The 76 Most Iconic Destinations in Asia

Built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, the Taj Mahal is widely considered the finest example of Mughal architecture in the world.

The white marble monument changes colour from pink in the dawn light to brilliant white at midday.

Stretching over 21,000 kilometres across northern China, the Great Wall is one of the greatest architectural achievements in human history.

The restored sections near Beijing, such as Mutianyu and Jinshanling, wind dramatically across steep mountain ridges and can be walked in a few hours.

Further out, unrestored stretches crumble into the hillsides largely unvisited.

The Maldives is an archipelago of 1,200 coral islands scattered across the Indian Ocean, where pristine white sand, crystal-clear turquoise lagoons, and overwater bungalows create the archetypal tropical paradise.

The islands sit just above sea level, making them one of the world's most climate-vulnerable nations.

Cappadocia in central Turkey is a landscape of extraordinary volcanic rock formations called fairy chimneys — tall, thin spires of soft volcanic tuff capped with harder basalt.

Thousands of years of habitation have added cave churches with Byzantine frescoes, underground cities, and rock-cut monasteries to an already extraordinary natural canvas.

Petra is an ancient Nabataean city carved directly into rose-red sandstone cliffs in southern Jordan.

Known as the Rose City, its most iconic monument is Al-Khazneh, or the Treasury, a 40-metre-high temple facade with Hellenistic columns that appears dramatically at the end of the narrow Siq canyon.

Held on a rotating cycle at four sacred river sites in India, the Kumbh Mela is the largest human gathering on Earth, drawing tens of millions of Hindu pilgrims to bathe at an astrologically precise moment believed to wash away sin.

Ash-covered sadhus lead the procession into the water, followed by ordinary pilgrims across weeks of ritual bathing and prayer in tent cities that briefly become some of the most populous places on the planet.

Japan's highest mountain and most enduring symbol rises 3,776 metres in near-perfect symmetry above Honshu's coastal plain.

The classic view of Fuji reflected in the still waters of Lake Kawaguchiko, or framed by cherry blossoms in spring or maple leaves in autumn, has inspired Japanese art for centuries.

A vast valley of red sand and towering sandstone mountains so otherworldly it has stood in for Mars in multiple films, including The Martian and The Rise of Skywalker.

Bedouin-guided 4x4 tours and camel treks weave between weathered rock arches, ancient petroglyphs, and canyons, ending most days at a Bedouin camp under some of the darkest skies in the Middle East.

The scale and silence of the place are as striking as its colour.

Buried for over two thousand years to guard the tomb of China's first emperor, the Terracotta Army was discovered by farmers digging a well in 1974 and remains one of the most significant archaeological finds of the twentieth century.

More than 8,000 life-sized soldiers, each with individually sculpted facial features, stand in battle formation inside three vast excavation pits, alongside horses, chariots, and officers.

Built in the early 12th century by the Khmer Empire, Angkor Wat is the world's largest religious monument covering over 400 acres.

The temple's five lotus-shaped towers rising above the jungle, reflected in its surrounding moat, and the extraordinary bas-reliefs on its walls make it one of humanity's greatest achievements.

The imperial palace at the centre of Beijing, 180 acres of vermilion walls and yellow-tiled roofs that housed twenty-four emperors across the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Nearly a thousand surviving buildings run along a single axis from the Meridian Gate to the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

Daily numbers are capped and tickets routinely sell out.

Halong Bay's emerald-green waters are scattered with thousands of limestone islands and karsts rising sheer from the sea.

Traditional junk boats still work the channels between the towering formations, while caves, floating fishing villages and hidden lagoons fill the bay's quieter corners.

The misty, ethereal atmosphere, especially at sunrise, gives the bay an almost mystical beauty.

Granite pillars draped in twisted pines rise out of a sea of cloud at Yellow Mountain, the landscape that inspired centuries of Chinese ink painting.

Cable cars reach several viewpoints directly, so the classic misty-peaks view doesn't require a demanding climb.

Sunrise and sunset, when the cloud sea forms below the summits, are when the mountain looks most like the paintings it inspired.

Mathura and neighbouring Vrindavan, revered as Krishna's birthplace, host India's most exuberant Holi celebrations, where temple courtyards and streets dissolve into clouds of pink, yellow and green powder thrown by everyone from small children to elderly priests.

