The haunted Palace

The Bokor Palace Hotel - desolate and disturbed

On a recent visit to the top of Bokor mountain along Cambodia's southern coastline, I reeled off lots of photos of the ruined Bokor Palace Hotel, that sits on the lip of the mountain overlooking the Gulf of Thailand with some gorgeous views, especially when the clouds are high in the sky. However, often with low cloud, the summit of Bokor is enveloped in fog and the Palace Hotel ruins take on an altogether different air, invoking stories of ghosts and hauntings of old and more recent vintage. The city of Bokor began life in the 1920s and well-heeled Khmers and the colonizing French elite used it as their personal playground. The gambling and casino types were very much in evidence and those who lost fortunes at the tables were prone to throw themselves off the cliff to escape their woes. During the civil war, the Khmer Rouge forces fought pitched battles against both the Vietnamese and Khmer armies in the area and the Park Rangers now refuse to stay in the hotel after dark, for fear of those spirits left behind. Here are some shots of the Bokor Palace Hotel from the outside; many more photos to follow.

Approaching the Bokor Palace from the north, along the edge of the cliff-face

Overlooking the Gulf of Thailand from the edge of the mountainside

The bleak and eerie Bokor Palace Hotel

Approaching the Palace Hotel from the front

Up close and personal with the Bokor Palace Hotel

A far-off view of the Hotel and telephone masts taken from the Catholic Church