We had arrived in the west Cambodian town of Battambang on a hot
afternoon, having traveled by boat across the rolling seas of
Tonlé Sap Lake and then up the tranquil waters of the Stung Sanker River.
The journey had taken most of the day and we had passed by floating villages
and traveled down narrow channels through thick jungles of reeds that at
times stretched to the horizon.
Battambang has the legacy of having many colonial buildings from the
days of the
French Indochina empire and when I spotted this scene of a
loading dock door on the side of a decaying building, with its palette of
mottled colors like that of a French impressionist painting, it struck
me as a thing of beauty.