It's the purest, wildest version of India's best-known festival, at the town where the tradition began.

Japan's best-preserved original castle and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, its brilliant white plaster walls and cascading rooflines earning it the nickname "White Heron Castle" for its resemblance to a bird taking flight.

Unlike most Japanese castles, which are concrete post-war reconstructions, Himeji's wooden keep is the genuine 17th-century structure, complete with a defensive maze of gates and courtyards designed to confuse attackers.

It's especially striking framed by cherry blossoms in spring.

An overnight junk-boat cruise through thousands of limestone karsts rising from emerald water, one of Vietnam's defining landscapes.

Days include kayaking into hidden lagoons, cave visits, and swimming off the boat's stern, with meals fresh-cooked on board.

Traditional red-sailed junks still appear among the modern steel-hulled boats.

Karst silhouettes at sunrise and sunset are the reason most people book the trip in the first place.

Mineral-rich water turns this Sichuan valley's lakes an almost unnatural turquoise and emerald, layered with travertine terraces and stacked waterfalls.

Fallen trees, preserved in the clear, mineral-hardened water, are visible metres below the surface in the calmest pools.

Snow-capped peaks and autumn foliage frame the lakes depending on season.

An active, smoking crater rising from the middle of a vast ash-grey "Sea of Sand" caldera in East Java, ringed by the taller peaks of the Tengger massif.

The classic sunrise viewpoint at Mount Penanjakan looks out over Bromo's smoking cone and several neighbouring volcanoes at once, one of Southeast Asia's most celebrated views.

Horses and jeeps ferry visitors across the sand sea to the crater's base, from which several hundred stairs climb to the smoking rim itself.

Japan's cherry blossom season, or sakura, transforms the country for a brief two-week window each spring when thousands of trees burst into pale pink and white flowers.

The most famous displays occur in Tokyo's Ueno Park, Kyoto's Maruyama Park, and along the Philosopher's Path, where petals fall like pink snow.

Hegra was the second city of the ancient Nabataean kingdom after Petra, and its more than 100 monumental tombs, carved into sandstone outcrops across a desert plain, survive in far better condition than their Jordanian counterpart.

Saudi Arabia's first UNESCO World Heritage site opened to tourism only in 2019, and the tombs still show sharp carved detail after two thousand years in the desert.

Borobudur is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist temple in Central Java and the world's largest Buddhist temple.

Its nine stacked platforms are decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues; the three circular upper tiers hold 72 openwork stupas, each containing a Buddha statue, creating one of the world's greatest religious monuments.

One of the world's oldest and largest covered markets, Istanbul's Grand Bazaar has traded continuously since 1461 across more than 4,000 shops lining 60 vaulted, hand-painted streets.

Copper lanterns, hand-woven carpets, gold jewellery and spice stalls spill into each other beneath domed ceilings that have survived earthquakes and fires for over five centuries.

The stretch of the Li River between Guilin and Yangshuo is lined with thousands of karst limestone peaks rising straight out of the water, scenery that has appeared on China's 20-yuan banknote and inspired centuries of Chinese landscape painting.

A slow cruise or bamboo raft ride down the river passes fishing villages, water buffalo, and cormorant fishermen, the peaks growing more dramatic the closer you get to Yangshuo.

Fushimi Inari Shrine's thousands of vermillion torii gates form a tunnel climbing the wooded slopes of Mount Inari on Kyoto's eastern edge.

The lower gates near the entrance are the most photographed; the full loop to the summit takes 2-3 hours and thins to a handful of hikers past the first viewpoint.

Founded before 794, it remains an active Shinto shrine to the rice deity Inari, with fox statues marking its guardian messengers.

Hoi An's Old Town is a remarkably intact 15th-19th century trading port, its ochre-walled shophouses, Chinese assembly halls, and the Japanese Covered Bridge lining the Thu Bon River.

By day it's a working town of tailors and lantern-makers; after dark the riverside glows with silk lanterns and candlelit boats.

UNESCO-listed and largely traffic-free, it rewards slow wandering more than a checklist visit.

A 12-14 day teahouse trek from Lukla through Namche Bazaar and Sherpa villages to Everest Base Camp at 5,364m, past the prayer-flagged memorial cairns at Thukla.

