Evening Jungle Walk with Jerome of Dev’s Adventure Tours
Langkawi Tour Review: Evening Jungle Walk
The company van picked me up at my hotel at promptly 4.30 as scheduled. We collected the remaining guests at their hotels en route to our evening jungle walk with Dev’s Adventure Tours.
Jerome, our guide, was waiting for us when we arrived at Berjaya Resort. That seemed to me a very odd place to begin a jungle walk, but it proved to make perfect sense on several accounts.
Jerome of Dev’s Adventure Tours educating us about tropical flora & fauna
For one, Jerome began our tour by enlightening us about the ecological impact of building the Berjaya, Langkawi’s largest resort, with a whopping 500 rooms. Turns out they felled 3-5 trees for each room built, a total of 1500-2500 trees felled. Needless to say, that created a major destructive impact on the immediate rain forest vicinity.
Fortunately, the construction crew did manage to preserve dozens of huge trees which are scattered about the resort, providing a lush shady environment for guests and a home to Langkawi’s largest population of lemur, aka ‘flying monkeys’.
Lemurs were another excellent reason to base the jungle tours here. We’d get a chance to see them later.
But to start things off, we strolled very leisurely through the resort grounds. Jerome stopped frequently to point out a hidden creature or educate us about various tropical plants & trees.
Bismark Palm
Within just five minutes Jerome had already taught me some facts about certain palm trees that I didn’t know, despite having lived, traveled and worked in SE Asia’s great outdoors for nearly 15 years. I was impressed.
We eventually reached the far end of the resort where we slathered up with citronella mosquito repellent before plunging into the jungle. We spent the next 1 ½ hours slowly winding and climbing our way along a narrow jungle path, stopping regularly to learn all kinds of interesting facts about the jungle flora & fauna.
Our first stop was at a large termite mound. Jerome pointed out a snake hole in our midst and informed us that a cobra was currently sleeping under the mound! Wow, that was a surprise. Wasn’t he concerned the cobra might come out to pay us a visit? No, Jerome informed us, the snake would have heard and felt our thundering footsteps as we approached and intentionally remained hidden. Besides, cobras only come out at night to hunt.
Lash with giant termite mound – Australia
Jerome proceeded to explain the fascinating relationship between termite mounds and cobras. The snakes love to sleep beneath the warm mounds. In exchange they provide protection to the termites. Apparently every live termite mound most likely has a cobra nearby.
I couldn’t help but think back to the gigantic 6 ft termite mounds I’d danced around in Australia. Gulp. Had I unwittingly put myself in danger?
We continued along the jungle path. Some information Jerome shared about the tropical environment I already knew, but much of it I didn’t. I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about my favorite natural habitat. He told us about various buttress trees, rubber trees, palms and a plant whose sap Malaysians use for energy drinks. He pointed out bats, butterflies and other jungle creatures.
As we proceeded, the forest gradually became darker and darker under the dense canopy of towering trees. The final 5-10 minutes we ended up walking in near pitch darkness along the trail. Jerome insisted that we not use any phone lights or torches. He wanted to prove that our eyesight was, indeed, good enough to see the trail even in the dim light. He was correct and we all emerged intact back onto the resort grounds at dusk.
lemur – flying monkey
Dusk was the perfect time to begin searching for ‘flying monkeys’. Jerome immediately proceeded to shine his super power torch up nearby tall trees. After looking vainly up a few empty trees, he finally spotted a lemur. It took the rest of us a few moments to make out the lemur, which really just looked like a bump on the tree. We were all excited to finally see one, but our real hope was to watch one flying. This lemur didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
We continued along through the resort while Jerome shined his beam up each tall tree we came upon. Eventually he found a lemur climbing awkwardly up an especially tall tree. The monkey looked to me more like a bat climbing up with hooked wingtips than a monkey.
Just then another lemur came gliding in to the same tree. Yippie, we finally witnessed a ‘flying monkey’ in action. Though I should point out that ‘flying monkey’ is a bit of a misnomer. They don’t actually fly, as in flapping wings. They simply spread their webbed arms and glide from one tree to the next. It’s a spectacular sight.
flying lemur – photo by Tom Reynolds
We stuck around for at least 30 minutes watching several lemurs climb and glide around the resort trees. In total we saw 10 glidering monkeys that evening. A dramatic finale to our very educational jungle walk. Thank you Jerome.
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Find out more about Evening Jungle Walks by Dev’s Adventure Tours here.
Check out my reviews of other Dev’s Adventure Tours:
Malaysian Culture Tour ‘Untold Stories’
(* Note: I’d like to thank Dev’s Adventure Tours and Jerome for sponsoring me on their very enjoyable, educational jungle walk. Although my tour was sponsored, all the opinions and comments I’ve expressed here are my own candid views about the tour. )
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Hi! I'm Lash, an American nomadic world traveler who's been traveling solo since 1998. I’m passionate about traveling the world nomadically and then sharing it all with you. I hope to inspire you to travel the world, to entertain you with tales from the road, and to help you reach your travel dreams. Welcome! 
