I fell in love with Langkawi when I arrived traveling with a camera.  I was due to stay for 7 days but have extended to enjoy the area for a while longer.  It is also known as Langkawi the Jewel of Kedah or Langkawi Permata Kedah in Malay.  It is the largest of the 104 archipelago islands in the Andaman Sea, 30km off the mainland coast of Malaysia, separated by the Straits of Malacca.

More than 60% of Langkawi is covered by tropical rainforest which houses over 200 species of birds, 100s of different kinds of plants and many lizards and mammals.  Which brings me onto the monkeys…

One species is the long tailed or crab eating macaque (macaca fascicularis) which are ever-present around the island.  You can see them on the road side even with their young.  Some are timid, however, through human intervention, some have become more aggressive.  My large friend below made very confrontational noises, bared his teeth and made advances to defend his bridge in the Kilim Karst Geoforest Park.

I am wary of wild animals and always view it that you are entering their lounge, and think what I would do if a monkey entered mine!  However, they should have had some warnings signs up here.  Thankfully I survived to tell the tale, it was quite frightening, but I wouldn’t cross the bridge on the way back when 6 more of his friends had joined him!  The long way round was good for me.  Sadly, you still see tourists feeding monkeys and changing their natural behaviour.

Dusky leaf monkeys (trachypithecus obscurus) are a sight to behold and can also be found on the island.  I was lucky enough to see two troops here.  One in the Tanjung Rhu area and the other on Gunung or Mount Raya.  They are far less prolific and much shyer than the macaques, they don’t hang around (excuse the pun) when humans are in sight.

Dusky’s, as I fondly now call them, are grey / black in colour and the first thing you spot is their white ringed eyes which give them a startled expression.  The way they sway their tails like a pendulum to balance is remarkable.  They eat 2 kg of food every day, yet only weigh 5-9 kg. When they have infants, they are bright orange for around 6 months. I wish I had a longer lens with me as they were still at a distance and I only had my 18-105mm on.

Langkawi photography is better suited to shooting with a DLSR for me, so the Nikon hasn’t left my side.  It has been carefully guarded in case a monkey took a shine to it.

Please don’t feed the monkeys, wild animals or fish wherever you are and stay at a distance is my plea to tourists.

More on Langkawi in my next blog.