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Among the many memorable moments from our stay:
- Our first five-star hotel stay (core memory unlocked!) with impeccable staff
- The tuk tuk driver carrying a sign with our name on it
- The welcome drink (the only green juice my kid has every finished!) and banana chips
- Being assigned a personal concierge who asks how you’re doing and if there’s anything they can do to help with your stay
- The rooms with pool access and room service
- My kid relearning how to swim after spending on-average 6 hours in the pool every day and being inspired by the six-year-old staying next door to us.
Seriously, I cannot gush enough about this place. It was one of the highlights of our six-week trip to Southeast Asia (full trip recap coming soon). I mean, just look at these photos! As someone who values experiences over material objects, I can say for a fact that staying at Eightfold has been the best couple hundred dollars I’ve spent in my grown-up existence.
Read on for more details about our stay, below!
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The Khmer people make up Cambodia's largest native ethnic group.
Read about Cambodia’s other indigenous populations here.
Trip Purpose
Enjoy a couple built-in R&R days to recharge in the middle of our family tour of Southeast Asia
DESTINATION: Eightfold Urban Resort, Siem Reap
AGE OF MY KID: 5 years
LENGTH OF STAY: 3 days, 2 nights
TIME OF YEAR: July
We visited Cambodia for the first time over the summer with extended family to tour Angkor Wat and other historic places as part of a two-week trip through Southeast Asia (full post coming soon!). We stayed behind in Siem Reap for a couple days after our days of touring while my family proceeded to Bangkok for shopping galore. I extended our stay in Siem Reap to have a couple extra days to take in the local area and to build in some much-needed rest days in the middle of our long days of sightseeing. But even after we’d already arrived in Siem Reap, I still hadn’t booked a second hotel!
I knew I was pushing it. But in recent solo travels I’d been practicing “winging it,” and the results haven’t been bad! I did this to both avoid the inevitable hours and hours of painstaking research that I always did; to simply “try on” not always needing a plan; to get in better touch with my instincts; and to also scope out the area before making a final decision about where to stay. As I’m sure others can relate, this has been a challenge for me, but I’ve also embraced the spontaneity of it.
With the plethora of beautiful hotels and resorts in Siem Reap, there is no shortage of amazing places to stay. But there was one resort that I first saw on Tripadvisor and just couldn’t get out of my head: Eightfold Urban Resort.
Though it may be slightly outside of the city center, Eightfold is a restful plant-filled haven that makes up for its location, and just the hotel I was looking for for some quality rest and relaxation.
Eightfold Urban Resort Highlights
Here's what we loved about staying at this hotel
The Grounds are Stunning
The resort has a modern look with cement landscaping and plants at almost every turn. It’s not a very large resort at only … rooms, so to get from one area to another isn’t much of a trek.
Now, can we talk about this pool? The pool of my dreams would look exactly like the one at Eightfold. It’s located in the center of the resort so most rooms will get a view, if not direct access (more on that later), to the pool. What’s great is the plants provide some lovely shade and respite from the bright sun. Especially great for my little one was that even though the central portions of the pool were a little too deep at slightly less than five feet, there were plenty of stairs and shallow areas from which she could take swimming breaks.
| Deluxe Pool-Access Room | $40-$80/night |
| Meals | ~$8/meal |
| Tuk Tuk Service to Town | ~$4/ride |
| Tuk Tuk Service to Airport | $7 |
Pool-Access Rooms are a Game-Changer
Definitely make sure to get a Deluxe Pool-Access Room. While a little pricier than the basic room option (which I’m sure would’ve been just fine, as well, as the interiors were modern, clean, and well-maintained!), having such easy access to the pool and our own poolside seating area was amazingly convenient. It saved my kid and I from wasting previous relaxation time going from the pool to our room and back again whenever we forgot or needed something. Plus the views are amazing at any time of the day.
We also loved the seating areas, both in the room and on its exterior by the pool, as well as the nice big bathtub and separate shower. Everything felt so spacious and luxurious.
The one con I would say is that the walls were slightly thin; we could hear our neighbors talking loudly and also the frogs croaking outside, lol. But that’s easily solved with some earplugs or white noise!
