Pulau Tioman - Week 49 and 50 (May 2 - May 3)

One final view of Mersing before we get on the boat to Tioman.

We're on a boat!

Tioman rises out of the clouds.

A view of part of Tioman's shore. The entire island is covered in tropical rain forest.

My friend the Monitor lizard.

Crabs on the beach near our lunch spot.

The fruit bats.

The closest beach to our huts.

That's me out on those rocks.

Our dinner, the two crabs and the fish, being prepared.

A wonderful presentation!

The Hong Kong divers.

Morning day 2. My lens fogged from the temperature difference between my hotel room and outside. The water is at low tide here.

Near the beginning of my hike to Juara.

That's a tiger leach in the middle there. Fortunately I avoided getting any of thse on me.

Big ant, no?

If I wasn't spooking monitor lizards I was spooking these guys.

Huge worm...

Tiny spider.

A tropical squirrel. I saw one of these guys in a zoo a few months back. Felt great to see the real mccoy.

Close to Juara beach now.

Juara beach.

On the way back.
On the road back to Tekek.

The road crew.

Winny at sunset. One of the best shots I took on this vacation.

Best shot I could get of a bat.

We ate here both nights.

Pulau Tioman

Week 49 and 50

An early-ish wake up saw us moving out of the hotel nice and fast to the docks for our 12 PM trip out to Tioman. After a banana-roti breakfast in the waiting area of the ferry dock, we were soon aboard the ship and headed across the deep blue sea. I just have to say that when Simon linked this on Facebook, I feel he accurately captured our emotions at the time.

We sat on top of the ferry, looking out at the grey, cloudy skies and the odd island that slowly drifted past. Some of them looked like they’d be a lot of fun to explore actually. The highlight of the ferry ride was a fish, I think Stephanie said it was a barracuda, that skimmed the water alongside the boat like a flying fish for nearly 20 seconds before diving back in.

It wasn’t long before the island of Tioman reared its mist-bedecked peaks over the horizon. Our beach, Salang, was located at the north end of the island, and was therefore the last stop of the boat. We landed at about 2 PM and quickly wheeled/carried our luggage to the little cottage that would be our home for the few days. It was pretty well appointed too, 2 double beds, an extra mattress on the floor, shower with warm-ish water and that most blessed of contraptions, conditioning of the air.

Nice.

So we went out and explored.

The group had lunch at a small Indian restaurant. I decided to order a couple of the curries that were on offer. This was a major mistake. Those were two of the least, spicy most watered down curries I’ve ever eaten, less spicy in fact than the average curry rice in Japan.

The best part of the lunch was actually looking over the side of the railing and realizing that there were crabs stalking each other through the surf. I am of course a wildlife geek, so the opportunity to poke around with crabs is one I will never pass by. We don't see em' too often back in Ontario. So I hopped down onto the beach and did my best National Geographic photographer’s impersonation trying to get a proper shot of the little guys. It took some stealth to get close enough even with the telephoto. Those are skittish little guys.

After that it was off to see if the various little shops had anything good on offer. The general opinion was no, but we looked anyways. As we wandered by a little lagoon, Winny pointed out our first monitor lizard. Those were incredible to see for the first time in the “wild”. General scared of humans though. Of course, also not in a huge rush to get away when surprised either.

Winny actually did an amazing job of picking out wildlife while we were wandering around. Besides a good sized spider and an emerald-green tree snake, she also spotted the MASSIVE flock of fruit bats living in one of the trees that grew over one of the hotels on the island. It’s actually surprising that it took so long for us to notice them there, what with all the keening, but unless you look closely they just seem like little pieces of fruit hanging from the top of the palms.

