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Saturday 31 December 2016

Malaysia: Luxury Mangrove Cruise, Langkawi



Our third and final day in Langkawi, Jewel of Kedah in the north west of Peninsular Malaysia, was quite packed. We checked out of Aseania Resort Langkawi soon after breakfast and travelled some 30 minutes to Naam Adventure office in Jalan Tanjung Rhu, not far from Four Seasons Resort Langkawi, for our morning mangrove cruise tour. If you recall, we had travelled with Naam Adventure on our first day in Langkawi when we went on a luxury sunset cruise tour with them, so most of us, if not all, were excited about this.






We were not disappointed when we saw our boats, berthed at a small jetty by the beach behind a line-up of ATVs and not far from another line of jet skis, all belonging to Naam Adventure. Each boat can accommodate up to 8 passengers but in our case, they gave a boat each to groups of 4. Our boat captain was the first lady captain in Langkawi and she’s very popular among clients, especially girl groups and couples from the Middle East as her being the captain of the boat would mean that Muslim ladies who wear hijab can take them off while travelling at sea, unlike when the boat captain is a guy.

We left the jetty not long after 10 and sped away to Gua Cherita (Cave of Legends). Langkawi is not just about the legends of Mahsuri, who cursed the island of bad luck for 7 generations, and Tasik Dayang Bunting (Lake of the Pregnant Maiden). Apparently, there are plenty more stories and legends that happened in, or originated from, Langkawi; and Gua Cherita is associated with many of them too. This includes some interesting cherita (stories, in old Malay) involving a Prince of Rome, a Princess of China and Garuda in the Battle of Big Birds; Merong Mahawangsa and Kingdom of Langkasuka; and many more. I was just awestruck to find out about this as I’d never heard of Gua Cherita before and I don’t think many others do too unless if they've previously been here.


Gua Cherita
Next, we jetted to an area where there’s a signage of “Kilim Geoforest Park” a la Hollywood Sign for some photo opp. Kilim Geoforest Park is one of the three geoforest parks in Langkawi, which collectively became the first in South East Asia region to be recognised as a Global Geopark by UNESCO back in 2007.


The recognition given by UNESCO was for their “significant geo-heritage features like landscapes, caves sea arches and sea stacks, dropstones, fossil and local community involvement”. Apparently the rocks of Kilim were formed some 490-370 million years ago. *jaw dropped*



Travelling along by water, we could easily see how beautiful and scenic this geopark really is, with dramatic and ever changing landscapes just as we turned around each corner.

On the way to Gua Kelawar (Bat Cave), we bumped into a line of fisherman’s traditional boats doing a mangrove cruise tour too, although the route might be different from ours. We saw more of them when we got to Gua Kelawar. There’s a small entrance fee to the cave (just RM3 for locals and in our case, covered in the package).



The foul smell of guano – bat’s poop 😟 – greeted us as we entered the cave. Luckily it’s just a short walk (on a boardwalk) inside the cave. Your guide would probably have a torchlight with him/her but I guess you could probably use the torchlight feature on your mobile phone as well to see hundreds, if not thousands, of bats sleeping.


As we exited the cave on the other side, we came into “Monkey Village”, a mangrove area where you’d find some monkeys just hanging around watching people watching them.


Our next stop was 'Hole in the Wall', a floating restaurant which also doubles up as a fish farm where you can see and feed some fish like grouper, cermin, kerapu harimau (tiger grouper) and even stingray. While a stop here is normally included in the mangrove cruise tour, lunch on the other hand is not part of the package. However, if you’re on a private tour like we were with Naam Adventure, you could arrange to have one here. The seafood is fresh and it’s a nice break from the sun above too. And oh yes, you should try feeding a stingray here and get your arm sucked into its toothless mouth too. That’d be a quite unique experience.


Hole in the Wall Floating Restaurant is on the left

After a quick lunch, we boarded our speedboat again and jetted towards Gua Buaya (Crocodile Cave), which you can enter only when the tide is low. Unfortunately it was high tide when we were there. We were told that the cave used to be inhabited by crocodiles but these days, just like Gua Kelawar, it’s been taken over by bats. At a certain angle however, you can see a crocodile in the rock formation near the entrance to the cave.


Gua Buaya
Afterwards, we headed to Eagle Sanctuary, and saw plenty of sea-eagles, Brahmini eagles and white belly eagles flying above, looking for food whilst some were just contented to be sitting on a mangrove tree branch, like this regal-looking Brahmini eagle. (If you’ve been to Langkawi, you could have not missed a statue of this eagle species standing proud at Dataran Lang (literally Eagle Square) as its name forms part of the name of this archipelago of 99 islands, Langkawi.)


From Eagle Sanctuary, we sped back to our starting point at Tanjung Rhu for our next destination and activity – Langkawi Cable Car. On reflection, this mangrove cruise tour is the third one I’ve been on in Malaysia (the other two being in Cherating, Pahang and Setiu, Terengganu, both on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia) and each one offers a different landscape and experience. Kilim Geoforest Park, for example, certainly has plenty of treasures to offer so I do think this is one of the activities not to be missed when you’re in Langkawi.