Everest itself is hidden from Base Camp, so the trek is paired with a pre-dawn climb of Kala Patthar, where the summit catches the first light above Ama Dablam and Nuptse.

Altitude, not distance, is the real challenge, so itineraries build in acclimatisation days.

Three connected towers topped by a ship-shaped rooftop pool anchor this city-state's skyline, reflected in Marina Bay alongside a garden of illuminated Supertrees.

The city's obsessive approach to greenery and cleanliness has made it one of the most striking modern skylines anywhere.

Hawker centres serving Michelin-recognised street food sit near some of the world's most expensive real estate.

An ancient rock fortress rises 200 meters from the Sri Lankan jungle, its summit holding the ruins of a 5th-century royal palace.

Frescoed cave paintings, a mirror wall polished by centuries of visitors' inscriptions, and a giant carved lion's paw gateway mark the final climb to one of Asia's most dramatic archaeological sites.

The State Hermitage occupies the Winter Palace and four adjoining buildings on Palace Square, holding one of the world's largest art collections — over three million objects spanning Rembrandt, da Vinci and Impressionist masterpieces inside gilded Romanov staterooms.

A full circuit covers roughly 20 kilometres of galleries, so most visitors pick a handful of wings rather than attempt everything in one visit.

Over 2,000 Buddhist temples and pagodas dating to the 11th–13th centuries scatter across a dusty plain beside the Irrawaddy River.

Hot-air balloons drift over the gilded spires at sunrise, and even at ground level the density of ancient structures is unmatched anywhere in Southeast Asia.

Limestone cliffs plunge into an impossibly turquoise bay at Maya Bay, made famous by the film The Beach and now managed with timed entry after years of coral damage.

The viewpoint above Tonsai village looks down on two curved beaches meeting either side of a single narrow isthmus.

Snorkelling among the karsts, longtail boat trips and a loud late-night bar scene make up the rest of the island.

Ephesus is one of the best-preserved ancient cities in the Mediterranean, its marble streets lined with the two-storey facade of the Library of Celsus, a restored amphitheatre that once seated 25,000, and the remains of temples, baths, and terraced houses.

Founded as a Greek colony and later a major Roman port, it gives a more complete sense of ancient urban life than almost any other ruin still standing today.

Railay is a small peninsula near Krabi cut off from the mainland by sheer limestone cliffs, reachable only by longtail boat despite technically being attached to the mainland.

Towering karst formations ring beaches of soft white sand and clear water, and the cliffs themselves have made Railay one of the world's best-known rock-climbing destinations, with routes for complete beginners up to experienced climbers.

Jaipur, the Pink City, commits harder to Diwali than almost anywhere in India: the old city and its bazaars are strung with thousands of clay oil lamps and fairy lights for over a week, and the illuminated pink sandstone facades of Johari Bazaar are considered among the country's best Diwali displays, fireworks lighting the sky above the City Palace.

The Arashiyama Bamboo Grove on the outskirts of Kyoto is one of Japan's most ethereal landscapes, where towering stalks of bamboo create a cathedral-like green canopy above the winding path.

When the wind blows through the grove, the sound is so distinctive it has been designated one of the 100 Soundscapes of Japan.

The walled royal compound on the Chao Phraya, built in 1782 and still used for state ceremony, where gilded chedis and mirrored-glass spires crowd against one another.

Wat Phra Kaew inside holds the Emerald Buddha, carved from a single block of jade and dressed in seasonal gold robes.

The dress code is strictly enforced at the gate.

Brilliant white calcium travertine terraces cascade down a hillside, filled with warm mineral pools that have drawn bathers since Roman times.

The ruins of ancient Hierapolis sit atop the terraces, combining ancient history with an otherworldly natural spa.

Phang Nga Bay is scattered with hundreds of limestone karst towers rising sheer out of shallow emerald water, including Ko Tapu, the needle-thin rock made famous by a 1974 James Bond film.

Longtail boats and sea kayaks weave between the islands and into hidden lagoons through partly submerged caves called hongs, some passable only at certain tides, alongside mangrove-fringed fishing villages including one built entirely on stilts.

China's northernmost major city turns into a full-scale ice city each winter, with entire illuminated castles, pagodas, and slides built from blocks cut straight from the frozen Songhua River.

