By Kevin Doyle

Posted Monday, June 27, 2005; 20:00 HKT
Le Jovial Jarai would have few customers were it not for the Soviet-built, twin-propeller Antonovs that skid down the nearby gravel runway every other day, disgorging their payloads of aid workers, officials and the occasional tourist. The unpaved roads—which are nothing more than gullies of red dust in the dry season and rutted mud traps in the wet—certainly don't bring in much business. Neither would you expect a lot of walk-in traffic here in sleepy Banlung, capital of Cambodia's northeastern Ratanakiri province. But its up-country isolation is part of the beauty of this bar and restaurant—and getting here is not just a journey in space but time as well. Neither Conrad nor Coppola could have improved upon Le Jovial Jarai, part of the Terres Rouges Lodge owned by former French paratrooper Pierre-Yves Clais, and decorated with antiques. Sitting beneath the swaying lamps, it's easy to imagine the phantoms of linen-suited planters flitting across the gardens. Or to reflect that while the French, like the other colonial powers, bequeathed many questionable legacies to Asia in the name of civilization, a restorative glass of Pastis is still a gift to be savored.

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