I sat, I waited. I saw the others putting their life jackets over their heads. I was becoming more impatient by the second. Lucky for my group and I were towards the front of the line so we didn’t need to wait for much longer. Finally a tall man said one word that put our group out of our misery… “Come”
At that instance we leapt from our seats and rushed over to the life jacket bench. We were given a certain sized life jacket in which we had to put on in order for us to be allowed on the boat. One of the people who worked there tugged on the cords of our jackets to make sure they were tight enough. Only then were we allowed to walk down to the loading platform.
At the loading platform a worker guided us to an old canoe-like boat and we were asked to carefully step into the boat. At first the boat rocked uncontrollably and seemed as it was going to tip over but the swaying lessened when the boat driver stepped in. Soon enough we got the okay signal and were pushed away from the shore.
The oars were moving swift and strong, causing our boat to gently glide along the river. The Berembang trees were glistening with blazing white Christmas lights. As we approached one of the Berembang trees I noticed that they were not Christmas lights, they were in fact fireflies! The boat driver grabbed a firefly off one of the Berembang trees, then held it cupped in his hand for all to see. The firefly was small and tiny, just about the size of a grain of rice. After observing it, the boat driver placed it back on a leaf and we continued on.
We passed by a dozen trees before the boat driver started to sail the other way. As we had passed all the firefly filled trees, I decided to lay back and enjoy the night sky. The moon was shining brightly and the stars twinkled in the sky, reminding me of the beautiful fireflies we had just seen.
Finally we returned to the loading platform and exited the boat. I looked back at the experience. I learnt that the Malaysian name for fireflies is “Kelip-Kelip” which means ‘To twinkle’. I also learnt that the firefly is not actually a fly, it is a long bodied beetle. In Malaysia, the Kuala Selangor fireflies are considered the 8th wonder of the world!
This was truly a magical and memorable experience of a lifetime!
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Picture 1 URL: http://www.zunal.com/myaccount/uploads/firefly(2).jpg
Picture 2 URL: http://i614.photobucket.com/albums/tt229/sps_09/fireflies3321.jpg
