The call of Cambodia: Hard history and heavenly hotels in an exotic Asian cocktail

On the veranda of Raffles Hotel Le Royal, a woman of elegant middle years is toying with a cocktail.

Apparently lost in thought, she turns the glass so that the ice cubes within clink the sides – a sound that, on this muggy evening, is almost smothered by the tropical burble of insects and the whirr of the ceiling fan. Finishing her drink, she gestures at the waiter for another – and, watching from the next table, I briefly wonder what year it is.

It is a scene that could have played out in any grand hotel anywhere in the Far East at any time in the last century. But the fact that I am observing it in Phnom Penh, in the first days of 2013, is somehow appropriate. For the Cambodian capital is a place where past, present and future seem to mingle, like the components of a gin sling just before dinner.
I notice this almost as soon as I leave the airport.

The present is there in the hundreds of motorbikes that swarm on either side of the taxi, dancing through improbable gaps with that nerveless urgency so common in large Asian cities. The future stares down from the new skyscrapers that are starting, slowly, to jut into the skyline. And history lingers in a city that still acknowledges the long decades it spent under French rule in the 19th and 20th centuries – wide avenues, leafy spaces, a map awash with ‘Boulevards’ and ‘Rues’.
The visibility of its past is one of the reasons why Cambodia – once an uncertain quantity tinged with a dark back-story – has become a popular holiday option of late.

Previously overlooked in favour of its neighbours – Thailand, with its soft beaches and loud nightlife to the west; Vietnam, with its war tales and exotic appeal to the east – Cambodia has quietly grown in profile over the last 15 years, a fresh presence on travellers’ to-do lists.

 

In part, this is down to Angkor Wat, the glorious 12th century Buddhist temple – outside Siem Reap, in the north of the country – whose spires and splendour have become the country’s postcard image.

But there is much to detain the visitor in Phnom Penh: the National Museum, where carved Buddhas and intricate friezes are a reminder that Cambodia was alive with culture while Britain was mired in the Dark Ages; the Royal Palace complex (Cambodia still has a monarchy), where, on the morning I stroll through, the Silver Pagoda – a 19th century architectural fantasy – gleams in the sunlight.

Then there is the darkness. If Cambodia is famous for Angkor Wat, it is also notorious for the brutality of the Khmer Rouge – the regime that, under the dictator Pol Pot, held sway from 1975 to 1979.

There is no joy to be found in a tour of Tuol Sleng, the group’s key internment centre in Phnom Penh – where blood still stains the floors of dank cells in what, shockingly, used to be a school. But a glimpse of this evil place feels as necessary as a visit to Auschwitz or any Nazi landmark in Europe. Talking with my affable guide, Sao Sattya, we realise that we were born six days apart. Hearing him speak of his childhood – including the afternoon, aged three, when he saw his father taken away for execution by the authorities – adds extra horror to a site where thousands were tortured.

Sourced: CambodiaNews