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I am finally back home from Tioman Island, one of the only three duty-free islands in Malaysia, the other two being Langkawi and Labuan.

This is not without problems, as the 1GB memory card I borrowed from Shawn produced errors on the last day of our trip, which meant the several pics I took on that day were gone. I tried uploading other pictures at first, and when my computer beeped the message “The parameter is incorrect,” it is a cause for concern as this means I can’t copy the four days worth of pictures into my PC.

I cringed at that thought, and after a spot of Googling, getting a data recovery software originally for computer forensics purposes, and tinkering about further (blablabla more problems), I finally succeeded in transferring all pictures snapped on our first three days. Fourth day’s earlier pics are gone, as well as the two short several-seconds movie clips I videoed which probably do not hold any importance compared to the 100+ recovered pictures.

So, the moment I reached home at about 10pm plus, I spent the next four hours recovering files and such. Huhu.

16th April 2006 – 17th April 2006 - THE NIGHT BEFORE
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At 10pm, Wai Hong, Fang Chyuan and I were supposed to gather at our ex-alma mater while Teck Seng’s dad picked us up from there. We went in two separate cars (the other one being Daniel’s), and headed off to Puduraya where a traffic jam near the bus terminal stalled us for a while.

We reached there at about 10.30-10.40pm-ish, fooling around with pictures and stuff before boarding our Transnational bus at 11pm, although the ticket said 11.30.

Obligatory group picture. From left to right: Kai Shen, Asa, Ding, Teck Seng, Fang Chyuan, me, Kai Tzin, Wai Hong (not in picture). Someone joked that our group is like the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, except that the guys are certainly not dwarves. Asa was the only girl among us, which would otherwise be an all-guys group.

Miss Transnational posing with our bunch of tickets.

We sat in the bus for some time, waiting for it to finally depart. As we didn’t have to wait for the bus to arrive, we didn’t get to inhale the rather cancerous air either.

As the bus left the terminal, it was with a sense of exhilaration that I thought going to Mersing by a midnight bus can be exciting. The misty conditions of the outside made the view all the more mystifying (pun intended). I played with my trusty DS for a while (finally learnt Sudoku from Kai Shen, I’ve a game that contains.. that game), and dozed off for a while before the bus stopped by near a food stall at 2.20am.

Another groupie.

It’s supposed to be a toilet break, and I wanted to go as well, until I see the following:

Bloody hell, insects by the number of hundreds were crowding about the tables and chairs and the small surau, and FC who actually went into the miserable toilet related how the toilet was infested with them as well and fell on top of his head.

We then continued our sleep, only to be waken up at 4.30am again. The bus driver must’ve sped all the way as the journey only takes about 5 hours (than the predicted 6 hours), which meant that most of us only had about 3 hours worth of sleep.

Sitting on the bench outside the jetty.

What can we do, but go the R&R and sat down for a while, paying 30sen in the freaking 5am to enter a toilet) I’m surprised there’s an old guy who was at the counter in front of the dirty loos) which housed two cockroaches we saw in the male loo, and one cubicle.. let’s say there was an explosion of brown submarines in the toilet bowl.

Minutes later when one of the food stall finally opened, we ate an early breakfast, played around while waiting for the supposedly 7.00am (of our speedboat) to arrive.

WH and Asa sitting in the jetty.

Bored people at 6.42am.

The dawn.

Kai Tzin and I were sitting on the metal divider when an old Chinese dude by the name of Gan told us to not sit on it, and said something about saman-ing us (probably in a joking manner which I found not funny at all). He then led some of us to the nearby seats, do the basic introduction and proceeded to tell some grandfather’s story about him getting involved in an accident and was almost operated on to fit in metal into his waist/hip when he magically recovered.

Then he told us how the deity he always prayed to (he has a very good command of English, and him being a Maths teacher last time probably had something to do with it) made an apparition in his dreams with his late mother and fairies began flying around while purple butterflies smothered him with smooches and hugs.