After snapping a bunch of pictures it was already starting to get late in the day, so we went back to the hut and got serious about relaxing. Swimwear in hand for Winny, Stephanie and I, we went on down to the beach and rented some snorkeling equipment. The beach wasn’t all that amazing underwater, mostly crushed and dead coral, but it was still a beautiful place to go snorkeling. We did see some very interesting fish though. Colourful parrot fish, that eat dead coral, were all over the place. You could hear the sound of their teeth on the coral underwater. It sounds like someone walking on really crunchy gravel. We also saw these really interesting skinny, long fish that were almost translucent and only swam right at the surface of the water. Stephanie is a certified diver, so she knew quite a bit about the fish we saw and gave us a great running commentary. This was also the first time that Winny had ever used a snorkel, so she was pretty ecstatic. I swam out to some rocks a bit further out in the bay and proceeded to play hide and seek with the residents there…a large number of fish and some more skittish little crabs.

While we were swimming Mel and Seth had made an attempt to make it out to an area called Monkey Beach, but shortly after starting their walk it got too dark to continue. They joined us on the beach and we all sat and watched the sunset.

While the others went off to shower and get ready for dinner, Winny and I stayed on the beach and discussed the trip thus far. We were both just sort of overawed with the amount of effort we’d expended getting to Tioman, but man was it worth it. Strangely enough, while we were sitting there, we both suddenly felt like it was raining, only that wasn't the case. What I think were sand fleas had all woke up at the same time and started jumping around. We couldn't see them, but they were hoping all over the place. It was a weird feeling, almost like the beach came alive.

We ate dinner on the beach, sitting at a little table, watching a thunderstorm race across the horizon. This ranks as probably the best surroundings I’ve ever had for a meal. It was so amazing, eating another steak and watching lightning lance across the Malaysian mainland. We also had a fun time dodging, and in my case playing, with the feral cats that make Tioman their home. We discussed the possibility that countries tend to have either feral cats or feral dogs, but usually not both. In Malaysia’s case, cats won out for some reason. Hence the feral cats. Cute, I say.

Actually, all in all the meals were quite interesting that night. Although my steak was a bit pedestrian by itself, I supplemented it with a crab that I’d picked from a tank that Melissa and I ate together. Winny had also selected a crab and a fish for her dinner. It was really great stuff, although the grab was a bit spikey and we didn't have a cracker.

After dinner we walked home and found a little bar that was kicking pretty solidly and sat down for gin and tonics. We played a few little drinking games and then watched in surprise as a bunch of divers from Hong Kong totally out did us with their drinking game. It involved standing a diver on a chair and stripping off his shirt and pants. He was then forced to don a pair of scuba goggles with cartoon eyes glued over the lenses. La piece du resistance was the beer-bong/snorkel that completed the arrangement. At first they were only drinking beer but it was soon changed to a combination of beer and wine, which certainly sounds foul to me.

We enjoyed the show for about 20 minutes before tiring of the divers antics. I actually left the bar a little bit early and went down to the ocean and lay down in one of the hammocks provided by the hotel. I drifted off for a little bit in the warm tropical night, watching fruit bats flit back and forth through the palms. Soon though I had to leave that peaceful environment and head back to the cottage to sleep properly on my own bed. I also lost a button off my pants when I stood up to get off the hammock. Damn it.

Day two on Tioman started later for me than everyone else. Seth had signed up to become a certified diver so he was out at class nice and early learning the basics. Stephanie, Winny and Melissa had signed up for a tour around the island including some snorkelling, a little tiny walk into the rainforest to check out a rainfall, and a few other things.

Me, well, I struck out on my own and went hiking.

First though I had to do something not so fun. The day before I had climbed those rocks out in the bay in order to get Winny and Melissa to take a picture of me. I cut my hand a little bit on those rocks, a very small cut, nothing serious. However, I noticed the next day that the area on my hand was very red and was swelling slightly. Also looked like it was filled with, well, pus. So I popped open the little first aid kit I’d brought (I knew I was going hiking), lit a match, heated the end of a needle, and lanced the cut. With a little bit of anti-septic on it, it was feeling fine soon enough and I was on the way to Juara beach, halfway down and on the other side of the island.

This involved first chartering a water taxi to take me to the main city on the island, Tekek. I had to buy two tickets in order to leave without waiting for more customers to charter the boat. I guess not that many people go around by themselves. Normally I would have waited, but I didn't want to get stuck in the forest when the sun went down.

