Langkawi is a beautiful island in the Northwest of Malaysia, close to the border of Thailand. Actually Pulau Langkawi (as the Malaysians call their islands) is a group of islands, some of them inhabited, and some not more than a bare rock in the sea. We had a bungalow close to the sea, and we were on the right side of the island to see a beautiful sunset every day, while sipping our cocktails.  
The brown eagle on the picture stands overlooking the harbor of Kuah, the capital of the island, on the square called "Dataran Lang (Eagle Square). My boys, good scouts as they are, immediately recognized it as a Brahminy Kite. According to legends, the eagle has given the island Langkawi its name, as "(He)lang" means eagle and "kawi" means reddish brown. Real birds of prey are also visiting their island frequently.
The name of the capital Kuah means "gravy" in Malay, and refers to a couple of giants who spilled a large pot of curry as the result of a fight, on the place where the city is now.
On a trip to the center of the island, we go up with a cable car to a little more than 700 meters, and have a beautiful view over the sea and the mountains.

Close to the main island of Langkawi, there are many reef islands with beautiful fish. These places are the target of many tour operators, who empty their bus loads of tourists on the beaches. And there are many tourists in August: mainly from Arabia and from East Asia. Especially the latter group enjoys these kinds of trips.
One of the islands is Pulau Payar, and we join in one of the tours. Already on the ferry, many of the passengers start putting on life vests. I get a little worried: is it possible we have to cross some wild waters, before arriving to this beach? How will I get my little Anna across that wild sea? But no need to worry, we arrive perfectly normal on the shore; these people just don't know how to swim. Even our little Anna is an expert compared to them. In no time, the bay is littered with floating people in red vests, with pipes sticking out of the water. A Titanic adventure with only survivors.
Already in the mid-nineties, a report of FAO stated, that the tourists were a major threat to the Pulau Payar Marine park. In 1995, over 70,000 visited the reefs and bay, and that number, according to FAO, should definitely not increase, as the environment was already under serious threat.
On the day we were there, we saw hundreds of floaters, and a quick calculation learns, that the per year amount of tourists has definitely not diminished, if that is a daily event. The government has taken some measures, however: part of the trip fee was a "Government Environmental Conservation Charge", in the flyer of the tour operator euphemistically called "Conversation charge". Not that it discourages people: there are more red-clad tourists than colorful fish.
You do not have to be an environmental expert, to see what the effect of the tourists is on the nature in the marine park. Not only are there hundreds of them, coming to look for peace and quiet, but they also exhibit interesting behavior. Their main activity is feeding the fish. Almost all of them participate in the major activity: sharing lunch with the fish. While they stand to their middle in the sea, they feed pieces of bread to the thousands of fish swimming in the shallow waters. Some of them also feed their chicken legs to the fish, probably thinking that they are entitled to a change in diet.
The fish no longer behave like proper fish. Pavlov-worthy, they know what is lunchtime, and around 1.00 PM they move to the bay and look most like water rats with fins; they jump out of the water to take the bread from the tourist hand. Even though I do not feed them myself, I get bitten a few times in my legs, which feels like the sting of a small bee.
The boys go out for snorkeling further down the bay. Not surprisingly, the quality is disappointing. According to Vincent, it is like “walking through a wood where the trees have been chopped”. Still, I am not overly worried when Victor comes running out of the water, to tell me he saw a shark. He has a vivid imagination and in this shallow bay full of people, it must have been just an extra large normal fish. But he was right, there are small black-tip sharks, whose quantity seems to increase the more lunch time comes nearer. While the fish eat their bread and chicken, the sharks eat the fish in front of our eyes. Tourist operators however see the sharks as a main attraction:
"There is a school of tame baby black-tip sharks in shallow waters just in front of the Marine Park Centre which can be hand-fed by visitors".
Another tourist attraction on the island, which seemed to me just as controversial as the sharks, was the crocodile farm. What the attraction existed of, remained unclear: on the one hand, their corkboard showed newspaper clippings, telling how the Langkawi economy would boom because of crocodile leather bags and shoes, produced by the farm; on the other hand, the farm showed signboards at the cages, telling that the farm's objective was to offer crocodiles a good place to live, even the invalid ones. And indeed, there were some hunchback-like Quasimodo-crocodiles, lying in the burning sun on a small concrete slab, wondering if this was the dignified life they were promised to enjoy.
At quarter past eleven sharp it is "crocodile feeding time" at the crocodile farm in and all visitors are encouraged to watch this impressive spectacle. An enormous crowd of healthy crocodiles live in a pond which would almost fit in our back yard, lying side to side with their nose towards the border, like cars parked on the beach boulevard on a sunny Sunday afternoon. The feeder opens the gate and enters with a bucket, full of fish. He blows a whistle. The crocodiles seem deaf, because only five of them show up. They finish the fish within two minutes. When the bucket is empty, the man whistles again, and luckily this time the crocodiles understand, and return quietly to their parking lot.
But obviously there are also many good things, on this clean island with its friendly population. Nature on the island is beautiful and often unspoilt. Most of the tourists stay on the beaches, and the island has not many inhabitants. Everywhere are beautiful flowers as well as views. And the food is also a major attraction!

For delicious recipes of Malaysian food, please click HERE or on the pictures below.