Sunday, January 27, 2008

Monkeys, Tigers and Temples

When not engaged in things Burgessian in Malaysia, we had the chance to wander around Kuala Lumpur. I think the term "City of Contrasts" might have been minted for it. The high tech, ultra-modern cityscape, symbolised by the Petronas Towers, lives cheek-by-jowl with the remnants of the colonial past, and reminders of the cultural diversity of the place. There are also lots of monkeys:

This was one of the few that stayed still long enough for me to photograph. This was on a Sunday stroll through the park, during which we regularly encountered dozens of these chaps.
Elsewhere in the city, it's not unusual to encounter, in a suburban street, an extraordinary temple like this:

In the Chinese quarter, where apparently lots of traders don't really like photographs, because of the, ahem, provenance of the goods on offer, we came across temples to Mammon

and to more dignified deities:

Another highlight was the night market at Bangsar, where the senses are assailed by a mass of competing aromas. Not sure I'd go for this guy's produce though:

More Malaysian images to come.