Langkawi Nature Tour

Thanks to Meiyi for introducing this Langkawi Nature Tour organized by Criz Lai. He's our Blogger representative; arranging this trip for us with Mr. Leslie from Penang.cc.
They have a campaign :-Travel with A Green Heart Site.
Thus, here i would like to intro you guys to watch out for updates on their community site at http://greenheart.penang.cc/

My beautiful Saturday started with a fresh morning. Woke up early and getting ready to travel around Langkawi. It’s a Campaign organized and sponsored by the Langkawi Saga Travels & Tours. Once we reached the Swettenhan Pier, we were greeted by Jeff, our friendly tour guide for the day. At 815am, we depart from Penang to Langkawi. There were many foreigners visiting Langkawi with us as well.

Langkawi island is a well known place for a leisure holiday with its treasures of nature like the waterfalls, beautiful beaches, mountains, peaceful mangroves and its unique limestone there. Aside from the nature, its legend are very well known by most of the Malaysians. The story of a Princess Mahsuri who lived in Langkawi during the 14th century and due to the accusation made to her. As a consequences, Mahsuri laid a curse on Langkawi for seven generations.

Langkawi is indeed a popular island among foreigners. Likewise my german friend, he has been travelling to Langkawi twice in six months’ time.
I believe one would never missed the beaches when they step into Langkawi island. Imagine we were sitting by the beach, relaxing while enjoying the breeze of the wind & the serenity of the beaches. Listening to the sound of the waves, forgetting all the hectic time at work.
After a 3 hrs ferry ride, finally we reached Langkawi. We were taken to the Royal Langkawi Yatch Club at Charlie's Place (http://www.langkawiyachtclub.com/dining/charlie-s-place.html )for a nice lunch.

We sat on the platform; admiring the great sight of the marina whilst having our lunch.

After lunch, we headed to our first destination- Langkawi Cable Car.
Unfortunately, when we arrived the cable car had technical problems. Most of the people were seem disappointed. Heard also that most of the time, the cable car has technical problems. We would hope that this will be improved in order to lure more visitors from all over the countries to enjoy the top view from Mat Cincang Mountain(Langkawi second highest peak); overseeing the landscape of the rainforest and beautiful sea.

Our second destination: Underwater World.
First section were those chameleon and other lizards species.

Next are all different kind of fish spesies.

It has FreshWater Fishes there. Saw a unique kind of fish called ‘Tropical Garfish’. The head of it looks like Alligator. It can grow more than 1.6m length. Understood that the distribution are found at mountain area of China, Tibet, Sze Chuan, northern Yunnan and other smaller region of east Asia. See the below photo of it.

Other fishes like Blue Diamond Discus, normally it swims in a group. Same goes to the Midas Cichlid & Red Devil Cichlid fishes.


There are Mantis Prawns, Jelly Fish and Corals also eg. Purple Tube Anemone.

I would that agree that this Underwater World Centre continue to maintains their facilities there, as many creatures from the sea & the ground; birds, animals spesies are conserved there. It encourage people to appreciate nature and promote conservation.

We do had an interesting view of the Spotted Eagle Ray. While it swims around, there were other fishes escorting it around.

For penguin, I learnt that the African Penguins have an average life expectancy of 10-11 years in the wild. They are also known as ackass Penguins due to the ‘donkey-like’ braying sound they make during the courtship.

Next destination is the Mangrove area at Kilim. It took 30mins drive down from the Underwater world. We had the Mongrove Tour to the Bat Cave, Eagle Watching area & Fish Farm.

We stop at the Bat Cave first. Before entering we were warned not to make noise, do not use flash while taking photographs inside the cave and also not to touch the bridges or the stones surrounding. Jeff were explaining regarding the attitude of the bats in the cave. Questions that people normally query,’Why does bat slept upside down?’ It was due to the bat’s wing ,length that varies from 6 inches to 6 feet which cause the bat to have difficulty in standing or walking. Relying on only the strength of its feet is insufficient to bear its body weight for a period of time. Nevertheless, with this body structure, it ease the bats to land or fly whenever needed. For those bats staying in a four season countries, there is fascinating thing about the bats. It manage to stay at the same position for 3 months time while hibernating.
Another advantages of the bat is that we need bats to maintain the chain reaction of the nature.
Besides that,we also observed stalactite and stalagmite in the cave. Jeff explaining to us the formation of the stalactite & stalagmite were from the rich mineral water deposited calcite.

On our path out from the caves, we observed many small roots like the photo shown below.
Questions from many of us, ‘What is that?’ We got the answers from the board which reminds us on the science we have learnt before. There were the respiration roots called Pneumatophores which grow upward. Its tiny pores enable the trees to breath and ensure ample oxygen supply as understood that mangroves is a anaerobic state kind of habitat.
Additional tips given by Jeff was that if we got lost in a jungle, search for those hanging roots, cut off the roots and we shall have water source from there for survival. Interesting!

We hop on the boat & headed to the ‘Eagle Watching’ area. A few boats stop around the area to view the eagles. One of the boat guide throw chicken skins on the lake to feed the eagles. We had vivid view of the eagles flying down to the surface of the lake to take the food. There were different species of eagles such as Brahminy Kite and White Bellied Sea Eagle.

Then, we headed to the Fish Farm.

We were guided by young boy to brief us on the fishes there. First, he showed us the Archer Fish or we call it Water Spitting Fish. The nature of these fish are it will spit water on the food which are unreachable. The young boy placed the breadbits on the nails above the water and this Acrher Fish will spit water as what you see on the below photo (taken from the webpage) for clearer view.

It will spits many times until the breadbits drop. Its so smart.
We saw the Horse Shoe Crabs & Sting Rays.

Backside of the Horse Shoe Crab..

Next is the feeding to the Spotted Eagle Ray. We observed a foreigner feeding it. Quite interesting part is that its mouth are at the bottom side. It seems trying hard to move above the water to reach for the food given to it.

A bit of the time consume there as there were many students and foreigner visiting this Mangrove Kilim.

Final Destination is to ‘Dataran Lang’. That is where the Langkawi signature “Eagle” sculpture where visitors will never missed also.

We took our group photos of the symbolic Eagle there before headed to Ferry station.

Thanks again to Mr Leslie, Criz & our tour leader of the day, Steven Goh & Jeffrey, tour guide represetative from Langkawi Saga Travels & Tours. I did had an enjoyable day at Langkawi.