electronics stores.
This article was originally written for Ninemsn.
Copyright David Whitley
