Belmond La Résidence d'Angkor

The Hotel

Belmond La Résidence d'Angkor opened on 8 December 2000 as the first international-luxury hotel built in Siem Reap after the country's stabilisation in the 1990s — the small Belmond (then Orient-Express Hotels) acquisition that anchored the operator's South-East-Asian portfolio. The site is on the eastern bank of the Siem Reap River — three blocks east of the central French Quarter, on a 9,000-square-metre plot bordered by the river to the west and traditional Khmer-village land to the east. The architectural commission was Bangkok practice Architrave with traditional-Khmer-craftsmanship consultants from the Royal Cambodian Architecture Office; the building reads as a series of seven traditional Khmer-style villa-pavilions arrayed around two central courtyards, with hand-carved teak panels, traditional Khmer roof-pitching, and the central river-facing pavilion as the property's principal architectural set-piece. The decorative programme is genuinely Cambodian — every carved-teak panel, every traditional textile, every decorative-arts piece commissioned from Cambodian craftsmen, with no theatrical-design substitutes.

The 62 rooms — including 8 suites — are arranged across the seven villa-pavilions, with most categories opening to a private balcony overlooking the central courtyards. Standard categories at 32 square metres include the carved-teak panel decorative programme; Premium and Suite categories at 60 to 110 square metres add private outdoor sitting areas. The Royal Suite at 110 square metres is the milestone unit, with a private balcony directly over the Siem Reap River. Bathrooms are travertine and locally-sourced Cambodian wood; bath products are Belmond's signature.

Spice Circle is the principal restaurant — a contemporary Cambodian-Asian register opened with the hotel — and Martini Lounge is the cocktail-and-aperitivo programme. Both rooms open to the central courtyard. The Spa Temple — a deliberately separate building set within the property's eastern courtyard, with five treatment rooms and a hand-carved teak interior — is the property's signature wellness component, running an authentic Khmer-massage and traditional-medicine programme. The 30-metre central courtyard pool is surrounded by frangipani trees and is the most-photographed Belmond pool in South-East Asia. The hotel runs daily Angkor expeditions through the in-house tour programme.

The riverside position is the booking trade-off — three blocks east of the Park Hyatt and the central French Quarter, six minutes by remork or three by car to the Old Market and Pub Street, ten minutes by car to Angkor Wat. The walking-Siem-Reap brief is shorter than from Park Hyatt but the river-and-traditional-Khmer-village position is the unambiguous proposition: the address reads as authentic-Cambodian-village rather than central-tourist-zone. For travellers wanting the river-villa-and-Khmer-architecture register over the central walking-Siem-Reap or the heritage-grand-hotel registers, Belmond is the right answer.

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