Bokor Hill Station

10.621944444444104.0251080Koordinaten: 10 ° 37 'N, 104 ° 2' O

Bokor Hill Station is an abandoned place to Bokor Hill in Cambodia, which is popular mainly because of its view and the image as a ghost town with tourists. It is located at 1081 meters above sea level in Preah Monivong National Park. Among other things, the showdown of the movie City of Ghosts (2002) was filmed.

Location and Geography

Bokor Hill Station is situated on a plateau of Phnom Bokor, about 20 km as the crow northwest of the town of Kampot. The mountain is the highest elevation of Damrei Mountains (literally Elephant Mountains), which offshoot of Kravanh Mountains ( Cardamom Mountains) are regarded as one of the best views of the mountains of Cambodia. The coastline of the Gulf of Thailand is approximately 8 km air line.

A very good road, via 32 km to the ruins.

History

Bokor Hill Station was built between 1921 and 1924 by the French colonial rule. Here the French found a mild climate and were able to escape the unhealthy weather conditions in Phnom Penh. Especially French colonial officers and their families spent their leisure time and vacations. Nine hundred construction workers lost their lives in the nine months of the construction of the plant in this remote mountain. The centerpiece of the resort was the great Bokor Palace Hotel & Casino, complemented by shops, a post office, a church and a small reservoir. About 10 km before Bokor Hill Station, there is the Black Palace. Here King Sihanouk had a small summer palace, which was abandoned decades ago.

Bokor Hill Station was first abandoned in the late 1940s during the first war in Indochina by the French because of local uprisings led by the Khmer Issarak. Following an interim use took over in 1972, the Khmer Rouge area. During the Vietnamese invasion in 1979, the Khmer Rouge entrenched here for more than a month. In the earlier 1990s Bokor Hill was still one of the last strongholds of the Khmer Rouge.

State today

Many of the abandoned buildings are still present today. Due to the strategic importance Cambodian authorities had a ranger station. There is also a small temple to the west of the ruins.

The plateau is owned by the government, but was leased to the Sokimex Group in 2008. The lease runs for 99 years. Hotels, restaurants and a golf club to be built. It is also planned to renovate the old casino. Currently is with large interventions in the natural surroundings and landscape the road to the plateau reconstructed and expanded. The cost will be $ 21 million. Over the next 15 years, the entire plateau is to be remodeled at a cost of $ 1 billion.