They talk about us

  • Hanuman Travel Cambodia called "one of the travel world's top fixers' in The Sunday Times

    It’s not where you go, it’s who you know when you get there. Our team reveal their top fixers

    Cambodia - Hanuman
    "Kulikar Sotho’s first job in travel was organising passage for 7,500 UN peacekeepers. Then the Khmer Rouge collapsed, ancient Angkor was rediscovered by the west, and Kulikar’s company, Hanuman, was on hand to act as midwife to Cambodian tourism. A decade or so later, more than a million visitors pitch up each year — including Korean coach parties wielding megaphones. Not to worry: Hanuman’s impeccable guides know how to dodge the crowds. For example, they spirited me to Angkor Wat’s eastern gate, the “back door”, for an exclusive, all-to-myself view of Asia’s most humdinging archeological site.
    Hanuman also fixed it for me to spend a few days in the remote, red-earthed Ratanakiri region, where I penetrated sacrificial rituals, shook hands with pipe-smoking toddlers, and found out exactly why you should never sup rice wine with the villagers. Best of all was my “temple safari” in the steaming, spidery Cambodian jungle — the brainchild of Kulikar’s husband, Nick Ray, who is also Lonely Planet’s writer in Cambodia and a self-styled temple-hunter. As the location scout for Tomb Raider, Ray unearthed virgin Angkorian citadels such as Ko Ker, where I scrambled up a rickety ladder to the top of a 120ft pyramid and found myself sole overlord of a 10th-century city, scores of its monuments still smothered in the undergrowth."

  • Hanuman Travel Cambodia reviewed in Lusso Luxury Lifestyle Magazine

    There are no other visitors at the temple of Banteay Chhmar. Just us. It attracts 100 tourists monthly, but once the new road is built, 10,000 are expected. We stand alone amid the almost untouched antiquity or the architectural masterpiece commissioned by King Jayavarman VII in 1191. For 800 years, until 1956, its towers and temples lay hidden in undergrowth, harmed only by nature. And then looting began in the 1990s.

    We clamber amid a jumble of fallen sandstoneblocks. Think arches, walls, temple ruins, nearly everything lopsided and toppling. Light filtering through the dense jungle foliage, we discover magnificent carvings. Here, a bas-relief of naval warfare, with some dead sailors being gobbled by crocodiles; there, scenes of warfare with infantry and elephants; and over there, carvings of the Bodhisatva Lokesvara with 32 arms.

    Now we go glamping (glamorous camping) by the temple. We have a butler in a white jacket, cook, driver, tour guide and endless factotums. I could get used to this. I take a shower, the hot water from an African-style bush bag. Then Jeeves serves a great Khmer dinner on a wooden table with a silk cloth. Blissfully, our staff have also dotted candles over the nearby temple and lit a fire. Fireflies flit through the air. And we dine to the 'music' of cicadas. When we go to bed, it's a tent with a double bed, fan and bedside tables."

  • Hanuman Travel Cambodia reviewed on Globalista website

    The spot: 156 km northwest of Siem Riep and the middle of nowhere

    Why stay here: Modelled on luxury African safaris, this is glamorous camping. Our tents were set up in the shadows of the Banteay Chhmar temple ruins. There were no other visitors, just our butler, cook, driver, tour guide and other staff. The tent was high enough to stand up in, waterproof with serious anti-mozzie netting and a veranda. Inside it boasts a wooden-based double bed with mattress and cotton sheets. There are even wooden bedside tables, electric bedside lights and a fan (powered by a portable generator). Think Colonialism Revisited. There's a private (flush) loo tent and a separate shower one (with hot water – from bush-style bags – and toiletries).

    Don't miss: Our guide Bunthinh (‘call me Ting’) was excellent, like all Hanuman Tourism guides. First we stopped at the temple of Banteay Top which is overgrown and partially rebuilt. We were there with just two Buddhist monks. Nearby are paddy fields and water buffalo by lily ponds. A perfect picture. Next we visited the isolated jungle temple (and archaeological site) of Banteay Chhmar. This is antiquity in the raw. (They're applying for UNESCO recognition.) Built around 1191 AD, it was discovered in 1900 and buried until 1956. There are magnificent carvings of Lokesvara with 32 arms and Jayavarman VII face temples. Light filters through the dense jungle foliage, there’s noise of nearby chanting monks and crickets and huge butterflies. Magical.

    Must eat: Spring rolls, chicken and cashew, stir fry and banana fritters; all served by our Khmer Jeeves, on a wooden table with a silk cloth, flowers and teak chairs. This is the ultimate table with a view. It overlooks the temple - over which, delightfully, they dotted candles - and the nearby lake, in which they've put floating candles. And beside a tree through which they managed to string electric bulbs, like fairy lights.