Kampot is a (south west province) province of Cambodia. It borders the provinces of Koh Kong and Kampong Speu to the north, Takeo and Kep to the east and Sihanoukville to the west. To its south it has a coastline of around 45 km on the Gulf of Thailand. Its capital is Kampot town.
Kampot has a population of 627,884[2] and consist of eight districts divided into 92 communes with a total of 477 villages. Touk Meas City is located in Kampot Province.
The town was built as a resort by colonial French settlers to offer an escape from the heat, humidity and general insalubrity of Phnom Penh. Nine hundred lives were lost in nine months during the construction of the resort in this remote mountain location.
The centrepiece of the resort was the grand Bokor Palace Hotel (which has never been a casino), complemented by shops, a post office (now demolished), a church and the Royal Apartments. 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, and then for good 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.
It's only in the 60's, for the reopening of the "Cité du Bokor", that a casino has been established in the new hotels near the lake, (Hotels Sangkum and Kiri),
0 comments: