Perfect 10

Published: 12:00am, 6 Jan 2004

1 Sunset at Angkor Wat

You've arrived mid-afternoon (on the Hong Kong flight), checked out the hotel and changed into your Lara Croft/Indiana Jones explorer gear. It is time to get your bearings. If you turn up at the temple toll booth after 4.30pm you can buy a US$50 'access all areas' pass valid for the next three days and the guards will let you in to watch the sunset free. Head to Angkor Wat - the largest and most famous of the Khmer temple complexes of Angkor - grab a drink from the vendors outside and scramble up the steep steps of the centre tower to join the mellow crowd as the light turns violet and magical. It's the perfect start to your trip, not just because Angkor's 105 temples were designed around the movements of the sun and stars. From here, most of the temples are spread out before you, poking out of the rich jungle. It also gives you a chance to appreciate the biggest and best sight of all: Angkor's natural jungle.

2 Chez Sop'hea Restaurant

This is the stuff of dreams, not least because most people stumble on it by chance (it's tucked under ancient trees 100 metres from Angkor Wat's main gate), leave absolutely hammered ('Oh look, they have Calvados!') and spend the rest of their stay trying to find it again. The restaurant's trouble and triumph is that, with just five tables, it looks like any other noodle cafe and makes no attempt at advertising. Its idiosyncratic and seriously gourmet owner Matthieu (a former architectural photographer from Southern France) says: 'I only opened the place because I love good food and hate eating alone.' Two people can eat and drink like King Sihanouk for US$20. (Matthieu claims the king as a personal friend and occasional customer: 'How else do you think a westerner gets to rent a spot next to Angkor?') A warning: as the empty wine bottles stack up and Cambodian village life schleps lazily by, expect to lose an entire afternoon. After all, there are times for temple visits and times for getting tipsy under the canopy of a 300-year-old tree. Chez Sop'hea, Restaurant Francais, Angkor Wat. Mobile phone, tel: [855] 012 858 960; e-mail: [email protected]

3 Working Khmer temples

If you ever wondered what happened to the religion that built Angkor and the superstitions that shaped Khmer culture, the answer is nearby. The tourist board doesn't advertise the working, modern temples of Angkor but they are worth an hour or so - not least because they function as social centres as much as places of worship. My favourite modern temple is next to Angkor Wat (first right off Airport Road after Angkor Wat). After the refinements of the ancient temples, it's refreshingly kitsch. Its 1990s breezeblock walls are frescoed with crude cartoon visions of heaven and hell. For a dollar or two the abbot will treat you for any number of malaises. Couples who have argued and want to make up have to kneel down, hand in hand, as water is poured over them. Those who want to be sure of each other's love can buy silver waist chains filled with tailor-made prayers. A potion for 'good sex' is also available for US$5, although it comes in an old Dettol bottle and smells a lot like rose water.

4 Waterways

Engineers will tell you that the real genius of ancient Khmer architects was not their temple complexes but their waterways. Today, they are the home of Vietnamese fishing families who live, work, and even marry without stepping on dry land. If you're pushed for time, head to Phnom Krom (where the boats from Phnom Penh dock) for a sunset cruise on Tonle Sap lake. Hire a boat from one of the many boatmen for about US$20 and let him take you around the floating village's schools, pubs, cafes, assembly halls and even past rusting floating machine-gun nests. Buy beers from old ladies in boats. Bring your swimsuit in case you fancy a dip. If you have more time - and many rolls of film - take an open boat to Cambodia's second city, Battambang. The four-hour journey across the lake and up the winding Sangker River smuggles you through a network of floating villages largely untouched by tourism or electricity. It feels like travelling back about 1,000 years. Surprises, photo-ops and smiles arrive with every bend of the river.

