It dates back to the early 1930s, and has gone through a few name changes: Hotel

Le Royal (during the French colonial and subsequent Sihanouk administrations), Hotel

Le Phnom (the Lon Nol republic) and Hotel Samaki, or "Friendship" (the

1980s). The grand old hotel has played host to many who have witnessed Cambodian

history in the past six decades. As a newly-renovated Le Royal is opened by the Raffles

company, veteran British journalists Tim Page and Jon Swain take a

walk down memory lane. At top, Tim Page, in his inimitable style, races through 30

years of Phnom Penh hotel history. Below, Jon Swain, in an extract from his book

River of Time, recounts the last days of the hotel's 'guests' in April 1975.

Motoring into Cambodia, way back in '64, compliments of the British Embassy Vientiane

CD-plated Ford Cortina, albeit with the 2nd Attaché politico, we could not

afford the majestic Royal Hotel. We stayed at a one-star mahogany and formica-lined

edifice, the Sukhalay, now the mega-block occupied by the City Central; I see from

my aging guidebook, rooms were between $4.50 and $7.05.

Years later at the height of the war next door in Vietnam, I took a working R&R

in Cambodge en route to Singapore. Funds kept quality of abode to the 4-star Paris,

confined to my chambers with one of the worst cases of Indochine nab-dabs. I turned

dehydrated, pouring liquids from every orifice, sustained only by a daily then twice

daily cyclo ride to Madame Churn's house of therapeutical repute. The cure finally

took hold from a bottle of milk of magnesia dispensed by Alex Brauer, a CBS cameraman,

beside the pool out back of the Royal. Even a non-resident could sneak in and use

the facilities or crash out in one of cage-grilled, verandah-front, ground floor

rooms that the press corps was just starting to co-opt. In a pinch you could ride

your bike up the front steps and park it right in you room.

But it was the bungalows out back that certain bits of the hard core Cambodian crisis

coverage Corp. tend to associate with easily. In the 70s several agencies opted to

rent out some of the dilapidated garden bungalows. These purely colonial upcountry

annex structures afforded the discretion offered by the back entrance, with amenities

and chow proffered by room or pool service, and the isolation created a fire base

party mentality.

Each unit was a miniature French equivalent of a Dak bungalow of bygone India Raj

days. One or two bedrooms, bathrooms with French aging-tech plumbing and a day area,

checker-tiled, and the inevitable uncomfortable naugahyde armchairs and sofas. A

few had pullman or separate rudimentary kitchens with office style multi-purpose

table/desk.

The power supply, even with the advent of most NGOs basing themselves there in the

80s, remained subject to the whims of the city and whoever controlled the necessary

fuel flow. NGOs and coalitions of freelancers came to bunk in the bungalows once

the Vietnamese made aid easier and the border with Thailand became porous. The Royal

staggered back to a form of nostalgised life, the bustle never at the peak known

in its former flamboyant years. The bar was always gloomy, a 40-watt neon-lit lizard

nest, the naugahyde glinting uninvitingly, with a few reptiles hanging out at the

bar awaiting NGO or UN crumbs.

It was renamed the Samaki though everyone still knew the bird by its original name;

Pol Pot, and then Viet-communism, had not treated the place kindly. Pilferage and

neglect eroded the fabric of the once-splendid facade, trilled greenery originating

from the ground and self-propagating, stucco and tiles littered in the shadows of

the eaves. Fauna of unpleasant species occupied the glop-flooded basements. Ripped

screens guaranteed an intimate knowledge of the bug life that had led entomologists

to originally re-discover Angkor.

The bungalows had donned multiple coats of mildew, fixtures ripped out by retreating

Potists or Vietnamese; the taps disgorged intermittent coughs of barely treated water

that had to pass under the basement quagmire. When Raffles got hold of the property

two meters of slime sludge and attendant wildlife were scraped from beneath the colonial

structure. No reports of human remains, though ghost stories like those from the

palace in Dalat remain confirmed or otherwise depending on your source. The German

hermaphrodite's python was never rediscovered.

Heydays are only to be remembered by those who were upon them. The boom, or boom-boom,

days seem to have come in waves reflecting decisive moments of Cambodia's jagged

history. With a building that has housed or hosted so many Epoques, it would

be difficult to zoom in on any one chapter that is its quintessence. My heyday has

to be that of the '91 return to normalcy, when all political parties plus Sihanouk

reverently returned to town with UN aegis to get the place jump-started.

It was the birth of the PPPost. Kathleen and Michael Hayes bursting into the Associated

Press firebase/bungalow and trying to exact the cover price from the assembled mass

of media, drivers, A-teams and passers-by. The Bangkok bureau's advance post headed

by Nate Thayer, under Denis Gray tutelage, was sweeping the wire coverage, whilst

gathering legendary gin & tonic bar bills at the Cambodiana. The move was set

and the doctors decamped to the back of the Royal to re-hang their slate. Compliments

of Arthur, Reuters' star photographer, we ran a seven-course dinner brewed up on

a hot plate and kerosene heater, the common room table swept clear of mounds of classified

Khmer Rouge material. Remember the fire and riot at Khieu Samphan's new villa that

we all got cover photos from?

The desk drawers were herbal apocotharies, the walls an audio-visual of Indochina.

The happy snap wall perfected by Mark Dodd of Reuters at the Pailin office came out

of LZ AP, already well-embedded in a rapid fire, mad hatter blur of crazed journo

delight in the Royal's backyard.

It was the party, it was the drop spot, and it was normal to awaken in the morn or

post-nap to find a complete new cast - hangers-on, wanna-bes, and the trickle-turned-flood

of parachuted hacks hot on the trail of budding UN-believable tales. Mini-conferences

took over the corner cozy, spooks of every persuasion sifting through Nate's gleanings.

At night, out front on the patio, served by the hotel basement culinary enterprise,

a beer bar/dancing/café flourished administering to the burgeoning population

of Blue berets and UN civil task forces. Comfort girls surged in cross-border by

the truckload from Vietnam. The only reliable refurbishers of villas and the housing

stock were Cochinois from Can Tho and Chau Doc. The folk who had been genocided and

deported were back making the place tick, running the border black market, soaking

up the hard cash for hot and cold comfort. The cigarette and beer companies proselytizing

their products on the new booming economy festooned the patio in banners and brollies,

and sponsored bevies of hostesses. Our predilection for a nite cap on the terrace

simply led to some of these flowers traipsing back to the quarters for further enlightenment.

The biggest problem was, when enforced, finally decamping to permanent digs, given

the abysmal state of the Royal's communication system. One can but pray for something

Singaporean-modern today. Then it was a switchboard that had done duty when Dien

Bien Phu fell, Lon Nol took over, and Pol Pot brought in East Bloc-ers to correct

the previous errors. The Thais were then only just starting to push mobiles onto

the market.

For the Royal, there were fears and rumors, buyers and pull-outs. I don't think anybody

wanted to see the grand old lady's demise. An ex-US ambassador, the last to serve

in '75, came back touting for an Indian hotel chain; the hostelry fell empty, gutting

itself.

It is a joyous thing for those of us imbued with nostalgia to be able to scoot past

the hotel on the way from the French embassy or Calmette hospital, and know that

the reassuring facade now boasts a full deck behind.

Gone I suspect are the 16-buck-a-nite suites, but then gone too are Sean Flynn and

Dana Stone and 17 other MIA journalists lost in another heyday when the last photo

of the two lads was snapped out front of the Royal as they left on their bikes on

that last ride. Their fate drew me back to this memoir of renovation.