Port Klang

We spent more than one month volunteering at The (LifeLine clothing), the largest textile recycling facility in Southeast asia. We learned so much about the clothing and textile industry, the harms of fast fashion and the importance of sustainable fashion and being mindful of the clothing we buy. 

We experienced this volunteer opportunity through Worldpackers - which we highly recommend for any travellers! 

Other than volunteering, Port Klang is home to not much other than a lot of factories and the world's largest firefly colony which... hmmm... funny story. 

Jack bought us tickets for my birthday to see the fireflies. We were both so excited, the posters looked AMAZING! Glowing clouds of these little magical little insects lighting up the sky and circling boats of awe-struck tourists. We got to the dock at sunset, absolutely buzzing. World's largest firefly colony - eeee! 

We boarded the boat just as it began to get dark and began making our way down the river. We thought it was a bit strange that it wasn't completely dark yet, we read that fireflies are best seen at night time. Oh well, maybe the firefly colonies live quite far away. 

After 20 minutes of boating down the river, the captain cuts the engine and lets the boat slowly drift over to the side of a bush. From there he points to the leaves, a wide smile on his face. I look, squint my eyes, look again, and then I see it. Very faint, scarce lights scattered sporadically among the leaves. Honestly, the broken Christmas lights we've had since 2004 would have looked more impressive. Surely this is just a warm-up. A taster of what's to come. 

The captain then whips out a net and begins scooping the fireflies out of the bush and - I kid you not - throwing them on the floor of the boat! He may as well have spat on them. Once we'd had that little 'firefly warm-up', the boat started pulling away, and Jack and I began hyping ourselves up to see the real firefly conoly, the one on all the posters. But confusion started setting in when we started driving back towards the boat port instead of further down the river... 

Our fears were realised when the boat docked and we realised that was indeed it. A few twinkly fireflies in a bush, and not the bright neon swarm we had been expecting. 

So, if you do plan on coming to Port Klang to see the world's largest firefly colony, set your expectations very low.