On your way back to the hotel just after 11 a.m., ask your guide to swing by Eric Raisina's atelier, where the Paris-trained designer makes and sells strikingly original silk scarves and dresses. Then tuck into a final lunch at Meric around 12:30, followed by a dip in the Paix's excellent pool. Shoppers will want to hold off on their last-minute packing to take the 15-minute walk to the Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor. It has a number of beautiful stores, including Khmer Attitude, which sells silver and silk pieces by local artisans, and the pricey but very soigné Lotus.

Before you know it, it's 6:30 p.m. and you're back in the car heading to the Siem Reap Airport (which looks more like a residential spa than an airport) for your hour-long 8:05 p.m. flight to Bangkok, where you'll connect to the 12:40 a.m. Thai Airways flight to New York. Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport is brand-new and offers many distractions, but keep an eye on the clock; the distances between gates are significant, and you'll want to make sure you're checked in well before the late-night crush. And anyway, you will probably be too dazzled, too dazed, by what you've just experienced in the past 12 days—every form of government from kingdoms to Communists, every flavor from spicy to sweet—to lose yourself in window shopping. Instead, you'll do what I did: sit down and start jotting notes for your next trip back to Southeast Asia.