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Published: February 24th 2009
After our sleepless night in Mersing we trudged to the jetty to catch the ferry to Mersing. A guy at the bedbug guesthouse (called Omar's Backpacker Hostel incedentally, in case you ever need to avoid it) had sold us a pair of return ferry tickets for 70RM each (about 14 pounds) and booked us into a chalet on the island for a further 80RM (16 pounds) so we already had accommodation sorted, at least for the first night.
On the ferry we finally managed to get about an hour's sleep during the 2 hour crossing and thankfully woke up to see Tioman appear in the distance. It's a small island, only around 40km long and 12km wide and is covered with dense forest and a few small villages scattered around the coast, most with some chalets on the beaches. From a distance it is stunning, deep, intense greenery on rolling hills and small beaches fronting the clearest blue sea I have ever seen. After a few drop offs along the coast we arrived at our village, Salang. It is one of the biggest and has various scuba centres, restaurants, chalets and a few bars. We found our way to our
chalet which was on the beachfront, looking out at the sea between coconut trees. Pure bliss. On the way we bumped into a lovely Dutch couple called Nils and Belen who are from Utrecht, near where Mark and Susan live, and found that they were staying in a chalet behind ours. Shortly after that we met a cool pair of Swedes, Denise and Henrik who were staying at the other end of Salang and we spend much of the time on Tioman as a group of six.
We spend around a week in Tioman (time has become a little hazy we're so relaxed!) and it is without question the most beautiful place I have ever been. We went on a boat tour around the island and saw various bizarre animals but I'll detail those on another blog so that I can fit more pictures on. Suffice to say that we did very little on Tioman other than eat, sleep, relax and chill on the beach. We even found a bit of time to sit on our balcony and play "guess which tree will drop a coconut first" while watching the sunset across the beach in the background. Towards the
end of the week we also met another really nice couple from Kingston, Jez and Faye who we are planning on meeting up with when we get to Thailand and had a few drinks with them.
By the time we left Tioman the guy who we had to pay for the chalet was laughing at us because we kept coming into his office with another 80RM and saying "Just one more day!". We really didn't want to leave. At one point I had to get over to the largest village on the island, Tekek as it was the only place that had a cashpoint. However, it was quite a long walk through the jungle interior of the island and the temperature was around 30 degrees. Salang doesn't have any roads (only Tekek does) so the only way to get to Tekek was a water taxi. I met the guy at the jetty, paid 80RM and hopped in his speedboat for a quick trip round the island. Having always said that London taxi cabs are the best in the world, I now must reconsider. Bouncing over crystal clear water with coral and multicoloured fish below and a beautiful tropical island
just a hundred yards or so away, it's pretty evident that Tioman has the world's best taxis.
The only thing that made leaving Tioman bearable is that we will be shortly heading to the Perhantian Islands off the north east coast of Malaysia which are reputed to be at least as gorgeous as Tioman. How we'll ever manage to leave those if they are even nicer I really don't know! I'm going to try and upload some pictures now (the hostel we're currently in has decent looking PCs) so if there are pics with this blog then look back at some of the previous blogs and I will hopefully have added some to the picture-less entries too.
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mum/jayne
non-member comment
a world away
hey you two lucky people! a world away from bedbugs indeed. sounds brill,glad you have found some buddies.lee i hope you are practising your Dutch and Swedish.!!!!! Look out for falling coconuts. lots of love mumxxx