After an impressively long night's sleep, we rose to find that Mersing still wasn't Paris, though it was warm, extremely laid back, and turned out to be quite a pleasant little fishing town. First things first: breakfast. Mehraneh was a bit disappointed to discover that breakfast in Asia is often very similar to every other meal of the day; she adapted. After checking out of the hotel, changing money, and walking down to a restaurant near the ferry port, we assumed that we’d be able to effortlessly find transportation to Tioman Island after filling our bellies. Our waiter, however, informed us that it might not be so simple. As we were cleaning our plates, Marina, a Russian woman who we’d end up spending the next few days with wandered by and confirmed this news: the only
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