The Hill station at Bokor with its Casino and
Royal Palace was built in the 1920s as a refuge from the heat.
The Bokor Casino was a top luxury hotel with
spectacular views over the sea.
The settlement was abandoned in 1945.
At around 1000 metres high on the top of Bokor
Mountain plateau Bokor is a spectacular place with some of the
Best views in the Cambodia. I visited this place in November 2006
and fount it a photographic paradise.
Getting there involves driven 33kms up one of the
worst roads in the country. I was taken up there at speed by a
driver in an aging Camry with virtually bald tyres. it was a bone
jarring ride.
Along the way the driver stopped suddenly to show me
a huge spider along the roadside.
At around 1000 meters and an hours drive; we stopped
at the Black Palace; the old kings residence; abandoned like the
rest if the site at the beginning of the Second World War.
The Black Palace was so called because of the dark
wood cladding to the building little remains of the wood now as
subsequent setters uses it for firewood. Instead the buildings are
now encrusted with lichen which gives the impression of rust.
 
The old Casino occupies a commanding position on the
mountain. With shattered windows and pock marked with
bullet holes; it bears the scars of recent battles. It was the scene
of a ferocious fight between the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese in
the early 1980s after liberation of Kampuchea by the Vietnamese
Army.
the views from the roof are spectacular
The tattered fragments of a door opens in to the
saloon
The direplace may seem an odd thing in a tropical
land like Cambodia; but it can get very cold at night at nearly 1000
metres or 3200ft.
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