Anyways, it was a pretty crazy ride over. The ocean was a bit choppy that day, maybe a 2-3 foot swell and the water taxi was not exactly big. That made for a pretty wildly bumpy ride around the side of the island to tekek. Melissa, Winny and Stephanie had had a similar experience while they were shuttling around to the various activities they partook in that day.

Upon arriving at Tekek I started out on my hike. It was pretty tough going, due to the insane heat and the poorly maintained trail before hitting the rainforest proper. I found out that the path was well developed once under the canopy. It seemed as though the trail had been put in to facilitate the construction of the power lines that ran alongside the path. This actually ended up being a serious problem for me at one point, for my Lonely Planet book failed to mention that at one point the power line actually crosses the path about a foot off the ground. I had to climb a rock and then jump over it. It didn’t make me too happy.

But otherwise it was really cool. I kept on spooking monitor lizards as I went through the underbrush. I saw plenty of birds and even more insects. I even saw a monkey jumping through the trees above me. The path also led me past a couple of waterfalls and a delightful little stream. The path itself was fairly vertical in places but man, was it beautiful to be in there.

Finally after a couple of hours the path crossed over the hump of the ridge in the middle of the island and back down towards Juara beach on the other side. I passed a road crew and waved then continued to wave at the driver of a big four-wheel-drive dump truck that was ferrying gravel up and down the road.

This path provided amazing views over the island, and I had more than one “whoa” moment where it struck me where I was and what I was doing. Hiking in the rain forest on a tropical island? Never thought I’d do that before…

I made it to the beach a little past one, stumbled into a restaurant and sat down for a delicious…piece of buttered toast. The resources on the island were super low due to the large number of vacationers that weekend. But it felt good to get something in my stomach.

After lunch I tried to book a water taxi back to my beach, but the guy was trying to charge me nearly $70 for a 15 minute boat ride. Unacceptable. So I turned around and started walking the other direction, somewhat unenthusiastically. I had bought more water at Juara beach, but on the way there I had run out, and I expected to do so again on the way back. It was just far too hot to hike comfortably.

Fortunately, just as I was about to start the long climb back up, the dump truck driver from earlier came by and offered me a lift up to the building site. I happily accepted and climbed into the cab alongside the him, pushing a big collection of crushed beer cans that littered the passenger seat floor aside.

We had a good conversation on the way up. I joked about how it’s far too hot for Canadians in Malaysia and he thought that was pretty funny. I asked a little bit about his job and what they were doing up on the mountain. His English was alright, but not amazing, so it was a bit difficult to communicate.

He let me off about three quarters of the way up the mountain. I hiked the rest of the way back to Tekek village, avoiding the jungle path I’d gone through earlier because I did not want to risk another hop over a live electrical cable.

About mid-way through the hike I stopped and added some more SPF 50 sun block to my skin which, after having already re-applied twice, turned my skin into a morass of sweat and oily-white sun block. It felt fucking disgusting. So, with my arms held awkwardly out from my sides, I continued on.

I saw what may have been a bird of paradise at one point, it had long tail feathers, trailing about a foot back from the body. I didn’t really get a good look at it though as it was just flying through the trees. I got a quick glimpse, nothing more.

The guys from the construction site passed me twice on my way down, shuttling to and from a lunch break I should guess. I was again offered a ride by the driver, but I passed this time. It would have been interesting riding the back of the dump truck, but on these roads it looked like it might require some extra skill.

By the time I made it back to Tekek I’m pretty sure I was on the verge of sunstroke. I went into the first general store I could find, bought some more water, then continued on to the docks where I bought another 2 tickets to get me back to our home beach. Again, I could have waited, but the huge clouds on the horizon made me hesitant. The water was a lot calmer this time, so it was no concern to me, although I did have to climb across three boats to get back onto land when I arrived at the pier.

I booked it back to the cottage, switched into my swimsuit, had a short conversation with Seth who was on break from diving lessons, and before the sun could go down, I was back in the water. I just floated there, letting my legs and arms recover from the abuse they took all day hiking. A few minutes after I dipped in the sun went behind the clouds and it started to rain.

