Siem Reap is awash with hotels including some very expensive ones and some very nice-looking ones. We’re staying in the very centre of things, next to Pub Street.
The owner is an ex-pat American who started a bar here six years ago. He then moved into the hotel business opening a one room hotel complete with lobby and taking advantage of his bar and restaurant. This got vast amounts of publicity and got onto the Condé Nast Hot Hotels list in 206 and Travel and Leisure’s best hotels of the year list in 2007. He then opened a three-room hotel next door.
His bar Linga is Siem Reap’s first gay bar. So we spent our first night in a gay disco rather than the anticipated pouring over maps and guidebooks, planning the temples.
Night two was the special Saturday night show featuring a troupe of Cambodian ladyboys for whom this was one of their regular venues. A small stage was set up in the bar facing the pavement. The local police and even the small beggar kids stopped hustling to stare at the glam costumes and OTT miming of the disco greats.
