As I waded into the crystal clear river fully dressed, towards Kanika, I thought to myself, “I don’t think normal travel consultants behave like this”.

I hadn’t even attempted to take off my clothes and change into swim wear. As I arrived at the Champa Lodge, a gorgeous little retreat near Kampot in Cambodia, I was immediately drawn towards the river.

The lodge is perched on the bend of a gorgeous river and there is even a small beach that leads into the clear shallow waters. That’s when I notice Kanika floating around in a lifejacket.

She waved me over enthusiastically and told me to join her.

“But I’m wearing my clothes,” I said motioning towards my silky skirt that I picked up in Hanoi for about £3 about three months ago and have worn ever since.

“Me too,” she said, now standing in the shallow water that only came up to her knees, revealing her t-shirt and denim shorts under the life-jacket.

My argument had been shot to pieces. It was so hot. The water was so inviting.

“Ok,” I said, throwing down my backpack and wading in. My skirt billowed around me, with huge water pockets floating to the surface and sticking to my legs at the same time. It was so cool and so refreshing.

Swim Wear is for Sissies

Here we are making a ‘heart’ with our fingers, which I have seen the cool kids do on Facebook. Unfortunately I am not quite achieving the desired look with my eyes closed.

It was around that time that Yan, who runs and owns the lodge with her Belgian husband Stephane, wandered over with my ‘welcome drink’, looking slightly bemused by my sudden river antics.

But, as I was about to find out, that’s The Champa Lodge for you. Anything goes.

The lodge has three gorgeous traditional Khmer houses on stilts – Yan and Stephane purchased them from other villages before dismantling and lovingly rebuilding them on their rather spectacular plot of land, which is surrounded by mountains, mangroves and rice paddies. While everything about their structure and design is original, the couple have kitted them out with plenty of little luxuries like piping hot power showers, funky square ceramic basins and even made-to-measure wooden furniture and big beds. Finishing touches include Khmer silk scarves strewn across the beds and fabulous photographs taken by friends of the family.

Inside one of the lovely Khmer houses

One of the ‘posh plastered’ rooms under one of the stilt houses

I was staying in the Sugar Palm Lodge, which has one big bedroom and en-suite upstairs with a huge comfy terrace overlooking the rice paddies, and a chill out zone equipped with hammocks under the stilts. Aptly named the Sugar Palm Lodge thanks to the towering trees to one side which a man climbs twice a day to collect sugar palm.

With plenty of work to catch up on I eyed up the daybeds on my terrace, which made for the perfect ‘office’. But with only 24 hours to experience this hidden gem of Cambodia, there was no time for such thoughts.

The office.

Instead, Stephane fixed a brand new engine to his local-style wooden boat, packed a cooler-bag of waters and beers, and together with his adorable five year-old daughter in tow we headed upstream. The river must be one of the cleanest I’ve ever seen, it feels more like a massive spring. As the sun lowered we passed the fishing boats heading down to spend the night at sea, and saw the shiny gold steeple of a pagoda emerge from the deep mass of mangroves.

It was about this point that Stephane’s ‘steering stick’ (I’m sure there’s a more technical name for this but you’re not going to find it here) floated downstream.

“Oh did you need that?” I asked naively. He nodded gravely. After scooping up a few bits of insufficient sticks of floating bamboo, there was only one thing for it. This time it was Stephane’s turn to jump in the river. There’s a theme here I thought as I held onto the mangroves trying to pull the boat round into the right direction.

In safe hands…

That was just the beginning. Within a few hours we had dried off and were drinking ice cold Belgian beers and eating Stephane’s mother-in-law’s special Khmer Curry (which very much had a if-I-told-you-the-recipe-we’d-have-to-chain-you-to-our-kitchen-forever feeling). My favourite kind of curry.

By the time we had moved on to the 10% Belgian beverages, Stephane and Yan had convinced me that it would be a great idea to go caving and rock climbing the next day.

“Yeah, I’m going to conquer all my fears,” I slurred, clinking my bottle enthusiastically.

By morning, I cowardly traded in this experience for a 1.5 hour kayak trough the mangroves with a lovely Swedish family.

As we paddled through the tranquil waters, as if carving our way through a shiny mirror, we watched a group of women appeared from nowhere and wade through the river before disappearing into a mass of mangroves. They were, of course, fully dressed.

And I smiled to myself. Happiness is wading into a river with your clothes on and just not caring, I decided. And Champa Lodge is the perfect place to do it.

