Raving about Raffles



Performers at the Raffles Barbeque

This visit to Angkor, unfortunately, has been rushed.  We left the ship about 3:00 p.m., drove to the beautiful “new” Bangkok Airport (7 years old), and finally arrived in Siem Reap and our hotel at around 7:45 p.m.  The route from the airport was lined with new, large hotels surrounded by tour buses.  Our guide explained that Angkor draws millions of tourists every year, but the bulk still come from Asia—South Korea, China, Japan, Vietnam, and Thailand, in that order.  Western tourists are still a smaller group.  Raffles is an incredibly peaceful and elegant hotel with all the trappings of the 6 star prices it commands.  We had a barbeque poolside complete with a presentation from Cambodian entertainers.  And so to bed.



View from the Balcony of Room 2324, Raffles Hotel

The balcony of my room overlooks the pool/garden area of the hotel.  The breezes this morning were cool and refreshing and accompanied by the call of parrots which I could never locate.  We had a sumptuous breakfast and then piled into our buses.  Our group was divided up into groups of 15 which was not too large.  The first thing that strikes one about t1-he area is the incredible “busy-ness.” Tuk-tuks are buzzing around everywhere, joined by a mixture of tour buses and motorbikes.  I was expecting a peaceful and meditative spot.  Not so.  The first stop is the tourist office where one must buy passes (1, 2, and 5-day passes), complete with photos, to visit the temple sites.  The lines were what I’ve come to call Arab lines, which is to say very chaotic; they were not your standard British queue.  We struggled to stay up with our guide, and after having our photos taken, we couldn’t relocate our tour bus.  Finally all aboard, we ventured forth onto the site of the ancient city of Angkor Thom, which held over 70,000 inhabitants during its prime.

     …to be continued