Howdy all, my last post on my experience on Langkawi, Malaysia today, on my last full day in Langkawi. Once you arrive the thing that many people will suggest and recommend you do is this ‘Mangrove Tour’, which can be done in different ways including private tours and group tours, all day tours and shorter tours that take in fewer places. In the end I opted for the full-day group tour, which set me back 120 Ringgit, or around $41AUD or a little under $28USD. I booked this from one of the many tourist offices in the town of Pentai Cenang.

I’m sure it’s another case of dozens of offices offering exactly the same thing. I was picked up in the morning where I was one of a few picked up on the way from hotels and resorts in a car (so not that many!) and driven to the northern part of the island.

When I got there I was a bit shocked (and yet I also kinda expected it) to see it was a starting point for so many boats. Dozens of boats. I’m not sure how they consolidated all the bookings and then disperse them over the different companies operating the boats, but they do and you wait with hundreds of others to be taken along the pier to your boat. I think mine seated about 20 people.

The tour is essentially a boat tour, and I’ll go through our stops with you. We followed the rivers mostly around and finished in the ocean right near the coast of Thailand. Our guide was actually guide for two boats, and he did a pretty good job and started by laying a few ground rules, mostly about the monkeys and safety.

Then we were off to the very first stop, which was the Fish Farm. We sped out into this wide area, it felt like a lake but it wasn’t really, and then across under the rocky Langkawi mountains to this floating restaurant and fish farm. Here I was asked about my lunch option, as we would return for lunch after a few hours. I chose chicken. There were other options though, simple choices although seafood was of course, at a fish farm, on the menu.

The Fish Farm itself wasn’t so interesting, nets under the boards and water where they kept fish – although there were rays and they were cool and we saw a guy feeding a ray which was certainly the highlight of the stop.

After 30 minutes or so we speed off through the rivers with the mangroves all around. Beautiful, yet a little creepy. According to the itinerary the next stop was Eagle Feeding, but in reality it was just Eagle Watching. The reason for this was eagle feeding is no longer allowed. So we stopped at an appropriate spot and watched the eagles circling and saw them in a tree. To be honest, we weren’t so close and it was hard to get decent shots so this was probably the biggest disappointment of the day.

Zooming through the mangroves though is kinda fun. The boat is comfortable enough with padded seating. Our guide would jump from one boat to the other (not whilst moving!!) to pass on the information. We stopped at Monkey Island – this is a great little stop. Here the monkeys are used to the boats stopping and the tourists, but the tourists have been told not to feed the monkeys and to keep bags closed, so the monkeys are friendlier here than in other parts of Langkawi where they prey on the tourists. Here they do get fed by the guide but generally are very chilled and curious and hop on the boat, which freaked a few people out – understandably I guess. Langkawi is an island full of monkeys, you’re sure to see plenty if you visit!

The other disappointment of the day was the Crocodile Cave – named because the inside of it is shaped like a crocodile. Or so we were told. The tide was high and our boat tried to enter, but couldn’t quite fit under the entrance with the water levels being what they were. Such is life.

The Bat Cave (dadadadadada) was the last stop before lunch. Here we got off the boat and paid a measly 2 Ringgit, around 70 cents Australian, for entrance. They’ve built this brilliant walkway around the rocks that takes you into the cave. Inside, there’s very little light and so although you can make out the bats hanging from the top of this huge cave, it’s hard to get a decent shot. As our group exited the cave one girl who ignored the suggestion to leave backpacks on the boat was jumped by monkeys who pulled the bag off her back, opened it and made of with some snacks. She seemed okay though.

Back to the Fish Farm for a late lunch. The lunch was simple, tasty enough, not spicy and safe for me, allergic to peanuts, to eat. Then after a good stop here of 45 minutes, we were back on board again. After lunch we sped around the waters and marvelled at the rocks and small islands before settling down on a beach in the north-east section of the island. I didn’t catch the name of the beach, but it was quite nice. We had to wade to the beach from the boat, El Nido style.

We had a good 45 minutes there for swimming and relaxing, and the water was lovely and warm, although quite murky too. Nothing to see under there! After that we tipped our guide and were put into taxis to take us back to our accommodations. We were in a different part of the island to where we started.

And that was that! It’s an enjoyable way to spend a day in Langkawi when the relaxing has taken its toll! I wouldn’t say I was blown away by the day, but it’s very reasonably priced (included the transfers) and so I would recommend it. Our resort also offered a similar tour but the price was a lot more. Not sure what else they could add to be honest to make the tour better – perhaps a better quality of lunch? But I was more than happy to be honest. Rice and chicken, what else do you need? And I believe that was also included in the price.

Well, thanks for joining me again for the lowdown of Mangrove Tour Langkawi Style! I will do a post about the journey home talking about the issues with SCOOT, probably in a couple of weeks as I have a post in mind about aviation in Australia right now I’m keen to write. Thanks of course for joining me today. Take care wherever you are in the world and… May the Journey Never End!