One note of caution—keep an eye on your little ones by the pool! My big kid thought direct pool access also meant she could go to the pool willy nilly without my knowledge, and her first solo splash into the pool was quickly followed up with a stern talk about safety and ground rules, i.e., no swimming without adult supervision.
Staff are Kind and Welcoming
I know that hospitality 101 calls for hotel staff to provide the best service to their guests, but the staff at Eightfold Urban Resort were on another level. Literally everyone we came across were so kind and attentive, and it felt truly genuine as opposed to some other resorts I’ve stayed where you know you’re being goaded for a tip.
In particular, our personal concierge (yes, you get assigned a concierge!) went above and beyond in helping make our stay as comfortable as possible. Harry checked in on us via WhatsApp, made great recommendations for where to get kid’s swimming goggles (which came in clutch considering all the hours we spent at the pool), requested late check-out on our behalf, and saw to it that we were upgraded from a tuk tuk to legit car service for our ride back to the airport. He even accompanied us to the airport after a manager and a handful of other staff waved us goodbye, chatting with us about our stay and then gifting us with Cambodian scarves for the journey home, which made my 5-year-old and I feel so special and honored to stay. WOWOWEE we felt like such VIPs!
Complimentary Evening Tuk Tuk Service Provided
Since most of Siem Reap’s main attractions are not within walking distance of the resort, Eightfold provides complimentary tuk tuk service between 6-11 p.m. This wasn’t convenient when we wished to get into the downtown area in the afternoon, but since we spent most of the daylight hours at the pool it wasn’t a deal-breaker. On the one afternoon we did decide to go into town, we booked a tuk tuk with our personal assistant who was able to arrange for a pick-up for $4 USD.
The Food (and Coffee) are Delicious!
As a foodie our stay wouldn’t have been complete without delicious meals and coffee, and I was pleasantly surprised that Eightfold had delicious varieties of both! Our first night at Eightfold my kid and I “stayed in” to check out the dinner amenities: we enjoyed fish amok (a steamed curry that’s one of Cambodia’s national dishes), tom yum soup, and veggie fried noodles, all for about $5 USD per dish. We washed our dinner down with a fresh passion fruit soda and enjoyed the leftovers for breakfast. Yum!
The coffee was great, too. On one morning I asked to buy a can of tonic water to go with my shot of espresso to the barista’s confusion, but my espresso tonic was perfect for the setting! The price of a latte was typical of what I’d spend in Oakland, but to have it (and my kid’s chocolate milk) delivered to my room for us to enjoy in our bathrobes on our poolside balcony was a TREAT.
I do wish Eightfold offered breakfast pastries and hot food a la carte (even if I have to order it ahead of time!), as I’m not a heavy breakfast eater and wouldn’t be able to take advantage of a full buffet but do love something to accompany my mid-morning coffee.
If you’re still debating about whether to book your Siem Reap stay at Eightfold Urban Resort, I’ll let these five-star reviews provide the closing arguments to my rave review!
Still, as much as I loved staying at Eightfold, being there (and Siem Reap, in general) made me face the sobering inequities of the world. I’d wager that those with money, power, and privilege stay exclusively at five-star resorts all over the world, regardless of what currency they use. Meanwhile, others of us can only really afford that kind of an experience in more affordable countries like Cambodia, if at all. And in Cambodia, where the monthly salary for a hotel worker was in the range of $200 USD per month in 2018, what percentage of those workers are hardly even able to make ends meet?
I felt uneasy about being in a privileged position to afford to fly halfway across the world and stay in such a beautiful place, and as much as we over-tipped the hotel staff, it doesn’t make up for standing in solidarity with working people all over the world.
So yes, book that relaxing vacay at Eightfold. Just know that there is still a constant struggle for social justice that you should be ready to jump into when you get back to reality.
Your all-day pool party awaits
Angelica (she/her) is of Cebuano(Pilipinx)-descent and was born and raised in Huchiun Ohlone territory (the East Bay Area--pay your Shuumi Land Tax!), where she also now resides with her partner and their toddler. She loves to spend her time sipping on boba and dirty chai lattes (sometimes together), and eating pescetarian goodies at BIPOC-owned cafes and restaurants.
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