He then ended his narration with moral values, as all stories with good endings must have: “be kind, be generous, be helpful”. I almost rolled my eyes at this point. <_< The lonely dude told us he felt that by telling us that particular story, he was doing a good turn to us. o_o He probably thought us as his grandchildren or sommat.

All the while he was telling us this, the boss or something of Juara Beach Resort met up with Ding and both were discussing the boat, etc. The speedboat, by the name of Bluewater 4, arrived at 7.30am.

The beautiful sky. Also note that it was raining at some of the islands.

How the speedboat looked like.

We arrived at Tekek, and was immediately ushered to a van to be brought to a snorkelling site. I groaned. With so little sleep and fatigue empowering me, the idea of going for any activity at all sounds completely bad.

The road leading up to our snorkelling site - the Marine Park - is completely narrow and fit only for a single vehicle or two motorcycles side-by-side.

Getting ready for snorkelling, flippers and all.

We had our first practice which had me swallowing multiple gulps of salt water and my nose produced more mucus than the bees ooze honey. I’m not the type that’s particularly attracted to marine life, so although there’s a wide variety of fishes, from the clownfish (“I saw a Nemo!”) to the tiny luminescent fishies, to some other species I know not the name of, they’re all the same: fish.

We could also throw bread crumbs and stuff at our first snorkelling site.

They then brought us by boat to another snorkelling site, with corals! Again, they are just.. corals. After tiring ourselves out with the pointless snorkelling (KS managed to spot a stingray), we were brought to a Tulai Island for lunch. Lunch packed in the polisterene boxes, I mean, which contained some tasteless fried rice, a chicken drumstick and a sausage.

Since we have not visited any loo since we stepped foot into the snorkelling sites, the guys’ bladders were bursting and we had to go behind some rocks to relieve ourselves. Not at the same time,’ course.

Omg look at the impossibly white sand, the impossibly blue sea. How can there be any beach that’s impossibly beautiful as this!?

LOOK AT IT WILL YOU. Not the impossibly white guy (Teck Seng) on the left.

Sangat teramat paling cantik lah. The impossibly white sand was also impossibly soft to touch.

We played around and such, and as you might have noticed, the sun was also being impossibly hot and was scorching our skins.

Lying down on the beach was pleasant, while the curling soft waves brushed against us. This is unlike other beaches whose sand is rougher than a teenager’s pimply face.

Ding and Wai Hong lying down on the beach, playing dead.

Ah Fang pretended to die.

The sea is *sigh* crystal clear.

Another look at the island.

Foot imprint.

Fucking beautiful. Too bad we didn’t spend enough time on the island and had to leave pretty soon. (And even though we wanted to return to it, we discovered two days later that the petrol to Tulai Island costs RM200 plus. Heh.)

We left by our trusty speedboat.

The waves were rough, and the experience of sitting in the speedboat going against it was akin to riding a mild rollercoaster.

The old uncle who acted as our tour guide.

Heck, yes, as if we were not tired enough, we were brought to another snorkelling site again where it was supposed to be better than the previous ones since the corals were aplenty. Not many people joined in this time, and only Asa, TS, me and KS went in.

There was also two sets of old couples on the same boat with us, and that was their 2nd last day.

We reached our Juara Beach Resort at about.. 2pm-ish or something, and were greeted by this lady by the name of Joanne. Nothing much happened in the afternoon as all of us were freaking tired, and most of us dozed off the entire afternoon away in our own rooms: WH, Asa, Ding and I were in the same room (B1), while TS, FC, KT and KS were in another (B2). These two rooms made up a single chalet.

With all the splashing about in the sea under the hot sun, most of us were sunburnt, especially on our shoulder and backs. Hurts a lot ya know, like someone doused alcohol on you and set it to fire.

Our utterly delicious BBQ dinner, which include barbequed chicken, fish, etc. Yummm. Included in the package. Apparently one of the old couples called Teck Seng siu pak choy. LOL.

Sadly, JBR lacked a DVD player (rosak apparently, bah), so all the DVDs I brought were wasted. What we did to entertain ourselves was booking a mahjong table and a carrom board (not used anymore after the first night).

