Bokor Hill Station
Hard day today. We got rounded up for a day trip to the top of the local mountian where there is an old french abandond hill station, hotel, casino etc all perched on the edge of the rock about 1400m high. The hotel here is famous as its supposedly well haunted and I can confirm its well freaky.
We left early in the back of the pick up from out guesthouse in Kampot with 4 other people and our driver and guide. Belgen (sp??) and dutch.
The park entrance is a few Km outside town so we got ther quickly, paid $5 to enter. Straight away it was a vertical zig zag mud track cut into the side of the jungle. It had been and was pissing rain all the time so the mud was crazy. Sitting in the back of the pick up was a strain but good adventure. Dee managed to get in the front cabin as she still had bad feet and only flip flops. about 30mins in we hit a landslide which some locals were in the middle of clearing, it was a sheer drop the other side of the road, i dunno how far but if you looked over you could see tree tops , way down.
We got out of the 4WD and started walking up the track while they treid to get the jeep accross the slurry pit of a road. They got through eventually and an hour or so later we came to the Black Palace which used to be the kings summer resadence before the war here. The altitude ment that it was very cold and very wet, think Donegal in December and you are not far off what it looked like. There was mist and fog everywhere swiriling around the buildings and it was a very surriel sight. After a quick stop there we continued about another hour to the top of the mountian, getting wetter and colder all the time.
We got to Boker Hill Station about lunchtime. The visability was about zero, as the clouds blew you could see shapes of old buildiings fading in and out of view, very spooky indeed.
We had a qucik lunch of veg curry with the guides, very nice and then drove over the hill to the Bokor Hill Palace Hotel. It was 100% pure 'The Shining' matertal. This huge , gawdy european hotel sitting on top of a jungle mountian in the middle of sout cambodia, very wierd. The place has been gutted by thieves over the years and a few armies have used it as thier base so its just a shell but the structures are intact and its a very scary place.
The Khemer Rouge hid out up here and used the hotel as there base. They would round up people from the surrounding areas and bring them all the way up here to the hotel, tourture and kill the in the basements and the simply throw them over the wall a few yards past the hotel which is the edge of a 1000ft cliff.
I was a bit of a sceptic about this ghost stuff but I went into the basements on my own and lasted about 3 minutes down there. Deffinatly something very strange about the place.
It was so wet I could not take photos as it was just coming out as mist. I got some good video shots which I am looking forward to seeing.
We did not linger due to the conditions and retraced our route down the hill, seeing a lot of leaches, a big monkey and a few eagles. There are tigers and all sorts in here apparently.
About 5 we got out of the park and took a little boat down the river back to Kampot which was really nice, started to warm up agian :)
We were wrecked after that and crashed out early. Hard but good day.
We left early in the back of the pick up from out guesthouse in Kampot with 4 other people and our driver and guide. Belgen (sp??) and dutch.
The park entrance is a few Km outside town so we got ther quickly, paid $5 to enter. Straight away it was a vertical zig zag mud track cut into the side of the jungle. It had been and was pissing rain all the time so the mud was crazy. Sitting in the back of the pick up was a strain but good adventure. Dee managed to get in the front cabin as she still had bad feet and only flip flops. about 30mins in we hit a landslide which some locals were in the middle of clearing, it was a sheer drop the other side of the road, i dunno how far but if you looked over you could see tree tops , way down.
We got out of the 4WD and started walking up the track while they treid to get the jeep accross the slurry pit of a road. They got through eventually and an hour or so later we came to the Black Palace which used to be the kings summer resadence before the war here. The altitude ment that it was very cold and very wet, think Donegal in December and you are not far off what it looked like. There was mist and fog everywhere swiriling around the buildings and it was a very surriel sight. After a quick stop there we continued about another hour to the top of the mountian, getting wetter and colder all the time.
We got to Boker Hill Station about lunchtime. The visability was about zero, as the clouds blew you could see shapes of old buildiings fading in and out of view, very spooky indeed.
We had a qucik lunch of veg curry with the guides, very nice and then drove over the hill to the Bokor Hill Palace Hotel. It was 100% pure 'The Shining' matertal. This huge , gawdy european hotel sitting on top of a jungle mountian in the middle of sout cambodia, very wierd. The place has been gutted by thieves over the years and a few armies have used it as thier base so its just a shell but the structures are intact and its a very scary place.
The Khemer Rouge hid out up here and used the hotel as there base. They would round up people from the surrounding areas and bring them all the way up here to the hotel, tourture and kill the in the basements and the simply throw them over the wall a few yards past the hotel which is the edge of a 1000ft cliff.
I was a bit of a sceptic about this ghost stuff but I went into the basements on my own and lasted about 3 minutes down there. Deffinatly something very strange about the place.
It was so wet I could not take photos as it was just coming out as mist. I got some good video shots which I am looking forward to seeing.
We did not linger due to the conditions and retraced our route down the hill, seeing a lot of leaches, a big monkey and a few eagles. There are tigers and all sorts in here apparently.
About 5 we got out of the park and took a little boat down the river back to Kampot which was really nice, started to warm up agian :)
We were wrecked after that and crashed out early. Hard but good day.
posted by Fionn at 2:45 AM
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