Yesterday First Lady Michelle Obama was here in Siem Reap as part of her Asian tour promoting education for young girls.  We didn’t see her, but saw lots of evidence—police, armed guards, and security vans around one of the nearby hotels.  Siem Reap has grown exponentially in the last ten or so years to a population of around one million people. This has been driven in part by the explosion of tourists coming to see Angkor Wat and the other Khmer temples here.  But, like other cities in the developing world, Siem Reap is a study in contrasts between new hotels and resorts for the international visitors and the very basic life of people living in the countryside. Running water is not a given and many people have no skills and need training and assistance in order to have a better life.

Our hotel, Shinta Mani Club, is modern with traditional elements and is a model for effective community outreach.  The building, set around several courtyards with reflecting pools and balconies, was recently renovated and has air conditioned rooms and modern bathrooms.  Most of the staff are young men (a few women work in the restaurant) and they always greet us with palms together and a slight bow.  At night, the main floor corridors and lobby are lit with candles–votives on stalks, votives in sculptures like one in the shape of four hands, and tall thick orange pillars sitting on the floor.  It makes me feel like I’m in a monastery or a temple, which is probably deliberate on the part of the architect, and is a bit eerie.

But the hotel is up to date.  Upon arrival, we were given a local cell phone to use and the reasonably strong Wifi is complimentary.  Even better, here on the other side of the world far far from home, Facetime works.   Thanks to Wifi, we enjoyed a screen call with our granddaughter.  Simply amazing!  We had connected in Hanoi and Hue also and marveled at how technology has transformed how we stay in touch.  When I was a child, my grandparents would call long distance from Michigan to New York State and my siblings and I each got a turn talking to them—but we had to be brief because it was long distance and each minute cost.

The hotel restaurant, Kroya, is excellent.  The breakfast buffet has everything you could want either Asian or Western, hot and cold dishes, and the dinners are very good.  There is an a la carte menu, but more fun is to do their tasting menu of Cambodian dishes.  The portions are small and the menu is different every day, but usually includes some sort of salad, a sour soup, rice, and two other small dishes with pork and fish and then a sweet, often something based around rice.

More important than the hotel itself is what Shinta Mani is doing for the people of Siem Reap.  They run a School of Hospitality at the hotel which trains young people in all aspects of hotel operations, providing them a stipend while they learn and equipping them for future jobs.  This was so successful that more recently the Shinta Mani Foundation was established and their efforts now also include a program on farming techniques for villagers, start-up loans for small businesses and support for healthcare check-ups in rural areas.

Yesterday morning, we went at dawn’s early light to the Banteay Srei temple which is a Hindu temple to the god Shiva built in the 10th century.  It is made of reddish pink sandstone and is simply lovely!  Smaller in size and scale than the other Angkor temples, it has been dubbed the “Lady Temple.”  Since we were there so early and almost alone, we meandered around, had time to frame our photo shots and even got inside the ropes for an up close look at some of the beautifully intricate carvings.  We easily spent an hour in that peaceful pink setting.  Hard to say, but this may be my favorite of all the temples we’ve seen.