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Published: April 28th 2006
"A Holiday, whilst on a holiday"
18.04.06
We were up early giving ourselves plenty of time to walk to the bus terminal to catch our 9am bus to Mersing in Malaysia, (we could have done this cheaper by catching a local bus to Johor Barhu, then another bus from there. But we decided it would be too much hassle, so we took the direct one instead) As it was we got to the bus terminal just in time and sweating a lot!
The bus was nice so that was a good start. We got off the bus just before the causeway to depart Singapore and then off again on the other side to arrive in Malaysia. It was a really easy crossing, no problems, so that was pleasing. From here it was then 3 hours to Mersing. Along the way we stopped off at a cafe, where we didn't have any of the food, didn't look so good. But we did try some packet stuff after asking a kind lady 'what's this?', 'what's this?'.
We arrived in Mersing at around 1.15pm with our plan in mind, which was to head straight to the jetty ignoring all the touts
for the boats, as it had told us in the Lonely Planet that they try and sell you boat tickets and overpriced accomodation. So we jumped off the bus, ignored them, got out our money from the bank (as we had heard there are no ATMs on the island) and set off to the jetty, still ignoring the passing tooting touts in their vans. When we got there after a ten minute walk, there was only 1 boat left (which they were touting for anyway) unless we waited until 5pm, or so the people told us (So we missed out on a free lift to the jetty, We bet they were wondering what we were doing) This is all a con, the bus should drop you at the jetty if you refuse to get off and stay on the bus, but the touts and bus companies must have some agreement.
Now this was a speed boat that we had heard bad things about. Before we left Singapore Andy promised me he wouln't force me onto a speed boat. So what does he do as I'm protesting? Hands over the money for 2 tickets! I was not happy. So chucking
my bags around we boarded this 'speed boat' where they had crammed about 20 people and a lot of bags! Along the way I ask Andy, 'do you think this is safe?' he just shrugs his shoulders! Well in the end (an hour later) the trip was perfectly fine and Andy apologised. (AND I WAS SORRY, BUT SHE DOES WORRY!)
There are a few "settlements" on the island. We chose on called Air Batang, it was to be a good choice. Off the boat we set off to find some nice and cheap accomodation. We had heard of a couple, but thought we would check out the others along the way. There all seemed to be between 20 and 30 ringgits. (we get 6.5 ringgints to the pound). We chose 'My friends place' this was RM25 for the room, about 3 quid a night! It was a little cabin with our own toilet and shower, mozzie net and fan. So we were pleased, nice and cheap!!
We went straight onto the beach and into the crystal clear, warm aqua sea. The seabed is covered with broken coral in places so a little sharp.
Whilst we were in the sea
a coconut fell off a tree (we make sure we don't sit under palm trees!) so Andy made it his mission to break this coconut open. 20 minutes later after lots of sweating, we were sat on this little paradise island, just as dusk was coming in eating fresh coconut, very cool eh?
At about 6pm we headed off to shower and come back and see the sunset, unfortunately the cloud had dropped so there was no sun.
We walked along the one path to look at all the cafes and restauraunts. Here they seem to cater for the tourist as there is a lot of western food! We shall make the most of this as we are going to be trying native food for the next 4 months.
After dinner we went to a couple of the little bars for some reasonably priced beer as it is a duty free island. Then to bed.
That night it thundered and poured down with rain. I said that Singapore thunder was loud! Well I was wrong! This was even a little scarey! At least we know our cabin is water proof.
We have said to each other that
we are going to really make you all jealous of our travels this time, so here goes!!!
Everyday we went snorkelling as we had bought our own snorkels and masks, which we got some money knocked off from a shop in Tekek, which is the main settlement on the island and not very nice! But they do have a duty free shop near the small airport that sells cheap beer.
The snorkelling here was amazing (well I, Melissa, think so) it was 10 times better than the Great Barrier Reef! Hence we went out more than once everyday!
There was a lot of coral in the crystal clear water (like we had not seen before), all different colours from pink to bright green, different types too. A lot of it was damaged but there was a lot that was not aswell.
The fish were great! Never seen so many fish, big and small. Everytime we went in I saw a different fish. The colours were amazing, electric blue, bright yellow, multi coloured, purple! We saw a brightly coloured ray at the same time as a turtle. Andy saw a couple of big black eels.
On more than
one ocassion we saw turtles! (it took Andy 5 days to see his first one). Swimming here was better than on the reef in Australia because it was just us out there most of the time. A couple of times each of us were on our own with the turtles too. We swam above them and along side of them for ages. They sometimes came up real close. They didn't seem bothered, we saw them eating too it was brilliant! They seem to really enjoy ripping the coral up for whatever they were after for lunch, with fish surrounding them for the remains. The sea was so clear that you could see right down to the bottom even when we were quite deep
A few of times we took some bread out in a water bottle to feed the fish. This was fun, we had hundreds arounds us, all different ones and you can hear their lips banging together when they were eating it! At other times you could hear the fish talking, making like a purring noise. Whilst doing this we were also half expecting a shark to come and join in, so we were also constantly looking
Dinner at Mawars
Where we were to become regulars. Everynight and morning actually!behind us!
We have seen NEMO!! yeah!! and we know where to find them now too. There are always in the soft swaying coral. They are the only fish that can live there as it is poisonous to other fish. The clown fish (Nemo) lures other fish into the coral so that it dies and then they can feed off it! Here's another fact for you too about Nemo.
They live in small families, 3 or 4. If the female (mum) dies the male (dad) wil turn into as female so that he can have sex with his son (Nemo) to keep their little group going! Not so cute now are they?
