Alex’s Blog

Last Saturday, I joined my Wifey and her friends on a firefly watch outing in Sungai Kerian near Nibong Tebal. There were a total of 11 of us who went in 3 cars. We met up at Autocity’s McDonald’s restaurant and as we were unsure of the way to the Sungai Kerian jetty, I was tasked as the navigator. Fortunately I had earlier entered our destination as a POI on my N95’s Garmin software.

We left Autocity at about 4:45pm and along the highway, it started to drizzle! Thank god, we were heading away from the clouds and sure enough the drizzle stopped when we finally reached the jetty at about 5pm.

As we were early, we wandered around the area, snapped some group photos and I finally had the chance to test out my less-than-24-hour-old brand new toy…:D

Soon, the tour operator arrived and gave us a quick briefing and told us to put on our life jackets.

He also told us to use the washroom if we had to. If not, we will have to hold it in for 2 hours, if not it’s freeshow for all in the open sea…LOL. After taking turns going to the washroom, we were on our way…

During the trip, the operator talked about the ecosystem of the river. He was speaking in Mandarin, and me and my Wifey being bananas (me being the bigger banana), we had to rely on her friends to translate for us.

The first item he mentioned was that there are man-made ponds of sort used to rear fish near the jetty.

If U watch closely in the picture above, there are small tree trunks used to build a structure to create the pond. But I was more interested in capturing the reflections of the tree and sky on the river instead.

The next thing we saw was a flock of egrets hanging around the mangrove trees. These are the same mangrove trees that fireflies hang around at night hoping to find a mating partner.

Another shot of the flock of egrets. Notice the huge pipes sticking out of the river. Those contraptions are used to suck water from the river into nearby ponds used to rear fish.

We also managed to catch a group of monkeys monkeying around on the other side of the river. This picture was heavily cropped from the original picture as we were on the other side of the river and the lens I have is not as telephoto as I wished it was. The power of 12.3 megapixels. HAHAHA!

Not long after that we passed by a fishing village by the river.

And we also got a glimpse of a guard dog swimming in the river. Cute as it may be, we were told that these guard dogs are not to be messed with. The moment U swim near the fishing village, the guard dogs will spring into action to protect their masters’ belongings.

Next up, a huge building built on top of the water. It houses, among others, a floating restaurant that tourists or anyone can go in to enjoy fresh seafood. We didn’t stop there though…

Then we left the river mouth and headed into the open sea. Luckily the sea was calm on that day and the ride was pretty smooth. After about 5 minutes or so, we arrived at one of the floating platforms used to rear fish.

It’s pretty huge and my guestimate is that it is at least 40*40 feet. The guide told us that each plank that we stepped on costs RM400!!!

Each “square” on the platform is used to rear different breed and size of fish. We were also told, each “square” is about RM20,000!!!

After spending about 20 minutes on the platform, the sun slowly began to set and we managed to catch a few great shots of it. It was pretty difficult trying to get a correct horizontal shot when U are sitting on a rocking boat, but here’s another shot that I managed to grab.

I love this shot as there is a mixture of golden sunlight reflecting on the clouds with blue skies on the side.

And soon after that, the sun was completely gone, and it was time to make our way home. We reached the mangrove trees we passed by earlier and by then it was completely dark with the moonlight being the only light to guide us. We did see a lot of fireflies, but my attempts to photograph them were not that successful. In reality, it was sort like a Christmas tree lit up but with tiny bulbs. But in my photographs they looked more like hotpixels rather than flickering fireflies.

We soon left the mangrove trees and were back on the jetty in no time. By then, it was already 8:30pm and all of us were starving. The guide asked us what we would like to have for dinner, we settled for seafood and were given a nearby recommendation.

We quickly made our orders and soon after that our “appetizer” came.

Boiled (I think) octopus. Served with chilli sauce with fine grounded nuts. We were hungry, so these were finished very very quickly.

Moments later, our rice and dishes arrived.

And we also ordered their speciality, crab porridge.

Divided equally, we payed RM17 each, not bad lah. The promfret itself was already RM48 if not mistaken.

After that we walked back to the jetty, bid farewell and went into our separate cars and headed home. An afternoon and night well spent.

For more information on the firefly watch and other exciting activities operated by our tour guide, check out the website of the tour operator at http://www.amazingplanner.com.my/.

U can also see some other shots from this outing on my earlier post below.