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04 - 07 October

The boat ride was quite pleasant, although we missed the larger part of it thanks to a lovely nap.
Upon arrival the mist was still hanging low on the hills, with the sun breaking through the clouds, reflecting on that oh so blue water. Beautiful!
Our jetty at ABC was the fourth. After a little walk around we decided to stay at Mawar's chalets. A little worn out but at 35 RM a night a bargain. The food was cheap too and Tioman being tax free, 3 cans of beer went for 10 RM at different places on the beach. At our end the beach was quite rocky at low tide, but at the southern end, just before the headland to Tekek town, the beach was nice.
I went snorkelling at both places the next day, and it was pretty good.
Not a huge abundance of fish, but a good variety. The coral (all hard) was some of the best I've seen though.
Right that first afternoon on the beach we spotted a monitor lizard, heading inland via one of the streams.

The second day we walked to Tekek town to get some more money at the airport and to check out the duty free store. There and back we spent about 2 hours walking. (It's hot!)
That evening we sipped icy cold beers and had pizza at Nazir's place at the southern end of ABC.
Here we met up with Ellen, a French Canadian girl we had already met earlier on the ferry.
Together, her and her two fellow country men and me and Zhu, decided to walk the next day to the other side of Tioman, to Juara beach.

We started at about 09:30 and had expected quite a walk. It started quite overgrown, behind Tekek town next to a large water basin, but soon changed into a concrete path leading into the jungle. The climb up started OK, but admitted, was tough in places. We definitely needed a breather a few times.
At the top was a small waterfall with big black pipes used for Tekek's water provision. Actually not much after reaching the top the path met the road built in 2007 across the island, and so the remainder of the walk was on concrete. We arrived at Juara just before noon, so the whole walk, including from ABC to Tekek town was no more than two and a half hours.

We looked around (a bit, not enough I learned later) and checked in at a place that had an elevated long house, divided into different rooms. Each room could sleep up to 6 people.
Me and Zhu took one room. It looked OK... (wait...!)
The afternoon was spent having lunch, sleeping, swimming and snorkelling.
Again, the coral here was amazing, not a lot of fish but of a great variety. I've seen fish here I'd never seen before, large fish especially.
Later, during a walk along the beach we met two Dutch girls again whom we also had met before at ABC.
They were staying at the rainbow chalets, which afterwards, would have been a much better option for us to stay. Although Juara doesn't have many places, and because it was out of season now so not everything was open either, I absolutely loved it. Probably because of the reason that it was so quiet...
Must be different in the high season though, because there is plenty of accommodation.

Just before nightfall me and Zhu gathered some wood, following an idea of the Dutch couple about having a bonfire on the beach. And so, after a dinner at one of the few places open we gathered around and got the fire going. A few beers to accompany the fire is always welcome of course, so a few of us walked over to the north end where there is an absolute great bar! It's built in and around a huge tree and has got 2 levels! If I would have been there another night, then I would definitely have gone there!
We had a great time that night. Of course the Dutch led the way to skinny dipping, for which only Zhu was in for as well. A local boy and his bottle of whisky (? I can't remember) joined us and it was after 2 a.m. when we finally hit the sack.

Now, here it comes: I woke up again at around seven-ish, immediately scratching my body all over, but mostly my back. In a minute I knew they had gotten me bad, so got up, and walked straight into the ocean. The cold and salty water relieved the itching (for a while at least) and I fell asleep again in a hammock on the beach. Later that morning I woke up again with that horrible itchy feeling.
A look on my back by Zhu told me I was bitten over 40 times on my back alone!
Up to this day I still don't know if it was mosquito's or bedbugs, but my intuition says the latter.
It took more than a week for it to go away, nearly two weeks actually.
Had a swollen lymph gland as well two days later, probably a reaction to the bites...
So when staying @ Juara, be warned!
Would still love to go back there once though, great place to just chill and do nothing. (Oh yes, and there's a turtle project over there too, if you're interested...)
Luckily everybody of our little group decided we weren't going to walk back, but take a Jeep instead

The last day we did a bit of washing and more relaxing. The boat back was at 10 in the morning, which from ABC went north first, to Slang jetty, then via each jetty back to Mersing. We were back in time for the bus to Melaka.

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