Hotel De La Paix

Welcome to Hotel De La Paix -the real reason why I am back in Siem Reap. Nick, the GM gave me a really fantastic room rate plus an upgrade the spa suite. It was a fantastic stay.

There are very few hotels whose entry impresses me and HDLP has one of the most beautiful entry. Talk about leaving a deep impression. The poetry of space is SO SO beautiful...... This is what inspires me to do architecture. It makes me tear..

The bathroom walls and floors look like soft sandstone but they come in such big pieces and almost no joints that I have to take a closer look. Terrazzo! That is why the bathtub is constructed so neatly.

HDLP has really nice amenities. These are the things that make or break a hotel experience and so many operators get them wrong.

Agnes, I like this detail for the bedside lamp! All the pendant lamps and bedhead/ bathrub "art" are casted iron pieces made in Thailand. Iconic and bold. This is one designer who knows what he wants and not merely fill up empty walls with framed art.

The suite has a nice space but the planning is a bit off. I think this has more to do with the designer's work process. The standard king room is always the mock up room and will always be the most well planned. Suites come much later in the design and documentation stage - hence the designer is bored already... and sadly it shows in the final space.

2nd floor of the suite is the spa room and the outdoor terrace. I do love this space and the tub is truely huge - enough for 4 adults. I know Peter is going to lament the excessive water required to fill the tub, then he is going to calculate for me how much this amount of water will cost the hotel...... then I am going to feel bad approving such large bath tubs... then... the days of simply designing is gone...

Ok, check out the steps around the courtyard outside the restaurant. Remember it

The public area architecure echos that of Angkor. This is truly a hotel that is designed with a distinct sense of place but with details abstracted to fit the comtemporary era. This is no "step back in time" look. This is a language of a confident designer.

Love the public area art. Agnes, I know you will appreciate this too.

Ha! The outdoor swings of the restaurant. Another similar photo taken by me years ago is still making its grand tour in numerous image boards. For those who uses the image, good for u if u know who took the photo. Better for you, who care enough to find out where the photo was taken. For those 'passionate designers' who are impressed enough with a design as to stick it on a board, why never curious enough to visit the place?

Honestly, the food in HDLP is a pleasant surprise. It is the absolute BEST food I have ever eaten. The BEST food!!! How can breakfast taste so heavenly?! Now we are all having withdrawal sydrome. If I ever revisit HDLP again. It will be for the food, not architecure.

Every Sat, there will be dance performance at the courtyard. But it is not the performance that draws me in. It is this! The steps! By putting those thai cushions and triangular backrest on to the steps, you create seating groups with a loose tray as the cocktail table. What a brillant dual use of space!!! Outdoor seating in an instant!! Unique experience, easy to store, non bulky & costly FF&E!!! Anyway Agnes, I also like the wall sconces and proportion of the columns.

The hotel is full of chill out areas. This is the lobby lounge. For those who has been to HDLP, you will notice that the layout/ space planning of the hotel is not the usual grand, big open space for the lobby and lounge. I think feli feels so comfy in the lounge she almost fell asleep here. Babe, when you tell me you are worried abt your overscaled lounge chairs, THIS IS overscaled and perfect. So dont worry!

The swimming pool - again the repetative use of the HDLP iconic symbol - the fig tree.

Breathtaking Sorrow - Cambodia

So many places to visit in one's lifetime and I hardly thought I will have the time and chance to revisit any. But I did, to Siem Reap. With Kenneth and family.

I was very saddened by what I saw. Within these few short years, the decay of the ruins from natural and man-made forces is evident. Although still majestic and breathtaking, it is clear that a lot is lost and will never be the same as before. I did not expect such nagging pain and sorrow in my heart having to witness the ancient site in this state. To those who "discovered" Angkor with me years ago, "Keep the wonderful memories intact and close to your heart, do not come back..." I used to see this beautiful intricate door detail and pattern everywhere. No more. The door in the photo is the only one I managed to see on site. Most sites now only have the door frame & door opening but such beautiful details are no longer there.

Many of the decorative window columns are destoryed and can be seen lying in piles below where they have fallen. The guide told us that many started tumbling down after recent storms and rains.

Many places within the temples are out of bounds to tourists now. No longer can free spirited backpackers climb up to inter santuaries of Angkor Wat or get lost in the ruins of Ta Phohm. Timber platforms are constructed for tourist to walk on and a singular path/ route dicated. Where they percieve are good photograhic locations, a larger platform is built for the "I have been here" shot.

I hated it. The wandering is gone. The sense of excitment and discovery one feels when one bursted out of the jungle to find the lost civilisation one has been searching for has been robbed.

You can see from the photo above that restoration work is getting desperate. No longer discreet. In fact there are many scenes with yellow construction cranes in the foreground but I cannot bear to record the scene with the camera.

Again I felt conflicted. I remembered years ago, irresponsible tourists pouring unfinished coke over the stone steps, knowingly or unknowingly eroding the treasures of the Khmer. I remembered I demanded more to be done to conserve these structures - more security, add platforms and decks, add barriers to protect the fragile architecture from us...

The timber deck pathway and the fallen rubbles

So i suppose, they have done better, now. I should not be complaining about the efforts.

The French restoration team, I understood, use a modern method of construction to restore Angkor Wat. Joining the huge stones with montar to give it additional strength. However, the montar interfered with the path of rain water drainage and eventually stained and destoryed the bas reliefs on the walls. Once a Buddha carving, now modified into a Hindu God. Different era and different kings, bring forth a different religion.

"Nature. If you water and feed it too well with that strong tropical sun and rain, it will lose control..." - Aldous Huxley   My favorite Monster Gallery @ FCC is gone. The rage now is Dominic Rouse, a photog of the mind. Ecce Homo, a digitally composed decaying figure inspired by Cambodia and S-21 museums is a masterpiece.

" The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin with." - WM Lewis