Pulau Ketam

Pulau Ketam is rich with mangrove swamps, making it popular for fishing.

Aborogines, or Orang Asli, heading back home after a collection of wood from the mangrove swamps. A small Aboroginal community can be found on Pulau Ketam, carving themselves a sustenance by harvesting the mangrove swamp of fish and wood.

The peaceful Chinese fishing village of Pulau Ketam. The fishing community is made up of an overwhelming number of Chinese, especially senior citizens and children, as most of the young adults do not partake in the traditional fishing culture and choose to work in cities.

Islands ~ Pulau Ketam

Pulau Ketam is a flat island made completely of mangrove swamps off the coast of Klang in Selangor. On this island sits a Chinese fishing village that has been around for more than a century, surviving two massive fire outbreaks in 1967 and 1972 respectively. Today, the island is a tourist attraction and popular venue for seafood among locals.

The simplest way to get to Pulau Ketam is by a commuter train from KL Sentral Station in Kuala Lumpur all the way to Port Klang. At the last station, alight and hop on a ferry at the nearby jetty, paying about RM5 for a one-way ticket. These ferries are shaped like long bananas, and are actually retired boats from Borneo that were used to ply the river routes in Sarawak.

After a 45-minute journey, you will reach Pulau Ketam for a cultural adventure. The Chinese fishing village that greets you is built completely on stilts, the bottom being a muddy floor with pepperings of discarded debris and trash. Although there's a slight stench, the island was actually much worse in the past as the village was literally covered with rubbish. However, efforts to promote Pulau Ketam as a tourist attraction and hygiene awareness has cleaned up much of the island, making it palatable for visitors.

During low tide, the shores are swarmed with thousands of tiny blue crabs, which is why the name of the island translates to 'Crab Island' in English. To explore the mangrove swamps, you can hire a boat from the village and begin your river cruise. Along the way, you'll spot many different types of coastal widlife such as kites, mud skippers, monkeys, otters and monitor lizards.

A check with a boatman revealed that snakes are an occassional sight on the shrubs and mangroves along the river, often being the mangrove cat snake, or Boiga dendrophila melanota and the shore pit-viper, or Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus. Meanwhile, the waters are teeming with marine life such as barramundi, red snapper, prawns and crabs, making it a popular avenue for fishing. Aquaculture is also another predominant activity, with nets suspended in the waters to raise fish fry.

Finally, most visitors will head to the many restaurants on Pulau Ketam for a refreshing course of seafood delights!