The British Raj conceived of the hill station as a refuge from the merciless heat of summer on the Indian plains. Sahibs and memsahibs would trek to the lower reaches of the mountains for a few months of comforting familiarity each year: a ritual of afternoon tea by the fire, hot water bottles at night and cool highland breezes.
From Delhi, the cream of colonial society would make for Kashmir and its houseboats on Dal Lake or for Simla, in the Himalayan foothills. Those based in Calcutta would travel up to Darjeeling by train and spend the summer surrounded by Tudor architecture and tea plantations; Ootacamund - known as 'snooty Ooty' - was the retreat of choice for Brits wilting in the steamy Madras climate.
The French did similar things in their Indochinese dependencies. Dalat was Saigon's summer escape, while the colonists and high-ranking local officials of Phnom Penh would travel to the seaside resort of Kep-sur-Mer and beyond, to the strangest and saddest of all the hill stations: Bokor.
Kep now attracts Cambodian tourists in great number, who go to splash about in the soupy Gulf of Thailand, eat fresh seafood on little wooden platforms set up by the sea and visit former king Norodom Sihanouk's bizarre palace on a headland overlooking the town.
The 1960s-style villa, one of several built in southern Cambodia by Sihanouk, was never occupied by the king, although it is still furnished as if awaiting his arrival. Its main purpose now is as a viewpoint over the pretty half-moon bay and a reminder of Sihanouk's profligacy.
Bokor hill station is now part of the Preah Monivong Bokor National Park. Reaching it remains an arduous affair best tackled in a four-wheel-drive or a sturdy pick-up truck. Drivers wait at the base of the mountain at the entrance to the national park, scouting for travellers who have decided that riding pillion on a Chinese Honda Dream knock-off is too daunting.