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On the 15th Nov we got the ferry from Mersing to Salang Beach on Tioman Island. We were the only non-local-looking people to get off at that stop, which should have worried us, but we were too excited by the clear torquoise water and hundreds of tropical fish swimming around by the pier. There's coral just off the shore at Salang beach, so the water is teeming with fish. We didn't have any bread on us to feed them though.
Two guys we'd met in Laos had recommended Salang and told us to stay at Ana's Place, so we headed straight for it. Everything along the way seemed to be shut and we passed 4 tourists the whole way... we began to worry. We got to Ana's Place and an old man in a doorway sitting next to some boxed chickens told us they were closed. Almost everything in Salang was closed for monsoon season as they didn't get many tourists, so we had to pay for a boat to take us back to Tekek, the main town on the island. The shops and guesthouses were still open there and we could walk to two other beaches if we wanted to.
We wandered down the one street in the town and came across a nice bungalow right next to the beach and checked in. The weather didn't seem great, so we decided to book for 2 nights and see how it turned out. If there was too much rain we'd leave. It did rain really badly a lot of the time we were there (at night at least) but it was so relaxed we just couldn't be bothered going anywhere else! We got to Tioman on Sunday, left on Friday, and did pretty much nothing the whole time! We walked to the resort on the next beach one day and had a drink in the fancy bar before going back to our poor person room haha, and another day we took a walk to ABC beach in the opposite direction. It was pretty dead there so we just followed some lizards to take pictures and left.
Oh yes, Tioman Island is famous for having a large amount of monitor lizards and we were really hoping to see a lot of them. I think Tekek was too populated for them to wander about, they seemed pretty shy, so we only saw a few. Our first sighting was within half an hour of arriving in Salang beach. We were crossing over a bridge and heard some rustling, Ryan checked it out and called me over. Ryan saw the back end of it, but I only saw part of the tail which was 2-3ft long alone! It hid under the bridge so we couldn't have a closer look, but it must have been huge! Apparently they grow up to 7ft long, that one must have been close. For the rest of our time we only saw a few looking for prey in a river by Berjaya resort, then one on land at ABC beach. That one was pretty cool though, it was about 5ft long and very scared of us haha, I kept walking after it trying to get a picture and it was trying to get away as fast as it's stubby little legs could carry it! We were told they're not poisonous, but I didn't want to chase it too much... they have pretty strong looking jaws.
We were going to do a jungle trek on our last full day there, followed by me sitting on the beach and Ryan snorkelling with a man named Brian, but it rained too much... instead we stayed inside until the torrential rain stopped and took a walk down to the marine park to feed the fish. It's really cool there - there are absolutely hundreds of fish and MASSIVE sea urchins that look pretty deadly all around the little pier. You can rent snorkelling gaer and swim with them, but neither of us bothered. Instead we brought some bread down to watch them fight over it and were amazed at very long, thin, sinister looking crocodile needlefish lurking at the edge of the action. We thought they were waiting to eat the other fish but they didn't attack - very disappointing.
Our last day there was probably the worst weather we had all week, there were thunderstorms all night and well into the next morning. They decided to use that day to test out the tsunami evacuation alarm and didn't mention it was a test, we nearly weed ourselves! Well I did anyway... no one panicked so we quickly realised it was just a test. When we were waiting for the ferry on Friday morning the storms were still going. After we left the last port before the mainland the boat suddenly stopped and everyone rushed to look out the window - a windsurfer was stranded out there in the bad weather. The crew pulled him and his board on to the boat and we dropped him back at the pier. I don't know how long he was out there, but it seems a bit unlikely he went out at 7am in a storm, so it might have been the day before... who knows.
It was a real shame it rained so much while we were on Tioman. It was lovely there but we just couldn't enjoy it as much as we wanted. It would be nice to go there in high season for the weather and so all the pubs and restaurants were open (we had fairly limited choice) but on the other hand in low season we only met a few other tourists - it felt like we had the entire island to ourselves! Also in monsoon season there are way more mosquitos and once again we got eaten alive. We used mosquito killing spray, mosquito coils and another mosquito repelling device in our room and they were having none of it! We must be like fillet steak for mosquitos.
We arrived at Mersing just after 10am and had a KFC breakfast (mmm), killed some time and got the bus to Singapore at 12. We paid less than 3pounds for the bus and it showed... we drove some of the way in a nice comfortable bus, then changed to a rickety old bus, then changed again after going through immigration on the Malaysian side, then they just left us at Singapore immigration without taking us to the city like we thought. There was a free shuttle bus, but they annoyed me.
We were dropped by Little India in Singapore so we had a look around the hostels/hotels/guesthouses there for a room - the cheapest we could find was over our budget and built of plywood, but it was only for one night. We had bunk beds in a little plywood cell with no ceiling, so you could hear everything going on in the other 'rooms' and see the light from the 'rooms' and hallway. There was what looked like blood on Ryan's bedsheet and what looked like either blood or poo smeared on the wall by my lower bunk. Nice place. The toilet was so small your knees hit the door when you sat down, and the pipe from the washing machine led onto the floor so your feet were covered in water and soap. The shower was in the cubicle next to it, and when I washed the next morning someone decided to clean the toilet then poor the bleach down the drain in the floor. It made my feet burn. It was no fun.
We had a walk around the markets and shopping centres on Friday night, then went back to Little India for a huge and very tasty curry. It must have been the most expensive non-western-chain-restaurant meal we've had since we've been away. Singapore is not cheap! The next day we only had until 5 o clock before we had to leave for our flight so we went to get some sandals I'd spotted the day before and killed the rest of the day at the cinema. We watched 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' and it was amazing! It's directed by Wes Anderson who did 'The Darjeeling Limited', 'The Life Aquatic' and 'The Royal Tenenbaums' so it was bound to be good. I really loved it, it made me laugh a lot. If I can find a cheap rip off DVD of it I'm going to buy it and make people watch it with me :)
We got the tube to the airport straight after the film and arrived there to find that our flight had been delayed by 4 HOURS! That meant instead of getting to Bali at 11pm, which was late enough, we wouldn't get there until 3am. Wonderful. It's a huge airport so we tried to track down a cinema but there was none... only yet another shopping centre. We walked around for a while, had a burger king dinner because it was the cheapest food there, walked around some more... eventually boarded our flight, couldn't sleep and got to Bali at 3am. We didn't have anywhere booked for that night and we didn't think it was worth wasting time and money finding a room for a few hours sleep before morning, so we slept on a bench in the airport. Barely.
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