Eagle feeding

Mangrove and Cave Excursion

It wasn’t a rushed morning as my excursion departed at 1000 from nearby Tanjung Rhu jetty. The trip includes a tour of the mangrove, eagle watching and some caves in the Kilim Geopark area.

We cruised through the mangroves where we spotted some monkeys.  The boatman then released a bag of chicken skin into the water and moved us away.  Some eagles approached and swooped down to get their feed.

The guide explained that there are two kinds of eagles here.  The predominant brown ones are the mountain eagles whereas the white ones are the sea eagles.  In order not to balance tourism and ecology (and not overfeed the birds), only one boat is allowed to feed the eagles while the remaining boats only observe.

Interestingly chicken skin is used to feed the birds because it floats and they’re cheap. Fish sinks apparently and it’s expensive. But don’t fish float when they’re dead?

From there, we visited two caves.  Firstly, Crocodile Cave was so named because there is a rock the shape of a crocodile (imagination required) by one end.  It was a cruise-through visit on the boat.  And secondly, Bat Cave, which was a walk-in visit had bats in them of course.

We finished the outing with lunch on a floating restaurant masquerading as fish farms. They had netted enclosures which kept live seafood plus some other fishes for our entertainment, eg. giant trevally, giant groper, large ray, zebra sharks.  The ray and zebra shark were open to petting sessions by visitors.

Some activities in Langkawi may not delight those with knowledge of ecology, or animal rights advocates. Specifically, feeding eagles or petting stingrays and sharks.

But the reality is that in some parts of the world, people have little care or interest in wildlife. Anything that promotes some kind of affinity or bonding is a step in the right direction.

That’s my 2 cents worth anyway. Who am I to judge when I have a domesticated animal in my home!

We finished up around 1300.

Beach Club

After a rest,  I took Susie’s suggestion of going to Dash Beach Club and Hotel at Pantai Tengah to use their pool.  It was MYR25 for pool usage, drink and towel.  For MYR10 more I could get a lounger too.  Not bad value for a very overpriced hotel with rooms over MYR300 per night.

The day was overcast at times and the tide wasn’t high enough.  That made it not so conducive for me to swim in the sea.

After a couple of hours, I moved on to Pantai Cenang, a little to the north which felt like a significant tourist town, for a walk around and get dinner.  I took dinner at a Thai restaurant run by Thai Muslims.  Langkawi’s Muslims are a mix of Malay and Thai.

The Cenang area is good for short stays as it is handy to food, sightseeing service and shopping.  But good hotels in the mid-range are hard to find.  And one with a beach and pool even harder.  My place at Tanjung Rhu was very good value and with a car, it didn’t really matter that I was a little bit isolated.  Most things are within 30 minutes drive.