The Turnaround

During our trip to Cambodia in 2005, we stayed at the Shinta Mani Hotel, a small, secluded retreat from the crushing heat and motor scooter-crowded streets of Siem Reap. The cool white walls, chilly rooms, and rustic pool area made a big impression, and I’d been looking forward to bringing the family there to experience the Khmer-style massages for themselves.

You can imagine my horror, then, when we arrived yesterday to find the Shinta Mani surrounded by a rigid wall of ugly red scaffolding. Painters swarmed the exterior like worker bees, spraying white paint in all directions. The sound of compressors, drills, and hammering was deafening — in the lobby, in fact, we had to shout to hear each other.

Sound terrible? Wait. It gets worse.

The sweet staff apologetically informed us that our rooms weren’t ready. By this, they didn’t mean that our rooms needed maid service. Instead, they literally meant that our rooms weren’t ready: the furniture, mattresses, and fixtures were piled in the hallways, awaiting reinstallation.

A crew of workers hastily reassembled one room for us: a slap-dash emergency measure positioned in a hot, upstairs corner next to the loudest of the construction. The ceiling inside the doorway sagged; a light fixture drooped there, slowly pulling away from wet plaster. “Don’t worry,” the manager said. “The construction only goes from seven to five daily; the rest of the time, it is all very quiet.”

Clyde’s family is the sort that makes do, and at least two nephews were already eagerly watching Ole Miss sports over the hotel’s wireless internet connection. But the longer I sat there, stewing, the more I began to realize that I had reached my limits. It was one thing to have a touring day spoiled by bad planning in Bangkok; it was quite another to plop the whole family down in the middle of a construction zone.

I phoned up Douglas, the owner of the company that helped with our arrangements. Without losing my cool, I explained the situation and let him know that this wasn’t the experience I paid for. To his credit, minutes later the hotel manager appeared to apologize … and to refund our money. Our guide, Lin, made a few calls … and a half-hour later, we checked into the fabulous colonial Siem Reap hotel.

Here, we have teak floors, good beds, and frosty rooms in a lavish colonial-era building — it’s a paradise, in fact, just half a block from the Old Market, restaurants, and bar district. The rooms are spotless and silent. After our tour, we came home and bobbed around in the salt water pool, where even I could float. We walked to the Red Piano, ate pasta until we could eat no more, received incredible six dollar massages, ate rocky road gelato, and then came home for a peaceful night’s sleep.

We’re headed out again today, ready for more adventure — and ready to come back this evening, swim some more, and joy the best that Siem Reap has to offer.