Today I’m off to see the ruins of Bokor, which is one of the main reasons I’ve come here. Unlike the usual pile of rocks that gets my attention, Bokor is not an ancient site. The Bokor hill station was built in the 1920s as a place for the French to escape the heat of the plains. It was more or less abandoned when the Khmer Rouge came to power in the 1970s and now it’s basically a ghost town.

The entire mountain is now a national park, and the only road in is unpaved and very rough, although plans are afoot to improve it. After climbing through the jungle ever upward for about an hour, the car emerges into a hilltop plateau covered with tall grass and flowering shrubs. Soon after, we come to the ruins of the royal palace. At first sight, the small building is hardly palatial, but the long low building is built right on the edge of the bluff. At the rear is a terrace running the length of the house, providing excellent views, weather permitting, of the Cambodian coast and the casino of the distant hill station. Down a path from the royal residence is a much larger building housing the kitchens and a formal dining hall, which also has a good view. There’s also a two-bedroom guest house. Most of the walls here, as at the hill station, are covered with a bright green mossy plant, adding to the post-apocalyptic feel of the place.

Before going to the hill station, we first stop at Popkovil waterfall. Due to the poor state of some bridges, we have to walk the last kilometer or so to the falls. It’s a pleasant walk through a highland marsh bordered by woodlands. I spot a pair of large red squirrels along the way, but they’re gone before I get the camera out.

The falls at first were a rather strange sight. I could hear water falling, but couldn’t see any water running over the stone stream bed leading to the ledge. Only after peering over the edge do you see water coming out of the face of the rock. In the course of flowing to the ledge, the water flows into the limestone and then shoots out of the face. It falls onto another flat ledge, then over another cliff to form a second tier of falls.

 
After hiking back to the car, we drive on to the hill station. The part you catch sight of is the Catholic church, set on a low hill at the edge of the village. We drive past it and up to the ruins of the Bokor Palace Hotel. The grand pile opened in 1926 and must have been quite luxurious for its day, but you have to use your imagination to see that. Doors, windows, light fixtures and even wiring were looted long ago. Like the palace, the hotel sits near the edge of the bluff at the highest point of the station. From the terrace you can get a good view of the village as well as the sea, at least if the weather cooperates. For most of the time I was there, clouds flowed like a sea right up to the edge of the bluff.

There are the ruins of a few other public buildings of the town, such as the post office, jail and another hotel. The whole site is rather eerie, which is probably why it has been used as a movie set.

For more photos of this trip, see the Bokor picture gallery. You can find more information about Bokor and the area in our updated Kampot travel guide.

Posted by michael under Just back from...