Our Sky

I have my story today because the Earth keeps rotating. To continue further, the Moon I am seeing now I shall pass over to Ratty in tomorrow morning when Sun starts to rise. Nobody has the right to keep either one.

The sky that had Icy BC amazing at the wonderful things she saw in life, she captured and shared with us. This same sky was where Harumi drew her coral reef, alligator, archer and hound. I was then somehow inspired by similar sky that charm behind those fern leaves this morning.

Again, nobody is able to draw the boundary on the sky. She belongs to every one of us. Although Ana saw the light that late in the sky, even when rainclouds were passing, she could only keep the sky virtually. The cactus with the sky shot is gorgeous, but Betchai has to wait for the next day if she love to have some fascinating pictures again.

I am not much better. The sky was so beautiful this morning at Cerok Tokun. I even lay on the ground and spent some relaxing moments with her. Of course, I had to leave her for home later.

Looking at the fern leaves, I am amazed by the pleasing symmetry. Those that appear on one side, I can see the exact on the other side.

Everything is so beautiful. Everything is for you and me, as long as the Earth keeps rotating.

52 Years of Wisdom

It is our National Day today. What are my wishes on this special day which have I started thinking for a few weeks? By the way, it is so good to witness a clean and clear sky after two weeks of continuous rainfalls.

I do not have many wishes. I only hope Malaysia will forever be clear and clean, for us, and for our future generations.

The time is 12:00am, 31st of August. Happy 52nd anniversary, Malaysia.

New Life

It is fascinating to hike after raining days, besides enjoying myself walking in the mist, I could see ants building their new home and I received invitation from the Babbeler.

The story on the nature continues as I move on. In this fresh and wet morning, I can read the energy brought to the forest by the rain, and the tiny green shoots that signify new life; they are supported by the slope today, they will support the slope in the future.

The story on the nature continues as I move on.

Looking at the mud on the caps of mushrooms, the power of new life is fully exhibited. They need not to be a sleeping turtle nor a Monkey King, yet the moment they burst themselves out from the ground, in scientific term, how much force is required? And they make it.

If you ask why I go hiking every week, I need no talking about physical, but I hike on a trail of wisdom. Different insight may be derived from the same thing, different understanding may be perceived from different stages of life, and time.

It Moved Along With Door

When I saw this snail I thought of the slug in The Everyday Adventurer. Why the slug is smart enough to travel without carrying any shell, but not this snail?

I intended to take its picture when I found the snail in the bush. Somehow the traffic had distracted me from my mission. I marked the place, and came back 5 minutes later. I first thought it should not move far away within this short period, but the snail was lost now. Only then I discovered that some snails can move up to 55 meter per hour.

Luckily I managed to find it later on the middle of the pathway.

Having a close interaction, I could not stop laughing. This poor little snail carried its door when it was away from home. No smuggler could ever able to break-in, I strongly believe that!

I watched and ensured this poor little thing was safely back to the bush again before I made my move.

And before making my move, I would like to share with you what I have googled: "Our life is like the little snail, where we go we leave a trail. The things we do and the things we say, are the trail we leave from day to day."

Sun WuKong Is Not My Story

There is a story that most of the us have known since we were small.

Sun Wukong, which means "Awakened to Emptiness" or Monkey King in English, was born from a rock on the mountain of flowers and fruits. Having the incredible power known as 72 transformations, when he failed to be granted an honorable place as one of the gods, he started to make trouble in Heaven and eventually was trapped under a mountain by Buddha. He was only released when the monk Xuanzang came by and accepted him as a disciple on his journey to retrieve Buddhist sutras from India.

What can the Monkey King do with his 72 transformations? He can pull hairs from his body, blow on them and to transform them into whatever he wishes. Great?

These are parts of the story from novel "Journey to the West". I have mine in MyJourney.

I have confirmed that a giant turtle is trapped under Cerok Tokun, with only his head is visible to me. I have seen him for years, but he must be here for millennia. He was found still sleeping when I had my usual hiking early this morning. This is the reason, I believe, why nobody is aware of him; he just looked like an ordinary piece of rock covered by fern.

But I discovered this turtle has awakened accidentally when I was on my descending trail. You are the lucky one to know next. I am not trying to bluff something out of nothing. I have the evidence. You can see his eye is now widely open.

He has yet to recover to his full energy. What will happen to Cerok Tokun? You will be the first one to be informed.

This is the Answer

With the help of this macro view, I am able to identify the holes or nests must be owned by the ant colony. Ants can be seen clearly at the right side of the hole.

So the answer is not so right if you think they are belonged to my lovely crabs, crickets or termites. If your answer is Martian or micro rabbit, I cannot help much but to send you back to the Mars.

