Kilim Geoforest Park

I was in Langkawi over the weekend for an event that we organized for our customers. As this was a business trip, I didn’t need to find cheap local accommodation, or else I’d have turned to airbnb.com for help. Maybe I’ll look to them for Barcelona vacation rentals.

On Sunday, which was a free day, we organized a 3-hour trip to the Kilim Geoforest Park, a Unesco World Heritage site, in the northeastern part of the island.

 Sungai Kilim jetty

Our first stop was Gua Kelawar (Bat Cave), just across the river from the Sungai Kilim jetty. Walking to the cave will took us through a boardwalk fringed by mangrove forests before reaching the entrance of the cave.

Dating back to more than 400 million years, Gua Kelawar has spectacular limestone formations and ancient oyster shells attached to parts of the wall just above the sea level. This area was originally the sandy bottom of an ancient river that has been shoved upwards by powerful tectonic force millions of years ago.

Entrance of Gua Kelawar

 Look up and you’d see hundreds and hundreds of bats clinging on to the cave ceiling.

Next stop was small fish farm where we saw how Archer Fish (spitting fishes) shoots down their food with a jet of water, pet some friendly stingrays, and got a brief biology lesson of the horse shoe crab (belangkas).

The dorsal and ventral view of the horse shoe crab

 Yachts docked at the river mouth leading to the open Andaman sea

Our last stop was near the river estuary, home to the Brahminy Kite eagle, which is the most dominant bird species in the area. The majestic eagles circling overhead before gracefully swooping down to feed on the chicken parts thrown by the boatman was a sight to behold.

However, feeding the eagles isn’t an eco-friendly practice as the eagles may become dependent on tourist boats for food and unable to hunt for themselves. The steroids and hormones in the commercially farmed chicken may damage their hearts and lungs, and the eagles become susceptible to diseases such as avian flu and salmonella. Unfortunately, many boat operators still offer eagle feeding as an attraction.