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Siem Reap Hotel Guide
Siem Reap Hotel Guide: Hotel De La Paix's Hidden Water Wonderland
October 24, 2008 at 9:56 AM | 0 Comments
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.
Siem Reap Hotel Guide
Siem Reap Hotel Guide :: Raffles, In Contrast, Is Fit For A Queen
October 23, 2008 at 9:15 AM | 0 Comments
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.
Siem Reap Hotel Guide
Siem Reap Hotel Guide :: La Residence Gets A Facelift But More Work Is To Be Done
October 22, 2008 at 10:15 AM | 0 Comments
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.
Cambodia Hotels
Siem Reap Hotel Guide :: Angkor Century Resort Goes Big
October 21, 2008 at 9:30 AM | 0 Comments
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.
Cambodia Hotels
Cambodia Hotel Guide :: Boutique Cambodia Hotel Found in Kompong Cham
October 7, 2008 at 3:57 PM | 0 Comments
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.
Cambodia Hotels
Cambodia Hotel Guide :: Basic Amenities In Cambodia Equal Bliss
October 6, 2008 at 4:57 PM | 0 Comments
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.
Cambodia Hotels
Cambodia Hotel Guide :: More Eco Lodging In Kep
September 26, 2008 at 2:30 PM | 0 Comments
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.
Earlier this week, we told you about Rainbow Lodge in the jungles of southwestern Cambodia. Turns out, the place has some company in the world of midrange eco lodges in the country wedged between Thailand and Laos.
Veranda Natural Resort, in Kep, Cambodia, has many of the amenities of Rainbow at half the price ($25 versus $50, though Rainbow's fee includes three delicious daily meals). It also includes 24-hour electricity and air conditioning, welcome amenities that might call the eco-friendly claims into question.
Kep, a sleepy town that's just now, for better or for worse, waking up to tourism, is located on the ocean. The beach there is lousy, we hear, but a short boat ride from the virtually uninhabited Rabbit Island a 20-minute boat ride away, which offers better sand and debris-free surf.
[Photo: murimboh]
Cambodia Hotels
Cambodia Hotel Guide :: Siem Reap's Hotel De La Paix
September 25, 2008 at 1:50 PM | 1 Comment
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.
Angkor Wat is Cambodia's penultimate symbol, source of national pride, and hottest travel destination. The network of ancient temples'--built during the height of the ancient Khmer culture and abandoned in the jungle during its decline--attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. Dozens of hotels in the nearby city of Siem Reap accommodate this steady influx.
Cambodia Hotels
Cambodia Hotel Guide :: The Queen's Hideaway
September 24, 2008 at 9:15 AM | 0 Comments
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.
Despite the clout of Raffles Hotel Le Royale, Phnom Penh's most popular 1920s-era hotel isn't the imposing colonialist establishment, but instead a small boutique hotel called The Pavilion in a quiet neighborhood near the Tonle Sap river and National Museum.
Comissioned by the king's grandmother so she could pray at the nearby Buddhist temple, the hotel fuses French and Khmer (Cambodian) architectural styles. Today, the hotel's owners do their best to add modern amenities to the historic building. Visitors can use the hotel's free WiFi from platform beds in the gardens, or take a dip in the giant swimming pool or the new Jacuzzi.
A few visitors complain that the old structure leaves something to be desired with the small bathrooms and fickle plumbing system, and bedroom views range from beautiful overlooks of the pool and garden to a full shot of the cement wall surrounding the structure. Rates start at $40 per night.
Cambodia Hotels
Cambodia Hotel Guide :: Historic Raffles Hotel Le Royale
September 23, 2008 at 9:20 AM | 0 Comments
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.
Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital, has distanced itself from its sordid past. Hotel Le Royale, now part of the five-star Raffles chain, was built in 1929 during the heyday of French imperialism. There, writers and journalists rubbed elbows with royalty and dignitaries. It was all very Casablanca, Southeast Asian-style.