But then come my new problem. What type of species do they belong to? (Ahhh! Life is really full of problems.)

I have spotted these tiny ants in the neighbourhood. They looked nothing similar to those in the first picture. I shall be right to rule them out.

I saw a giant ant nearby. If you observe carefully, it was on the way back to its home, the hole on top of the picture. Do you think this hole and the earlier one look alike? You can see the back part of an ant inside the hole if you enlarge the picture.

"This giant forest ant or Camponotus gigas is a large species of ant, native to Southeast Asian forests. It is one of the largest ants in existence, measuring in at 20.9 mm for normal workers, and 28.1 mm for the soldiers. Honeydew makes up 90% of their diet, but they will also consume insects and bird droppings." --Wikipedia

Before I end this post, there arise another problem again. Why did the ants need to make a sharp turn and travel in a long way, instead of creating a short cut, just like what we human are used to do?

Does this call discipline or unimaginative?

What Are They?

I have observed something which was new to me, but may not to you, at Cerok Tokun. They appeared after the few days of rainfalls, just like the mushrooms. I am now able to know something about them with the help of technology.

I do not want to talk much about them originally because it will only reveal my foolishness. But if I am not going to show them, then this is not a real me.

With much struggles, I decided to put up the pictures thus to check my level of negligence. Please bombard my foolishness if you are able to tell the identity. I shall be even happier if I find out you are like me.

These are the pictures:

(They are certainly not Lord of the Ring.)

Then, I dare you to tell the answer.

Say Hello in Mushroom's Way

It did bring me new experience when I tried thing differently at Cerok Tokun. First of all, I assumed the jungle trail is very less used. I have never noticed the actual situation because my usual practice is to snap and go; I needed to stop at every minute this time to give way to others. You see, I had occupied the two feet wide hiking trail while spending time on trial-and-error on my shots.

I should have done it better if I lay myself on the slope and my eye on the viewfinder. This what if is a total nonsense by now. The mushrooms will not be around at this strategic place during my next visit. It is sorry to say this one is the best among the bad.

I am then reluctant to show the second picture. They were the same mushrooms viewed at a different angle, this may implant different perception in you which I shall not say wrong in one way, but the other side of truth is not what I want.

As I moved along, I found more have popped up, in different shapes and colours, single or in bundle. They couldn't wait to greet me with silent "Hello!"

Same to my fellow hikers; they greeted me with some funny looks. A few stayed to confirm what it actually was, and walked away with scepticism. Some began to shoot using their mobile phone cameras. The others started to tell jokes or stories which faded in between the trees in minutes.

When they are to meet me in one day, they may expect to see my hairs popping up like mushrooms; a mushroom man.

Dating with Mushrooms

It rained for the last two weeks, in fact, it poured. I took my chance this Saturday morning to visit Cerok Tokun again. There was no thunder nor storm, but their footsteps can be traced everywhere in the jungle.

Mushrooms were seen popping up, here, and there. They have mushroomed since last few days.

It was a good day for mushroom hunting.

These saprophytic fungi were the first to be seen on my hiking trail; they do play an essential function for our ecosystems. By breaking down dead organic material, they return nutrients to the soil so new life can flourish, yet their sizes are much smaller than my finger nail.

My flash was on for the following hunting in order to help these mushrooms be more lively in the stage.

They are parasitic fungi, but are not welcome as the species that are known as parasitic orchids. Don't you think they are cute and pretty too?

At the end, how can I help? They sometimes look so awful and weird.

Anyhow, I have a lesson learned from this hiking: bending and bowing are not enough in the interaction process with the mushrooms. Asking the camera to lie on the ground on behalf of me is actually an insult to them. These is the reason why I did not manage to get good pictures in return.

But then this will not stop me from showing you some more mushrooms stories in my next post.

Angel of the Wild Hearts

I am still thinking those monkeys in my last post must have hidden something from me, otherwise the leader must not get aggressive and start challenging me. Somehow, I failed to discover the truth, I moved away.

I moved away, but I found an angel of the wild hearts.

Yes, the mother monkey was my angel, not because she treated me differently, but it was the feeling of motherhood that had me saying so.

I must cuncur if anyone of you consider her as your sister. Why not, for an angle?

No Story for You Today

The monkeys just spread themselves over the places. I should end up with nothing if I chose to chase after two rabbits, this is what I had been taught by a wise man. I had then focused at a particular group of them; if I kept my patience, I must be able to disclose some of their privacy. Again, You must agree with me that everyone enjoys knowing other people's secret, and enjoys more when sharing these in the "coffee shop gossip". Sorry to say, I am one of these ordinary people.

