Heaven... in a land that's seen Hell: Cambodia's pristine paradise and lemon grass vodka.. what an intoxifying combination

Daily Mail (UK) | 15 June 2014

Until relatively recently, Cambodia’s inclusion on any list of global hotspots wasn’t in recognition of its beach holiday potential.

The brutal reign of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s resulted in the deaths of three million Cambodians and left a large swathe of the country littered with landmines that continue to claim innocent victims today. 

My first visit in 1998 coincided with the emergence from 20 years of hiding in the jungle of one of the Khmer top dogs, the infamous Brother No 2. 

Private paradise: An aerial shot of the luxury resort Song Saa in Cambodia

Instead of being slapped in handcuffs for his crimes, he went on a government-sponsored tour of the country. He and I happened to visit Cambodia’s most famous tourist attraction, Angkor Wat, at the same time. 

Despite this 1,000-year-old temple complex being a contender as a wonder of the world, visitors back then were few. I found myself on the ancient causeway into the main temple with one of the biggest mass murderers of all time, an icy chill coursing down my spine. 

My latest visit to Angkor Wat with my family couldn’t have been more different. There is much building and expansion nearby, with Chinese money flowing faster than the Mekong. 

Coaches spew out hordes of South Korean and Chinese visitors who swarm around the temples like camera-wielding worker bees. 

The jewel in the crown of the Khmer Dynasty that thrived between 800AD and 1200AD, the fearsome-looking complex of places of worship, tucked deep into the jungle on the border with Vietnam, must have been a terrifying sight when stumbled upon by unwitting early travellers.

Pristine paradise: Mariella Frostrup relaxes at Song Saa

This forbidding pinnacled manifestation of heaven on earth, a representation of the Hindu’s mythical Mt Meru, is the centrepiece of a unique but increasingly dilapidated collection of temples built by Khmer kings to honour the gods. 

There’s no denying the magnificent, crumbling edifices to a mysterious civilisation, scattered across 12 miles of verdant jungle, have the wow factor – whether it’s overgrown Ta Prohm, the site that featured in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, with its gigantic tree roots literally growing out of the crumbling walls, or the Bayon, with myriad towers and 216 carved stone representations of Avalokiteshvara, looking suspiciously like the egotistical king who commissioned it. 

The dawn pilgrimage to see the rising sun illuminate each carved stone face at Bayon is well worth the sleep deprivation. 

The nearby town of Siem Reap is positively buzzing and a destination in itself. There are bars and restaurants, a bustling market, boutiques selling a multitude of items made of crocodile skin, along with glorious textiles, plastic shoes from China and a host of other treasures, some gaudy, some gorgeous.

I’d love to say we picked up some beautiful handicrafts but it was a pair of wedge-heeled shoes that caught the eye of my nine-year-old daughter Molly.

Diving in: Molly, Dan and their instructors during their scuba course

Cambodia is clearly on fast-forward when it comes to tourism. In the Nineties, the idea of luxury hotel brand Aman Resorts setting up business in Siem Reap was unthinkable, yet here we were lazing by its bamboo-bordered pool, while our accommodation was crammed with fluffy pillows and crisp linen. It was a far cry from the accommodation on my previous trip.

At even the best guesthouse back then, the only pillow on offer was an A4-sized hardened lump that could have doubled as a doorstop! 

The Aman offers guides to the temples and it also runs a host of other excursions. Our favourite was a cruise on Tonle Sap Lake on the hotel’s customised boat, its top deck covered in cushions. 

After several days of diligent sightseeing we were ready for some R&R. We took a 40-minute flight to the seaside town of Sihanoukville, which was off bounds 16 years ago as the last stronghold of Khmer Rouge stragglers. Today it’s a bustling port, dotted with giant cranes and big ships. 

Sihanoukville is gateway to a collection of islands that are as much a wonder in this over-trammelled world as the man-made miracle of Angkor Wat. Koh Rong and Koh Rong Samloem, the two main islands that lie to the north of the port, have had a reprieve from planned development, thanks mainly to the financial meltdown. 

Their future destiny, I fear, is as a Koh Samui-type destination for the next generation, but at present there’s only a scattering of guesthouses frequented by backpackers dotted along miles of pristine beach and jungle.

For a glimpse of paradise before it’s fashioned into a ‘holiday experience’ you need look no further. Along with the scattering of backpacker idylls, an impressive addition to the private island experience can be found on a minuscule neighbour.

Seductive: The private pool at a Song Saa villa

 

Ten years ago, pioneering Australian couple Rory and Melita Hunter stumbled upon Koh Oun and Koh Bong, two closely coupled islands appropriately nicknamed ‘the sweethearts’. They leased them, linked them with a wooden bridge, fought a long, tough battle to bring environmentally friendly resources to the spot, and finally realised their dream two years ago. Their creation, Song Saa, is a remote oasis that gives the top holiday spots in the Maldives and Seychelles a run for their money. 

