Author: kenritley

Jungle Mystery Number Three

kenritley

Continuing the series, this is the Teman Negara, a jungle rainforest deep within peninsular Malaysia, and the location of a number of mysteries for me.

This is the Teman Negara, which I visited during a trip to Malaysia:

And this is an Anopheles mosquito. Not the one that BIT me, despite my efforts to keep myself smeared with a powerful mosquito repellant, but one just like the one I caught sucking the blood in broad daylight from my hand:

Now here comes the mystery. About a month after returning from my vacation, at around 12.30 PM in the afternoon and while at work, I quite suddenly felt like I was going to get the flu: my body became weak, and I could feel my temperature was rising. I went home.

About one hour later, I was in bed with a high fever and chills.  My fever was higher, my weakness was weaker, and my chills were chillier than anything I have ever experienced, either before then or since.

Now, I’m not totally stupid – I know that because I spent time trekking in an area with malaria, and there could be a chance that I could get a delayed infection, so I decided to closely monitor my temperature: if it started to rise or get worse, I’d go to the hospital immediately.

After almost two days the temperature went down almost as quickly as it originally climbed, and the chills and the weakness disappeared.

Did I have malaria and then recover?  I remember the old British colonials would use the expression “to have a touch of malaria” – did I have a touch of malaria?

It’s a mystery because I guess I will never know!

Eureka! I found it!

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I shared one of my all time favorite snaps in a recent post, but I mentioned that I sadly did not recall where I took the photo.  I spend a lot of time trying to capture the quiet emotions you can find at great lakes . . . so my memory in this area fails from time to time:

While researching my photo collection I found the original, together with many others I took at Lake Pancherevo, the Pasarel Reservoir,  and the Iskar Reservoir- they are actually connected and are the Bulgarian/Russian equivalent of the public water works projects in the United States started after the Depression – just outside of the Bulgarian capital of Sofia.

 

The lion of justice

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This is the sight you’ll see if you visit the Supreme Court building in Sofia, or Съдебна палата.

I guess you can associate justice with a lion (Aslan from the Chronicles of Narnia, Mufasa in The Lion King, etc.).

It’s just that for me, when I think of justice, the symbol that comes to mind is a blind-folded lady wearing flowing robes and carrying a scale – rather than an vicious apex predator capable of severing a man’s neck with just two of its razor sharp teeth.

Jungle Mystery Number Two

kenritley

Continuing the series, this is the Teman Negara, a jungle rainforest deep within peninsular Malaysia, and the location of a number of mysteries for me.

Unfortunately, I can’t actually show you Jungle Mystery Two – and that’s why it remains a mystery. While visiting the jungle, I got up quite early and took a walk. Two Chinese people were also walking, but they couldn’t speak English and I can’t speak Chinese, so we walked together in silence.

When we came to a jungle clearing, we saw two orange orangutans (looked like a mother and a smaller child) dangling from long vines.  Naturally I took many pictures – and so did my Chinese companions. Here is a picture of an orangutan I found on the Internet:

Now, here comes the mystery: according to scientists, there are no orangutans on peninsular Malaysia!  Apparently, all the orangutans are located on the island part of Malaysia, also known as Borneo.

Now, you would naively think I would pop out the photo I took and solve the Mystery – but sadly, no such chance. This was just before the advent of digital cameras, and during my vacation I lost several rolls of film, including the one of the animals I saw.

Now, I’ve heard that there are many exotic animals hidden deep within the jungle, such as jungle elephants that are almost never observed by humans. Does this mean there may be a population of orangutans hiding out in Peninsular Malaysia?  There are at least two Chinese people, somewhere in the world, who hopefully have the evidence!

Jungle Mystery Number One

kenritley

This is the Teman Negara, a jungle rainforest deep within peninsular Malaysia, and the location of a number of mysteries for me.

The first Jungle Mystery is this: Teman Negara is not just a rainforest, it is a primary rainforest: the wettest and the hottest that they get.  It is also the world’s oldest rainforest, more than 100 million years old.

