On of the most beautiful places in the world to watch the sun setting, is by the Malacca Straits and in particular with the “Floating Mosque” as a backdrop. These pictures were taken on Wednesday July 25 by our correspondent. The pictures were taken in the timespan of about 41 minutes with the first one taken at 19:06 local Malaysian time (GMT +8) and the last one at 19:47. I hope you enjoy the pictures.
If you visit Melaka, and I really think you should – You will need to go visit Charles Cham at the “Orangutan house”. Charles is an artist who creates beautiful paintings and in addition to this, he also designs and sells t-shirts in his studio in the “Orangutan house”.
Charles got his inspiration to paint when he at 5 years old watched a movie about a painter with a magic brush. As soon as he got home from the movie he started drawing and painting and never stopped. Charles worked as an editorial artist in Kuala Lumpur fo a few years before he one day decided to go to France to paint. Charles became a member of “Association des Artistes Indépendants Aixois“, he exhibited at the Salon des Independants in 1990 and 1991. He returned home to Melaka Malaysia in 1991 and set up his studio in the old part of town and named it “The Orangutan House”.
Charles is a very nice person and if you want to talk art with him he is very happy to do so. He is a renowned artist around the world and has exhibited in places such as, Singapore, Hong kong, Bali, Australia, France, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Portugal, Hungary and Malaysia. His paintings are generally based on the philosophy of Ying and Yang – “the duality of life and the attraction of opposites”.
Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand (localized, but in Western alphabet it is one word – “Chiangmai”. In Thai it is “เชียงใหม่”) , this region is a part of Thailand that gets its influences from many different countries and cultures. It is close to the border with Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Laos. China is not very far away either, but Thailand has no direct border with China. The development of the region centered on the rivers and the river valleys that cut through the mountains of the region. The climate is tropical and due to the higher elevation it has more pronounced seasonal differences in temperature as compared to lower lying areas.
Across the street from the Lanna folklife museum is the Old Chiang Mai Cultural Center. Here you can learn about Thai customs and symbolism, in particular as it pertains to this area of Thailand.
The three kings monument is dedicated to the three Laotian kings, King Mengrai who is believed to have founded Chiang Mai in the 1400’s and his friends King Ramkamhaeng of Sukothai and King Ngam Muang of Payao. Legend has it that the three kings worked together to lay out the city of Chiang Mai and also entered into a pact for the defense of the city. Here you can find out more about the last king of Laos.
Carl von Linné (May 23 1707 – January 10 1778) was Carl Linnaeus name after his ennoblement. He was a Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist who formalized the naming system of organisms – called the binomial nomenclature. The binomial nomenclature is a latin or latinized name of the organism. It consist of two parts, the first part indicates the genus and the second part is the specific name. Carl von Linné did his work at Uppsala University. He was in fact a multitalented and multifaceted human being as a whole and way ahead of his time. Here are some images from a recent visit to his beloved estate Hammarby. It is located a bit outside the city of Uppsala just to the north of Stockholm, the capitol of Sweden.
