Cambodia Travel Guide
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Dining With Horses: The Nature Lodge Lives Up to the Nature Part of Its Name
Last year, Claire Duffet gave us the low-down on the Siem Reap Hotel Scene. But this year, she's taking us off the beaten path to some of Cambodia's Remote Hotels. Any questions or suggestions? Let us know.
Mondulkiri is one of our favorite places in Cambodia. Just south of Ratanakiri in eastern Cambodia, the two provinces make up the country's remotest and most rural region, where ethnic minorities and waterfalls abound. Mondulkiri's capital, Sen Monorom, is set atop a plateau, making it the coolest and most comfortable place in the hot, sticky Southeast Asian nation.
Instead of wet jungle, you get rolling hills, sparse trees, and instead of hardened city residents, you get lovely locals who will welcome you into their homes or offer you a ride on the village elephant.
About five minutes away from the main town, which is a challenging, uphill, 12-hour drive from Phnom Penh, is an oasis-within-an-oasis, Nature Lodge.
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Knai Bang Chatt brings WASPy to SE Asia
Last year, Claire Duffet gave us the low-down on the Siem Reap Hotel Scene. But this year, she's taking us off the beaten path to some of Cambodia's Remote Hotels. Any questions or suggestions? Let us know.
While visiting Kep’s many hotels, it’s quickly apparent that the seaside town--as opposed to sprawling, seedy Sihanoukville--wants to be upscale and subdued. Refreshingly for Cambodia, development here for the most part, seems slow, careful, and planned. One hotel owner told us he was banned from building on the road where King-Father Sihanouk’s old mansions are located. We were happy to hear it.
Listed among Conde Nast Traveler's Hot List 2007, and with rates that start at US$110 a night, Knai Bang Chatt isn't trying to be anything but the very best. The setting is sublime -- three main buildings sit upon a landscaped lawn estate with a sizeable horizon pool accompanied by a wooden lovely, open-air restaurant along the waterfront that serves up fine, very healthy, food.
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Stay in High-End Bungalows in Pol Pot's Hometown
Last year, Claire Duffet gave us the low-down on the Siem Reap Hotel Scene. But this year, she's taking us off the beaten path to some of Cambodia's Remote Hotels. Any questions or suggestions? Let us know.
Kampong Thom is usually the town travelers pass through en route from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. Set on the Stung Sen river, this backwater town is also the jumping off point for visiting Sambor Preykuk, ruins from the Chenla period predating the famed Angkorian temples to the north, as well as Phnom Santuk, a rundown hilltop temple similar but inferior to Udong in Kandal Province.
It’s also the area from which Cambodia’s most notorious despot, Khmer Rouge "Brother Number One" Pol Pot, hailed. About a half million people reside in the province, Cambodia’s centermost, and its terrain is how one envisions the country’s landscape, with flat, green rice fields being plowed by villagers on water buffalo extending as far as the eye can see.
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Ratannakiri's Terres Rouge Offers More Than Red Dirt
Last year, Claire Duffet gave us the low-down on the Siem Reap Hotel Scene. But this year, she's taking us off the beaten path to some of Cambodia's Remote Hotels. Any questions or suggestions? Let us know.
Banlung is Cambodia's most far-flung provincial capital and retains the Wild West atmosphere of a rough, rural town that once gripped the entire country. It's at least 12 hours' drive (or a precarious propeller-plane flight) from Phnom Penh, over roads that are mud pits during rainy season and dust clouds during dry season.
For those who make it to the country's northeasternmost region, tucked in the jungly "dragon's tail" between Laos and Vietnam are rewarded when they arrive at Terres Rouge, a lakeside resort set on expansive, green grounds with a pool, spa, and a restaurant with fantastic French cuisine.
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A Beautiful Hotel, Minus the Unexploded Bombs and Human Remains
Last year, Claire Duffet gave us the low-down on the Siem Reap Hotel Scene. But this year, she's taking us off the beaten path to some of Cambodia's Remote Hotels. Any questions or suggestions? Let us know.
If Cambodia isn’t remote enough for you, there are regions within this Vietnam-Thailand sandwich that are even more difficult to access, with hours-long rides on bumpy, red dirt roads from the nearest airport cities of either Siem Reap or Phnom Penh.
However, some of the lodgings hidden deep inside Cambodia’s jungles, in its remote towns, or atop its forested hills, offer historic charm, quiet beauty, and luxurious rewards for those willing to brave the dust, heat, and blasting karaoke music on some of the world’s most uncomfortable bus rides.
This week, we’ll bring you five of the countries most remarkable—and inaccessible—luxury hotels.
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Siem Reap Hotel Guide: Hotel De La Paix's Hidden Water Wonderland
A few weeks ago, we discussed the merits of Hotel De La Paix from afar. This week, we had the chance to step inside the hotel and snoop around. Despite a distinct feeling of inferiority like only the French can impose, the experience was pretty sweet.
Our takeaway? Other than enjoying the avant garde installations in the hotel's swank lounge and discussing with a cocktail waitress the myriad wildlife living in the giant Bayon tree in the center of the hotel's courtyard, the thing we most enjoyed about the place was its pool. This thing is ridiculous.