Now here comes the mystery: if the jungle is so wet and you can see the tremendous silt being carried in the river – and if the jungle is so old – then how can the jungle still be there?  Shouldn’t the rains have washed away all the mud and soil long, long ago?

Or does this perhaps mean the rate at which new soil is created (for example, from dying vegetation) exceeds the rate that silt is carried away in the river?

The amazing architecture of Swiss railway stations

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It is not an exaggeration to say that many Swiss railway stations are truly mind blowing.

This is Bahnhof Enge from the outside:

 

And this is Bahnhof Enge from the inside:

Stunning buildings like these harken back to a different time, when a train station like Bahnhof Enge was not merely a train stop on a commuter line, but actually an important debarcation center in its own right.

Interesting, the architects for this train station were Otto and Werner Pfister – and if anyone has spent time shopping for furniture in Switzerland, those names should certainly be familiar!

Vitus, Wenceslaus, and Adalbert – 2

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Continuing the series, you may wonder what these three saints have in common?

The answer is: a cathedral in Prague that is so large, ordinary photographers like me, without special equipment, are completely unable to capture the Prague Cathedral of Saints Vitus, Wenceslaus, and Adalbert in its full glory.

So I display here some of my favorite snaps of the cathedral up close. In comparison with other large cathedrals, this one had a surprising amount of painted detail:

And the stone windows are spectacular:

And although it pains me to show it, here is yet another snap that truly proves it’s impossible to capture good images of huge cathedrals:

Vitus, Wenceslaus, and Adalbert

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No, it’s not these three:

For the record, that’s Kukla, Fran, and Ollie – the characters of a children’s television show, parts of which I saw in re-runs as a small child.

This is Vitus. He died around the year 300, so it makes sense this painting would seem a bit older than the others:

This is Wenceslaus – but for the record, I don’t know if he was a good king or if he looked out on the Feast of Steven:

This is Adalbert:

And in my next blog post, I’ll tell you about what these three saints have in common.

Stained glass in Prague

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I took this snap from the inside of the Cathedral of St. Vitus, in Prague.

I think any photographer with a highly adjustable camera can take great shots of stained glass windows – but remember I captured this on the first generation of tiny, pocket digital cameras, more than a decade ago.

Unfortunately, the cathedral itself is just too huge for an amateur photographer like me to capture in its entirety. So in future blog posts I’ll share some snaps of parts of the structure that impressed me.

Hanuman was born here

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This is Hanuman:

If you haven’t seen him before, Hanuman is often referred to as the “monkey god” for obvious reasons.  What’s more remarkable is that his historical origins are unclear – there are some ancient Hindu texts that first describe him, but historians are not quite sure when he was first described.

Anyway, during a visit to the UNESCO city of Hampi, I had the good fortune to gaze upon the Anjani Hills:

The historians can’t quite agree when and where Hanuman was first referenced, but most Hindu’s I know agree that this hill was his birthplace.  The white spot at the top is the Hanuman Temple.

The peaks from Oberhofen am Thunersee

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For three years I had the lifetime privilege to live in the village of Oberhofen am Thunersee in Switzerland. It’s a tiny village, but it packs a spectacular, breathtaking view of the Swiss Alps of the Bernese Oberland.

Shortly after moving there, I became curious about the various peaks and other items of interest that I could see from my balcony, so I created my own “peakfinder.”

This is the view from my balcony, looking to the left (and also including a tiny snap of Oberhofen, taken from the observation platform at the peak of Mt. Niesen):

And this is the view from my balcony, looking to the right:

Incredible Bulgarian countryside

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I am convinced that the Bulgarian countryside holds the Number Two World Record in sheer amazingness, surpassed only by the countryside of rural India.

I took this snap of a huge monument out in the countryside of western Bulgaria, far away from any town or village:

Unfortunately I don’t understand Bulgarian, but I also captured the quite lengthy text etched into the monument:

Update added 21. October 2017: A friend of mine from Bulgaria just translated this for me.  The monument is for the people from Samokov in 1923 who have died fighting against the Monarchy and celebrates at the same time the start of the communism in 1944.

How many people can you stuff into an autorickshaw?

