Koh Tonsay

It has always been something of a mystery to me how a responsible driver can, under normal circumstances, end up running out of gas/petrol. Three times I have been in a car when the driver announced that we were in such a situation and on each of those occasions, we were in remote locations where to be stranded would have been a quite serious problem.

Is it significant that all three of those drivers were men? Just asking.

The first time it happened to me, I was in my father’s car in Cambodia…

Apart from floundering in the sea, sailing to the island, or going for long walks, there was another way to pass time while on a visit to Kep.

For something quite different, there was an excursion to the Plateau de Bokor.

As it happens, we went there on my 9th birthday. I know because somewhere there is a photograph of me with the toy lamb that Mum gave me.

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From Wikipedia:

The Damrei Mountains have long been considered sacred and venerated by the Cambodians.

The hill station was built as a resort by colonial French to help the French military who were stationed in that region. They were desperate for some relief from the oppressive heat that is characteristic to this part of the world. So in the early 1920’s, Bokor Hill, a small resort town was built especially for the occupying French soldiers. Nine hundred people died in nine months during the construction of the resort in this remote mountain location.^[2]

The centrepiece of the resort was the grand Bokor Palace Hotel, inaugurated in 1925. It has been complemented by the villa of the “Résident Supérieur”, a post office (now demolished), and a catholic church. It is also an important cultural site, showing how the colonial settlers spent their free time.

Bokor Hill was abandoned first by the French in late 1940s, during the First Indochina War, because of local insurrections guided by the Khmer Issarak.

It was only in 1962, for the reopening of the “Cité du Bokor”, that a casino was established in the new hotels near the lake, (Hotels Sangkum and Kiri). Some buildings were added at this time: an annex for the palace, the mayor’s office and a concrete parasol.

The Bokor mountain was abandoned again in 1972, as Khmer Rouge took over the area. During the Vietnamese invasion in 1979, Khmer Rouge entrenched themselves and held on tightly for months. In the early 1990s Bokor Hill was still one of the last strongholds of Khmer Rouge.^[3]

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The plateau rises to 3,540 ft/1,079 metres and from Kep it is at a distance of 53 kilometres, just beyond the town of Kampot. In those days, the road was rough but the Citroen proved up to the task with only a few choice words from my father.

On that long ago day, we saw not a single soul. The few buildings that remained were in ruins. Above is the French Catholic church. As far as I have been able to find out, the church still stands exactly as it was then. It was sealed up, so we did not go inside.

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We did, however, go inside the Bokor Palace hotel. Swirling mist added to the already creepy atmosphere. Every surface was damp and mildewed and it smelled of decay.

You could see that this had been a grand establishment and you could imagine ghosts here at night. We could not know it, but the truly dark times were yet to come.

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In the early ’60’s, the hotel was refurbished, becoming popular with affluent Khmer who went there to party and gamble. There were “grisly tales of suicides and unlucky gamblers plunging off the precipice behind the hotel.”

Then, in the 70’s the Khmer Rouge arrived, entrenching themselves in Bokor until the bitter end, after which the town was again abandoned to the ever-growing number of ghosts.

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In 2018, however, the property was taken over by Sokha Hotels and Resorts and it has been restored to its former glory. By all accounts, it is quite lovely.

Would I stay there? I think I am not afraid of ghosts, but places that have seen great evil are disturbing. To my mind, it would be better to have built a memorial.

In 1957, we walked through the hotel garden and along the cliff where I listened to the sound of the jungle far below, drifting up in the humid air, mysterious cracks and pops and the occasional shriek of an animal.

It was on the way back down to Kampot that we ran short of petrol, in part I believe, because we got lost. It would not have been good to be stuck out there miles from anywhere, but we coasted in on the fumes. Running out would have made a much more interesting story, but I am quite happy not to have it to tell.

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On the way down from the plateau, a slight detour takes you to Popokvil Falls. I did not go there with my parents, but later on I went twice with guardians who came to take me out for a day from my boarding school in Kep.

Political unrest had made it unsafe for me to return to school in Vietnam and when I learned that I would go instead to a school in Kep, I thought it might be quite nice. The location could not have been better and at first, being at that school was not awful because my friend Sabrina was there too and it was her parents who looked after my transfers and needs.

After a few months however, Sabrina’s father was transferred to Egypt and a new guardian had to be appointed. The first candidate soon came to take me out for the day. He had been a colleague of my father and I’d met him before. He was kind and I liked him, but the sister superior rejected him because she found out that he was divorced.

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So, as it happened, was the next choice, but he was remarried, with small children, so he was deemed acceptable. In retrospect, I can see why it was considered a bad idea to have me cared for by a single man, though in fact I had felt quite safe with him. I tended not to trust most men and my instincts proved to be reliable.

A year later, everything changed again and this time a boarding school was found in England, which offered me a whole different set of challenges.

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While I was looking things up, I searched for information about the tiny island that we sailed to from Kep. It is called Koh Tonsay or Rabbit Island. When we went there, it was completely wild with jungle down to the beach. Later, it was a penal colony briefly.

Now you can stay there, though services are limited and I read reports of the island being badly spoiled in all the usual ways which is very sad.

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Koh Tonsay is reportedly now served by a ferry, but we went over in a boat like the above which had a sail made from palm fronds. I can still hear the sound it made as the wind pushed into it. I don’t like sailing, but I felt quite secure in that boat.

How grateful I am to have a memory of that beautiful little island, the way it was.

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