Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
position, the site was strategically important to all sides during the civil war and was one
location the Vietnamese really had to fight for during their 1979 invasion. For several
months, the Khmer Rouge held out in the Catholic church while the Vietnamese shot at
them from the Bokor Palace, 500m away.
The hill station became a ghost town, its once-grand buildings turned into eerie, win-
dowless shells. Over time they became carpeted with a bright-orange lichen that gives
them an other-worldly appearance. On cold, foggy days it can get pretty creepy up here as
mists drop visibility to nothing and the wind keens through abandoned buildings. It's ap-
propriate, then, that the foggy showdown that ends the Matt Dillon crime thriller
City of
Ghosts
(2002) was filmed here.
Sights
Bokor Hill Station
The key sights of the hill station, such as the
Bokor Palace
, a grand hotel that opened in
1925, were undergoing renovations when we visited and will become part of the new re-
sort city.
The squat belfry of the Romanesque-style
Catholic church
still holds aloft its cross, and
fragments of glass brick cling to the corners of the nave windows; one side window holds
the barest outline of a rusty crucifix. It's easy to imagine a small crowd of French coloni-
als in formal dress assembled here for Sunday Mass. The subdividing walls inside were
built by the Khmer Rouge. A bit up the hill, a sheer drop overlooks virgin rainforest.
Other Phnom Bokor sights include lichen-caked
Wat Sampeau Moi Roi
(Five Boats Wat),
which offers tremendous views over the jungle to the coastline below, including Viet-
nam's Phu Quoc Island. Wild monkeys like to hang out around the wat.
From the wat an 11km trail (four or five hours) leads to two-tiered
Popokvil Falls
.
HILL STATION
Sleeping
Thansur Bokor Highland Resort
( 033-683 8888;
www.thansurbokor.com
; Bokor Hill Station; r from US$49; )
It's a trav-
esty that such a beautiful location has been allowed to be blighted by such an ugly hotel.
Boasting a ludicrously ambitious 564 rooms, it was built at breakneck speed to recoup
HOTEL
$$
