Bokor Hill Station

During my trip research, I had come across Bokor Hill Station, an old French Resort in the mountains near the town of Kam Pot in Southern Cambodia that had long since bade farewell to its last aristocratic French visitor. Intrigued by the pictures and descriptions, I had marked it as a 'must do,' so after three days in Phnom Penh, we made our way to Kam Pot.

When we had arrived and settled in, we refused our hotel guide's offer to rent us motorbikes at $6 a day or to take his guided tour to Bokor Hill for $12, and made our way to the local bike rental shop and rented our own bikes for $3 a piece. The first afternoon, we rode to Kep, an old, mostly abandoned seaside resort. The ride to Kep, in keeping with most of the Cambodian countryside, was amazingly picturesque - a veritable photographer's dream come true. The streets were lined with neat little wooden houses on stilts surrounded by groups of smiling children and various species of farm animal separated by blindly green rice fields dotted with the occasional water buffalo, with the tops of misty mountains rising in the distance. I wanted to stop every two seconds to take a picture, but rode on lamenting the fact that I had black and white film in my camera reserved for what I dubbed 'more artistic' shots.

The next morning, we rose early and began the two hour ride to Bokor Hill Station. The first part of the journey was made on freshly paved roads, some even as we passed by, blending in - to the extent that two white Westerners on motorbikes in a secluded mountain village can - with the morning traffic of motorbikes, bicycles, ox carts and the occasional load bearing truck. We initially passed the road leading up to Bokor Hill, but upon realizing our mistake, doubled back and began the long, slow, painful ride up to the top of the mountain. We had heard that the roads to Bokor were in bad shape, but neither of us were prepared for the reality of what was meant by the word 'bad.' The road to the top was a narrow, barely one lane, road that had at one time been covered in asphalt (as those to Siem Reap) but had long since seen better days.

We spent the first 30 minutes or so employing our newly acquired moto driving skills steering around boulders and worn pits in the road and lifting off the seat to spare our backs the shock when we couldn't avoid them. An hour later, the novelty had warn off and I, for one, was ready to be at the top, but since there was no way to go but up and no way to speed the journey, I tightened my grip and continued on. After two hours of nerve wracking uphill climb, we were rewarded by the site of the ruin of a building at the end of the road. We both gladly left our bikes on the side of the road and went to explore the buildings.

The first building we came to appeared to be an old temple, which we passed up to explore the buildings further in on the edge of the cliff. As we walked around in the ruin of the building, we tried to identify it on our map, but were unable to come to a conclusion as to what building it might be. We decided to go a little further up the road to orient ourselves. Back on the road, we soon realized that the buildings we had found weren't even on the map and we still had a ways to go. At least the condition of the roads improved somewhat at this point and the last leg was a little less punishing than the first.

As we continued further up the mountain, the normally warm Cambodian air took on a biting chill and both of us stopped to put on a warmer layer of clothing. The cold air also took on a sinister quality, growing more and more dense with fog, the further we went. Just as I began to think we had gone too far, an image of a church toped with a simple cross dramatically materialized some 30 feet from where we stood. For a moment, I stared incredulously at the spot where just a second before had been nothing. As we watched, the church faded out of view again, swallowed by the mist, as if we had imagined its presence. Moving on we discovered an old post office, government buildings, a casino, a water tower and, my favorite spot of all, the old hotel (the first picture at the top of the page, which was even creepier in person than it is in the picture, and my very first trip picture on the blog thanks to Steven's (Pete and Shaney's - Thank you!!) borrowed digital camera). Adding to the spookiness of the scene was the fact that we were the only people in sight (and hearing distance) making it seem even more poignantly, a ghost town.

After walking around the buildings for a few hours, we got back on our bikes and began the long ride down the mountain back to Kam Pot. Our gas gauges were low, so we took advantage of gravity and the steep downhill grade, and coasted a good part of the way back down. We both found going down much easier and more pleasant than going up and I really began to feel in control and enjoyed myself immensely as I maneuvered around holes and over bumpy rock beds - although I paid for the journey with a very sore back for the next three days.