The day after Ream national Park we travelled to Kampot and booked a trip to the abandoned hill station in Bokor National Park.

Bokor National park was originally developed by the french when they colonised Cambodia. It was an elegant hill station with a cool climate and luxurious amenities where visitors flocked during the 1920s. It has since been abandoned twice. The first time during the 1940s when the Japanese invaded Cambodia then again in the 1970s when the Khmer Rouge took over the country. In 1979 Bokor was the scene of a prolonged battle between Vietnamese and Khmer Rough troops who hooled up in the Catholic Church and Hotel respectively – today the scars of the battle are still visible. The hill station hasn’t been inhabited since Khmer Rouge left and now lies as an eerie relic of a former time.

Getting to the hill station was an adventure itself. The trip left early in the morning but as we arrived at the pick up point it was pouring with rain and the transport was an open back 4×4 truck. Kat, Emily and I did a good job of looking like vulnerable young girls and were all given seats inside the vehicle.

It took about 15 minutes to get to the entrance to Bakor National park then almost two hours along a very bumpy, non existent road to the Black Palace – the former residence of King Sihnaouk and our first stop.

Along the way we encountered a very large poisonous spider making it’s web across the road. It was the largest spider I’ve ever seen and made me shudder from inside the vehicle I was very glad I wasn’t sat on the open back!

The Black palace area was made up of three buildings. The kings residence building was surprisingly unspectacular and much smaller than I’d expected. Inside it was little more than a shell but the terrace offered amazing views down the mountain and out to sea.

To the left about 200 meters away was the kitchen and dining building; this was a much larger building with a room that could have once been a grand banquet hall. The to the left of this building was the least impressive building of the palace complex, the concubines residence. To get to this building you had to navigate through thick undergrowth, Inside there were two bedrooms, a bathroom and small entrance way. This was probably the worst maintained of all the buildings with a massive hole in the floor of one of the rooms.

Our next stop was the abandoned hill station at the top of Bokor National Park. The truck came to a stop in front of the modern looking rangers station, I got out and turned around. I was looking across a reservoir at an area dotted with abandoned and almost ruined buildings. Clouds were blowing gently across the scene in front of me. The mist floated in and out of the windows of buildings that were blackened with age and covered in a bright orange lichen as the mist swirled around the area the buildings disappeared and reappeared making it a very eerie scene to behold.

The guide took us for a walk around the park first stopping at the hotel and casino where we could take some pictures but not go inside. Then we climbed the hill to the massive structure of the main Hotel Casino. The building was blackened with age and slime and dotted with bright green moss and orange lichen. Inside much of the floor was covered in a layer of water which dripped from the ceiling. As you entered there was a sign saying no sleeping but looking around me and having heard the rumors about how haunted the building was I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to sleep there.

The hotel Casino had once been a grand building and walking around the main room you could almost imagine it rebuilding itself in front you eyes as the boat does in the film titanic. But at the same time as imagining it with the grandeur it once had it was also easy to imagine it in its second incarnation as a Khmer Rouge prison. Thinking about it like this the whole building seemed like it had emerged from a horror film – in some ways it had! The building is said to be haunted because so many people died there without Buddhist ceremonies being held for them to allow their souls to pass into the next world. Behind the building is a cliff with a drop to the jungle floor of over 1000 feet, it is said the Khmer Rouge would execute prisoners by tying them together and pushing the first man over the cliff and letting those tied to him follow.

The building was still very much standing and it was possible to climb the staircases to all three floors and walk around the once plush bedrooms although there was no furniture left and the occasional window covered with sheet metal could be found – possible evidence of the buildings use of a prison.

Our next stop was the church. This was nearly all covered in the orange lichen and clouds seemed to gather whirling around the church tower then drifting slowly across the building. Inside the alter still remained although no religious artifacts were in evidence. I’ve never seen a church designed this way as the main room was split in the middle then behind the wall where the alter rested it was divided into another two rooms neither of which had walls that reached the celling. We surmised the rooms may have been added after the church was built but our guide had disappeared so no-one could explain it to us. The church was supposed to bear the scars of battle although I couldn’t find any unlike the hotel where you could clearly see bullet holes in the wall.

It was soon time to leave the hill station behind although I would have liked a lot longer and more freedom to explore the buildings. The day ended with a very relaxing sunset cruise along the river to Kampot.

* Posted by j150vsc on 24/07/2007.