Fireflies!!

So It was a very different Friday around the Neilson household, other than Brenna going to school, Rox was home, i had another massage client and we had a big trip planned for the evening. Massage client went well and i may have gotten so further referrals from it...we will see. rox had a ton of phone calls and work to do. The highlight of the day though was our trip to Nibong Tebal, to see fireflies. This area is known for its Eco farming, Octopus farms, and Fireflies (I think). So off we went with the Spiral Synergy group. The plan was to head off the island and down to Nibong. Dinner was up first and we went to a Restaurant called...

Which specializes in seafood, they are known for their crab porridge and octopus (Roxanne wants me to tell you they were "crunchy not chewy")...We had an excellent meal that included some braised tofu (not my cup of tea) and two different kinds of veggies, a celery like veggie with bok choy, and a leafy veggie that was like collard greens but not as bitter. The highlights of the meal, were the curried prawns, steamed octopus, braised fish, seafood fried rice, and the crab porridge, that included the whole crab, shell and all.

Braised fish

steamed octopus

crab porridge

Following the meal we took a short ride on the bus down to the launch site for our Firefly trip.

Here in Malaysia fireflies are called Kelip-kelip, which I heard means "blink blink, or flash flash". the trip takes you out on the river, brackish water, about 20 feet deep in most places, that is surrounded on both sides by stands of mangrove...the people in the area have worked hard to preserve the mangrove, however they are often fighting a losing battle against the land owners who often cut it down to make money in the "charcoal" trade, big business. The fireflies remain particular to specific types of mangrove and a family of fireflies will remain together on one tree or one stand of trees, from egg to full grown adult they only live for 14 days, so the time to see them is short. There could be thousands of them in any one stand and they all flash together.

When you come upon a stand of mangrove with a family on them, it looks like a well lit Christmas tree with thousands of yellow/white lights flashing all in unison...it was really quite a site. there were times along the river that we could go for a few 100 feet and they would be covering the trees for that distance, the reflection of them flashing off the water made it quite magical. It was very difficult to photograph, as the boat was floating by them, it was very dark, and although you can see them, the light that they cast is not very bright. Roxanne tried to take some shots, but all they were was black. The Boat trip was great and we totally enjoyed the fireflies and will be back with guests (if we ever get any) for sure, a worthwhile trip!! We got home quite late, so there was not much to do except get everyone off to bed...Goodnight all!!