Seemingly to coincide with my photography show, Matt Gross, travel writer at th New York Times as written ar article called Why Is Everybody Going to Cambodia? that highlights the changes that have taken place in Cambodia over the course of the last 10 or so years as the country has shifted from lawless backwater to tourist mecca, It's an interesting read and if you're considering a trip to Southeast Asia (the storiy also has sections on Thailand, Laos and Vietnam) it's worth your time to scan through it.

Outside, however, it was a different story: A guest assistant from Hotel de la Paix carried my bag through the parking lot - past a new terminal designed to handle 1.5 million passengers a year when it opens this summer - to a Lexus S.U.V. As we drove into town, listening to Morcheeba on the car's iPod Mini, the driver and I discussed development on the airport road: I could remember when it had few hotels and restaurants; he could remember when it had none.

At la Paix, an artfully serene white palace designed by the landscape architect Bill Bensley, another assistant led me into the expansive arts lounge, where I sipped fresh orange juice and split my attention between the movie "Indochine," which was being projected on the wall, and the youthful staff members, who moved about with a surprising sureness of purpose.

Soon, an assistant took me to my room - dark woods, creamy fabrics, functioning Wi-Fi and another iPod - and cheerfully helped me plan my stay: a trip to Angkor Wat (with an "excellence guide," he wrote on his notepad) and, almost as important, a local SIM card for my cellphone ("first thing in the morning"). I wandered to the second-floor pool, which flowed like a river from the spa and down to the courtyard, at whose center grew a knotty ficus. Everywhere: calm. The hotel was aptly named.

That sounds like a world away from the spartan, mosquito-infested hole I stayed in at Siem Reap. Then again, it probably only cost 5 bucks a night.