Travel Photo Of The Week: Monkeys Monkey and more Monkeys!

Griffin Stewart — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 06:31:46 +0000

So last week we posted the first Travel Photo of the week in the last month. We have been really struggling to get the weekly photos up due to slow and unreliable internet in Asia and, more recently, on a boat. Because of the lack of photo of the week posts we thought this week we’d do something a little different and share a lot of photos from our travels for your enjoyment.

As we have traveled around Asia, we have had a lot of fun visiting different temples. Now you may think it a little strange to have a lot of fun visiting a temple but it is not the temples that were the fun part. You see at a lot of the temples around Asia have monkeys hanging out at them. Why? Well from our understanding, in Hinduism, monkeys are considered holy and even represent or may be gods.

These moneys are very cute, smart, curious and most of all sneaky. If you have any food, or even just some bright/reflective objects on your person and are not careful the monkeys will take it from you. Many time we would be feeding one monkey a banana and a greedy monkey who was perhaps his partner-in-crime would come over and steal our entire bag of bananas from right out of our other hand.

Hope you enjoy the monkey postures. We enjoyed encountering these cute and amazing animals.

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Monkey Forest – Ubud, Indonesia

The Amber Fort – Jaipur, India

Monkey Temple – Kathmandu, Nepal

Batu Caves – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Photos taken using Tamron SP AF 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II LD Aspherical [IF] and Tamron AF 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD LD Aspherical IF Macro Zoom Lens

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Travel Photo Of The Week: The Candle Lighter – Kathmandu, Nepal

Griffin Stewart — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 05:01:05 +0000

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Photo taken using Tamron SP AF 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II LD Aspherical [IF]

After a brief, but enjoyable time in Malaysia, we headed out to Kathmandu, Nepal where we are getting ready to climb to Everest Base Camp. We had initially given ourselves a few days to get everything in order and then head up the mountain, but Griffin’s camera broke on our last day in Malaysia. It has some kind of software error and all the repair shops in Kathmandu are closed due to the biggest festival of the year here, so we have been in the city for about a week, so far. Kathmandu is an interesting city to explore. Lots of noises, sights, and smells, but not all of them very peaceful or enjoyable to put it lightly. There is a lot of history to be seen and some of the buildings have real charm to them. The people here, from our experience so far, are very kind and helpful and even in the touristy area of Thamel where our hostel is, seem to genuinely appreciate and like talking to us as visitors and friends.
This week’s travel photo is of the man in charge of selling candles at one of the many Hindu temples sprinkled throughout Kathmandu. I chose to photograph him because I felt like he had a kind look to him and the lighting from the candles seems to light up his features and age nicely. I wonder what sort of things he has seen in his lifetime and the changes he has seen in Kathmandu since his birth. The Hindu devotees give a donation to the candle lighter and then put the candle in front of one of the temple idols, possibly saying a prayer in the process. Sorry, I don’t know much about Hinduism, so feel free to let us know more info in the comments if you know more about it.
This photo was taken with the Tamron SP AF 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II LD Aspherical [IF] lens which is the first wide angle lens I have had and I am really enjoying it. I feel like it pulls the scene into the camera and shows more of what you can see in reality than an 18mm lens can. Hope you enjoy.