It s the most amazing place I ve ever been to in my life. And besides, there was a splendid old hotel, the Grand Hotel d Angkor, recently refurbished by the Raffles Group from Singapore, in the grand colonial style, with a spa on the hotel grounds. Well, decent telecommunications, for one thing. I arrived at Siam Reap International Airport, and smugly breezed past all the white folk queuing for a visa. I don t need a visa.
Life s little pleasures.
We then fell into chatter about mundane things, gossip about friends, a brief discursus on metaphysics and Being, etc. On the way, we passed a small white building, about as large as one of the more ostentatious houses in Corinthian Village. A small wisp of brown smoke floated lazily from one of the chimneys. Angkor is smack in the middle of the town, and is more splendid than the Royal Residence, which it faces, across an immaculately manicured garden. Prices were astronomical.