Further Information:
Mangrove Cruise Tour is offered by Naam Adventure, a local premier water leisure sports company that specialises in adventure and luxury tours around the island. The cost of the cruise is RM215 per person, with a minimum of 4 persons sharing/to go and maximum of 8 persons. Even if you’re just a couple, do check with them as you might be able to share the cruise with some other couples too. If you however prefer to have a private cruise instead, you can charter the whole speedboat to yourself for a similar mangrove cruise from just RM1650.


A Thank You and Disclosure Note
I was in Langkawi at the invitation of Tourism Malaysia Kedah and Firefly, a Malaysian airline that flies twice daily between Subang Airport (in the outskirt of Kuala Lumpur) and Langkawi. The sponsorship however has in no way affected my review of the places that we went to.



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Have you been on a mangrove cruise tour in Langkawi or anywhere else for that matter? If you have, what do you think of it, and what did you like best about it?



Going to Langkawi, Malaysia? Do check out these hotels for your accommodation requirements there.

For other blog entries on Malaysia, click here.

21 comments:

Comments and feedback are always appreciated. So do leave one or two if you have the time. Thank you!

  1. What a beautiful tour in Langkawi. I've done a mangrove tour before, and the variety of bird/animal life was amazing. Looks like you saw quite a variety as well. Bats, monkeys, sea eagles. Very impressive. I'm moving to Asia in February, and only been to KL, so looking forward to exploring places like Langkawi!

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    1. It was indeed a beautiful tour and probably one that I enjoyed the most during that 3-day trip to Langkawi. Hope your move next month would be a smooth one; and yes, you should venture further beyond KL to other places in Malaysia. :)

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  2. Looks like an amazing experience. The only time I have been on a mangrove cruise was in Bintan, Indonesia... this looks similar but no bat caves, eagles or speedboats there - looks like this is worth checking out.

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    1. I do think it's definitely worth checking out. Felt that the 4-hour tour simply flew by with so many things to see there.

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  3. How fun! I did a similar boat ride where we saw monkeys in Borneo :-)

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    1. Indeed it was! Where in Borneo did you do the boat ride? I just did one about a couple of months ago in Sandakan, Sabah and that was real fun too!

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  4. Wow the Kilim Geoforest park looks stunning, I absolutely love doing anything on the water and this would definitely be up my alley.

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    1. I was surprised myself when I got to that area. I've seen photos before so sort of knew what to expect but to actually see the place and area in person, it's quite amazing!

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  5. Amazing experience. We have mangrove growths in south of India. I have done boating there but unfortunately no such sightings as you had.

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    1. I imagine the one in south of India would be home to different species altogether because the 3 mangrove areas that I've been to (actually 4, now that I think of it), all have different habitats.

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  6. What a great cruise. I'd love to see the Rocks of Kilim and the monkeys. (On second thought, I don't really like monkeys, but they're cute from a distance). Langkawi has been on my list for years so thanks for sharing.

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    1. Ah-ha! I wished we had time to explore more of the rocky area of Kilim. There were plenty of monkeys when we were there in Monkey Village and all seemed to be happy just to watch us walked by, very much unlike the ones in Batu Caves temple in Kuala Lumpur, which can be real cheeky at times. :)

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  7. We have mangroves in Florida too, so it'd be really cool to see some in Malaysia as well! I like this tour because it took you to a lot of places and you were able to see a lot. That always makes it a better value as well. I'd especially like to see the monkeys!

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    1. Yup, I didn't expect to see a variety of things on this tour, but we did, and the 4-hour cruise simply flew by so I do think it's worth it. I know you love monkeys :D so you'd definitely love Monkey Village just behind the Bat Cave. I know I shared only one photo of them above but I actually took tens of them during the quick stop there. Simply loved it! :)

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  8. It's always nice to find a tour company that you know you can trust to have a good time with. We always try to stick with the good ones for multiple tours. And it looks like they didn't disappoint on this tour. You saw so many awesome things (those bats included! Yikes!) Good thing it was a short walk through the cave.

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    1. That's true. We did 2 tours with Naam Adventure and couldn't be more happy with them. I know a few friends who did other types of tours with them and they're happy with Naam too, so I guess this tour company is highly recommended. Bat Cave is not so bad actually, most of the bats were asleep. It's just the smell of guano that's a bit unpleasant, lol!

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  9. What a great day to spend your last day in Langkawi! I'm planning a return trip to Malaysia for this year, and it'll be my first time in Langkawi, so just noted down this mangrove cruise.

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    1. The 3rd day was definitely the best for me. We went for the cable car ride afterwards, which was awesome too! Wha hae! Great to know that you're coming back to Malaysia this year and are heading to Langkawi too! Hope you'd have a great time!

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  10. I too would not be disappointed if I saw boats by the beach behind a line-up of ATVs...whaaaa!!! This place looks like so much fun. Malaysia is definitely on my to go to list. Great post.

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  11. I too would not be disappointed if I saw boats by the beach behind a line-up of ATVs...whaaaa!!! This place looks like so much fun. Malaysia is definitely on my to go to list. Great post.

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    1. Haha yes! We were like, "Oh man! That's niiiiceee!" And it was indeed a nice & fun experience!

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