5 Foreign Correspondents' Club

A clone of the hugely successful FCC Phnom Penh, this year-old retreat is the ideal place to unwind with a few G&Ts after a hard day's tomb-raiding. Like its well-loved Phnom Penh sister, the FCC Angkor is housed in a riverside colonial home (in this case, a former French consulate) and is all high ceilings, huge windows and churning fans. Guests have a choice of sitting downstairs among a series of candle-lit ornamental ponds, or crashing out upstairs in one of the signature out-sized leather armchairs. As with the Phnom Penh FCC, there is a stack of local newspapers to remind you that Cambodia is still Asia's premier nutcase country. Thirty-three guest rooms are due to open this month, see www.fcccambodia.com for details. Membership is not required. Tel: [855 63] 063 760 236; e-mail: [email protected]

6 Ta Prohm

If you're pushed for time or belong to the Angkor Wat-ever school of archaeology, then at least visit Ta Prohm. This temple has been left more or less as Henri Mahout discovered it in 1860. Its sculptures are wrapped in moss, its crumbling towers entwined in tree roots and gripped by vines. The area's other 105 temples might demand some historical study, but to appreciate the slow-motion wrestle between nature and nurture all you need is to find a pile of rocks, sit down and relax.

7 Lunch at Amansara

In the kingdom of Cambodia, this super-ritzy retreat wears the royal loafers. Built by King Sihanouk in 1968 (when he was going through his film-director phase) to host his Hollywood friends, it has been renovated by the Amanresorts Group. And even if you can't manage the US$600-a-night room tab, lunch at the restaurant (set in the groovy circular projection room where Sihanouk used to hold his movie premieres) is a great way to escape the tourist bustle. That the food is considered to be the best in the country is no surprise. The hotel is run by Toby Anderson, Amanresorts' star chef for 10 years. Ingredients are bought fresh each morning, the menu of French and Cambodian classics is changed daily, and the hotel boasts Cambodia's finest wine cellar and largest selection of French cheeses. An unforgettable meal for two costs about US$70. Amansara, Angkor Road, Siem Reap. Tel: [855 63] 760 333; fax: [855 63] 760 335; e-mail: [email protected]

8 Spas

Cambodia has a long tradition of restorative massage which, considering the state of some of the roads around Angkor, is no bad thing. The best place for a bit of first-world pampering is the Sofitel Royal Angkor Spa. Recently opened and purpose-built, it is a rarified temple of pampering. Treatments using traditional Khmer techniques and preparations range from US$45 for a one-hour basic massage to US$135 for a two-and-a-half-hour mud and milk extravaganza called Naga's Pleasure. It certainly worked for actress Angelina Jolie. During the making of Lara Croft Tomb Raider she visited seven nights in a row. Cheaper, equally relaxing and even better for your soul is Angkor Massage on Airport Road, off the Siem Reap National Highway. Despite costing just US$3 an hour, the massages given here are regarded as among the best in Asia, not least because all the masseurs are blind and undergo 12 months of training before they start.

9 Kbal Spean

This almost 1,000-year-old collection of river sculptures and lingams (stone phalluses), hidden in jungle-covered mountains 11km from Angkor, was discovered only 30 years ago. It may not be there much longer because looters have begun hacking the sculptures out of their natural settings. It's not easy to get to, but it's worth the effort. The journey takes you on a 40-minute trek through dense jungle, past a beautiful limestone waterfall (ideal for a picnic) and finally to a river whose bed has been carved into hundreds of lingams which purify the water as it flows down to Angkor. Carvings of animals and spirits have also been hewn out of the rock banks. It is serene and relaxed and, thanks to the distance from Siem Reap, it's possible to visit without seeing any other tourists.

10 Landmine Museum and Information Centre

This scruffy collection of more than 4,000 defused mines is both an anti-war statement and a labour of love. For its director, Aki Ra, whose parents were killed by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge in 1976 and who was himself forced to lay mines around Siem Reap by Vietnamese invaders, the museum is a heartbreaking reminder of Cambodia's recent suffering. Garden displays show how mines were made and hidden to cause maximum injury. For information about the damage mines do, you can talk with victims who work at the museum. For the local tourist authority, which has tried several times to close the museum, it is an unwelcome reminder of the area's strong Khmer Rouge ties. Located past the children's hospital on Angkor Wat Road, opposite Wat Tmei Pagoda. For details call Aki Ra: [855] 012 630 446. Entrance is free, but most people make a donation.

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