I've talked about zen moments before in this blog, back when I was out jogging in sakura season in early April. I had another one of those moments that evening, floating on my back feeling the drops of rain fall lightly on my face. I just lay there in the water, not thinking about anything really, just enjoying the moment of tranquility.

After the rain passed and I had tired of swimming, I changed, grabbed my book and kicked back in one of the hammocks to read a bit while I waited for everyone to get home. Before long, Seth showed up, having finished diving lessons for the day. We chatted for a bit before he went back to the hotel to wash up. Not too much longer after that the girls arrived and we all got dressed for dinner again.

We went back to the same restaurant that night, only this time we had reserved 2 chickens for dinner. Apparently the supply of poultry is fairly limited for that restaurant, so if you want any you had to reserve the food long in advance. Turns out it was a great idea because the half chicken was excellent. Much like the steak in Mersing and the past in Penang, I hadn't had anything that good in almost a year, so again it was just culinary bliss. We also drank a bottle of wine with the meal but it wasn’t very good.

Finally, we returned to the bar for another quick round of drinks before Melissa, Winny and I said our farewells to Seth and Stephanie. Seth was staying another couple of days to finish off the diving course while Stephanie would in fact leave Malaysia and Asia all together, returning home to America and ending her year abroad. I was sorry to see her go, even though I didn’t see too much of her while we were in Japan.

So, bags packed up and ready to go, we all went to bed and got ready for the last leg of the journey, Singapore and the journey home.

Heading across the border…

Ian “Mello Yello” Cantello

Penang, The Road to Tioman, Mersing - Week 49 and 50 (April 29 - May 1)

Exhuasted travellers in the Blue Diamond Hotel.

Soon upgraded to Hotel Malaysia! Shwing!

Out and about exploring. Yes, that is a silhouette walk you're seeing right there.

The 'beach' we found at Mersing.

Yummy food at the fruit cart.

Betel Nuts. The red ones are ripe.

The school group we entertained by acting like goofy foreigners.

I offered incense to the gods at this temple. Was quite the experience!

Mosque and Hindu temple kitty-corner.

Inside a Chinese mansion.

Small Buddhist temple.

Temple at night...

The night market in Penang.

Just outside the blue mansion in Penang. The inside was amazing but unfortunately no photography allowed.

The accommodation of Seth and I in Mersing

Trapped in Mersing...spirits are low.

Mersing beach!

I briefly considered labeling this 'the moon' but then realized that it might come off as condescending.

Penang, The Road to Tioman, Mersing

Week 49 and 50

Well, the next morning saw us all waking up in the sweltering heat of a room equipped with an air conditioner built to shut itself off after a few hours.

Ugh.

Yeah, that morning at the Blue Diamond wasn’t rambunctious. We were all pretty beat from the trip up the night before as well as tired from trying to fall asleep while listening to the third and fourth play through of the Eagles’ Hotel California.

Anyways, after the requisite cold showers and zombie-like half wakeful state, we were out in the courtyard eating breakfast in the company of the hotel’s rooster and chicken. Our waitress, the same one as the night previous, was one of the most burnt out people I’ve ever seen. It seemed almost as though someone had duct taped a nice fat swatch of pink insulation around her head. But that just added to the je ne sais quoi of the place.

Second order of business after breakfast was to get the hell out of the Blue Diamond. We packed our bags and set out looking for a new hotel. The first one we visited looked super nice, but was also super booked. There were no rooms remaining that would accommodate the whole troop, so we had to push on to the next hotel, which ended up being our lodging of choice. It wasn’t much, but when viewed with The Blue Diamond in such recent recollection, it looked downright palatial. After relaxing for a few minutes in the wonderful A/C and appreciating the beautiful view out of our 8th floor room, we ventured back out.

The weather was a bit spotty and we were soon running for cover under some nearby awnings on what later turned out to be a street lined with clubs. We’d return there briefly that night.