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Having lived many years in India, I thought I’ve seen it all: whole families of 6 people riding on a two-wheel scooter, chicken farmers sitting quietly in a bus on their way to town, with dozens of live chickens tied together and sitting quietly on their laps.

But this snap has to take the cake: I counted no less than 13 people packed into an autorickshaw.

I took this snap was somewhere in the Hassan district of the Indian state of Karnataka.

Scary Stuff!

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While recently visiting Manhattan I stumbled across a military exposition at Battery Park, in which the soldiers were showing off their tanks and guns and armored personnel carriers, and tilting-rotor Osprey aircraft flew back and forth across the Hudson River (that was really an impressive sight):

It was quite enjoyable to see the high tech military gear close up.

But for me, fun turned to terror when I came across this scene:

I was raised with guns and shooting, and I was taught how to handle them safely – and I got very ill when I saw a small child – in a large public setting filled with people – with his finger on the trigger of a real Colt M4 carbine.  I assume / hope / pray the soldiers somehow took “special precautions” with their guns, but you have to draw the line somewhere.

Jason Bourne Slept Here

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Well, I don’t know if he did or he didn’t – and that’s what drives me crazy!

Everyone remembers the film version of the Robert Ludlum novel The Bourne Identity:

(Interesting aside: Believe it or not, I stood behind Matt Damon in France, at a cash machine (ATM), back when he was filming the JB movie.  I didn’t know him as Jason Bourne – but rather I recognized him as the actor in Good Will Hunting.)

Anyway, in one famous scene Jason Bourne is caught by the Swiss police, sleeping on a park bench in Zürich:

When the camera angle pans, you can see the park is on a hill overlooking the Zürich skyline along the Limmat River:

After moving to Switzerland I quickly learned of this park, called the Lindenhof.

Recently, I got curious, and decided to see if I could see if this scene was really photographed here.  Indeed, the Lindenhof is a park, and there are green park benches:

And looking from the other direction, the park really does look out over the Limmat River,

But sadly, that’s where it ends.  I read that no parts of this movie were filmed in Switzerland, and that the park scene was (I think) filmed in Romania.

However, it seems great pains were taken with special effects to make this park as Lindenhof like as possible.  I did not take any pictures of it, but when you see this final scene, and if you’ve been to the Lindenhof, then you’d easily think the scene was filmed here:

Is the umbrella sommellier in?

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John Wick: “Is the sommellier in?

Receptionist: “I have never known him not to be.”

Like John Wick, I am a man of focus, commitment, and sheer will.  In the brilliant film John Wick 2, John consulted with the weapons sommellier while planning his party in Rome.

Similarly, I plan to return one day for a session with the sommellier of this place:

This is not one of the cheap stores in a cheap district that sells cheap Asian luggage. This is a 200-year-old upscale boutique in London that has walking sticks in glass cases that cost thousands of pounds (the walking sticks, not the cases), and umbrellas that cost much more.

The Dome of St. Peter’s

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This is one of my all time favorite snaps, showing the magnificent Dome of the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome, but framed in the context of quite a mundane and architecturally uninspiring neighboorhood street:

Unbelievably, the Basilica of St. Peter is known as the largest church in the world. I find that a bit hard to believe – but that is what is says in Wikipedia.

The historical origins of Bangalore as Indian’s Silicon Valley

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Everyone knows that Bangalore is often referred to as India’s Silicon Valley – but not everybody agrees why.  Some say it was because Wipro got its start here – I had the pleasure of meeting Wipro’s Azim Premji, but I don’t believe this is the reason.

After living many years in southern India, I’ve come to the realization that no other place I’ve visited has such a deep, long, and intense culture of technical innovation.

Probably the best known example: Back in the eighteenth century Southern Indians invented military rockets, the British stole these and exported them back to the New World – and in fact it is these Indian “rockets’ red glare” mentioned in the Star Spangled Banner.

But here’s an even better example: ancient outdoor air conditioning.  This snap shows a temple in the Southern Indian UNESCO village of Hampi:

The stone columns are hollow and, when filled with water, provide a strong evaporative cooling effect.

I’ll share other examples of Southern Indian “culture of innovation” as time permits.