On the 8th, I arrived in Mersing and then got a ferry boat over to Tioman Island. As you approach Tioman, it is quite stunning as it has these monstrous rock cliffs and mountains towering over the water. Tioman's claim to fame is that it was a filming location for the musical movie south pacific as well as being listed by Time Magazine as one of the top 10 prettiest islands in the world, which I think dad would find cool. I actually found out though that the filming of any scenes didn't occur on Tioman island, they just used the view from the ocean towards the stunning peaks as the distance view of Bali Hai in the movie. The actual scenes were filmed in Kauai, HI. I got off the ferry on Air Batang (ABC) beach and checked into my dorm that one of the technicians from survivor had arranged for me as his sister worked there. It was a good thing too b/c most places were full with the malay and singapore school holidays. Again, the islands was beautiful, and had the same polynesian air about it. Mangos, bananas, papaya hibiscus growing everywhere. Jungle creeping down to the villages. The beaches here weren't as nice as the last island I was on, but still nice. Met a gal, Irene, from the Sudan in my dorm, which was a first for me. Had never met a Sudanese.
The next day I hiked with Irene, Herman (from holland), and Burgit (germany) over to Juara on the other side. It was a 7km walk on a narrow trail through the rainforest over the island to the other side. Near the top there was a little waterful that I would have loved to swim in, but it was the town's water supply so we didn't. Juara beach was huge and nice, though we got attacked by sandflies. The village on this side was very isolated and quaint, b/c the only way to get there besides boat was from the trail or a 4WD road from tekek where the tiny airport is. After the walk back over, I walked to Tekek, the larger town just to check it out. Tioman is also one of two islands (langkawi the other) that is duty free for some reason, so alcohol is incredibly cheap. So, I did what everyone tells you to do on tioman and bought a beer, a japanese one, from the duty free store. That night was Irene and Herman's last night on the island, so we had a goodbye party for them on the beach with some vodka that they had bought at the duty free store several days before. There were 3 Iranian guys there (only one spoke english) that joined in as well.
The next day I did a sweet snorkelling trip to some other islands in the area. The snorkelling was very good and there was one area with lots of black tipped reef sharks which was cool. I met Rob (NZ) and his girlfriend Jess (Aussie) on the trip, and they were a lot of fun. Rob is the first person I have met who has done a proper tour of the US in my opinion. Everyone I have met has done a tour with (and based their stereotypes on) a similar itinerary as this: fly to new york, go to DC, go to miami, fly to LA, visit hollywood, visit San Fran, fly to the grand canyon, then to vegas, and then home perhaps throwing in chicago or new orleans or boston in. But Rob flew into NY and bought a car and travelled the length in a car stopping and camping at as many national parks as he could and even going to such remote ones as the badlands and carlsbad caverns. And he had a much different opionion of american people b/c of this. In fact he said lots of people in the midwest and west gave him free places to stay when he wasn't able to camp.
That evening I was watched the sunset. When I was waiting for rob and jess for dinner and french gal (Vanessa) introduced herself to me and said she wanted to practice her english. So the 4 of us had dinner. Now Rob and Jess love beer, so they just kept buying more and more rounds of tiger. Eventually the Iranians came by with their boatload of alcohol and soon we were having quite the party. The iranians cracked me up b/c the one guy that could speak english was going to school in melaka, but the other two were older and were his stepfather and uncle. They didn't understand anything that was going on but would laugh and clap their hands and sing, and they gave the most loving, sincere goodbyes at the end of the night.
The next day vanessa and I caught the ferry back to mersing. We had to wait forever and ever as it was very late, but it didn't matter b/c I didn't have to catch the bus until the next day. The ferry was oversold so we sat outside in the very stern, which was fine with me b/c then we got to enjoy the beautiful view much better as this particular ferry company usually made you sit inside in its aircon cabin. The ferries in malaysia with their stricter rules and such are like luxury limos compared to the philippines barely floating vessels. In mersing we waited out a violent thunderstorm with some mee goreng pattaya and then did a nice loop through the town and down along the beach. Vannessa left on the night bus for KL, so then I just spent the rest of the night on the internet in mersing as it has the cheapest internet I have seen yet in malaysia
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