We took a long walk around the city, starting a couple of blocks distant from the seashore. It bears mentioning at this juncture that Penang is one of the least friendly cities I’ve ever visited in regards to pedestrian traffic. We spent a lot of time waiting on the sides of roads watching cars and scooters whizzing by while waiting for the opportune moment to step out into the street without suffering a crushed foot or mangled leg.

Our path towards the shore was initially blocked by the Oriental Hotel, a wonderful example of old-style colonial architecture. The hotel also had a wonderful collection of plants out front. Any hotel landscaper would be ecstatic to have the ready access to orchids that blesses the courtyards of almost every major business in Malaysia. Heading east we moved parallel to the seashore looking for a way to get down to the ocean proper. We eventually found a route down a side street that passed a small design college. The ocean itself was quite beautiful, but we were in a rather uninspiring section of beach, namely because there was no beach. We did spend a little bit of time watching a pair of fishermen trying to harvest the sea of its delicious fish.

Heading back the way we came, we were soon walking through the main administrative section of Penang, which is chock full of white-washed British colonial buildings. It was very impressive. Soon though the humidity and sunlight drove us under the shade of a tree where we found a fruit truck. There’s nothing quite like a lunch of mango, watermelon and passion fruit.

A short while later we were off again and soon found a legitimate seaside walkway upon which to continue our promenade. Perhaps unsurprisingly, for those of you who are history students of the age of sail, we soon happened across the first British fort in Malaysia, Fort Cornwallis. I should note before I get too deeply into this that Penang was in fact the first major European settlement in Malaysia. It long preceded Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, although its glory days have long since faded. These days though, the city does appear to be experiencing some resurgence.

Well, Fort Cornwallis was pretty much what you’d expect. We were greeted at the entrance by a guard wearing the traditional lobster-back uniform of a royal marine. Soon afterwards we were meandering through the parade ground whilst looking at displays depicting period life in the heyday of Fort Cornwallis. We took a seat though for a little while and just relaxed. It’s tough moving around so much in weather that hot.

Seth took this opportunity to sample a local treat, the betel nut, which we’d noticed growing on a number of trees around the fort. The verdict? They taste terrible. The guard helped us prepare it and he thought it was quite funny how Seth reacted to it.

From there we walked up on top of the redoubt and got a nice view of the harbour as seen by a gunner in the fort a couple hundred years ago. Our position also afforded us with a good view of the large school group that happened to be walking by at that moment. Surprisingly, they were quite entertained to see the foreigners standing up on the fort. They all waved enthusiastically at us, pointing and laughing. I snapped a few pictures and Seth hopped onto a cannon and rode it Dr. Strangelove style, much to the delight of the kiddies.

Soon thereafter though, those scattered showers kicked back in and saw us running to shelter beneath the awning of the refreshment stand on the parade ground. I’m always amazed by the cacophony of noise that a corrugated sheet metal roof can kick up in a big rain storm.

I had some ice cream while we waited. During a break in the rain, we began to walk out, only to have the rain pick up again and send us all dashing for cover again. Seth and I were getting bored of waiting at this point so we took the initiative and dashed through the rain into a few low bunkers built into the earthworks facing away from the ocean. They contained a large collection of memorabilia and historical facts about the foundation of the colony on Penang and the initial difficulties in living safely in the area. Apparently Malaria was a major concern, surprise, surprise.

Once the rain had calmed down sufficiently, we were back out walking again, passing by a nice old church and the town’s clock tower, which were both, of course, DRIPPING in colonialism.

We then got sort of stuck in the town’s business district. We were trying to find an area that was renowned for its large number of temples, but we were having a lot of difficulty navigating the streets in this area despite the general regularity of their configuration. We got a bit frustrated and were glad when Winny found a place to get a henna tattoo. That gave us a little while to stop and eat at an Indian restaurant. Food wasn't that great though. Winny certainly managed to purchase an interesting dish though after returning from the henna place. She got a rice dish served on a banana leaf. I thought it was one of the more impressive meals I saw while in Malaysia.

