There was a time when Asia’s luxury villa hotels were pretty uniformly modernist and minimalist. But lately the traveling public has developed a taste for something a little more rustic, a little more handmade, and Sala Lodges are precisely that. These houses are no reproductions — they’re authentic handmade houses, some fifty years old or more, transported from all across the Cambodian countryside and reassembled here on this site.

First of all, don’t fret about the “urban.” While Siem Reap is indeed a busy city, the Siem Reap River isn’t exactly Fifth Avenue, and a low-slung, compound-style hotel like Treeline Urban Resort can easily achieve a tranquil seclusion. Indigenous stone and wood are the predominant materials, and while the aesthetic may be minimal, the experience is rich and organic. The furniture is handmade and the hotel is packed with local contemporary art.

The idea of a minimalist, modernist luxury resort in some idyllic Asian coastal locale isn’t a new one. But the success of a hotel like The Balé Phnom Penh depends less on the element of surprise and more on pure execution. The design achieves the Zen simplicity it’s aiming for, and the physical comforts of the place ensure that you’re never shaken out of the blissful state that the architecture has induced.

Amansara was once the guest house of Cambodia’a King Sihanouk. No neo-colonial palace, this villa was built in swinging New Khmer style, a sort of staging ground for the visiting statesman-about-town. Vestiges of this Sixties architecture remain in the calming Zen-inflected minimalist style for which the Aman resorts are known. The two dozen suites are long on luxury, with king beds, lounges, private courtyards, and deep soaking tubs; half come with a private pool.

Once upon a time, Siem Reap was a village, a far cry from the bustling resort destination it is today. So it makes sense that the 45-villa Phum Baitang would aim to recreate the simple charm of village life. Set just outside of town, slightly apart from Siem Reap’s many, many hotels, espresso bars, and fusion restaurants, the resort’s thatched-roof wooden villas rise up on stilts amid landscaped gardens and paddy fields.

This vanilla-colored confection was, in another life, the hotel of choice for jet setters like Jackie O, Andre Malraux, and W. Somerset Maugham. Later, journalists Sydney Schanberg and Jon Swain (of Killing Fields fame) would stay here while they were covering the Khmer Rouge. Today, following a hyper-luxe renovation, the elegance and extravagance of Raffles Hotel Le Royal has largely returned.

It’s Cambodia, but it’s not the Cambodia you’re expecting. Song Saa Private Island is more the sort of thing the Maldives or Seychelles are known for. This wild speck of a place in the Gulf of Thailand is as close to a state of nature as you’re going to find anywhere, and Song Saa’s twenty-seven villas make the most of their secluded setting — if you’re going to live as a castaway, this is how you do it in style.

Located in the seaside town of Kep, once known as the St. Tropez of Southeast Asia, Knai Bang Chatt is a throwback to the glory days. The hotel is centered around three renovated colonial villas designed by New Khmer architectural trailblazer Vann Molyvann, a student of Le Corbusier. Fully restored, each of the 18 photogenic rooms features a polished teak bed, ceramic lamps and vases, a spacious bathroom, and a private terrace.

The FCC group is named for the Foreign Correspondents Club in Phnom Penh, and this chapter, in Siem Reap, is housed in the old French Governor’s residence. But the FCC Angkor is anything but fixated on the past. Behind the walls of this Indochina Art Deco mansion is a sophisticated high-design boutique hotel, made of simple modern materials and decorated in a sedate contemporary-Eastern style, far indeed from the conventional picture of the colonial luxury hotel.

A 39-room villa resort in a contemporary Khmer style, Anantara Angkor Resort is less a monument in competition with nearby Angkor Wat and, more appropriately, an inward-looking compound. The rooms are all immersive privacy, laid out like studio apartments, and the suites, all with butler service, are self-contained — the Queen Suites feel sequestered, designed for romance, while the grander King Suites feel geared toward entertaining.

Thrilling as it is exploring ancient temples in the jungle, it’s important to consider where to recharge after a day of sightseeing in a tropical climate — and it stands to reason that the area’s best hotels are more like resorts. Hotel Vellita Siem Reap, set just outside of town, is no exception. This boutique hotel’s central feature is a generously sized free-form swimming pool surrounded by banana and palm trees, as well as a few dozen cool, spacious rooms.

Set ten minutes’ walk from the Royal Palace and a few more from the riverfront, the Pavilion can boast of a rather privileged location — fitting, given its history as a royal residence. It’s built from a compound of four villas, one of which belonged to Queen Kossamak, King Sihanouk’s mother. After a careful restoration, these villas now house a total of 36 rooms and suites in a style that’s more or less equal parts contemporary and classic.

Siem Reap is bursting at the seams with accommodations that range from backpacker hostels to magnificent five-star resorts. Somewhere in the middle (though a bit closer to the latter) is Heritage Suites, whose twenty-six guest rooms abstain from the kind of over-the-top opulence that defines many of its neighbors in favor of a quiet, secluded take on Indochine luxury.