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My first stop for my second return to Malaysia was Melaka. A funny thing I noticed was that everyone kept spelling Melaka differently. I saw it spelled Malaka, Malaca, Malacka, Malacca, Melaca, Melacca, and the one I spell it as Melaka. I guess everyone likes their way better and a common spelling hasn't be voted on.
Melaka was a very different city than the rest I've seen in Malaysia. All the others were rather bland in construction. They all used square, 3-4 floor, no-color, concrete buildings. Every street looks the same, nothing unique. Melaka was a complete 180. The buildings had character. Some streets were made of stone pavers and had welcoming walkways. A river runs through the city and provides many nice waterside areas to sit back and relax. There was bright colors and molding on the buildings. I couldn't believe I was still in Malaysia. Melaka is a great walking town. There are several inviting restaurants and cafes, many local clothing boutiques and the city almost yells out for you to have a pleasant stroll through it. So as you can tell, I liked it there.
From Melaka I bussed over to Mersing to catch a
ferry to Pulau Tioman. It's a touristy island that takes in many locals and foreigners. There's several, different spots to stay on the island. From isolated and resort-style to simple and budget friendly. I stayed in the ABC area, which is the easiest on the wallet. From there I did a few scuba dives with "Scuba Glen" from Dive Asia. He was a real character. So much energy. He's been doing it for so long and you can really tell that he enjoys diving. The water at certain sites was warm with good visibility. The depths are shallow and the current is almost non-existent. Good for beginner divers. The sea life isn't as good as elsewhere I've seen, but still fun to see if you're in the area. Small reef sharks are a regular site and the underwater landscape is beautiful with huge boulders, brightly colored reef and a volcanic feel. One downside is the amount of divers. They're in high numbers, so they often scare away the shy species. Still it was fun there to dive and out of the water there's plenty of interesting people to talk to. One pair in particular that I had a good talk
with was a Romanian son and mother that currently lives in Singapore. The mom only eats european food, so she cooked and packed a massive amount of Romanian food for their weekend trip. They saw me and invited me for a Romanian meal. So delicious. The main course was stuffed cabbage which had that "little, old lady cooking for hours" flavor. So good. Good break from the noodle, rice, and curry monotony that I've become accustomed to lately. They told me about Romania and made it a place that I'd like to visit one day.
After Tioman I wanted to go someplace more secluded. Glen recommended Pulau Tenggol. It's about six hours north of Mersing and you catch a speed boat there from the port town of Kuala Dungun. The major downside of the island is the price. Significantly more than Tioman because you have to book all-inclusive room, dive, food , transport packages with one of the three resorts there. Luckily Glen's friend Reynold was the dive master at one of the resort, so he was able to get me a heavily discounted rate. It was very pleasant during my short stay there. Most of the dives I
did was with just me and Reynold. Not crowded at all. There's not as many large fish to see there that I hoped for. We did run into a group of three very large bumphead parrotfish and reef shark. Other than those, there was not any large sitings. For macro, it was good, but only if you want to see nudibranches and flat worms. There were several species of those there, but not much of anything else. I'm happy seeing ten different nudibranches on one dive, but not everyone might be. So for diving, I would say that it is ok there. Not good enough by itself to go there only for that. If you want a white sand beach and only a dozen or two tourists on the island then it can offer that easily. You go there for the seclusion, which is hard to find in peninsular Malaysia.
This third shot at Malaysia was my favorite. I was glad to be able to give it another chance and look forward to be able to see other parts of it in the future.
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anonymous
non-member comment
nudi...
the word nudibranch makes me laugh....