So I stayed near to them quietly, hoping to discover something interesting to me and to you, but might not to them. (Come on, are you thinking that you are not as sinful as me? You must have been waiting for something from me right now, aren't you?) Someone's secrets usually look fun to others but it actually hurts the former when they are no more secrets.

This monkey must fully agree with me. It seemed to be rejecting an intruder and a paparazzi who kept pointing his camera at them. "Who are you to get into our world?" It turned and stood up to protest. This paparazzi ignored any of its protest, and I knew I had to continue shooting.

Upon knowing the protest was in vain, the monkey decided on the next move. It must be the leader and the rest seemed to leave everything to this guy. "Are you going to jump towards me?" "I have kept a safe distance, I must be alright."

Oh my friend had lost its patience with me. It leaned against a tree signalling its final warning to me. "You go or I'll jump!" "Don't you try to challenge me!!"

I had to forgo my professionalism as a paparazzi. I had to pretend I had have enough for the headline.

You should have known I have disappointed you all by now. I do not have any of their secrets to show you.

I have no story for you today.

Fancy Hair Style

I received a few interesting comments on my earlier post: 1. "My stars, where ever did you get that awful hairdo ?" 2. "Just gimme a sec.. wanna fix ma hair n powder ma face.. ok.. am ready.. now shoot!"

And this is the comment from my monkey: "Hello! Hold on!!! He is not that fancy, look at me!!"

My monkey may not have the intelligence on IT, but he is always the trend setter, in terms of hair style, the rest are only followers.

Please do not react excessively while somebody is passing by, if they and my monkey look alike. They may think they are monkey at the moment.

By the way, I leave it to you to imagine and describe on his hair style.

An Orange Bloom

I was caught in the rain again, and needed to run for the shelter before wishing for a rainbow. You see, a rainbow is considered to be "a path made by a messenger between Earth and Heaven", but have to admit I am yet qualified to witness the heaven. Somehow, I waste no time to enjoy every second in the Earth that equally treats everybody, be it poor or rich, male or female and "ivory or ebony".

Although the rainbow was missing, I spotted an orange bloom in return. It was bright and charming that I could not resist sharing with you.

It must have slipped from the rainbow.

I might be right; it grabbed some yellow before leaving the heaven.

Interrogation

This was a shot at a monkey during my recent hike. I do not think it was looking at me. What did it think at that moment?

Countless of question marks, worries or arguments often occupy our brain. We lose our mind, we look so blank through our eyes, but does a monkey happen to behave like us?

This is a world that full of interrogation, even a monkey may go crazy one day.

I Saw the Bird Again

After I had some fun with those monkeys, I continued my hike to the top.

Not too far away from the second stop, I met this little bird out of sudden. It just appeared in front me, looking at me, and sort of inviting me. I had the feeling it was the same buddy which I met last time. It must have known about my difficulty to capture its pictures, that is why it was waiting for me at the same old place.

After it confirmed that I had noticed its presence, it turned and led me to somewhere that I did not know. I am saying so because my buddy never flied away, it hopped bit by bit, at the same time making sure I was following, and I followed very obediently. I think we had the consensus, after the first encounter, and after it knew about my post in my blog. I guess.

The bird flied up to the curb, confirmed I had it in my sight, and then continued. We seemed to be an old friend to each other by now.

We communicated by body language in the whole journey, and when it turned to me, I knew it must have something to tell me. It stayed for while, but running out of words, so was I. It gave up talking anything finally, except hinting me to follow again.

Then I knew, the moment it stopped at this place, an entrance to somewhere. My buddy was bringing me to its home. I was its guest today. How fortunate I was!!

Before I managed to response, I was slow to response because I needed to figure out the method, a passer-by broke in. In order to keep the secret, my buddy flied away without saying goodbye.

Left behind a sweet memory.

One, Two and Jump

When I went back to Cerok Tokun yesterday morning, the second stop was noisy with different funny sounds of the monkeys. I could not understand what was really happening. The voices echoed from the right, to the left, and then appeared far atop a tree and down to the slope, almost at everywhere. When I was busy tracing the various sound sources, my attention had been distracted by something happened on my right.

The monkeys were lining up jumping from one tree to another. This must be one of the game that I could not make any sense of it. I aimed my camera at the jumping location, waiting to harvest a few action-packed pictures.

Yes, here is the first move: Get set,

Ready,

Go!

And the game continued.

But my focus was to follow the last one. I searched between the leaves and branches. The monkey had disappeared to nowhere. Somehow I had spotted what supposed not to be seen in the open.

I wonder while the couple were busy, what was the third one trying to do?