Dear All,

...Wow!! It has been maybe a week since I updated my blog (very slow, rather limited, and slightly expensive internet on Tioman as it is via satellite) and it has been positively packed with incident. I shall attempt to relate the weeks happenings, and although I do not doubt that I shall vere from any plan with disturbing regularity, it is probably best if I address Mersing and Tioman in vaguely chronological order.

After blogging last, I headed back to Omar's to see if anybody else turned up. Still being on my own (no Omar, yet), I sat out on the balcony above Mersing's busy main street (it might not have been that busy, but there are no cars on Tioman... Shanghai traffic might be hard to handle after this!!) reading and waiting for my host to present himself so I could pay him! It took several hours for Omar to appear, and I didn't stumble accross any other 'backpackers', at this point still a rare site...

I'll transcribe what I wrote in my notebook that night, as it probably gives more of a feeling than my now hazy memories...

"Omar, Politics, Pick Ups, Business, Bananas and the Beach...

Sitting on his balcony, I met Omar. The rain started. Over the thunder, the downpour, the scooters in the street below, we talked politics, Britain, economics policy, industry to the village. Omar runs a small (ish!) business - tours, giftshop, cafe, a small banana plantation. He told me about a government bank which gives advise to small enterprises and lends them money at 2.5%, helping them compete with big firms, and stopping widespread migration to KL in search of employment. He contrasted it with Mrs Thatcher's policy.

He wanted to show me what he meant. That's how I ended up in the cab of a pick up, Omar and his friend chatting in Malay, breaking into English to tell me about the two months a year he lives in Hereford, supplying giftshops in Malvern with goods from Bali on sale or return terms, pointing out different types of coconut plan, rice paddies, banana trees. We stopped at a plantation for him to pick up some leaves for the cafe - eating breakfast out of them may be 1000 years behind plate technology, he tells me, but people like tradition. I guess some things are the same the world over.

We drove on to the beach - popular with the locals, views of some of the 40 islands of the Archipelago and of Endau Rompin National Park - rainforest on the mainland. Malaysia is beautiful - I wish I could record ever facet of experience; I can only hope it is committed to memory.

I'm now back on the balcony. It's half seven, dark, I can see the roof of the mosque and hear the call to prayer.

Sometime later... (the next morning)...

Omar keeps late hours. Dinner never happened. Having not eaten since breakfast yesterday, today's was very welcome.

Two days ago I was eating lobster at the Grand Hyatt. This morning I had rice, chilli, egg, and... a fish head."

Whilst he sat chopping up banana leaves, Omar told me something his grandfather had said to him. Although not religious, Omar has studied islamic history and was brought up by his grandfather, from Yemen, an islamic missionary. When Omar was young, he had looked at the moon and commented on its beauty. His grandfather had responded, "Why do you give the moon so much credit? The sun gives us light and life, it makes people go to work, it makes the plants grow. The moon is only a reflection of that power, it gives us only beauty. Why do you credit the moon?". I have been thinking on that one for some time.

...and now, Tioman!! I met a group of English boys on my first night, also on gap years... one had brought with him bongos (and a skateboard, apparently...) which seemed popular with some of the Tioman Islanders, who invited us to sit with them and while away the evening. The local people on Tioman have bee incredably welcoming and friendly, and the island is a lot more liberal than the mainland... perhaps as a result of which I seem to have picked up a quite ridiculous tan in the shape of my halterneck bikini in the last week.

I was thankful for Oscar, Brian, Mark and Harry that first night, as on arrival at 'Mokhtar's Place' later than I intended (I know ferry departure times may vary... but two hours guys? Come on!!), I had to gulp slightly and accept the paper thin mattress, rock hard pillow, gecko on the wall, ant infestation in the bathroom, no hot water, no sink, and half rotted door to the bathroom. It was all part of the experience... and as I leave at about 9am and don't return until late in the evening, it is of very little consequence!! (...and at around five or six pounds a night for my 'chalet'/hut I can hardly complain...) By Mokhtar's, there is a really charming restaurant called the Lime Tree, half on the beach, with big raised rattan beds roofed with palm thatch, where you sit around low tables on cushions. You could do a lot worse than sat there of a morning under the palms, sinking a watermelon juice, reading and munching on banana pancakes.

I spent the first four days here diving... I did my PADI Open Water Course and a further fun dive with Eco-Divers, a fantastic set up with some seriously friendly instructors... check them out here... http://eco-divers.net.

It was pretty cool as there is no pool to 'practise' techniques in... my first confined water dives were off the shore just by the dive centre, offer a coral reef - so there were always brightly coloured tropical fish, coral, and big, black sea urchins that glittered as though studded with brightly coloured jewels. I did three boat dives, two of which took me down to around 20m diving around wrecks. Having got to grips with rolling backwards off a boat, breathing through my mouth, and madly trying not to float to the surface everytime I inflate my lungs, I did manage to see several blue spotted sting rays, a puffer fish, a big sea turtle and a huuuuuge morray eel that looked as though it could take my leg off if it felt so inclined. Luckily, I am still in one piece. This might be something off a disadvantage, as the smell of blood might have brought the reef sharks out to play, which so far have remained illusive. My diving on Tioman has now come to an end, as although dives are only around the GBP12, I have heard that diving on the Perhentians, one of my nest stops, is absolutely breathtaking...

Other than that, there is not a lot to do on Tioman but kickback, enjoy the beach, the sun, the warm sea... the crowd of people here seems to grow daily so that I cannot walk down the main road (it is a concrete path maybe three feet accross, that peters out past Tekek, Tioman's 'capital', a bit of a hike to the south) without greeting most people I walk past. Along with English, Swiss, Californian, German loan travellers, there's the Sweedish boys, the Danish girls and a whole supporting cast. Slightly bizarrely, there is also a large crowd of American girls and guys who are on a SE Asia tour of the Sound of Music... having been given six weeks off they had the option of being flown home, or taking the money and getting back to China when they're needed. Unsurprisingly, there's quite a few of them here - actors, stage hands, and a lot of Ukranian musicians... it is a nice, eclectic mix, and afternoons, gorgeous sunsets and enjoyable evenings on the beach are all spent in good company.

I am staying on Tioman till Thursday, two days longer than originally planned. I'm heading up to Cherating and on to the Perhentians with Nicole, a carpenter and stage hand on the Sound of Music, and having arrived slightly later than me, she wants to get in some diving around Coral Island. We might bump into Brian, Harry et al (and probably plenty of others!) in the Perhentians.

Love to all... correspondance gratefully recieved.

Pxx