Pulau Tioman, Malaysia

The Tioman Island is located a 3 hour boat ride from a small town of Mersing.


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I originally heard about Tioman from Martin ( I introduced him in the previous post) who got Padi scuba certified out there. Originally, my certification was going to be completed in Thailand, but since the bombs started exploding in the capital, I decided to stay out of the country. I headed to Tioman with Jule and her Malaysian friend Afham. We got off the boat at the last stop, Salang. It was already dark and we had no reservations. As suggested by Martin, we walked North along the shore until almost at the end of the road, we reached a Ella's Bungalows and there happened to be a vacancy. We got a $20 Bungalow which we later upgraded to a $30 bungalow due to lodging availability problems during the May 1st holiday weekend.



Our first day on the island, we decided to swim to the little island that can be seen to the right of the shore in the picture below.



Jule decided to swim from our hotel while Afham and I started along the rocks in order for the crossing to be shorter. We were warned that there is a significant amount of boat traffic between the two islands and that crossing must be done with caution. Afham got a cramp at about half way, so he stopped on the rocks. At that point, I had to quickly swim to Jule who was getting worried about what was taking us so long. On my way to the island, I got yelled at by a passing boat for swimming across w/out a life jacket. Tired, I reached the island and Jule swam off to check on Afham. She was to give me a signal when she reached Afham either to swim back or to wait for them. When crawling out onto the rocks on the island to wait for Jule, I slipped a few times getting some scratches, no big deal. When Jule reached Afham, she signaled for me to return because he wasn't able to swim. I swam to them and decided to get out of the water for a break. The problem was the tide got higher and the waves were choppy. I underestimated the sharpness of the rocks and got cut up on my hips, legs and elbows quite a bit. I didn't even realize this until Afham pointed out blood that dripped off of of me. (Don't worry, I'm all healed up, just had scratches all over) Once on shore, I walked over to the B&J Diving school that Martin recommended and told them I'll register for a diving course as soon as they can provide me with the necessary tools to disinfect everything. And that's how I signed up for an Open Water Certification course.

My next 4 days were spent watching Padi videos, reading the book, taking quizzes and tests, and of course, learning all the skills required by Padi in the water. I was in a class with 2 other people, a local Malaysian/Chinese couple in their 40s who were extremely slow in every aspect. They had a hard time understanding the reading material and videos as well as the instruction under water. The class was dragging on longer than expected and the instructor frustration was quite evident. I was beginning to wish that I came to Malaysia a little earlier and had been in the class with Martin, since he raved about the crazy amounts of fun that it was. The hardest thing to do was to remove my mask underwater, put it back on and get rid of the water. The first attempt at this resulted with me inhaling water somehow, which is an extremely unpleasant experience, by the way. The thought of quitting definitely crossed my mind after that. I eventually mastered the skill and was able to do the final "swim w/out a mask then put it on" test almost with ease.

I had a food ritual on the island where I ate breakfast at our hotel watching the ocean, which usually consisted of a banana pancake with a cup of Milo (a malt hot chocolate) and a lunch of "cheese roti" with watermelon juice or salad, in the restaurant that I referred to as "colorful" because of its railing.





On my first morning, I got woken up by what seemed to be a very loud earthquake. I hopped outside out of habit only to see a storm all around the island. The thunder was so loud that it was shaking our poor little bungalow. However, it passed quickly leaving behind some great views. :)



On our second evening on the island, we met a group of Europeans who also acquainted shortly before with whom we spent majority of the time on the island. (You guys were a ton of fun and I miss you all) Every day, we ate fresh sea food for dinner on the beach where fresh seafood could be picked (calamari/fish/prawns) and then cooked in any way desired. It later turned out, this favorite restaurant was where Terry worked (The guy who spent a ton of time looking for my stolen mobile phone in the jungle)





See more pictures here: http://public.fotki.com/FierceKitten/travel/2010-atw/pulau-tioman-malaysia/