Footsteps - Jotaro's Travels: April 2021

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Footsteps - Jotaro's Travels

Klang Art Street Murals

Hornbills (photo credit Anne Cheong)

Klang City, Malaysia - March 2021

We frequently cycle to Klang, and sometimes take a ferry from there to Pulau Ketam for more cycling. But of late due to Covid-19 pandemic SOP restrictions we have had little chance to do it. So once the restrictions were eased, we made a bee line to cycle there. Our Klang buddy Gan CG took us on a loop around her hometown and we were glad to see that the more murals have been added to enhance the street art scene of the city!

Below are some of the street art, most of them are located at the side and back-lanes between Jalan Tengku Diaudin & Jalan Datuk Hamzah (see Klang Street Art location map below, click here for directions). Enjoy!

The Art Street of Klang spans the back alley and side-lanes between Jalan Tengku Diaudin & Jalan Dato Hamzah, and are within a 5-minute walk from the Klang Commuter Station, Click Here for Directions. Many murals now cover the back walls of the shop-houses of these two streets, but these was not always the case. Most of the murals are fairly new, I think not more than two years old; AND it all started with just ONE mural at the side wall of the Harekrishna Mens Choice fashion shop, started with this one above showing a mother African elephant and her calf.

GETTING THERE:

At the bottom, after the art photos, is a map showing icons of locations of the respective street art; on your mobile phone, click on the icon, then click on "View in Google Maps" followed clicking on "Directions" and then "Start". Make sure you are in the "Driving Mode".

Many more murals have been added, with many of them having these type of bar-codes next to them. These will dispense more information of the murals. Click here for the Elephant Bar Code link and many other bar-codes related to these murals; it would be great if the name of the artists were indicated in this link, unfortunately it's not.

(click here for directions to the Klang Art Street)

But bear in mind that parking are allowed on the side-lane and the parked cars often block the elephants.

Opposite the elephants is this collage of a mysterious lady with a peacock, a spotted Moray eel, and butterflies & bee. This is an artwork by Jane Koluga.

The murals are mostly of animals and they are officially known as the "Laman Seni Safari Jejak Warisan Klang" (Klang Heritage Trail Safari Art Site). And the artwork seems to be arranged in some sort of order of animal family, starting with dinosaurs like this red-winged Pterodactyl.....

And onward to this Anaconda. Often the animals are painted emerging/entering into holes to make the painting look 3-dimensional, using a artwork technique called Anamorphosis.

To get an even more 3-D effect, often the murals are drawn on two perpendicular walls like this Tyrannosaurus T-Rex which seems to have punctured a hole through the wall.

The 3-D effects, attracts some photo fun.

A Velociraptor, standing above the T-Rex, seems to be mocking it.

By the way, don't be surprised if you see cyclists and bicycles in these photos, we were on a cycling tour around Klang; read more of my cycling adventures at AhPek Biker.

A Megalodon (pre-historic shark) fighting for attention with a T-Rex.

A chimpanzee comically taking a selfie. In many of the painting can be seen the letters KCC, this stand for the Korean Chemical Company who sponsored the paint for these murals.

Having selfie photo fun with the "Selfie Chimpanzee"!
(Photo credit: Anne Cheong)

A giraffe sticking out it's long neck, poking into other people's business!

A bear waving friend-lily at visitors..... Hmmmm.... the bears here seems friendly 🤣.

A cheeky chimpanzee and the happy orangutans are a favourite with visitors.

Next to them, a not so happy Gazelle running for its life, being chased by a Cheetah!

The windows forms the blue shades of a cool looking lion, while next to it an meerkat stands tall looking equally cool in its own blue shades!

A sloth hanging onto the trunk of a tree, looking more lively, contradicting them being known for being slothy!

The side lanes seems to be a boundary of sort, past this side lane and we cross-over from land mammals to those beautiful flying creatures.

A superb looking and very colourful parrot.

"Don't give me that look, Chicken!"

Another beautiful parrot, and next to it a colourful spread out wings have significance.

