Monday, February 21, 2011

GETTING TO THE ROOT OF THE ISSUE: A highlight of the day was a Mangrove kayak trip, with our guide, Madi (above). We motored from the beach into a river. We climbed out at a mudbank (this was almost the lowest tide of 2011, thanks to a hard-pulling full moon. We were able to get up close to some remarkable mudskippers, eagles, fiddler crabs and a lounging mangrove pitviper. You might know that last one as Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus. A day or two earlier, Madi had spotted the snake resting on a branch. He brought us to it, and we nosed our kayaks up close. Madi assured us that the snake was busy digesting and really couldn't have cared less about us.
At one point we paddled through a tunnel. There, we saw what I think are round leaf bats clutching the ceiling (right) of the cave.
The stars of the tour were the mangrove trees. Madi, who was kayaking during that horrible tsunami, described the role mangrove forests along shorelines can play in mitigating the damage from tsunamis. Fascinating. Langkawi suffered minimal damage, with one death. Other areas in bordering Thailand and nearby Indonesia, of course, suffered more. The interlocking roots allow the trees to absorb lots of the energy of those waves.

DOWN THE HATCH: The island shown here (at right) was quite intriguing. We passed it heading to and from the river. Using a tiny bit of imagination, you can see that it resembles the open mouth of a creature emerging from the sea. During a few sunsets in April the sun sets right down the throat of the beast, when viewed from the windows of some of the rooms at the Tanjung Rhu Resort on Tanjung Rhu Beach. Not surprisingly, that's when those rooms fetch the highest rates of the year.