Bokor National Park- corruption and destruction in Cambodia

Bokor National Park must once have been one of the most beautiful spots in Cambodia- a 1500 sq km park famous for lush, primary rainforest and an abandoned French hill station perched upon it's 1100m peak, with views sweeping the coast all the way to Phu Quoc island in Vietnamese waters. 

These days, instead of stunning vistas of unspoiled rainforest and the atmospheric remains of the 1920's French settlement, you get to see the kind of pockets-lining, zero-planning development evident wherever a corrupt government holds power.

 

Behind this eye-watering development is Sokimex, the ultra-connected petrochemical company which also has holds the ticket concessions at Angkor Wat. The Cambodian government awarded the group some 14,000 hectares of National Park land to build a casino, hotel complex and luxury housing estate. Not surprisingly, Sokimex owner Sok Kong is also (gasp!) a senator in the ruling Cambodian People's Party.

 

As if the widespread destruction of one of Cambodia's most important ecological areas isn't bad enough, it seems there aren't even any tourists to allow money from this pitiful enterprise to make its way back to the local community. The 650 room hotel, casino and dining hall for hundreds of people all stand eerily empty; the luxury housing estate is destined to become a sometimes occupied ghost town of second homes for the tiny Cambodian elite.

Aside from the firm that was contracted out to cover the mountain top in concrete (probably also Sokimex owned), it doesn't look like anyone is really going to gain from this astonishingly short-sighted project.

We had been really looking forward to visiting Bokor, having read in a 2007 Lonely Planet about the lush forest and myriad endangered animal species to be found there. I hope the updated edition advises people to avoid the "national park" entirely.  It was probably the most depressing thing we've seen since leaving Australia (and considering the day before we had visited the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh, that's really saying something).