Island Paradise...found

Took a rickety old bus from Cherating back to Kuantan in the morning so that I could catch a bus to Mersing, which is the jumping off point for Tioman Island. Got into Kuantan early, but when I got there all the busses were fully booked for the next two days (school holiday travel i was told). I was a bit frustrated by this b/c I had had to book my flight to borneo a few days before and so now I am on a time schedule and I didn't want to waste 2 days. I asked how I could have pre-booked, and you can't unless you are in that town. This made no sense to me b/c what to people making connections and transfers in cities do? I went into a store to ask directions to get to the hwy that goes to mersing so I could try hitchhiking. The women in the store were very nice and tried to help me, but really had no idea where the hwy was, but they went around asking lots of people and eventually realized I could take a different kind of more local bus to some other town and then get off and then catch another bus to mersing. So I tramped back from the long haul station to the local station. I saw the bus I wanted to take but there was no driver and no one really knew when it was leaving. One of the nice things about malaysia is that they're notalways hassling you to get on their bus and asking where are you going? like in thailand and the PI. But at this time I wished there was someone there, b/c it didn't really look like the bus was ready to go. But another nice gal told me she was taking a different bus to Endau and I could catch a bus there that would go to mersing. So since she was on the bus and I felt she would help me, I took that one. But the bus stops like every kilometer b/c it's a local bus and so by the time we got to Endau it was 6:45 and the last bus to mersing was 6pm. So I walked out to the hwy by a little kopi shop and wrote mersing on some cardboard and stuck out my thumb. Around 9pm I was getting ready to quit and see if there happened to be any sort of hotel in this tiny town, but then someone told me there was a truck stop a bit up ahead and I should ask there. On my way over though, and guy drove by and offered me a ride. He worked for the navy police and got me to Mersing. Once at mersing, the hostel I wanted to stay at was full, so I was just walking around looking for a place when a malaysian guy asked if he could help me. I told him I was looking for a cheap place and he said he was staying at a hotel and had an extra bed and I could crash with him if I wanted. His name was Siaful and he ended up being one of the nicest and most generous guys. He took me out for dinner and then bought us beers for the night. The first beers I'd had in malaysia b/c it's a highly muslim country and so you're not allowed to have beers most places, and it's also very expensive.



It turned out that he is a carpenter for Robinsons/Castaway (the european version of Survivor) and that they are filming scandinavian survivor on some little island near tioman. I had planned to spend another day in mersing to do an island hopping tour, but the tour needed at least 4 people and no one else was around, so it wouldn't be possible. Saiful invited me to go to Pulau Babi Besar, so I said of course. He again bought me breakfast in the morning and wouldn't let me pay. He hooked me up with a free boat ride on a junky fishing boat going over (saving 80RM). But I got better service then the fancy ferry b/c the women on board gave me fruit and mango juice. I arrived at the island and it was absolutely gorgeous. Just like how I imagine a south pacific island would look like. Long beautiful white sandy beach, gorgeous turquoise water. Palm trees everywhere, mountainous jungle in the back; hibiscus, pangiafrani, and many other colorful flowers everywhere; mango, cherry, starfruit, coconut, banana trees everywhere. The few buildings set far behind the beach an not stacked up on the beach like in thailand. The beach is so quiet and I nearly have it to myself. The locals on the island are incredibly friendly. Saiful hooked me up with a nice chalet for cheap, right near beach. If you wanted you could see the sunset over the ocean right from my widnow. There's just a single narrow path that runs along the length of the beach, and no cars or motorbikes. Saiful's brother leant me his bike so that I could travel around easier.
THe first day on the island (the 6th of June), Saiful toured me around the island and gave me a behind the scenes tour of the survivor stuff. He showed me the elaborate set where they film the tribal council for survivor, which is like an old temple set up. He also showed me the one they used last year which is a wrecked plane. They have a little dorm and camp set up for the malay survivor employees and their families. It was a rather fun place to hang out as there were lots of nice people there and there were 4 adorable little kids whole liked to play with me and attempt english, and I would try and learn bahasa malay. They had buffet dishes for breakfast lunch and dinner all for free and all tasty and they gave me an unlimited supply of bottled water which is great b/c on islands bottled water is so expensive. Saiful and his family (he has 16 brothers and sisters, but only 4 on the island, though this is not unusual as elmie the jungle trek guide had 15 brothers and sisters) and the rest of the carpenters and technicians for survivor were oh so nice. I liked the whole set up they had though b/c it was like a big family and group of friends hanging out after work and they had ping pong and volleyball and all that to play. And I still couldn't get over how gorgeous and nice and calm and quiet the place was. Reminded me of someplace dad would go for vacation. WHen you're backpacking you don't get to places like this much b/c usually isolation means expensive to get to and expensive once there. There were only a couple "resorts" if you could call them that, on the island. That night saiful took me out for beers by the beach and of course wouldn't let me pay. A funny thing that happened that day is when I went to the toilet, my place had the traditional asian squat toilets, there was a baby monitor lizard (babies are about 1 foot long) swimming around in the toilet, just ready to bite the next person's butt.

The next morning I just walked along the long beach enjoying its beauty and the beautiful water, and also going for a snorkel. In the afternoon I took a jungle track that went by a few deserted beaches (like the big one wasn't deserted enough). It also went buy a huge abandoned resort. Who knows how long it had been abandoned b/c the jungle grows quickly, but it had definitely been taken over by plants. It was definitely a bit creepy and perhaps the island is a bit haunted as they claim. There is a guy in the village who walks around talking to himself all the time about a thing in the sea. It's obviously not alcohol b/c he's muslim and the doctors say it's not a psychological disease (which I don't necessarily believe). After the resort, I came upon another beach with some malays camping and they were very happy to offer me juice and have me have my picture taken with everyone of them for their memory of meeting a crazy american walking in the jungle. I took and overland track to the otherside of the island, chasing monkeys and giant monitors as I went. That side had a huge beach that I started walking along, but was quickly stopped and turned around by a norwegian who jumped out of the bushes explaining to me that surivor owned the beach. But I did get a glimpse of the camp where the survivors were surviving. The locals liked to laugh at their attempts to survive b/c they mainly just eat coconuts and small fish they can catch. Saiful pointed out that the stingrays would be easy to get with a wood spear and he showed me lots of fruits and roots to eat. That evening I just watched the sunset from a nice beach swing they had set up. After dinner Saiful and some of his friends (yusuf, nasir, and omar) invited me into yusuf's room to drink some rum and whiskey they had bought. Muslims aren't supposed to drink alcohol, but of course, neither are 19 year old freshman in college, and so some of them do drink from time to time. When I had beers with saiful before he said that he believes it's ok to drink, just as long as you don't get too drunk that you do something bad. Anyways, drinking with them was funny b/c it was just like underage drinking in the dorms. In a locked room, in hushed voices, all sneaky like.

The next day I caught a survivor speed boat back to mersing. I talked with a couple of danish girls that worked for survivor. It seemed like a pretty sweet gig. You're out there on the island for a few months and they get lots of days off b/c they're not always filming and such. They stay at one of the really nice resorts with a pool and eat the fancy resort buffets. And it seemed like just a fun, tight group b/c when they weren't working they were out playing volleyball or soccer or something like that. Kind of reminded me of the SML internship that I had where we were stranded on an island in Maine with a really tight group, except that we worked much harder I think and the water was oh so much colder, and of course we weren't at a fancy resort. But even though we were always working so hard on our research projects, we had so much fun.