Langkawi Boat Tour- Bat Cave

A popular stop on the boat tour was a visit to the Bat Cave. After getting off of the boat we walked along a well-developed wooden walkway that led into a cave. The roosting bats, the geological formations within the cave, and some of the plants living near the cave made this a very interesting stop.



There were about 3000 horshoe bats (genus Rhinolophus- I hope I got that right or else I will hear about it from the bat researchers at Tech). Unlike the fruit bats that we saw roosting in trees, these cave roosting bats eat insects.It was fun to see how creeped out some people were by being so close to bats. I guess that there are worried about the bats gettin caught in their hair!


It was always possible to view the outside world from inside of the cave. There were some interesting stalagtites, stalagmites, and columns in the cave.






This stalagtite was hanging under a ledge on the outside of the cave. It you look carefully you can see that unlike most stalagtites that fall straight down from the ceiling, that this stalagtite is curved. It turns out that this growth form arises because algae growing on the stalagtite causes it to grow towards the light.


The plant that looks sory of like a palm is actually a cycad. Cycads are primitive seed-producing, non'flowering plants (Gymnosperms) that today are considered to be "living fossils". At least now I will have a photo of a cycad to show when I teach about plant diversity in the future.


The boats are lined up waiting to pick up passengers from the bat cave. I thought that they did a good job of concentrating the tourist activity in Langkawi so that tourists got to see and experience interesting things while still leaving the environment as untouched as possible.