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Raffles 1887

STORIED SUITES

The Henri Mouhot Personality Suite at Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor

IN a quiet riverside clearing not far from Luang Prabang, Laos, the stone sepulchre of Henri Mouhot is bright against a verdant backdrop. Built in 1867, then gradually forgotten, the Frenchman’s tomb was rediscovered in 1990 and is now maintained by the French Embassy. On one side it bears a large plaque paid for by Mouhot’s hometown of Montbéliard. So who was Henri Mouhot, why is he buried in Laos and why is there a personality suite named after him at Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor in Siem Reap?

Henri Mouhot was the French explorer and naturalist credited with discovering Angkor, which he reached in 1860 after a long, difficult and often dangerous journey through the interior of Cambodia. In fact, he was by no means the first Westerner to ‘discover’ the ancient Khmer capital though he was certainly the first to describe it so evocatively to astonished Europeans. “One of these temples – a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo – might take an honourable place beside our most beautiful buildings,” he wrote. “It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome...”

Mouhot’s compelling descriptions were reinforced by his skilled draughtsmanship: his many detailed illustrations have a moving, almost mystical quality, capturing the sites with beautiful sensitivity.

Road and main entrance to Angkor Wat, Cambodia, drawing by Guiaud from a sketch by Mouhot, from Travels in the central parts of Indo-China (Siam), Cambodia, and Laos, by the naturalist Henri Mouhot, 1858- 1861, Part Two, from Il Giro del mondo (World Tour), Journal of geography, travel and costumes, Volume III, Issue V, February 2, 1865.

Henri Mouhot spent three weeks in Angkor, meticulously recording everything he saw. He died of malaria in 1861 as he travelled on through Laos, and his journals were published posthumously as Voyage dans les royaumes de Siam, de Cambodge, de Laos. He may not have discovered Angkor, but it was thanks to Henri Mouhot that one of the world’s most important archaeological sites became known in the West.

At Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor you can stay in a suite named in honour of this brave and determined man, and raise a toast with a cocktail named after him too.