The Harbin Ice and Snow World park alone uses over a hundred thousand cubic metres of ice, lit from within after dark to become the festival's signature spectacle, while a separate snow-sculpture park nearby carves monumental figures from packed snow.

A gold-leaf-covered boulder balances impossibly on the very edge of a cliff, topped with a small pagoda said to be held in place by a strand of Buddha's hair.

Generations of pilgrims have applied gold leaf by hand, thickening the surface over centuries into a solid gilded shell.

At sunset the rock glows against the surrounding hills, appearing to defy gravity from almost every angle.

Peter the Great's answer to Versailles on the Gulf of Finland, where a Grand Cascade of 64 fountains and 200 gilded statues drops from the palace terrace into a canal running out to the sea.

The whole system is gravity fed and uses no pumps at all.

The fountains are switched on with ceremony each spring and shut off in October.

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, universally known as the Blue Mosque for its Iznik tile-clad interior, is Istanbul's most iconic building.

Completed in 1616, it is the only mosque in Turkey with six minarets and its cascading domes and slender minarets form one of the world's most beautiful skylines.

Ölüdeniz's Blue Lagoon is a sheltered curve of turquoise water pinched off from the open Mediterranean by a long sand spit, backed by pine-covered mountains rising straight from the shore.

It's one of Turkey's most photographed beaches and also its paragliding capital — hundreds of tandem flights launch daily from Babadağ mountain and drift down over the bay.

The beach itself is calm and shallow, better for swimming than surf.

Doi Suthep is a gold-spired temple on a forested mountain above Chiang Mai, reached by a naga-flanked staircase of more than 300 steps or a funicular for those who'd rather skip the climb.

Founded in the 14th century around a relic believed to be a piece of the Buddha's bone, it remains one of northern Thailand's most important pilgrimage sites, with a terrace giving a sweeping view over the whole Chiang Mai valley.

Prambanan is Indonesia's largest Hindu temple complex, its central shrine to Shiva soaring nearly 47 meters above a UNESCO-listed field of 9th-century stone spires.

The reliefs lining its inner galleries narrate the Ramayana in stone, and the complex hosts an outdoor ballet retelling the same epic on moonlit evenings.

Less crowded and more intricately carved than its Buddhist counterpart Borobudur an hour away, it rewards an unhurried walk around all three main shrines.

On the fifteenth day of the Lunar New Year, the old mining town of Pingxi in Taiwan's mountains fills with thousands of paper sky lanterns, hand-painted with wishes and released to drift over the narrow valley and its disused rail line.

The tradition began as an all-clear signal after bandits had passed, and is now one of Asia's most spectacular festival sights.

Ayutthaya was the capital of Siam for four centuries and one of the largest cities in the world before Burmese armies destroyed it in 1767, leaving rows of brick temple spires and headless Buddha statues across the old city island.

Its best-known image is a stone Buddha head cradled in the roots of a banyan tree at Wat Mahathat, but the wider site holds dozens of temple ruins connected by quiet canals and cycling paths.

The seat of the Wadiyar dynasty, rebuilt in 1912 in an Indo-Saracenic style that stacks pink marble domes, arcades and stained glass into something deliberately theatrical.

On Sunday evenings and throughout the Dasara festival, close to a hundred thousand bulbs outline the entire building.

Inside, the Durbar Hall is a field of painted columns.

A signed cycle path links Onomichi on Honshu to Imabari on Shikoku across six small islands in the Seto Inland Sea, crossing seven bridges over open water.

Riders follow dedicated blue lane markings past citrus groves, fishing harbours and turquoise straits, with the cable-stayed Tatara Bridge and the towering Kurushima-Kaikyo suspension bridge as centrepiece crossings.

Rental terminals at either end let you start and finish where you like.

Four kilometres of powder-fine white sand lined with resorts, beach bars, and sunset boat cruises, split into three "stations" by how developed each stretch is.

It's the Philippines' most famous beach and one of Southeast Asia's busiest, powdery enough that the sand squeaks underfoot.

A government-mandated cleanup and visitor cap in recent years has kept water quality noticeably better than its reputation from a decade ago.

Thailand's traditional New Year erupts across Chiang Mai's old city moat every April, when the custom of pouring water over elders' hands to bless them expands into a citywide water fight, with super-soakers, hoses and buckets thrown from pickup trucks.

