On Bali, Indonesia, you can take a tour of a traditional organic chocolate farm and experience hands-on chocolate making at Pod Chocolate (phone +62 361 239 440).

The hillside cacao farm is located on the grounds of the Bali Elephant Camp, near Ubud. The tour includes transport from and to your hotel, a trip to the trees to learn how the beans are grown and a visit to the factory, where you will make your own batch of chocolate elephants. 

Tours start every hour and last about...

For visitors to Barbados, Atlantis Submarines (The Shallow Draught, Bridgetown, Barbados, BWI; phone +1 246 436 8929) offers dives in its fleet of two submarines to see exotic fish, coral reefs and a submerged shipwreck off of the coast of Bridgetown.

In trips of about two hours, getting to the reef takes about 40 minutes and the dive lasts 40 minutes. Each submarine can hold a maximum of 48 passengers and features large portholes for viewing. A dive costs $104 per person. Day and...

In southern China’s “Shangri-La” tourism area, the ancient Tibetan town of Duke­zong — more than 1,300 years old and one of the world’s largest and best-preserved Tibetan towns — burned down in 10 hours on Jan. 11. 

Sparked by a heater in a guest house, the blaze engulfed 343 wooden houses and many historic artifacts. While high winds spread the flames, residents resorted to bucket brigades after hydrants failed and firefighters were unable to get fire engines through the narrow...