Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Saz and Dave's travels
We woke up quite late today in our haunted house on the hill. As I was the first to wake up I decided to go out onto our back balcony (yes we have 2 - how posh!) and test the temperature. It was pretty hot and humid out there which made me feel very grateful we have air-con, however I quickly got a lot hotter when I realised that on the rock right under the balcony staring up at me was an enormous monitor lizard, about 4 feet long! I jumped out of my skin when I saw it and even though they are supposedly harmless I dashed back inside!
When Dave finally woke up we decided to go and explore Air Batang, the tiny place where we are staying in Pilau Tioman. Air Batang we found basically consists of lots of wooden shack type buildings, many of which are dilapidated and unoccupied. There are no roads (here or anywhere else on the island) and no hotels which is nice as the place feels extremely underdeveloped (a lot more so than Koh Phi Phi in Thailand). There are about 4 restaurants in total and a couple of shops to buy food and this is supposed to be one of the most developed areas on the island!!
We ate breakfast at the only restaurant we found open which turned out to be a bit rank as the food tasted quite old and past its sell by date! On the walk back to our shack we came across 2 more monitor lizards, a lot smaller than the one this morning and hundreds of cats. Most of the female cats here are heavily pregnant which would explain the copious amounts of young cats that seem to run wild here.
Seeing as the beach in Air Batang was quite small, we decided to walk to the next beach along at Penuba bay, a ten minute walk away. The walk to Penuba bay was along an undulating path through the jungle which was cool. The beach here was also small but very nice, with just one restaurant and a few chalets. When we went for a swim we found it really rocky and when we looked down we saw we were swimming over coral covered in little black spiky things!
After a late lunch at the restaurant and some more swimming we walked back to Air Batang and had a lovely cold shower. It's lucky the weather is good as we only have cold water in the chalet!
We decided to eat tea in the restaurant run by the place we are staying. For economy we chose the cheapest things on the menu, not knowing what they were which turned out to be delicious. After tea we went up for an early night as there really isn't that much to do here in the evening! It was a bit creepy walking up to our chalet in the dark as I kept thinking about the huge monitor lizard and how close we are to the jungle!
- comments