We left around 9 am Friday morning by bus and reached a checkpoint called Mersing around early afternoon. After leaving Singapore, the bus ride is completely along the hills, up & down, round & round! It was fun for me, and I was pleasantly surprised that no one got motion sickness. :P That was my first introduction to Malaysia. Mersing was our lunch spot with tons of completely new looking sea food. Vegetarians behold! There’s nothing for you except fried rice. Without eggs if you are lucky! :)
From there on it was a 2 hr ferry ride that started 1 hour late. That’s another thing you have to account for in your trip, constant delays. A great ferry ride later, where I slept, hogged on chips and made new friends, we reached our destination, Tioman Island. The first sight was breathtaking.
I instantly saw cameras in all directions as people started clicking pictures. The water on the beach was so clear, that we could see the rocks at the bottom. I had only seen that with fresh water rivers very high up in the mountains close to their starting points. It was UN-Believable!
We checked into a nice, quiet resort. Quick showers and off to a lip smacking barbeque dinner; erm for the non- vegetarians i.e. The vegatarians had veg fried rice with ketchup. And I kicked myself for having turned into one so recently, wishing I had waited until after this trip!! Arrgghhh!!!
Since it was too late to do anything that night, I had a nice quiet stroll on the beach, clicked pictures, spent time talking to the local guitarist running the 1 shack pub on the beach. His knowledge of English was very limited, he had barely heard of India but he was unbelievably good with Indian names. The only person from this part of the world who got my name correctly the first time!!! :D
The beach was small, tidy and pleasant. A group of tourists had lit a campfire. About 5-6 small fishermen motor boats anchored on the shore. A few wooden benches randomly strewn about to relax. It even had a swing, the old fashioned hanging from a tree branch style. I had the best time sitting on it, it was like 20 years ago, in my house..when my dad had put a swing for me & my sister in the house [ which broke when we both tried to sit on it together! :P ]
Almost reluctantly I went to bed. 
The next morning started early, with a nice "coffee & toast" breakfast and a short walk to the “rockfall”. Errmmm.... not much a fall really, just water flowing through a few rocks; but the walk was nice. Dense jungle, early morning birds chirping, the sound of a local villager gathering wood for domestic use I guess. And the sound of water in the background. Persistent. My personal favourite anywhere anytime. The only dampener was a big bag of plastic full of beer cans etc. left along the path, by a careless irresponsible bunch of tourists I suppose. People who really don’t deserve to be allowed in such places!
Next was a longer trek along the jungle with a few newly-made-friends. Steep rocks, slippery mud, its amazing how quickly the prospect of falling to your death builds camaraderie amongst perfect strangers!! ;) The trek ended on the other side of the hill, on an isolate small beach. It was beautiful. The kind that begs the question “if you were marooned on an island....” yes i thought about the answer and no i wont say it! :P
A nice peaceful lunch where the lady kindly made a customised “mee goreng” for me, though she didn’t shy away from expressing her pity & sorrow that I wouldn’t get to taste her delicious squid, and refused to take away egg from the dish as she admonished me “You need tasty food!” . Reminded me of my mother, and prompted me to make that very expensive international call to her! :P
The next activity was snorkelling. The idea of seeing underwater life is just fascinating. And the good thing about snorkelling is you don’t even know how to swim! Which i don’t . Well I do, a little bit. Thankfully it was n’t that sunny, so I didn’t change skin colors to the point where I might run the risk of my parents failing to recognise me! :P Unfortunately, the corels weren’t as rich as the ones I had seen in Krabi; not sure if too much tourism is to be blamed here too!
And then I realised I had drifted too far off and couldn’t swim back because of the tide and because my life jacket was stuck and my mask got damaged. For a second I thought that was it. and waited for my life to flash before my eyes...when a fellow traveller "appeared"to my rescue & took me back safely to the boat. Thank God for the emergency blow whistle attached to my jacket and thank God for that saviour , my God sent angel who saved my life and then vanished into the sea of life jackets & masks....hidden behind his mask forever, like Zorro, robinhood, and spiderman, a face I would never know but would owe all my life to!! :P
That incident would forever be known as the day my life saving gear tried to kill me!! Lesson learnt, don’t get philosophical when in the middle of the ocean! :P
We reached back to the resort by around 6:30 pm, exhausted after a long day of exploring! :) A long hot shower and off I was again to explore the local market street.
Everything is just one street, along the beach. The resort, the markets, the beach itself. It all 1 straight line. A few shops with touristy purchases; a couple of sea view cafe / restaurants, that street even has its own spa. And sure it’s a rip off..but after a hard day’s work, its heaven to pamper those sore muscles with a good massage! A good dinner, where my order of fried mix vegetables came back as boiled vegetables with shredded chicken & egg; followed by another stroll on the beach under a superbly star lit night. A couple of hours sitting chatting with my new-made-friends, which by now had transformed itself into a pretty cool gang of friends and another reluctant but exhausted night of sleep.
The next morning was our final day on this picturesque island, I couldn’t believe it was over already! Not before the hearty breakfast though!! Some quick shopping and we were on our way back. Exhaustion finally kicked in and I slept back on most of my way. We got delayed a lot by rains & traffic, had a nice evening tea & snack at a hypermarket in Johor Bahru, and finally reached home at around 7:30 PM SGT.
I was exhausted, but smiling. It was totally worth it.
Thank God for your savior! I stayed at Tioman Island hotels with friends and trekked in to the rain forest.
ReplyDeleteYaa thank God for that!!! I wish I'd found out who it was and thanked him though!! Well I hope he reads this post someday and realises how grateful I and my friends & family are to him :)
ReplyDeleteMy next destination is weekend trip to Melacca, hopefully very soon!