Relaxing on Tioman island...

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Hello everyone,

sorry its been so long - we've been busy relaxing on the beautiful Pulau Tioman for the last 2 weeks....

We finally left Kuala Lumpur on the Friday, complete with new passports and a letter from the embassy explaining our old ones had been stolen and to please let us leave Malaysia! A short 4 hour bus journey later we were in the town of Mersing where we would take the ferry across to Tioman. Mersing itself doesnt really warrant much of a description - if it was a little more charming we were going to stay there a night - but it wasnt. It was also a Friday when a lot of Singaporeans descend on the island for a weekend break so we were advised to book our accomodation in the boat ticket office to make sure we had a bed for the night. Usually we dont book before seeing the room as we have learned descriptions, pictures etc can be decidedly different to what is actually on offer....but as money is more of an issue now I cant access my account and Tom didnt have much left in his we decided to go for the 5 pound a night huts in Mohktars Place in case we couldnt find anything within our budget when we arrived. A 2 hour ferry ride in fairly rough conditions and we were there (luckily we have motion sickness tablets we now take before every boat journey and sometimes bus journeys if they're going to be long and winding) Our hut was basic but had everything we needed - a bed, a fan, a trickle of cold water for a shower, and a mossie net. It was also about 10m from the beach and we could hear the waves lapping the shore as we lay in bed - nice. The family running the place were really lovely and had the 2 cutest kids who ran upto us as soon as we arrived - so Tom picked up the little boy and turned him upside down while he was giggling...i think that set us up to be their playmates for our stay!!

Most of our days were spent lazing on the beach, reading, playing cards and sudoku and generally chilling. We hired snorkelling equipment for a couple of hours a few times - I only went twice but I think Tom went about 5 times as he's still not able to sit still on the beach for more than half an hour! There was a bank of coral about 50m from the shore where we saw clown fish (thats the only type we can name) as well as loads of other different brightly coloured fish.....we have a few pictures on a disposable underwater camera which we will have put onto a disc and then upload on here when we get home!! The island is also home to monitor lizards....they're pretty big lizards, related to the kimodo dragon and we first saw one just casually walking around some huts. They eat cats and monkeys...although not enough cat eating was going on in our opinion - the island was full of them!

The food on Tioman was pretty limited, although what we had was always good....there just wasnt as much fresh fruit and salad available as we'd have liked! For nearly every lunchtime we had Mee Kari - noodles, chicken, prawns, squid and veg in a curry flavoured soup...yum yum! We had 'tuna' one night which was suspiciously like mackerel....so i had 'mackerel' another night which was suspiciously like Tuna....but all was good!

I've already mentioned the money situation was a bit tricky...but it got worse.....after we'd been there a few days we needed to withdraw some more money, so we walked for about 40 minutes to the only cashpoint on the island where we werent able to withdraw any money 😞 it rejected all of Toms cards and i didnt have any left. So the next morning at 7am Tom set off on a 7 hour round trip back to the mainland to withdraw some money....when he first tried Nationwide had blocked his card for about the 8th time and not having any cash on him he had to beg the man in the internet cafe to let him use skype to call them. After all that he had missed the 10.30 boat back to the island and had to catch the 11.30 which didnt actually leave until 12.15.....meanwhile i'd been left on the island with 4 ringgit to buy my breakfast and by about 1pm I was wondering where he was!! For anyone who is thinking of travelling to Tioman - the cash machine only accepts credit cards....if you have a mastercard or visa you have to go into the Western Union branch with your passport to be able to withdraw cash. Otherwise its a 70 RM, potentially 7 hour round trip!

After 12 days of doing pretty much nothing our feet were itching so we booked our boat for the next morning and packed up. All week the little girl from where were staying had been watching Tom juggle - demanding '3 balls' '4 balls' etc....soon we were involved in handstand, cartwheel and headstand competitions, drawing in the sand and throwing pebbles into the sea. They asked our names....they didnt have any problem with pronouncing Tom, but 'Joey' was too much and so I was declared 'Jerry' and they sang the themetune of the Tom and Jerry show over and over...something which Tom has carried on since.

The next morning at 7am we set off on the first ferry of the day and caught a bus from Mersing to Singapore....we reached the border and went through immigration expecting it to be fine with our letter from the embassy - it wasnt. We were taken into a small room, our passports and letters taken from us and no explanation given for a while - while about 6 immigration officers all talked among themselves. I asked if there was a problem and they said yes, that we should've gone to immigration in KL and been stamped into the country. We explained that we hadnt been told and if we had we'd definately have done it....anyway, we had to get our bags off the bus we were travelling on and sit in the office for about 45 mins while they all sorted it out and we were finally allowed to board a second bus to Singapore....

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Comments

[dad]

Fun fun fun!
In situatioons like this I try and remeber the words form a Bruce Springsteen track which went 'Someday we'll look back on ths and it will all seem funny!' It sounds like you may be gettting to that stage ,but what an ordeal! See you next week#Love mum and dad xx PS-Owen's now scored 2x for Utd