Round The World and other travels
A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries
This is: Round The World 2015
Raffles luxury
St
Andrew's Day 2015 started with breakfast once again in the excellent
club lounge of the InterContinental Phnom Penh. Being on more of a
strict schedule today, we stuck to buffet items only, but it was
still a great way to begin the day. All too soon, it was time to
check out and ride the hotel's black Mercedes limousine back to the
airport.
The Cambodia Angkor Air check-in experience was hideous.
While the line for an ATR-operated flight can never be overly long,
this one was extraordinarily slow moving, and we found ourselves
in the unaccustomed position of being right at the end. Fortunately, the flight itself turned out to be
perfectly acceptable.
On arrival in Siem Reap, we had something of a sense of déjà-vu when it was time to transfer to our new hotel. Raffles had sent an almost identical Mercedes to pick us up, with the same familiar amenities of powerful air-conditioning, wifi, cold towels and chilled water - all ever so stylish! Our latest destination was a city of around 230,000 people, although it seemed to have more of a small-town feel as we drove through its streets. Situated in northwest Cambodia, it is a hugely popular destination because of its role as gateway to the Angkor region.
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LEFT: Settling into the luxury of Raffles |
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| Additional photos from Raffles website |
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Our room at Raffles was ready for our arrival. It's funny how you can always tell when you arrive at a place where absolutely everything is exactly as it's meant to be. I think we could be forgiven for feeling quietly satisfied with the way that this particular element of the planning had turned out in practice.
After briefly exploring the hotel and its grounds, we set out for a short walk in the immediate locale and were staggered to find that our planned lunch venue, Marum, was fully booked. We had both been looking forward to sampling this restaurant as it was a member of the Tree Alliance, a Jamie Oliver-style group offering a leg-up to disadvantaged young people. In the event, we found an acceptable alternative a couple of streets away. It was then an easy walk back to Raffles, past the Angkor National Museum. We decided to reschedule our planned visit to this attraction for Wednesday morning.
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| Photo from Raffles website |
We both had a hugely enjoyable afternoon, lounging
around by the side of the gorgeous pool at out new base, and going
into the water at will. (In my case, as a non-swimmer, being in the
pool was a relatively unusual event, and I enjoyed the experience
all the more for its rarity, as well as for the quality of the
surroundings.) All in all, it was a highly civilised and thoroughly
relaxing afternoon. I'm not sure what
triggered it, but at one point Bruce suddenly had the idea of emailing Marum
to see if they had any tables available for dinner. Unexpectedly,
given the situation at lunchtime, they had.
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| In the Elephant Bar, at Raffles | |
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| We finally made it to Marum | |
Later, after freshening up, we had cocktails in the fabulous Elephant Bar at Raffles. This was followed by a very nice dinner at Marum, where we were allocated an outside table cooled by electric fans.