Bokor Hill Station

After a fabulous Khmer breakfast, it was out for long morning’s tuk-tukking with our new driver, Vichet – up into the hills of the Bokor National Park to the old French Hill Station. There were loads of monkeys about on the way up too, which was a bonus. We stopped at a massive statue of a revered Holy Lady from Kampot (Buddha-like in appearance but actually an earthly emissary, saint-like – there was a long legend attached but to be honest I lost out on some of the details), had a look at the ruins of the old King’s summer retreat, the Station and it’s collection of newer Buddhist shrines and temples, the old French Catholic Church (still showing signs of it’s conversion into a Khmer Rouge bunkhouse during the fighting with the Vietnamese in ’79) and the deserted hotel converted out of the French Bokor Palace. The views were pretty stunning too. Later on we investigated the town by daylight and had fried noodles and prawn dumplings at a roadside place where they hand-pull their own noodles, they’re very good. And we were still back at the hotel before the bar closed…