Our World Tuesday: Ruins of Bokor Palace Hotel

We celebrated the Khmer New Year in the coastal town of Kep, located down south of the country. The highlight of our holiday was a side-trip to neighbouring town, Kampot.

Kampot is a sleepy fishing town. It is small but the streets are wide and a bit dusty. It is the jump off base to the popular Bokor Hill Station up in Bokor Mountain where the popular ruins of an old French hotel and casino, Bokor Palace Hotel and Casino, is located. I was excited to go see the ruins for the first time but I was disappointed when I found this:

Do you feel what I feel, too? It used to be like this:

Photo by Mark Roy via Flickr.

The before-renovation photo was eerily beautiful; brooding and menacing at the same time that it was a fav destination for exploration by foreign visitors as well as ghost hunters. Some genius had the idea of renovating/refurbishing the hotel — and the result is the ugly, grey thingie that you see on the top-most photo.  I’m sure it was called a ruin for a reason 🙁

For more details about the ruins, you can read about it in my other blog, Sreisaat Adventures.