Palau Tioman

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I almost missed my 12.45pm bus to Mersing thanks to some bad information from my hotel, but I got there just as it was about to leave. The trip was supposed to take four and a half hours, but we got caught in a traffic jam due to a head on collision between three trucks. Once in Mersing it took my a while to find accommodation, but eventually settled on an aircon room with bathroom for $13. Had a quick look around town before getting dinner next door at a chinese restaurant, then surfed the net and watched a movie.

Tuesday I caught the ferry for Palau Tioman at the very reasonable hour of 11.30am. The two hour crossing went very quick, mainly due to the fact that I spent most of the time talking to a very lovely lady from Johor Bahru who was just spending a few hours on the island. I found a passable bungalow in the ABC beach area for $10 a night including constantly dripping water in my bathroom to keep me company for my stay. There is no road along ABC beach, just a path, so the locals transport goods with a sort of sidecar attached to their motorbike. I had a swim in the evening and a walk down the other end of the beach, before having dinner. I knew this island was going to be good when I was walking the 15 metres back to my bungalow from the restaurant and had to give way to a 1.5 metre lizard that was crossing the lawn.

Wednesday I decided to do a short trek through the jungle to Monkey Bay. It took me about an hour and my tshirt was soaked by the time I got there, so I quickly jumped in the water to cool down. On my walk I saw many different types of lizards, squirrels, monkeys, and a guy before me had just seen a snake. After an hour and a half and three swims I decided to head back and stop at pretty Panuba Bay to jump off their pier into the beautiful turquoise water. The water although being quite deep was crystal clear and very,very inviting. For dinner I walked to the other end of the beach and had a pizza while watching the sunset.

On thursday I decided that I would do the snorkel tour, but I had to wait a little while before they found some more people. Once we had five people we were off in our little boat to Coral Island, a small island just off the northwest coast of Tioman. The snorkelling was very good with plenty of colourful fish and coral, and then after we had enough we moved a few hundred metres further on to swim with some black tipped sharks. It was a little nerve racking for me until I got in the water and had a wonderful time watching the half dozen or so sharks swimming near us. It looked like rain was coming our way so we headed to Salang beach to have some lunch. The rain started just as we got there, and then there was the thunder and lightning. The lightning must of hit something very close and knocked out the power to the village for about half an hour. After being there for about 3 hours and thinking that the rain would continue we decided to get back in the boat and head to the next snorkelling spot. It was a lot warmer in the water than above, and surprisingly the visibility was still pretty good. Again we saw a load of fish as well as a large turtle, but the coral was not as good as Coral Island. On the way back to ABC beach we made a quick stop to Monkey Beach to see the monkeys sitting down and playing on the sand, but unfortunately as we got close they would get up and head for cover.

Friday morning I hired a mask and snorkel and headed to the north end of ABC beach and snorkelled between there and Panuba Bay. There were plenty of fish to see but unfortunately I didn't come across any rays which I really wanted to see. I returned in the afternoon and failed to see any but had a good time again. Anyway I will have plenty of opportunity in the future to see some. Had an early night seeing that I had to catch the ferry at 7am the next day.

Palau Tioman is a great place to see a lot of nature and chill out for a while. I hope the other islands I will be visiting in Malaysia will be as good as this one.

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