Mood = Monkey

Today, for the first time, I knocked on a parked motorcycle, at the petrol station when I was reversing my car. However, only the helmet fell off and nothing happened to the motorcycle and my car. That was when I realized that I was affected by Monday blues! Like most of us, certainly I get upset, especially when something goes wrong early in the morning.

Over a small matter I was upset, but I was not able to pin-point the exact reason and was flying off the handle with anyone/anything that came my way. Then, I was blaming this and that and started wondering about all the "ifs & buts". For sure, I knew that talking about this with a friend would not give me any relief, but it would only add fuel to what had happened. On the way back from school, I happened to see a monkey and at that instance I remembered a story that I'd often heard in my childhood. It's about a monkey that had thorn in its tail.

Someone tries to help the monkey to remove the thorn, but accidentally cuts off the tail instead. Now, the monkey blames the man for cutting his tail and demands that the man gives his knife as compensation. The monkey was happy and singing merrily about what it had gained by loosing. After a while, the monkey sees a small girl trying to cut fire-wood with bare hands, so it offers her the knife. After chopping, the knife gets blunt, so the monkey was upset and demands that the girl gives the firewood to the monkey. Like this the trading of goods keeps growing, but the monkey was never satisfied, it kept blaming others!

Well, I thought I was having the monkey's attitude, where I was trying to blame on my "bad mood" for the carelessness while reversing. Well, this gave me an opportunity to write about the monkey story^^:)

Friendly Silverleaf Monkeys at Bukit Melawati

In our quest to visit off-beat attractions in and around Kuala Lumpur, we heard about firefly watch at the Selangor river in Kampong Kuantan in Kuala Selangor. In this saga, we learnt that Bukit Melawati is on the way and is known for Silverleaf Monkeys and Lighthouse.

As I was not sure of the route, we took our regular cabbie and it was a pleasure to be driven like this. We started around 4.30 PM taking the North-South Plus Highway, and took the Sungai Buloh exit. From there we followed Bukit Melawati signboard. Bukit means hill in Malay. We reached there by 5.30 PM. As we were winding up through the hills the short majestic lighthouse came into view.

This faces the straits of Melaka and is in use since 1907. Visitors are not allowed inside so we had to just click from outside. Before we could find a proper parking place we saw monkeys crowding the path and dared not to miss the scene so hurried to shoot even without unwinding the windows:)

The monkeys were not aggressive and to my surprise they were not even noisy. Unlike the monkeys that we commonly see, the adult silverleaf monkeys are dark grayish, where as their babies are golden brown.

 

In their natural habitat

 

On the fence

We met a local who comes to this place everyday to feed the monkeys. He was so close to them and had named 3 of them based on their nature! From him we came to know that the golden brown babies start changing color slowly and by 4 months they reach the same color as the mom and from then they start being independent.

There are petty vendors selling food that monkey likes. Though the monkeys are well behaved, at times they show their true color and grab the food packet if we hold it visibly. When I bought long-beans to feed the monkeys the vendor suggested that I hide the packet in the bag and show one piece at a time.

After taking few pieces from me, the bright chap identified the source of its treasure and lurched for my camera pouch and deftly took the remaining food!

On our way down, the panoramic view was breath taking. Below shot shows fishermen settlement. 

 

We came down around 6 PM and headed to Kampung Kuantan to watch the fireflies. Will rattle on that experience tomorrow:)

Memorable Courtallam

On the way back from Thiruchendur, we decided to go to Courtallam, a small town in the Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu famous for water falls. The peak season is between June to August, during this period people flock there to enjoy the pleasant breeze and shower in the seasonal water falls. Surprisingly, even in September, we heard that there was water in that town, so went there.

When we used to live in India, we used to frequent this place for every season, and do certain things diligently, like eat hot halwa (Indian sweet made of wheat flour) near Main Falls. So, this time around my first stop, was at the famous halwa shop and had halwa and at the same time had visual treat, which is shown below:


As we had to go back to Madurai before dark, we headed for Five Falls. This place is named after the falls that pour down from the same range! See the picturesque view:



Another specialty of this town is monkeys! In Five Falls, as there was not much crowd, monkeys were having a gala time.

True to their attitude, this monkey was ripping off the flowers laid on top of the Elephant statue, kind cute is isn't it?
Like humans, mom protectively taking the baby for a walk.