Partly fallen dry...
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Showing posts with label sungai lembing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sungai lembing. Show all posts
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
Sungai Lembing II
Well, you've seen already a few photos of Sungai Lembing...
I wrote another post about this town - or village rather - a while back. But seeing that visit was short and didn't include many photos of the town itself, I wanted to go back there.
Below another set of photos, which I think, if you look at them in one go, reflect the atmosphere quite well.
It's desolate.
I didn't do my best not taking pictures with people in it: the people are simply not there.
Well, not totally true, there are people - as you can see on some photos - but it seems to be only a handful, which adds to the sense of 'strange'.
A strange sense, like walking onto an abandoned movie set, still inhabited by some left behind extras, to please the one tourist per month who stumbles in by accident.
Perhaps that feeling is amplified by the houses itself, because the wood fronts are backed up by a lot of tin plating, creating the impression the fronts are only for decoration. And many of those houses are abandoned and empty. Striking for instance - as you can see on 'Redundant' and some of the photos below - is the lack of motorcycles or cars parked in front of those houses. That's a rare sight.
However, there's still some building activity going on, so perhaps Sungai Lembing is slowly reinventing itself.
I must admit though that the biggest part of this village doesn't seem to be inventing anything. It struck me mostly as a fading reflection of what once was...
Click on the photos for the bigger version...
I wrote another post about this town - or village rather - a while back. But seeing that visit was short and didn't include many photos of the town itself, I wanted to go back there.
Below another set of photos, which I think, if you look at them in one go, reflect the atmosphere quite well.
It's desolate.
I didn't do my best not taking pictures with people in it: the people are simply not there.
Well, not totally true, there are people - as you can see on some photos - but it seems to be only a handful, which adds to the sense of 'strange'.
A strange sense, like walking onto an abandoned movie set, still inhabited by some left behind extras, to please the one tourist per month who stumbles in by accident.
Perhaps that feeling is amplified by the houses itself, because the wood fronts are backed up by a lot of tin plating, creating the impression the fronts are only for decoration. And many of those houses are abandoned and empty. Striking for instance - as you can see on 'Redundant' and some of the photos below - is the lack of motorcycles or cars parked in front of those houses. That's a rare sight.
However, there's still some building activity going on, so perhaps Sungai Lembing is slowly reinventing itself.
I must admit though that the biggest part of this village doesn't seem to be inventing anything. It struck me mostly as a fading reflection of what once was...
Click on the photos for the bigger version...
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Not that old...
More Sungai Lembing, with a little bit more post processing...Click on photo for bigger version...
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
Friday, January 1, 2010
Sungai Lembing
One of the pleasant surprises of the latest trip in Malaysia was Sungai Lembing.
Not really knowing what to expect we drove there from Kuantan. It's about 40 kilometers from there, and the drive reminded me of Borneo a bit. A long stretch of green into the middle of nowhere.
At the end of that 40 kilometer long road lies Sungai Lembing. A half deserted mining town. Once blooming and an economic hot spot with tin mining - apparently the biggest tin mine on the planet -, the town is now in decline. Closed up shop lots, some of the few streets deserted. The building style quite different from other places in Malaysia, mostly wooden houses. It felt a bit like an abandoned Hollywood set from a Western; The town in 'High Noon', right before the fight starts...
We visited the small museum on a hill at the end of the town, all about the tin mining, which lasted till 1986, when tin prices on the world market dropped and the cost of mining started to outweigh the profits.
Then we drove a bit further into the kampung area behind the town and saw some spectacular views of houses along the river side and a very long but small suspension bridge across the river wobbling up and down when walking over it...
Sadly the sun didn't corporate and photographing landscape in Malaysia seems almost impossible. The view is never clear due to the humidity. Perhaps at sun rise - I'm not a morning person - but during the day landscape pictures always suffer from this blue dispersed haze, due to the light being broken by the water in the air.
Bridge...
Bridge with motor cyclist...
Near the museum...
Typical shop lot in Sungai Lembing...
Click on the photos for the bigger version...
Not really knowing what to expect we drove there from Kuantan. It's about 40 kilometers from there, and the drive reminded me of Borneo a bit. A long stretch of green into the middle of nowhere.
At the end of that 40 kilometer long road lies Sungai Lembing. A half deserted mining town. Once blooming and an economic hot spot with tin mining - apparently the biggest tin mine on the planet -, the town is now in decline. Closed up shop lots, some of the few streets deserted. The building style quite different from other places in Malaysia, mostly wooden houses. It felt a bit like an abandoned Hollywood set from a Western; The town in 'High Noon', right before the fight starts...
We visited the small museum on a hill at the end of the town, all about the tin mining, which lasted till 1986, when tin prices on the world market dropped and the cost of mining started to outweigh the profits.
Then we drove a bit further into the kampung area behind the town and saw some spectacular views of houses along the river side and a very long but small suspension bridge across the river wobbling up and down when walking over it...
Sadly the sun didn't corporate and photographing landscape in Malaysia seems almost impossible. The view is never clear due to the humidity. Perhaps at sun rise - I'm not a morning person - but during the day landscape pictures always suffer from this blue dispersed haze, due to the light being broken by the water in the air.
Bridge...
Bridge with motor cyclist... 
Near the museum...
Typical shop lot in Sungai Lembing...Click on the photos for the bigger version...
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