Locals and travellers alike end up soaked head to toe against a backdrop of ancient brick gates and temples.

The iconic multicoloured onion domes of St Basil's Cathedral have made it one of the most recognisable buildings in the world.

Built by Ivan the Terrible between 1555 and 1561, the cathedral sits at the southern end of Red Square and is now a museum.

At the 2,100-metre summit of Mount Nemrut, a first-century BC king built himself a burial sanctuary flanked by colossal stone heads of gods and eagles, toppled from their bodies by centuries of earthquakes but still staring out over the Anatolian plateau.

Visitors climb the last stretch before dawn to watch sunrise light hit the eastern terrace's statues one by one.

Nara Park is a large public park in the ancient city of Nara that is home to over 1,200 wild sika deer who roam freely among the park's temples, shrines, and wooded paths.

The deer are considered sacred messengers of the gods in the Shinto tradition and have been protected for 1,300 years.

A limestone hill north of Kuala Lumpur where 272 rainbow-painted steps climb past a 43-metre gold statue of Murugan into a cathedral-sized cavern holding Hindu shrines.

Macaques patrol the staircase and will help themselves to anything loose.

During Thaipusam in January or February the site draws well over a million pilgrims.

The world's longest railway line runs just under 9,300km from Moscow to Vladivostok, crossing seven time zones and skirting Lake Baikal, the world's deepest lake, over a journey that can take a full week without stopovers.

Most travellers break the trip into stages, stopping in cities like Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude before rejoining a later train.

A 150-metre gold walkway in the hills above Da Nang, apparently held aloft by two giant weathered stone hands.

It sits at 1,400 metres inside the Ba Na Hills resort, reached by one of the longest cable cars in the world, and on clear mornings the whole walkway floats above a sea of cloud.

The Ottoman court's headquarters for four centuries, spread across four courtyards on the point where the Bosphorus meets the Golden Horn.

The Imperial Hall and the tiled chambers of the Harem are the visual highlights; the treasury holds the Topkapi dagger and the Spoonmaker's Diamond.

The terraces give the best free view of the strait.

Red Square is Moscow's central plaza, framed by the Kremlin's fortified walls, the red-brick towers of the State Historical Museum, the glass-roofed GUM arcade and Lenin's Mausoleum.

It has staged state parades, revolutions and coronations for over five centuries and remains the city's default gathering point — a vast cobbled space distinct from the single view of St Basil's Cathedral at its southern end.

Al-Balad is Jeddah's old town, a UNESCO-listed maze of coral-stone merchant houses several storeys tall, their facades covered in ornately carved wooden latticework called rawasheen that once let residents watch the street below without being seen.

For centuries this was the gateway for pilgrims arriving by sea for Mecca and Medina, and the district's souqs, mosques, and courtyard houses still carry that trading-port history.

Traditional hanok tiled-roof houses cluster in the Bukchon district within sight of glass skyscrapers, a centuries-old palace, and a mountain that rises straight out of the city centre.

Gyeongbokgung Palace's guard-changing ceremony still runs daily in period costume against a backdrop of modern high-rises.

Cable cars up Namsan Mountain give a full skyline view at night, when the whole city lights up at once.

Malaysia's Thaipusam centres on Kuala Lumpur's Batu Caves, where Hindu devotees climb 272 steps carrying kavadi - ornate frames pierced through the skin with hooks and skewers, some towering overhead with peacock feathers and metal spikes.

The piercings are undertaken as a vow or thanksgiving, with devotees reporting no pain in a trance-like state, while millions of spectators line the route and cave temple above.

Famous for having the most perfectly symmetrical cone of any volcano on Earth, rising in a flawless triangle above rice paddies and palm groves in the Bicol region.

It remains one of the Philippines' most active volcanoes, with periodic eruptions that occasionally force evacuations from surrounding villages, adding genuine drama to its postcard-perfect profile.

The best views come from a distance - from Daraga Church's ruins or the ATV trails around its lower slopes - rather than any close approach to the crater itself.

A boat trip up the Bosphorus is the easiest way to see how Istanbul straddles two continents, passing Ottoman waterfront palaces, fortified castles, and the suspension bridges linking Europe and Asia.

