A taste of Khmer culture: exploring Cambodia's culinary heritage

[geovalin]

There are places you dream of visiting where you also know exactly where you want to stay, long before you go. I’ve been obsessed with Cambodia for years, fascinated initially by the beauty and serenity of ancient Khmer sculpture but then also going on to read about the country’s terrible history under the Khmer Rouge.

Last year, I was lucky enough finally to make a flying visit to Angkor Wat for just 24 hours. It only made me the more eager to return – and this time to go also to the capital, Phnom Penh.

In both cities — Angkor was the ancient capital of the Khmer Empire — if you go with any feel for those who have preceded you, it’s the two historic hotels, now renovated and run so sympathetically by the Raffles group — Hotel Le Royal in Phnom Penh and the Grand Hotel d’Angkor – you would hope to stay in. They have both history and luxury.

In Jon Swain’s emotional memoir of covering the wars in the lands of the Mekong, River of Time, he evokes his first arrival in Phnom Penh in 1970, to stay in Hotel Le Royal: “This spacious, almost baronial building, wrapped with flaming red bougainvillaea, had once been the French Officer’s Club … I liked its romantic air at once.”

LONG ARTICLE

read more: http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/travel/a-taste-of-khmer-culture-exploring-cambodias-culinary-heritage-a3189971.html