Shinta Mani Wild

Shinta Mani Wild is a camp with a purpose beyond pleasure, though it takes pleasure seriously. Bill Bensley set 15 tents along a protected river corridor in the Cardamom Mountains, each one themed and furnished with antiques, as though a Victorian expedition had unpacked in the jungle and decided to stay, and what the camp earns helps fund the Wildlife Alliance rangers who patrol the forest around it.

The tents have air-conditioned bedrooms, private decks and, in the best of them, an outdoor bath that looks onto a waterfall. Meals are Khmer in influence and partly foraged, served beside the waterfall, in a jungle clearing or by lantern light; everything is included, sunrise hikes and all. It is theatrical, extravagant and, at its heart, a conservation project with excellent linen.

15 tents, no two alike

Each of the 15 tents has its own theme, and Bensley, who is not a designer of half measures, has filled them accordingly: antiques, colour, layered textiles, the occasional object that makes a guest laugh out loud. The bedrooms are air-conditioned, which in the Cardamoms is not a small thing, and the living areas open onto private decks facing the river and the trees, so the forest comes into the room as sound and light. The tents are, in the end, less about the objects than about the frame they put around the wild.

A camp that funds the rangers

The river corridor is protected, and Shinta Mani Wild is part of the reason it stays that way. The camp supports the Wildlife Alliance rangers who patrol the Cardamoms, and a stay contributes directly to that work. Guests meet the landscape on its terms: sunrise hikes into the forest, the river, the waterfalls and the unbroken green that runs to the horizon from the higher ground. None of it is staged, and none of it needs to be. The luxury here is proximity to a place worth protecting, and the knowledge that being here helps to protect it.

Dinner beside the waterfall

The bar and restaurant sit beside the waterfall, and the sound of it underlies every meal. The cooking is Khmer in influence, seasonal by necessity and foraged in part, and the setting moves: a deck above the falls one night, a jungle clearing the next, a lantern-lit table when the occasion calls for it. Everything is included, so the day is spent deciding rather than ordering. The Landing Zone Bar handles the hour before dinner. The spa is set among the boulders, and the rock-framed pool is the place for the middle of the day, when the forest is loudest.