ANTISOCIOLOGY: ///LUCOLU///

An elderly and reluctant boat engine provided the soundtrack for our strange float down the opaque brown river leading to Tonle Sap, a Cambodian lake so vast strangers could easily mistake it for the ocean. The mostly straight and mostly still narrow-way of water was flanked by floating houses painted with colorful sunburst patterns and mysterious symbols; banks punctuated with stranded miscellanea; kids either in groups frolicking and waving naked in the water or riding solo on bicycles three times their size. The scenery on each side was always the same: a vertical triptych of brown water, green grass, and greyish blue sky. There were sections that smelled of just plain river, then a section inhabited by the fishmongers of the village that smelled much less plain and much more potent, then eventually came a part where we were just about at the edge of the lake and the smell of gasoline took over our senses. Our boat had broken down, just long enough for me to take some photos and attempt to grasp the unreal oddness of the surrounding atmosphere.

A number of temples became real visions during that trip. Some existed in the middle of remote, wild jungles, half-covered with gatherings of little green plants that looked a lot like cannabis. Local children were hanging out casually, sitting on ruins hundreds of years their senior, with sunlight freckling their faces through the leafy canopy. Other temples were in areas nearer the city, being swallowed by seemingly mutant trees, not quite as giant as Redwoods but still massive and definitely more imaginative. Their main prey seemed to be ancient debris, and their roots spread wide as if to imitate some sort of vacuum, while their branches twisted every which way grabbing onto other parts of the rubbled victim in case it might try to get away. This was a weird and, at the same time, beautiful battle to witness: the battle between man and nature. A telling scene: nature reigns, man invades nature, then nature reigns once again.