Being a Penangite born and bred, my interest in the mainland town of Nibong Tebal
is culinary. Many a time I have stopped by at this town for the sole purpose of sampling its famed beef noodles and its home style seafood. It was indeed a surprise to discover that just a couple of hundred metres from my favourite restaurant haunt lies a colony of fireflies that are, until recently, known mainly to the local villagers.

Together with a group of MNS Penang members, we made a trip organized by Beatrice and Joseph on a cool January evening. There were fifteen of us in a trawler boat piloted by a knowledgeable fisherman, now turned fireflies guide. The banks of the river were lined with nipah palms and mangrove trees. An occasional night heron was seen. According to our guide Heng, the villagers were told to refrain from picking the fruits of the nipah palms( the source of atap chee in our ice kacang), presumely to help propagate the palms along the river banks. On our boatman's advice we had departed from the town jetty while it was still daylight and the reason for this early departure was soon obvious. As the evening twilight turned to night darkness, the fireflies 'came on' one by one. Despite my several visits to the firefly colony at K.Selangor, I have never had the opportunity to experience this spectacle. It as if the lights on a Christmas tree were turned on one by one. Soon after, the whole tree was lit up with tiny fireflies all flashing in perfect synchrony. For me, a very magical experience indeed. Certainly, an experience to rival that of the K.Selangor fireflies colony.

At the end of the boat trip, we adjourned for a drink and a chat and was regaled with tales of foot-long size udang galah and of how a fisherman recently found a clutch of juvenile buaya tembaga in this same river. Urban legend or not, this latter tale is an indication of this river system's surprising naturalness so near to a major urban centre. It is clear that the presence of a paper and palm oil mill just upstream from the fireflies colony should be monitored lest it affects this unique river ecosystem. That aside, what started as a lazy evening excursion to Nibong Tebal turned out to be quite interesting. It was a serendipitous exploration of the wild side of industrialized Penang.