Ferries run the full length from the old city to the mouth of the Black Sea, or shorter tourist cruises loop back after a couple of hours — either way, it's a relaxed, scenic break from the city's crowded streets and hills.

Diriyah was the original capital of the first Saudi state, and the mudbrick palaces and towers of its At-Turaif district, restored and UNESCO-listed, sit above the green Wadi Hanifa valley on the edge of modern Riyadh.

Najdi architecture — thick clay walls, small windows, geometric details — survives across the old quarter, now paired with new museums, cafes, and walking paths along the wadi.

Mongolia's biggest holiday centres on the 'three manly games' - wrestling, horse racing, and archery - contested each July in Ulaanbaatar's national stadium and on the open steppe beyond it.

Wrestlers in traditional dress compete in a bout with no weight classes or time limit, child jockeys race horses across miles of open grassland, and the festival marks the same summer gathering Mongolians have held since the days of Genghis Khan.

Bangkok's Chatuchak is one of the world's largest weekend markets, spreading across more than 8,000 stalls and 35 acres selling everything from vintage clothing and antiques to exotic plants and street food, packed into a dense grid of covered lanes.

It's as much a local institution as a tourist draw, and the market only runs Saturdays and Sundays.

Jabal AlFil, or Elephant Rock, is a sandstone formation carved by wind erosion into the unmistakable shape of an elephant with its trunk lowered to the desert floor.

It's one of the most recognisable landmarks of the AlUla region, set in an open desert valley that turns gold and red as the sun drops, with a small amphitheatre of seating built facing the rock for evening visitors.

Hong Kong's Lunar New Year is marked by a mile-long night parade through Tsim Sha Tsui, with illuminated floats, international marching bands, and lion and dragon dance troupes performing for crowds packed along the harbourfront.

The festivities culminate two nights later in a fireworks display over Victoria Harbour, one of the most-watched pyrotechnic shows in Asia, visible from vantage points on both sides of the water.

After Tokyo's famous wholesale tuna auctions moved to Toyosu in 2018, Tsukiji's original outer market stayed put, its narrow lanes still packed with over 400 shops selling fresh seafood, knives, dried goods and some of the city's best breakfast sushi.

Vendors grill scallops and tamagoyaki right on the street, the smell of tuna and charcoal drifting between stalls.

Tanah Lot's Hindu sea temple sits on a small rock outcrop just offshore, cut off from the mainland at high tide and reachable on foot when the water recedes.

Built around a natural spring the Balinese consider sacred, it's one of several coastal temples protecting Bali from sea spirits, and among the most photographed silhouettes on the island at sunset.

The temple interior is closed to non-worshippers, so the visit is really about the setting and the ritual crowds gathering for dusk.

Old Delhi's Chandni Chowk has operated as one of India's busiest markets since the 17th century, built as a moonlit shopping square for the Mughal court outside the Red Fort.

Its narrow lanes are a dense tangle of spice merchants, wedding-sari shops and some of Delhi's most famous street food, navigated by foot, cycle-rickshaw and the occasional cow.

The first Disney park built outside the United States and consistently rated among the most immaculately maintained and detail-obsessed in the world, famous for cast members who treat every corner of the park as on-stage.

Its Cinderella Castle sits at the heart of a layout close to the original Anaheim design, while the adjoining DisneySea park (a separate ticket) offers a wholly original, more adult-oriented nautical theme found nowhere else on Earth.

Efficiency and cleanliness here are practically a tourist attraction in themselves.

The world's largest indoor theme park, entirely enclosed beneath a vast red roof shaped like a stylised Ferrari GT racing silhouette, visible for miles across Yas Island.

Formula Rossa, the world's fastest roller coaster, launches riders to over 240 km/h in under five seconds, while dozens of gentler Ferrari-branded rides and simulators fill out the rest of the building.

Being fully indoor and air-conditioned makes it one of the few major theme parks unaffected by desert heat or rain.

Daecheon Beach on South Korea's west coast turns into a giant open-air mud playground every July, when mineral-rich mud trucked in from nearby tidal flats fills pools, slides and wrestling rings along the sand.

What began in the 1990s as a marketing push for local cosmetics has grown into one of Asia's biggest foreign-visitor festivals, unpretentious and genuinely messy fun.