When we first arrive in Mt Bokor, my first thought was to find out whether the roadside population of Nepenthes bokorensis was still alive. It used to occur roughly between 800 and 950 masl and once (once!) it was fairly easy to spot beautiful plants from the road.
I last visited Mount Bokor in 2009 and during that visit, I witnessed the destruction of the original small road and its transformation into a large road for buses and luxurious berlines. I saw hundreds of ancient trees lying along the road and the mountain being carved from all sides.
I confess I was impressed this time to see how fast humans have worked, the old carnage has now been replaced by a near perfect road. It will sure be much more easier to ascent the Bokor plateau that it had been in the past!
I was torn apart between the despair to see this natural park being turn into a new Genting Highlands resort, at best, or, at worst, into some kind of twisted Disneyland, and the wonder in front of man's ability to handle and shape the forces of Nature.
We managed to spot very few plants along the road although we did watch carefully. At one point, we found a small population of plants:
This is Alastair first encounter with this Cambodian species and you can see on his face that he's happy to be there.
At this point, and although 90% or so of the roadside population had vanished, we thought that Nepenthes, as pioneering plants, would colonize again the Bokor massif. This is the reason why the following video was so optimistic.
But soon, and despite the discovery of two large populations of stunning plants, we would be slammed in the face when we saw what was happening on what was supposed to be a sanctuary.
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