A few times we have come back out of the sea earlier than we wanted to because we were feeling little pin pricks all over our bodies. This seemed to happen when you went out deeper and the sea seemed to have lots of little floaty bits. We later found out that these stings we were getting (no marks on our bodies) were from gobbles? which are like jelly fish and they loose their tenticles and that was what was falling on us. Well it didn't do
anythng to us. Or at least thats what we thought!! Andy became unwell for a day and a half, this is our conclusion.
On the Tuesday night after our tea, we were getting ready for bed when we noticed a rash on Andy's side, kind of on the rib area.
I, Andy had been swimming that afternoon on my own and I needed to adjust my mask, so I swum over to a buoy (not a boy!!) to keep me afloat. Whilst swimming away I noticed my side was stinging/itching. So this is where we assume the rash came from. As the night went on the rash kind of spread onto my bum. I was a little concerned.
The next morning I awoke to a swollen face around my eyes, It looked like Mike Tyson had been hitting me all night. So here I was with a swollen face and a rash on my body in another country. I was a little concerned as I felt really tired and a little weak as well. We didn't know if there would be a doctor on the island, so this is where Melissa took charge. She gave me an anti isthamene
(I know thats not how you spell it, can you?) and a Dioralyte as well and spent most of the day in bed. Later that day to my reluctance she made me get up, have a refreshing cold shower and some fresh air. I felt better! That night I had some strong paracetamol. I woke up the next day feeling a lot better, but still with a swollen face.
I spent the day chilling in the cool shade.
A couple of days later the swelling went and we put it down to the stings on my forehead (lets face it it is quite big. I thought I would get that one in!) And I felt much better thanks to nurse Mel.
Everyday we ate out for all our meals. This made it feel like we were really on holiday. For breakfast I had pancake and honey and Andy had scrambled eggs on toast.
For the first few days we made good use of the fact that they served a lot of western food which actually tasted good too. After about day 3 we started to sample the local Malay food. It was all very nice but far too spicey
for me! People at home would be amazed at what I've been eating. We had Fried noodle mamak, bee hoon mamak, fried noodle, stir fry veggies, chicken sambal, chicken curry and salad (which consisted of shredded cabbage and carrot with sugar!)
The Malays idea of spicy and mine is very different! I asked if the curry was spicy. He said you can have it not spicy, he said it was creamy! Well I had a tiny sip of the sauce and then knocked things over on the table in the scramble to get the water! Non spicy my arse! Needless to say we swapped dishes and I just sweated and breathed heavy through the sambal.
One day we went around the bay northbound to a place called Panuba bay which was very nice, we did more snorkelling here. Another day we did the long hard walk, despite what we had been told for a 14km trek through what the Lonely Planet describes as "Awsome jungle" to the east coast settlement of Juara. It maybe wasn't "Awsome" but it was a really nice walk despite all the mozzies. We saw monkeys with red faces and Goannas, some which we nearly
Monkey
There were lots of monkies around our chalet. They even went through our bins. accidently stood on, this made us jump out of our skins!!
All the time on our walk you could hear things moving and chattering in the background it was really nice. We were actually in the middle of a "jungle"
The settlement of Juara too was very nice, it seemed a really quite place, only a few places to stay, shops and restaurants etc. The beach was empty and the sea also crystal clear and blue. We had a dip and some dinner, chilled for five minutes then got a lift back to the top of a very steep concrete path before the jungle starts, to save us maybe a good half an hour on our return trek.
In the 4x4 on the way to our drop off point we met a couple that said they saw a Black scorpion on their trek and that they found the walk "boring" Needless to say on the way back we were on Scorpion watch.
When we got back "home" we were straight into the sea to sooth our aching limbs.
One afternoon just sat around the café of our accommodation we met a nice couple from Middlesbrourgh, Steph and Dave. They
The sunset
We never actually saw the sunsetting. This was probably the closest had done Asia and were on their way to Singapore so we exchanged lots of tips and found out good places to stay, which is always good.
Throughout our days on the island we chatted to them and spent a couple of evenings with them eating banana cake. It was nice.
On the day I, Andy was unwell, we decided to get a souvineer, which was a "Batik" From a Malaysian artist called Rikki Power (not his real name) This is a paintin done in wax for the outline which melts off later and dye for the colours all done on a cotten sheet. We spent at least 2 days lookin at his deisgns and making up our own. We finally came to an agreement on ideas, the painting would consist of two designs on one painting, one being our time our time on the north gorge at Stradbrooke Island watching the dolphins with the sunsetting and the other with us on the beach at night with the stars and the moon. All very nice indeed.
It turned out really nice, we are going to have it mounted for our wall for when we get somewhere to live.
Melissa
Everyday we tried to get the sunset but the clouds always came down. A couple of tiimes I, Andy got my tackle out on the jetty. The first time I didnt catch anything and ended up just feeding the fish whilst having a beer and watching the sunset. The other time I got turned away from the jetty because it is a protected marine park. Spoilsports
All in all our time on Tioman was great, we had a lovely time. When we arrived we initially booked into My friends place for 3 days, the next day we added another four, then a day, then another, eventually we left after about 9 or 10. We dont know. You lose track of the time on the island as it is so relaxed, everyone is so polite and friendly, you walk down the path each day and everyone says hello, good morning. We learnt that hello in Malay is Aba Khabar, but this gave us a reply that we didnt understand until later.
The island is really nice but there seems to be a lot of rubbish about, don't know if it is from the locals or the tourists. This spoils it a lot.
We will be leaving with fond memories, sandfly and mozzie
bites.
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Auntie Marg
non-member comment
I like the print !