This week’s travel dream: Bustling, beautiful Cambodia

Phnom Penh is a city “teeming with energy and enterprise,” said Thomas Beller in Travel + Leisure. This wasn’t the case in 1994, when I moved to Cambodia’s capital as a reporter. Back then, the communist Khmer Rouge still controlled large chunks of the country, and the threat of renewed internecine violence remained an undercurrent in a city that served as a “lawless haven for adventurers, layabouts, and hedonists.” When I booked a recent return visit, I was expecting a city that would be bristling with high-end hotels, fancy restaurants, and hip boutiques. What I didn’t know was if modernization had obliterated Phnom Penh’s old charms.

Stepping out of the airport, I’m immediately relieved to find that the city hasn’t been completely made over. “It still has that fantastic smell!” I tell an old friend as we catch a “sweet, smoky” odor, like roasted cardamom. Other changes make the familiar bustle simply feel more civilized. Streets previously dominated by bikes and scooters are now filled with cars, and stoplights have replaced traffic cops standing on pedestals. Changes are also apparent outside the capital. Battambang, the country’s second-largest city and a previous Khmer Rouge stronghold, is now a serene place—its air is filled with the chants of monks, and its river at night resembles “a tiny Seine, dotted with elegant lamplights and arching bridges.” From there, we head for Siem Reap and the nearby Angkor Wat temple complex. “Legions of brand-new hotels” line the main road of the city, which “has justifiably become an international tourist destination, an item on the bucket list for every collector of the ancient and monumental.”

I return to Phnom Penh for my final evening in Cambodia, including an “excellent” South American dinner at Tepui, a restaurant with a “modish” dining room festooned with Chinese lanterns. As I rush to the airport, I pass the Olympic Stadium and look for the giant Seiko clock that once adorned its side. But the clock, which used to be stuck at 4 o’clock, is long gone. Clearly, in today’s Cambodia, “time is moving again.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Doubles at Raffles Hotel Le Royal Phnom Penh (raffles.com) start at $190.