How’s everyone? I am back with loads of memories of my trip to Singapore and Malaysia. I always struggle with the starting point of sharing travel stories. It is like talking to a friend about my experience and/or someone asking me about the highlight of it — and I can not tell exactly because everything was part and parcel of this wonderful wandering. As I still need to catch up on a lot of things, here’s a primera.
We left Kuala Lumpur at 5:00 PM and reached Kuala Selangor after an hour drive. The road going up to the feeding area of the monkeys is steep. The encounter with these friendly creatures, they are claimed so to be, because they do not bite, still fascinates me to this minute. I bet it is going to be like that forever.
The monkeys approached us conditionally. If you want to smell and look like the most attractive, you need to have a food with you. Your munchies suppliers are around and they are selling bananas and peanuts, for RM 3 (fewer pieces) and RM 4, respectively. We were advised to get the peanuts to make the feeding gradual and share the resources to several monkeys. I had to hide the pack of peanuts inside my bag, otherwise I probably have been “attacked” by the group of monkeys. Apparently, they are not going to leave you until they see that everything’s consumed. Just like what happened with other visitors who have been too late in hiding the bananas.
Of course, I got a little envious at first because not so many monkeys were minding me. As we all know, they like bananas better. And then, they turned to me and did not want to leave me until they finished the last peanut. So, the key there is to play with the visibility of the food. Two monkeys even held my hands and hardly let go (and licked my fingers, as I re-watched the videos, my sort of screaming was hilarious “kinakain nila pati kamay ko!” ha ha ha). One even sat on my lap. The others climbed to the shoulders of other tourists.
Steps away from the feeding area, you are going to find those who are waiting for the sunset.
However, after we washed up, we did not stay long and drove down to River View Seafood Restaurant. The dishes were good and reasonably priced.
The setting of the sun was pretty, close to that one in Manila Bay. In a way, this natural occurrence brought me home. Sunset is always better in Southeast Asia.
After dinner, we headed to the Firefly Park Resort which is situated in another village. I have looked forward to this attraction because I want to reconnect with real fireflies. We were thankful that the weather was fine because the fireflies do not generously flicker when it rains.
With the other tourists, we rode the boat and were taken to darkness… and we saw the Christmas lights-like flickering of the fireflies. To be honest, I gave in with a little percentage of doubt to its 100% reality. My crazy skepticism whispered that “maybe” they put some lights to the trees. However, as we were in the river for more than half an hour and the boat started to touch the trees, the fireflies moved to our direction and landed on our hair and skin. They are for real! As the locals say, the male fireflies flash three times per second, while the female emits a glow of lesser intensity and flashes only once in three seconds. Also, only male fireflies flash in synchrony. And as you look up, the stars were twinkling cheerfully. It was like experiencing another world. Truly, a wonder of nature.
I did not have any good photos though since flash photography is not allowed. I cannot find a decent one after googling. I guess this is one of those experiences that, even without a snap, is going to be endlessly painted in my memory.
Next entry: Putrajaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
0 thoughts on “The monkeys and fireflies of Kuala Selangor”
upto6only
are those worms edible 😛 or are they toys hehehe. sarap naman ng bakasyon mo.
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witsandnuts
Those are artificial souvenir fireflies. 🙂
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kg
wow! what a great experience wits! tama ka, some experiences cannot be captured by a camera. 🙂
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witsandnuts
… and I hope to capture those with words. I can’t get too personal here, probably, I’ll write on a journal. 😉
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docgelo
wow, you had your much needed break!
next time you go to malaysia, do drop by at penang island; i’ll show you around,. hehehe.
(kala mo kabisado ko na lahat, 10th day ko pa lang dito).
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witsandnuts
I left a comment on your blog re: the possibility of visiting Penang. A relative will be based there starting next month. I will let you know if I will be swinging to that part of Asia.
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angeli
i am going to malaysia (kl, penang, taman negara,pahang, penang, langkawi) in a week, too. hahahah
did you go to those places? 🙂
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witsandnuts
I learned the names of those places from my visit to Mini-Malaysia. We only stayed in Kuala Lumpur for 3 days, the rest of the trip was spent in Singapore. For Malaysia, we visited Malacca, Putrajaya, Kuala Lumpur and Kuala Selangor. We cancelled the trip to Kuala Gandah because we still had an overload of encounter with the elephants from Singapore Zoo that time.
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kayni
wow, i love the sunset shots. it looks like home :). it must have been wonderful to watch the fireflies. i enjoy watching them here during summer evenings. the area where i live has so many trees and farms, so they tend to swarm every now and then.
i can’t wait to see your other photos.
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witsandnuts
You’re so lucky! The fireflies are very near to your place.
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dyanie
how long is the boat ride? meron din ganyan sa siquijor pro super cold that time kaya di ako nakasama hehe 😉 saya ng vacay mo weeee! 🙂
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witsandnuts
The boat ride lasted for more than 30 minutes.
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Photo Cache
i wonder as much as it’s fun to feed the monkeys “people food” like peanut you gave if their diet has forever been transformed?
oh what fun – two countries in one trip – can’t wait for the rest fo the posts.
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witsandnuts
I did not expect that they would be selling peanuts there as food for the monkeys. I saw some kids feeding them by vegetables, too. I think they are fond of fruits and vegetables.
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chyng
wee, from middle east to southeast asia. winner!
halos pareho tayo ng ibblog ngayon. my next is Genting. 3rd pa yung putrajaya. Ü
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witsandnuts
We did not cover Genting Highlands. Planning to go there when we revisit Malaysia to swing by Penang and other states.
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bw
these monkeys are cute … hope none of them go berserk hehe 🙂
Nice night shots. very pretty 😉
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witsandnuts
It’s good that none of them went wild. Heehee. The wildest they did to me is to make “papak” my fingers when the peanuts were not enough. Haha.
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Daphne
Wow you are a brave girl. I would be scared to approach those mischievous monkeys! Even though I was born in the year of the Monkey he he he 😀
So cute naman those lil colorful fireflies, did you buy one as souvenir of your trip?
I believe they also have a fireflies tour here in Palawan if I’m not mistaken. =)
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witsandnuts
I regret that I was not able to get the colorful souvenir fireflies. The shoppe was already closed when we finished with the boat ride.
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dong ho
wow! my type of place. there’s a similar place in the philippines where the monkeys roam around the town freely. it’s somewhere in negros.
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witsandnuts
I heard that the Philippines has sort of fireflies’ and these friendly monkeys’ sanctuary, too.
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Toni
adorable monkeys 😉 i used to live in brunei and they were everywhere too – sometimes they get upset when i passed by the trees and was talking on the phone loudly they start throwing twigs/leaves at me!! haha!! oh i love fireflies ;O) (that’s the name of my blog actually but in german )
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