After lunch we managed to find the temples we'd been looking for all day. We quickly toured through a number, mostly Chinese. We turned down an invitation from a few Muslim worshippers to accompany them to prayer time, but in retrospect I think we should have gone in. Penang's religious community certainly is complex though. Hindu temples sit across the street from Mosques, and just down the road you’d be likely to find a church and a Buddhist shrine. It's quite obvious how many cultures have mixed together over the last few hundred years to build the country that stands there today.

We returned home to the hotel just before the sun went down and rested a little bit after the long day, watching some TV and relaxing…even jumping on the beds a bit in Winny and Seth`s case. Soon though, we got hungry, so we dressed up again and took off, looking for a restaurant and a place to take care of some other things.

First order of business was returning to the Blue Diamond. Although at this point in the journey, we were only four, we would soon be five. The fifth member of our troupe, Stephanie, was on her way and we’d been trying to keep in contact with her via email. We stopped by the Blue Diamond, discovered that she had in fact checked in a few hours ago, and was now out on the town with a couple other guests staying there. Seth handled this particular errand and he had a great interaction with the owner of the hotel. It went something like this:

Owner: So, what hotel are you staying at now?

Seth: Hotel Malaysia…

Owner: Oh. That’s a lot more expensive. I bet it’s cleaner too.

So it appears as though the owner took it personally that we left his hotel after the first night. Odd. After all, it was only business. After this somewhat unusual interaction Seth met up with Melissa, Winny and I who had commandeered a few computers in an internet café together.

That deserves its own bizarre little description. On the way over we had stopped by another internet café, knocked on the door, and then had a guy open the door and tell us the place was closed, open only to gamblers.

What the hell?

Basically, at this point, we were just trying to find a way out to a beach somewhere. It had been initially suggested that Pulau Langkwai, an island just north of Penang, would be ideal. Upon further research we were dissuaded from this opinion. Turns out the place is supposed to be quite heavily developed, which therefore makes it totally not ideal for our patronage. We wanted somewhere a bit quiet, but not too quiet. We then learned that it was possible to catch a boat from Penang up to Thailand in order to check out Ko Phi Phi, our vacation destination from last September. Tempting, since it was so perfect last time…

Finally the decision was made to essentially go the furthest we possibly could from Penang in order to visit Pulau Tioman on the diagonally opposite end of Malaysia.

What followed was a fairly epic road trip.

But first, dinner!

We ate at Ecco, a restaurant owned by a woman who might have emigrated from the US or Britain. It was traditional North American food night in Malaysia! And man, it was fantastic. By far the best pasta I’ve had in a long time (I’ve still avoided spaghetti since I left Canada of course). We also had some spectacular wine with the meal. I accidentally ordered two dishes, but we were pretty ravenous, so the extra certainly didn’t go to waste.

After finishing dinner and making 100% sure we were on the same page as far as plans go, we walked back to the hotel. On the way we took a detour and found a very prettily lit Chinese temple and took a few shots before wandering through a night market that was absolutely PACKED. We found a seat near a BBQ place and Seth and Winny dug in for an after dinner treat. We also tried something that was touted as being a local delicacy for desert. It was a bunch of fruits covered in this weird sticky molasses-y stuff. The consensus among us travellers was simply that it ruined the taste of the fruit.

Meh.

Then it was back to the hotel. We discovered oddly enough that our hotel was also right next to all the major clubs in Penang (or so it appeared). We decided to see what the scene looked like, most specifically the clubs.

And what did we discover? Nothing good. At least nothing we had any real interest in. Problem is, these little clubs didn’t really look like all that much in comparison to the ones we’d seen in Roppongi and Shibuya. Seth stayed out a bit, but the rest of us called it quits back at the hotel pretty quick.

The next morning saw us up and enjoying the breakfast buffet at a reasonable hour. Soon thereafter we had dropped our bags in the lobby and headed out to a beautiful azure blue traditional Chinese villa that we’d seen from the hotel window the day before. On the way there we got hit with a huge rain squall and had to dash into the archway covering the entrance to the building’s courtyard. We chatted with the guard for a few minutes before he informed us that there was no waiting for the tour. It started sharp at 11 AM. Seth and I led the charge into the building, running through the rain, and we were soon joined by the girls.

