A Magical Evening Along The River

Sunset Before The River Cruise

I saw a fairy the other night. Well, I saw more than one-I saw thousands! At least that’s what the fireflies (Kelip-Kelip) of Selangor looked like to me.
We were lucky enough to witness the amazing phenomenon of thousands of fireflies lighting up mangrove trees all along the Kualar Selangor River. When we were told that the fireflies would light up the trees like a christmas lights, were were a little sceptical (there couldn’t be that many could there?) However, once we actually headed to the river we were in awe of the beauty that was unfolding before our eyes.

As we hopped into our wooden paddle boat, we were straining our eyes to see any signs of flashing- it didn’t take long. Within 2 minutes of us starting our 40 minute trip we had already spotted hundreds of fireflies flashing along mangroves. As our boat paddled over we found more and more, even the tallest trees had every leaf and branch filled with the sparkling of the Kelip-Kelip! It was such a beautiful sight, and really did look like trees lit up by Christmas lights.

The act of the flashing is also uniquley amazing. Each of the Berembang trees that lines the river has a different group of firefly. The flies will flash out of time until they have found a mate. Once they have found a mate they will synchronise their flashes-a spectacualr sight as hundreds of the tiny insect flash in time.

Heading to Selangor was definately worthwhile to see these amazing creatures, especially when most of our other ventures out had been to see birds and primates, it was nice to something more intricate and delicate.

It made for such a picturesque evening. The shimmering of the stars overhead, the twinkling of the fireflies along the river and the boats oars gently lapping at the water. It felt as though we had just stepped into some sort of magical fairytale-complete with real faries!

Unfortunately we were unable to capture these amazing creatures on our camera! But you can view other photos we took of Malaysia and Borneo