It’s Not the Size...

I have a little one. It’s a ‘Kodak’ electronic camera. It is perfectly functional and reliable. I like it. Point and shoot technology.

But I have been asked to take a photo of the monkeys.

I should explain that.

I live on the edge of the jungle. Opposite my window, as I type this, I see trees. Trees that straddle a river. The River Klang, in fact.

The River Klang has its source nearby my house at the dam just up the road. It is called the Klang Gate Dam.

As a passing note: The French built the dam about fifty-four years ago. The guarantee was for fifty years...

For fourteen kilometres there is a ridge, called a Quartz Dyke that looks like the spine of a dinosaur. It is very narrow, quite high and very straight; it undulates from Gombak to Kemensah. Adjacent to us there is a gap in that ridge that is called the Klang Gate.

A friend of mine often climbs the ridge near us at a place called Bukit (Hill) Tabur. He posts wonderful photographs of this exploit on ‘Facebook’.

Historically there was a village in the Klang Gate but, due to the building of the dam, the villagers were displaced into our village, Taman Melawati, to an area called Kampong Klang Gate Bharu (New Klang Gate Village); the villagers were recompensed with land from a disused rubber plantation that was returned to the (Selangor) State, they sold off their parcels to private buyers until it, eventually, became two large plots.

‘Hong Leong Bank’ had bought the most as a ‘land bank’ but then sold it off for development but the area nearest us remains in private hands and so the trees still exist.

So it is that I sit here watching Sugar Gliders (flying squirrels), sundry birds and the odd snake, wander around in the trees. We used to hear tigers and wild boar but not so much now. One rarity was a damn great Black Jaguar strolling down the pipe at the back of the house. The pipe carries water from the dam to the centre of Kuala Lumpur; it also, seemingly, operates as a highway for feral felines!

Every day, at almost specific times, a troupe of monkeys swing through the trees en route to somewhere special. Then, a few hours later, they return to the point whence they came in order to bed down, one would think, for the night.

This is not a small troupe. We are looking at, probably fifty or sixty plus individuals. Some are mothers with small babies clinging to them for dear life, then there are the teenagers who scrap each other even as they leap from one branch to another. Amazingly, they will leap from a very thin branch at the precise moment that another ‘lad’ lands on it—they must know that the branch will not accept the weight of both.

Then there are the bigger fellows and the Granddads. The heavily moustachioed gentlemen follow on at a more sedate pace, as is befitting their age and rank in the troupe.

On their return journey the Alpha Male will chitter loudly at the latecomers, chiding them and encouraging them to speed up. Sometimes he will sit on a branch opposite my window and peer at me suspiciously while he scratches his tummy and shouts at the tardy members of the clan.

Here’s the problem

A friend of mine is fascinated by my proximity to wild monkeys.

“Take,” they tell me, “A photograph of these chaps.”

I only have a little one...