We caught up with the tour while the guide was talking about the family history of the previous owners of the villa. It was pretty interesting stuff. She demonstrated how much of the ornamentation on the walls was made using pieces of broken ceramic bowls and cups. To tell the truth though, I was completely distracted. You see, Chinese villas, the way they’re constructed in Malaysia anyways, have these wonderful, open central courtyards that let plenty of nice sunshine in. It was this that was distracting me as I stood beside the central courtyard, watching the water gush down from the eaves and from the open roof, making a small lake in the middle of the house. I found it to be incredibly peaceful.

A short while later we divested ourselves from the tour and headed back to the Blue Diamond one final time to see if Stephanie got our message. We found her and the midst of breakfast and, just like that, we had another member in our group. She had flown up from KL the day before and I felt kind of bad to turn her around and get right back on a flight to the same place.

Next stop: Penang Airport.

“Next flight to Kuala Lumpur.”

I actually got to say that! Badass, right?

The lady at the Air Asia counter helped us out and about 45 minutes, a muffin and coffee later, we were on board a flight for the equivalent of about $50. Nice.

At Kuala Lumpur things got interesting though. We got a taxi into the city, back to Pudaraya Bus Station, where we’d bussed out from a day ago. The scene was a little bit different when we arrived there. Before, it was a bit busy. This time it was absolutely packed. It was difficult even to move through the throngs of people that had appeared at the place. We later discovered that that weekend was Malaysian labour day, hence the insanely busy condition of the station.
This also meant that all the buses to Mersing, our destination city, were booked, or at least filled in such a way that it was impossible to get 5 people on one of them. At this point it didn’t look like it would be possible for us to get out to the island the next day.

Leaving the station defeated and demoralized, sure that we’d made a terrible mistake by coming all the way down to KL again, Seth went into action. He managed to find a taxi coordinator, who then found us a gypsy cab willing to drive us the 6 hours to Mersing.

And so the trip began.

It was fine at first. Oddly enough, the driver had one of the sun visors on his car replaced with a really tiny DVD player. So, we sat back and started watching Kung Fu movies. The roads were crowded like the aisles of a Walmart on Black Friday, but our driver seemed to be doing a fine job of driving.

That was until we almost rear ended a car at about 100 km an hour. Everyone in the car shouted and the driver just barely swerved to avoid it. This set everyone in the car on edge but Winny who, having lived in Taiwan, was intimately familiar with this style of driving.
Well it freaked the rest of us the fuck out and the atmosphere of nervousness created by us made Winny nervous too. Seth and I weren’t even wearing our seatbelts at the time of the near miss, due to their buried position under the seat.

At the first rest stop we took Seth and I dug out our seatbelts. At this point the sun was down and everything was nice and dark, which just made us more nervous in the car. It didn’t help that we soon left the main highway we had been on and started driving through rural roads entirely surrounded by groves and groves of palm trees. We spent the next 3 hours on the edge of our seats, playing games like six degrees of separation trying to keep ourselves and the driver awake. By the time 11 PM rolled around I was almost passing out from exhaustion myself. I’m usually very good at six degrees of separation but Seth was just beating me left and right. It was pretty rough.

I did notice though, while on one of those lonely back roads, that I was finally noticing why on so many middle-eastern flags the moon’s crescent opens directly up. That was the moon that had risen over those quiet palm groves that night. It was a moment of peace in an otherwise remarkably stressful experience.

We finally made it to Mersing shortly before midnight. I’m not gonna sugar coat it, Mersing is well…not shitty, but definitely not amazing. It’s what you’d expect of a rural Malaysian town, although there are a disproportionately large number of hotels there.

Speaking of which, we checked into one of the hotels on offer, really the first one that we could find. As it just so happened they had two rooms available, a fan room and an A/C room. It was clear how this was going to play out. The three girls got the AC room, Seth and I took the fan room.

