Ghosts in the Hills
This might not come as news, but Cambodia is really, really, really hot. And in the rainy season it must be muggy as all get out (if my experience in Vietnam and Bali is any indication).
The French, in their quest for a little light relieft, built the Bokor Hill Station (or 'station climatique') in the 1920s - to provide relief on many levels. Up in the looming 1000m high hills, surrounded by naught but jungle (now a nature reserve) and away from the heat and plebs, they dotted their lovely villas and houses around the plateau, overlooking the distant Cambodian coastline. And now, it's all a most glorious ruin.
We made the trip up on a hilariously bad road, with eight of us dumb tourists packed into the open back of a seriously butch 4X4 that - literally - has been through the wars. Fortunately, it had a metal bar down the middle and we were entertained immensely by having to cling on it as well as duck the whipping trees and vines. It was really fun, if hot, treacherous, dusty and hugely masochistic.
At the top, we first viewed the ruins of the King's palace, because of course the local nobs had to have a joint near the French. Then it was to the Hill Station itself, with the ruined villas and houses bracketed by The Church and The Casino. How Catholic is that.
It was a small and simple church perched above the road, glaring down on the resident sinners and gamblers. Inside, it was even smaller as the back of the building housed the priest, with a wee kitchen and bathroom. Only the front half of the church served a religious purpose with a small altar, now badly damaged by smoke, vandalism and gunfire. I was especially struck by the ghostly shroud-of-turin like crucifix over the door. It'd been used by target practise by the Khmer Rouge, and though it's long gone, it's shape is now etched on the wall in smoke and bullets.
Ah, but the Casino "Le Grand Coloniale", this was a beauty. This huge, rambling building with room after room over several floors is quickly losing it's battle with the damp and the creeping jungle. But you can still easily imagine drinking champagne and dancing on the open terraces. But somehow only in black and white. Now it's all blackened concrete and thick orange lichen - quite striking really. And everywhere are the gouges where the locals tore out all the wiring, copper and anything else, really.
During the Khmer Rouge occupation, which lasted right up to the 1990s in this area, the Casino was government and the Church was the KR stronghold. Each of the buildings (or remnants of same) were on little knolls, and you could see how they would have a good line to shoot across at each other.
It's now a ghostly, and most atmospheric place. My only regret is that we belatedly found out we could have stayed overnight. Shoot. But after a really, really good lunch, they poured us back in the trucks, trotted us through the jungle - we heard gibbons and i almost saw a spider - then to top it off they stuck on a fabulous boat down the river past stilt houses and floating fish farms back to Kampot, where we arrived like twelve hours and ten bucks poorer later. What a deal, what a place.