These days, escaping the hurly- burly is an increasingly expensive business. The more barefoot the experience, the higher the price, as more and more of us covet total escape from the modern world during our rare periods of downtime.

Private island resorts are definitely in vogue, from Soneva Fushi in the Maldives, to Mnemba off Zanzibar. And if you are lucky enough to have the budget, there are few better places to unwind and relax than these oases of luxury, with only a few others sharing your experience of paradise. 

Completely isolated, there’s no pressure to dress up or even get up on Song Saa, and nothing is too much trouble. Whether it’s relaxation or yoga practice, purifying or retoxing, there’s little you won’t find on the menu.

Historic wonder: View of Angkor Wat city and the Baphuon temple at Angkor, Cambodia

The spa offers wonderful massages on a stilted, muslin-curtained pagoda over the sea; in a treehouse in the jungle, couples can experience a Khmer wedding ritual where you’re pampered in oils and poultices to within an inch of your pleasure peak.

The accommodation is simply beautiful. We marvelled at our stilted wooden villa perched above the sea, featuring portholes in the living room floor from which to view the plentiful fish, while the bedrooms had four-poster beds so big that the whole family could have slept there comfortably. 

Outside was a shower cunningly screened by wooden planks – standing under a stream of warm water as fishing boats in shades of emerald and cobalt wound their weary way home after a night at sea was one of the highlights of our stay. 

Thanks to Melita’s brilliant gift for reclamation, almost everything in Song Saa has history, whether it’s beaten-out panels from rusty metal barrels used to create an arresting cubist chandelier; chairs and table legs made from the bow planks of abandoned fishing boats; old clapboard wall panels; shower heads created from hollowed driftwood; and stools honed from tree stumps.

In five days at the resort not a day passed without stumbling across some new interior detail to feast upon. That said we lived outside for most of our time. The only noise pollution here is from fish leaping about in the jade-tinted sea beyond our private pool, and the evidence of oceanic bounty compelled the children to try scuba diving.

Ancient wonder: Mariella and Molly at the Angkor Wat temples

As with every suggestion at this ‘can-do’ resort, it was embraced with enthusiasm by the staff. In a mere three days, Molly and my son Dan, eight, went from novices to marine explorers on the resort’s Bubble Master course, which comes with a much-coveted certificate. 

After a couple of sessions practising in the swimming pool with Ruth, the hotel’s general manager and dive instructor, they ventured into open sea, or at least the shallow channel dividing ‘the sweethearts’. Their shrieks of excitement could be heard from the Driftwood Bar where my husband Jason imprisoned me to prevent me from leaping in after our minnows. 

With no sights to see, restaurants to visit, or shops and markets to frequent, and with only one walk (through virgin rainforest to the exposed rocks on the undeveloped ‘sweetheart’), we embraced a sloth-style level of inactivity.

GETTING THERE

Cox & Kings (coxandkings.co.uk, 020 7873 5000) offers a nine-day holiday to Cambodia from £3,695pp (£1,195 per child under 12 when sharing their parents’ room) including return flights with Malaysian Airways via Kuala Lumpur, transfers, domestic flights, two nights with breakfast and excursions at the Amansara in Siem Reap, and four nights full-board at Song Saa. A night can also be included at the Mandarin Oriental in Kuala Lumpur from £95pp.

As the children were busy on their scuba course, Jason and I lazed around, reading, chatting, choosing favourite tunes on Spotify (an internet connection in such a wilderness location is still a surprise) and choosing from the three different food menus (including tasty Pacific Rim cuisine). 

We also succumbed, perhaps too enthusiastically, to the lemongrass vodka left in our villa with limes and sugar syrup so we could make our own mojitos. Morning and evening yoga on the wooden deck outside our water villa proved the perfect bookend to each day of blessed inertia. 

Returning to Cambodia after a 16-year absence, I cannot help but be amazed by the dizzying degree of change. I loved Cambodia the first time I visited, and my affection for this once-traumatised country, now zooming into the 21st Century, was further rekindled on this trip. 

Far less visited than its neighbours, with welcoming people and cuisine that gives Thailand a run for its money, there are many reasons to come here. 

The legacy of the Khmer Rouge is still visible; the notorious SS-21 torture centre in Phnom Penh, now a museum, offers a terrifying example of how low human beings can stoop. Nor can birdsong erase the sense of desolation in the Killing Fields, a spot where so many innocent people died. 

Heaven and Hell may be co-dependent but few countries offer more than one earthly paradise. Cambodia can make that claim. The man-made wonder that is the Angkor temple complex definitely lives up to the ambitions of the god-kings who created it.

I can only hope that the politicos ruling the country today appreciate the other paradise they have responsibility for – the unspoilt, utterly seductive crop of islands which Song Saa lies among. 

Preserving such natural wonders with the same vigour that they’ve recently begun to apply to their first millennium temples would ensure that Cambodia becomes a truly irresistible world-class destination.