THE STORY OF THE TREE...

Just heard from Lain Kothari, creator of the giant tree that looms high over Varney.

"I'm not really sure what inspired it," he tells me. "I knew I wanted something real big."

Lain has had his eye on Mount Varney for some time, and when the property finally came available, "I bought it right away for L$40,000. I had to borrow from a friend to buy it all." Trouble is, after waiting so long and spending so much on securing that peak real estate, "I couldn't decide what to build. The land sat for weeks with nothing on it. I was even thinking of allowing others to come up with projects that required a large amount of land and then I would just pick one."

But then he realized that he had really bought the land to build something of his own, conceived on his own. "I knew there was a large tree in one of the Southern regions and I thought that maybe I could build one myself. I started at the bottom roots and when I finished it was 217 meters at the top and about 400 prims [i.e. building block "primitives"] so far with nothing on it. It turned out about twice as big as I wanted it to be, but I think it looks great. I have been toying with the idea of making a mall area for people to set up shops and such. And maybe I'll put my house at the very top. I really don't have a direction of where I'm going with this project. I do know that I want a place for people to commune now that the boardwalk in Varney is gone."