The House on Bokor Hill

Kampot, Cambodia. The riverside town of Kampot is nothing to write home about. Decrepit French colonial homes rust and crumble along the crowded lanes, several parts of town are under heavy construction, and the main tourist attraction is a river bridge that is unnervingly composed of several various bridge segments from around Cambodia. Imagine, if you would, a man who decides to defend his doctoral dissertation in civil engineering by arguing that the ultimate suspension design would be attained by first razing, then haphazardly gluing together whatever twisted steel and concrete could be salvaged from the remains of the Brooklyn, Golden Gate, and Tower Bridges. Yet despite all of this, in a plot twist that would never pass even the most lenient of Writer's Guild critiques, deep in the heart of southern Cambodia, along this lazy
river, lies a small, ramshackle eatery known as the Keyhole that can lay claim to the best BBQ ribs this side of Texas. No foolin'


The real reason to stop in Kampot, besides the succulent pork, is its proximity to Bokor National Park, a 1500 sq km stretch of primary forest at the edge of town. Bokor is home to a wide array of elusive wildlife, including tigers, black bears and the warbling yellow-bellied sapsucker. Unicorns, too. That's all well and good, but the real reason to visit is to explore the creepy, abandoned town known as Bokor Hill Station. Built by the French in 1921, and located 3540 feet from sea-level at the apex of a treacherous 32km rock road, some 900 lives were lost during its initial nine-month construction--proving once and for all that the French are ingeniously stupid people. Abandoned in the 1940s during the First Indochina War and then
for good in 1972 when the Khmer Rouge chose the church roof as the ideal location for their anti-aircraft missile defense (Pslams 5:27-28 And the Lord did launcheth his magic missiles across the skies, and his enemies did explodeth like party favors) , the Bokor Hill Station is now home to a dozen bullet-riddled structures in various states of collapse. Fun.


I had intended to rent a moto and take myself to the top, but the road had recently been leased by the government to the Sokimex oil company for the next 99 years, who are in midst of rebuilding it. That left one option, a tour and a hike. Normally I am not particularly fond of tours but I lucked out with a great group of travelers. We started our ascent at 8:30 in the morning, with an unconventional if interesting briefing from our tour guide, a 55 year old Khmer who informed us, rather nonchalantly, that his entire family was killed by the Khmer Rouge, that he lived in the hills alone for three years, that he was then captured and conscripted into the Vietnamese army to fight the Khmer Rouge, planted thousands of land mines, killed dozens of his own countrymen, fought the Khmer Rouge at the Hill Station, felt stupid for betraying his countrymen, escaped back to Cambodia, then spent the next five years digging up the landmines he buried. Now he's a tour guide. At one point we stopped at a relatively dry waterfall, but that didn't stop him from stripping to his skivvies and splashing around in a pool of fetid water, giggling as if he had just met Santa Claus. I found him rather delightful.


Nothing could have prepared me for the vertical climb we encountered. Over the course of the next three hours we walked straight up hill in 93 degree heat, often clambering over rocks and through sandy dry washes. We had our first official dropout about 45 minutes in, followed by our first vomiting from overexertion about 20 minutes later. Thank god I have been biking so much over the last month. Mercifully, we ascended to a stretch of road where a beat up lorry was waiting to take us the last 10km up the hill. As we rounded the final curves over the ass-bumping road we caught sight of the Hill Station.


As if on cue, the clear sky began to cloud over. Waves of mist raced up the steep canyon walls and curled over the ridge around the shattered facades. It was fast becoming a horror movie set. I split from the group to explore the expanse privately. The main attraction, The Bokor Palace, was once an old hotel and casino. Green moss and orange lichen gripped the walls amidst blocks of crumbled stone and collapsed doorways. Broken glass littered the window sills, where a few small panes of thick glass still managed to survive. Tiled
bathrooms were ripped up and rotten. Stains of various degrees and colors bled down every wall.The temperature was at least 20 degrees cooler up here and a light wind howled through the bullet holes in the
walls. At one point the clouds literally began pouring through the windows. Calling it atmospheric would be a bit like calling War and Peace a childhood bedtime story.


I flicked on my headlamp and managed to find an intact staircase. Four floors later I was on the roof. The world had disappeared beneath the clouds. Visibility had dropped to less than ten feet. I could not see another building, another person. I was alone on the roof of the world and it was disintegrating beneath my feet. The day was perfect. I was so elated that on the hike back down, another three hour jaunt, I took to jumping and running part of the way. Several of us sped down as if possessed. Perhaps we were. If anyone
knows of a good knee surgeon, I may need a bit of fine tuning when I get back home.Cheers.