Travel Tips

If you would like to stay at Champa Lodge, or combine it as part of a holiday to Cambodia contact me at delia@fleewinter.com or click here to read more.

Disclaimer: I visited this resort as part of my research as a travel consultant. My views remain my own – and this blog remains my personal account of my travels – but every now and then I will tell you about some of my the very special places that I visit as part of my work.

Villa Romonea stands tall and proud on a beautiful spot besides the ocean on the southwest coast of Cambodia. Gleaming white, its modernist curves and angles reflect the strong rays of the early afternoon sun, making me reach for my sunglasses as I marvel at its smooth lines.

This is an image of Cambodia in its heyday, a time not all that long ago – but before the country was ravaged with civil war and genocide. When Villa Romonea was built in 1968-69, Kep was the ultimate seaside retreat for the Khmer and French elite. More than 1,000 luxurious villas were positioned along the coast – each finer and grander than the last. Villa Romonea, designed by Lu Ban Hap, was one of the last ones to be built, so also one of the finest, Stephane adds with a sense of pride in his voice.

Today Stephane is the manager of this striking 6-bed hotel, which blends curves, angular lines and zig-zags seamlessly. When I met Stephane after a party of holidaymakers had just checked out, the doors and windows were all open allowing the air to circulate through the buildings and into the freshly cleaned bedrooms. There was some banging from the huge modernist kitchen to the right as the last of the plates were put away in preparation for the next guests.

“The kitchen is free for everyone to use,” he explained. It serves as the cooking space, the eating space, the ‘just hanging out’ space if you wish – in that way that only a truly fabulous, big kitchen can pull off. But if cooking on holiday is not your thing, then fret not – Stephane works with eight great seafood restaurants in the area that will deliver their freshest dishes piping hot.

But the villa has not always gleamed and shined in this way. If walls could talk, these walls would tell a rather more somber and tragic tale. Originally owned and built by a local woman who lived nearby, she only lived in the building a few years before the Khmer Rouge invaded. Along with most locals, who had a degree of wealth or education at the time and did not manage to flee, she was executed by the brutal soldiers who claimed to be ‘liberating’ the country under Polpot’s crazed regime.

Over the course of just four years, from 1975 – 1979, the Khmer Rouge wiped out almost two million people – almost a quarter of Cambodia’s population. The troops rolled into Phnom Penh ordering the city to be evacuated, claiming ‘American bombing’ was imminent. Families packed small bags and made their way out to the country by whatever means they could – those that were lucky enough to have vehicles only got as far as petrol would allow before they joined their fellow evacuees on foot.

After walking for days, even weeks, thousands of citizens found themselves completely displaced, families torn apart, children lost. Those with the wrong accents or skin a shade lighter than the rest would fare the worst. The victims who were not bludgeoned or shot to death died from disease, starvation or sheer exhaustion in labour camps in the years to come.

But Villa Romonea stood her ground. Her owner was executed, and her children are said to have fleed successfully but she stayed put. Her white paint lost its shine, the walls soon bore the wounds of artillery fire and instead of a home of peace, she became a military base for the team of Khmer and Vietnamese soldiers who would eventually emerge triumphant over the Khmer Rouge.

She saw it all. And like all Cambodians that survived these atrocities she emerged battered and bruised.

Looking at pictures of the villa, taken just seven years ago before renovation work took place, it’s hard to believe I was sitting in the very same place. The pictures reminded me of a skeleton. Her now pristine white walls were stained black with dark holes for windows, like sockets without eyes. Some parts of the walls were incomplete, although Stephane said largely the structure remained unscathed. To me the pictures showed a building that looked more suitable for demolition than resurrection.

But I suppose that’s Cambodia in a nutshell today. Coming from Vietnam, the poverty in Cambodia is immediately apparent, and while I cannot profess to be an expert in the slightest, I am sure that having the majority of your professional population stripped by genocide and using any wealth on arms, must play a role in its economy still today.

But just as Villa Romonea has been lovingly stitched back together to resemble that fiery dragon once more, so has Cambodia. The scars can still be seen, even if the wounds are healing, but it is a country on the mend. And it’s mending with a smile.

Villa Romonea can be booked per room or for the entire villa – for more details about renting out Villa Romonea in Kep, Cambodia – or making it part of a tailor-made holiday in Cambodia email me at delia@fleewinter.com

PS None of these fabulous pictures have been taken by myself (I was too busy gawping and asking questions) they have all been ‘borrowed’ from Villa Romonea’s mighty fine website.