The wings spans across the corner walls of the building .....

Stand at this strategic corner, from a correct angle it would look like one is a beautiful and colourful angel.

(Photo credit: Anne Cheong)

Something more tame.

Another crowd favourite: Zebras.

These reminded me of the psychedelic coloured Zebra mural I saw among the street art of Fremantle.

(Photo credit: Anne Cheong)

Midway along the back-lane are a couple of hearts for love-lorn couples to lock their love.

For us older folks, the flames of love have tapered off, but it was still a good place to pose for a group photo.

Pass another side-lane and we cross over into another realm of the animal kingdom, into the realm of the insect .....

Kicking of with this leggy spider.

Ahem.... this insect world seems to border along a fantasy worls similar to that of Alice in Wonderland.

True enough, there's this caterpillar that's reminisce of Absolem from Alice's world.

Another fairy-tale scene, with steps leading to a fairy-tale house. The snail on the right seems to look wistfully at the house, I wonder what's the significance - perhaps Faez Art could shed some light on this.

A closer look at Mr. Snail.

A cricket resting serenely, next to a blooming ginger torch flower.

Not far away, something not so serene - a large centipede crawling around looking for prey.

An even more menacing black scorpion, perhaps fighting for prey with the centipede.

These bright wild gecko looked almost luminous. Pity though, they even more colourful cousins, the Tokay Gecko is highly priced and sought for after as they are reputed to have medicinal attributes that can cure various diseases such as diabetes, cancer and even aids. But these wild claims are unsubstantiated and has harmed the gecko population.

If not for the artist highlight it, this chameleon rightfully should not be so conspicuous and should have blended into the back ground.

Frogs are not necessarily dull creatures, they can be bright and colourful. Be warned though, the more colourful frogs are they more likely that they are poisonous.

The fierce looking iguana.

The iguana may look threatening but actually they are herbivores. Similarly the sea iguanas just eat algae and not other animals.

This nasty looking crocodile is a different story - it's best to stay clear of them.

In the Malay language crocodiles are known as buaya; a different species - the buaya darat (playboy) - is even more dangerous to ladies!

From the land we move outwards to the sea and spot this serene sea-turtle slowly emerging from another hole, perhaps signifying its birth.

A rare blue lobster, a a one-in-50-million find. Actually life lobsters are blue, and only turn red when cooked.

And onwards to a colourful crab crawling along the Klang River; at the back the Klang Royal Mosque.

From the shallows, we move outwards into deeper waters an "caught" a fish being baited by a fly bait.

An octopus emerging from the deep - although large-size, these creatures are surprisingly flexible as can be seen in this video. They are truly amazing creatures.

A friendly seahorse peeking out from a corner and playfully squirt water out from it's mouth.

Going even further deeper, we meet this luminous green, fierce Moray eel! These eels can grow rather big, such as the case of the Giant Moray. These fierce eels can even take on small sharks and amazingly have two sets of jaws (like those in Aliens) to help them to that.

In the deep sea, there are even fiercer fish, like this one and the Humpback anglerfish.

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Other than the Klang Art Street, there are some other places with street art.

Not to be missed is the large mural titled "Revive Klang River" located at the wall below and supporting the Kota Bridge, a double decked bridge with a lower pedestrian deck.

This large mural depicts elements that traces the history of Klang, and also shows some of the notable places of Klang town.

The place under the bridge is also a car-park and it is difficult to take a complete photo of the Revive Klang River mural without any parked car obstructing it. Here's a photo grab from Google Street view.

This mural is accessible via the riverside paths which can be reached via the old double decked Kota Bridge, or via a ramp leading down from the Musaeddin (Tengku Kelana) Bridge along Jalan Tengku Kelana (click on this GPS: 3.04438, 101.4482 for location of this).

Going along Jalan Stesen 1, at an open car- park, on a gable wall will be seen this artwork of birds flying.

A close up shows that it was put up to celebrate the 2017 Klang Heritage Fest. The birds are crows that signify the resurgence of Klang. So this artwork is called the "Klang Crows".