Now, I got a bone to pick with this particular hotel. If you’re going to have both fan rooms and A/C rooms, for the love of god, don’t put the fan rooms on the top floor and the A/C rooms on the middle floor. That’s just plain stupid. Heat rises, the A/C rooms should be at the top, the fan rooms on the first or second floors. To make matters worse, the bathroom on our floor of the hotel was laughably bad. It was shared between all the rooms on the floor and had no shower, only a squat toilet and a big vat of cold water and a bucket. Not so good.

But whatever.

At this point, I completely dropped out for the night and passed out. I was totally exhausted from the drive over. The bed was wonderful too…only mattresses on the ground again. At least the room was cheap.

Woke up the next morning hot as hell, of course. After blearily clearing the sleep from my eyes, I wandered down and joined Seth in the girl’s room. Winny and I relaxed in the room while the others went out to get the lay of the land and book a boat out to Pulau Tioman. They soon returned, with what seemed at the time to be apocalyptically bad news.

All the ferry tickets for that day to the island were booked.

To make matters worse, Lonely Planet had indicated that there was a large number of companies that ran speed boats out to the island for a higher price. Unfortunately, these had all been put out of business after an accident earlier in the year had claimed the lives of several people.

Which meant we were stuck in Mersing.

All was not lost though as we quickly found out. After hunting around the city for another hotel since our rooms were booked for that night, we bought ferry tickets for the next morning. The hotel we found was also a great improvement over the one from the night before, although interestingly we were in the same configuration as the night before, one fan room, one A/C room. At least this time Seth and I were on the second floor. Spirits were still a little bit low, until upon asking the owner of the hotel if there were any nearby beaches, she informed us that yes, there were.

Bonus!

She even hooked us up with another gypsy cab to drive us up to the beach for a damn good price. The driver, this time, spoke excellent English, and was pretty funny to boot. He had a lot of political opinions, and talked a bit about how he believed that the human capital of China would be enough to rescue the world economy. He also said Stephen Harper was a bad man, which just made me smile like a Cheshire cat.

We made it to the beach with our cargo of beer and quickly claimed a space. Well, not quickly, it took a little while to hunt down an appropriate spot. The beach itself was also somewhat dirty, so we had a bit of a time cleaning it up before we could sit down comfortably. Also, we were soon evicted from the spot we initially chose by some seriously pro fishermen. No one wants a hook in the mouth. No There’s Something About Mary reruns please.

But the day proceeded like you might suspect. We fiddled around in the surf and sunned ourselves. Hilarious enough, Melissa applied sun lotion to my back and did a great job except for my left shoulder which for the next couple months had an imprint of her hand sunburned into it where she’d missed the skin. I had a fun time facing down waves and pushing my way through them, as I always do for some reason. It’s like checking practice in hockey or something. I swear it’s some kind of psychological condition.

We actually had decent sized waves generally, including some pretty spectacular ones. Most especially, we had an unexpectedly large wave, maybe close to two meters, which surprised the hell out of me, Winny and Stephanie. Winny lost her sunglasses when the wave rolled her under water. They were a gift from her Aunt and were legitimate product. Fortunately, Stephanie, in a feat of amazing detection, found them a couple of minutes later. I got rolled just as badly as the other two in that wave, but unfortunately I was a bit closer to the shore. My back ended up with a wonderful network or scratches from sea shells I was dragged over on the sandy bottom of the beach.

We spent a while at the end just relaxing on the beach and reading before heading out to meet our cabbie at 6 PM. This time Seth and I shared the front set together, and the driver seemed a bit less interested than the first time when he had two girls for company in the front.

Having arrived back at the hotel, we showered, changed and walked down to the pier where we had a great but expensive meal involving, for me at least, the first steak I’d had in almost a year.
It was absolutely delicious!

And that was pretty much it for Mersing. We all headed back to the hotel. Seth and Winny went out to wander the place a bit more, I stayed in the room and took a few photos and did some reading. We would leave the next morning.


Island-bound and realizing he put too much detail in this post…

Ian “Mello Yello” Cantello