Eerie, unsettling: Asian ghost town's disturbing past and bizarre present
I peer from the back of a tuk-tuk at the mountain soaring above me. I could never be so brazen as to attempt this road on a scooter, although many do, joyriding the winding bends of Bokor.
I'm travelling through Cambodia's Preah Monivong Bokor National Park, commonly called Bokor Mountain. It's 38 kilometres from the southern riverside town of Kampot, renowned for its aromatic (and addictive) black pepper. The distance is short, but when you combine it with travelling at 40 kilometres per hour and ascending 1079 metres, it's a sluggish trip to the top.
En route, the scenery is incredible: the Gulf of Thailand comes into view, the big blue flecked with islands. It beautifully contrasts with the rainforests, villages and fields on the slopes below. Waterfalls, naturally carved stone temples and phallic flowers (commonly referred to as 'penis plants') are also found here, but the natural attractions are not what brought me here.
Bokor's chequered past is on show: abandoned French colonial ruins marked with graffiti, diverse religious landmarks, a former king's residence, empty townhouses and an austere 19th-century hilltop palace-turned-hotel. This mishmash of historic buildings is peculiar and eerie. Should I even be here, I wonder?
In the 1920s, Bokor Hill Station was established as a resort town for French colonists to escape the heat of the capital, Phnom Penh. The station's citadel-like hotel, Le Bokor Palace (also known as Bokor Hill Resort & Casino), overlooks the coast. It's said nearly 1000 people died during the construction of the Palladian concrete landmark, with the lavish haven - as well as a Catholic church, apartments and a post office - abandoned by the ruling elite during the First Indochina War in the 1940s.
Left razed and ransacked, wealthy Khmers gave the retreat a new lease of life in 1962, but Bokor's resurgence would be brief. Under murderous dictator Pol Pot's reign, the Khmer Rouge took control in 1972. The station remained one of the communist regime's last strongholds until the early 1990s. Since then, its forsaken buildings have attracted tourists seeking a look at Cambodia's dark past.
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And yet, this mountain of despair is still striving for prosperity. In 2007, property developer Sok Kong was awarded a 99-year land concession, aiming to turn Bokor into a premier tourist destination with many developments: a casino, condos and large-scale religious landmarks. If only the 'build it and they will come' mentality worked – there are few people here.
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