When you are in a foreign country and are prone to homesickness, like I am, where you opt to stay makes a whole lot of difference. As travellers, we tend to experiment with a variety of stay options. We have tried everything from 5-star hotels to OYO Rooms to very basic homestays. While we tend to enjoy homestays a lot, at times, a bit of luxury is food for the soul. This is exactly what Chateau D'Angkor La Residence turned out to be.
Chateau D'Angkor La Residence is a boutique hotel in Old French Quarters in Siem Reap, at walking distance from the original night market, pub street, and Siem Reap River. We booked a two-bedroom suite for the 5 of us - Didi, jeeju, Nishu, VJ, and me. Location-wise, ours was the best room in the hotel. It was pool-facing and on the ground floor. The photograph above is clicked from our balcony.
Apart from two bedrooms, the suite has huge living room with dining area. If we had a grievance with the hotel, it was about the sofa that has been put in this suite. It is not at all comfortable and we hardly ever felt inclined to sit in the living room. I never thought that a chessboard-patterned floor could look so good.
I was in love with the wooden doorframes. It was a double door - one with glass panes and the other wire mesh. The latch was old-fashioned and quaint. If ever I get an opportunity to design a house for my family, I would like to install these doors for sure.
The room had a fully equipped kitchen and a washing machine. This was where we prepared our ready-to-eat Indian meals whenever we had had enough of Cambodian food. This was where we prepared our many cups of teas and coffees too.
We had almost all our meals on the dining table. The place definitely felt like home. It was actually a two-bedroom flat with an enviable layout, huge bedrooms, modern bathrooms, and a substantial living room space. A lot to take inspiration from if you plan to design a house. The ceilings were high too, making the space feel cool and airy.
This was the restaurant where we had our breakfast. The breakfast had a substantial variety of cereals, salads, sausages, noodles, bacon, breads, yogurts etc. Apart from that there were some really tasty tropical fruits and some awesome croissants. Cambodia has a really good bakery scene, possibly a legacy of the French.
The restaurants had huge glass windows on all the sides with palms planted outside. When the shutters were up, it was bright and sunny and felt as if we were out on a beach. In true Cambodian style, breakfast opened early at 6am and was served until 9:30.
This is the five of us on the ramp leading up to the reception of the Chateau. We got really attached to the place over the 3 nights while we were there. None of us wanted to leave the Chateau when we headed from Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. We wished we could take the Chateau along with us wherever we went.
We noticed little things about this property, like the variety of grass and shamrocks, the French Style Architecture, the not-so-French swimming pool etc. During most of our stay, we were in the hotel only in the mornings and late evenings and at these times it was too cold to go into the pool. But we did manage to grab about half-an-hour for a few laps.
This is one of bedrooms. You will see the same door frame everywhere. More than anything else, it was these door frames that caught my fancy.
Overall, we would rate the Chateau 4.5/5 for the whole experience. I have taken .5 points away only for the uncomfortable sofa which made the living room pretty much useless. Breakfast was good, staff was very helpful and polite, and the hotel is located at a convenient distance from most markets and eating places.
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