Editors Note

It is hard to explain just how dense the jungle is near our village. Everyone here calls it “the garden.” It begins on the southern edge of the village and stretches on for kilometers. Exactly how far, I couldn’t say. My best guess is that it runs all the way to the northern edge of another village in Cambodia’s Banteay Meanchey Province, perhaps twenty kilometers away. Whatever its true dimensions, one thing is certain: it is thick. And the farther south you go, the thicker it seems to become.

In this volume of The Border Dispatch, I’m sharing a series of photographs made during a walk just a few days ago. I left home and started walking south. About six kilometers later, my wife came sputtering around a bend in the trail on her motorbike. I hadn’t realized several hours had passed. Out there, phone signals are unreliable at best, and when I didn’t return, she understandably became concerned.

The subscriber images in this edition capture at least a small part of the area’s density. Winding through rubber groves, patches of cassava, and stretches of jungle that seem determined to swallow the horizon, the landscape feels both beautiful and disorienting. It is remarkably easy to lose your sense of direction. More than once, it felt as though I had wandered into another world.

If any of these photographs speak to you, drop me a line. I’d be happy to arrange a printable copy. Personally, I think that right-place-right-time image of the dog riding comfortably on the back of a motorbike might look pretty good on someone’s wall.