Hidden on the hotel's second floor, it has everything: a bridge, an infinity ledge overlooking the ground-floor courtyard, poolside beds and cabanas, benches and tables in the water, and a series of tree-laden canals that made us wonder how many lovers have taken advantage of the privacy all the nooks and crannies afford.
Whereas the rest of the hotel has this understated, Egypt-meets-Art-Deco feel to it, everything about the pool is over the top. And we like it.
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Siem Reap Hotel Guide :: Raffles, In Contrast, Is Fit For A Queen
Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor provides what's expected of it...no more and no less. Like Amansara nearby, the hotel focuses on understatement to liken itself to royal tastes and emphasize its subtle class. The hotel's sterile, colonial exterior continues inside the building's hallways and guest rooms. The result is a removed feeling from the air and bustle of Siem Reap--welcome to some and disconcerting to others.
Still, it's the best way to see how high society of yesterday (and today) experience Angkor, from a safe, removed distance. The newly-built extension continues the hotel's austere feel that the more critical might (and do) call "uninspired." The rear gardens resemble a place where Queen Elizabeth might let her basset hounds roam. And the buiscuits served at tea resemble something she might serve her guests, though the confections seem a bit too rich for such a disciplined woman.
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Siem Reap Hotel Guide :: La Residence Gets A Facelift But More Work Is To Be Done
La Residence D'Angkor is Siem Reap's greenest and wettest hotel. And as of August 1, the place just got greener and wetter. La Residence reopened after a three-month revamp. Orient-Express, which owns the hotel, brought in Pascal Deyrolle, a 16-year veteran manager with the company specializing in "troubled properties."
Pascal added even more trees to the already dense foliage, he says, updated the grounds' many ponds, redecorated the outdoor lounge terrace, and added a new outdoor BBQ spot (complete with $50 imported Australian steaks). To hammer the theme home, guests receive complimentary coconut-flavored, green welcome cocktails.
And Pascal has more grand plans for the hotel, he tells Hotelchatter. While a few guests right now have to suffer through the adjacent construction, by next year, the hotel will feature a multi-story spa with VIP treatment rooms.
He's also adding eight new suites, with indoor/outdoor spa bathtubs. And with all the new trees, nobody swimming down at the saltwater pool below can see how you choose to use this amenity.
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Siem Reap Hotel Guide :: Angkor Century Resort Goes Big
More than eight million tourists visit Angkor Wat annually. The innumerable hotels in Siem Reap, the neighboring town that houses and feeds these visitors, all seem to shout for market share. Cheapest! Priciest! Best Golf Course!
Undoubtedly, Angkor Century Resort & Spa, yells the loudest. It's by far the largest hotel in Siem Reap, in terms of the size of its ground--2.4 hectares--and its number of rooms--190. Even the swimming pool is the biggest in town, the hotel's friendly Malaysian manager informed us.
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Siem Reap Hotel Guide :: Of Course, Amansara Is Fit For A King
It makes sense that, after a long day of visiting Angkor Wat, the famed temple ruins of Cambodia, that one should retire to Amansara, the five-star hotel in the adjacent town of Siem Reap.
That's because, throughout the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries, Khmer kings vied for glory by one-upping each other and building the most impressive temples honoring themselves, and, secondly, the popular Hindu and Buddhist gods of the day.
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Cambodia Hotel Guide :: Boutique Cambodia Hotel Found in Kompong Cham
HotelChatter and Jaunted Contributing Editor Claire Duffett is now reporting from Cambodia and this week she is giving us the low-down on the hotel scene. Any questions about accommodations? Send 'em to us and we'll get them answered for ya.
With its French influence, it's a wonder there aren't more boutique hotels in Cambodia. Too often, it seems the chasm between bargain basement hostels and opulent resorts is vast. The omission of midrange hotels and boutiques mirrors the absence of a middle class here.
Sokleap Guest House sticks out of Kampong Cham. The city, a two-plus hours driving distance from Phnom Penh, makes a nice weekend trip for residents of Cambodia's capital. It rests along the Mekong River, with renown pagodas and villages all short boat or moto rides on tree-lined streets away.
For $10 a night, guests have a soft bed with sturdy sheets, water, tea, and a bathroom with a separate shower that isn't perched over the toilet. The $20 double rooms come with two large beds, a wide porch, and rare-to-behold sight in Cambodia--a bathtub.
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Cambodia Hotel Guide :: Basic Amenities In Cambodia Equal Bliss
HotelChatter and Jaunted Contributing Editor Claire Duffett is now reporting from Cambodia and this week she is giving us the low-down on the hotel scene. Any questions about accommodations? Send 'em to us and we'll get them answered for ya.
The Cambodian aesthetic, at least when it comes to buildings they think will appeal to Westerners, involves fluorescent lighting, cold, white tiles, and ceilings high enough to make make Yao Ming look petite. Still, austere-but-comfortable hotels can sometimes be a welcome respite from dusty streets, squat toilets, and markets lined with hanging raw meat.
Mekong Hotel, in Kampong Cham, lacks any semblance of atmosphere. Still, this lumbering building along the Mekong River offers large, clean rooms with air conditioning, hot water, views of the water, and a close proximity to the Western bars and restaurants. For masochistic, prideful backpackers and volunteer workers who don't like to treat themselves but find themselves in the quiet Cambodian city, at $12 a night, it's a stealth way to sneak in a little comfort.
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