Siem Reap; A Hotel Paradise.

A 2 hour flight from HKIA towards the jungle nation of Cambodia, will land you roughly in the vicinity of Siem Reap, the location of one of the greatest and oldest man made monuments in history, Angkor Wat.

Upon arrival to their beautiful airport (which sadly, I had neglected to fire off shots of), we moved easily through the various procedures of a tourist (customs, visas, etc), to be greeted by 2 men holding up a sign with my mother's name on it. Apparently, she had hired these guys to take us around to the various historic locations. These guys are brothers in law, and share the same friggin name, so that makes it kind of easy. Unfortunately, my forgetful ass has already forgotten their names. They start driving us towards our hotel, naming off the great price of $30 a day for their services. Incredible!

Along the route to the city of Siem Reap, are lined hotel after glamorous hotel, to take advantage of the tourists hopping off the plane. These hotels are absolutely stunning. They’re huge, well lit, and all architecturally individualistic and expressive conceptually. Each one feels like an oasis in the seemingly provincial small town that is Siem Reap. The tourist industry pretty much fuels the economy. A dude born in this town can either go to work at a hotel, buy a motorcycle and cart tourists around for $1, serve in a restaurant, or work at an internet café. Oh, and there are loads of internet cafes!

My mother and I get to our awesome hotel, the Prince D’ Angkor, swiftly hit our room to drop
our things off, and rush back out into the town to meet our much anticipated meeting with Happy Hour. Our first stop was the Raffles, a legendary Asian hotel sort of chain, for the Elephant Room bar & lounge. The whole thing is decked out in elephant décor, and the cocktails, strong and delicious. (I recommend the Singapore Sling, knocked me on my ass). This hotel is so old, and you can definitely swim in the vibe of its history by just walking through it.

Afterwards, we head to this Art Nouveau hotel called the Hotel de la Paix. Incredible art work throughout the whole joint. The hotel is built with an indoor courtyard, with a lone

tree in the center.

There are places to sit and dine or drink on the perimeter, and the

central bar/lounge area is where they show their premier artist’s pieces. We sit here, and order ourselves some lavish cocktails, therefore redlining our drunk meters.

One drink sat in a glass that ‘floated’ in a basin of ice.

Onward to dinner! After some deliberation, we chose to eat at an Indian restaurant that sits in the heart of Pub Street, which as you can imagine, is where all the major bars are located. The Indian restaurant was called Kamasutra, which seemed a bit inappropriate. Nevertheless, we got ourselves some awesome Tikka Masala. At this point though, I felt the alcohol a little too much, and so we headed straight back to our hotel room to prepare ourselves for the next day of tourism.