Fun game, some variant of Snap. Some of our hands were cut by KS’s long fingernails. >.>

Another look at the game.

Plenty of people went to bed at midnight, but since Asa, WH and I couldn’t sleep, we went out to the beach and boy, was the sea breathtaking.

Seriously, this pic does the view injustice as obviously my camera couldn’t capture it very well (look at the middle of this picture properly).

I sat there on the hard seats they have, taking in the glorious moonlight reflecting the sea.

If there is one thing that reminds me of this particular scene, it was the ending of the game Kingdom Hearts II, or at least, the area where the characters are at. That night was almost exactly like this computer-generated image, a beautiful solitude.

An impossible beach at night that reflected the grandeur of the imagery of the end of the world, a beauty that transcends endless nights. If there’s a single phrase that completely describes that night, it’s “not the end of the world”.

18th April 2006 - SECOND DAY
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On our second day, we woke up at about 7.30am for an early nasi lemak breakfast before we were ushered to go for a brief snorkelling. The rough waves were hard for us to snorkel in, but it gave an exhilarating bumpy experience when we were in the speedboat.

The sea looked dangerously calm and beautiful, but the turbulence and currents that lurked beneath the tangoing sunlight could just as well kill you. While the speedboat was going against the rowdy waves, you can’t help but feel tempted by the sea, a siren’s call.

The rain was nigh.

Our speedboat went straight into the rain.

We were supposed to hike a short trek to reach the waterfall. We did all that, and the present at the end of it was a fast, murky waterfall due to the rain. Meh. So you see how weather and Mother Nature can turn against us.

I snapped this photo at the footsteps of our chalet. Nice hor?

If you don’t play mahjong, you play my DS.

After our lunch which was great as usual, we lazed around in the chalet, playing mahjong and all. It sounds pathetic, but our area - Kampung Juara - was really so kampung until there was no line, and there were only very few miserable shops scattered along the road. Since we are in this “tour” package, there wasn’t anything we could do, really.

I got fedup of mahjong eventually, and we went out for some spot of cycling, which KS and Daniel didn’t join.

Our Juara Beach on low exposure setting.

Our bicycles broke down three times before we even ventured 500m from where we were. First, Asa’s bicycle’s back tire was deflated so we had to turn back to give it a pump and exchange the bicycle. Next, Wai Hong’s left pedal came out. We didn’t believe that anything could happen next, so on the 2-seat bicycle, the second seat came off. LOL.

When WH’s pedal came off, he sat behind Kai Tzin on the 2-seater.

They called the kedai runcit a shopping centre. rofl. The entire stretch of road, there wasn’t any other duty-free shops, which made me wonder why they declared the island duty-free. JBR was charging RM4 for a can of Carlsberg, while the same can at Langkawi was only.. RM1?

We also spotted a monitor lizard.

Even in a place as kamping as this they have Astro. Woo..

The seat that came off in the end, haha.

We followed the fairly straight road till we reached another beach.

Footprint. I love my camera’s excellent picture quality when it comes to pictures like this.

We also attempted to take a group picture on top of this huge rock. I placed the camera on someone’s slipper, turn on the 10-sec self-timer mode, attempted to run as fast as I could and climb the huge rock within the span of 10 seconds. This picture shows that I failed, and we had to snap 4 times to get it right. That means running and climbing to and fro 4 times. >_>

The group photo that finally turned out right.

We had plenty of time that allowed for some writing on the beach.

And drawing from WH.

TS wrote the words. >_>

Yamseng with glasses and bowls of soup.

Asa and KT massaged Daniel’s back with the aloe vera after-sun liquid we bought from Joanne for RM19 (==>_>==); he suffered the worst than the rest of us it seems.

We got ourselves another mahjong + table set, so we didn’t have to wait for our turns any longer. KS, Asa and FC who didn’t play mahjong prior to this learnt pretty quick.

We finally bought a bottle of gin and mixed it with Sprite. Three glasses of it, the last one being semi-pure gin knocked me out on the bed instantly. We were drinking and watching some old Stephen Chow movie, but none of us stayed too long except for FC who stayed till the movie ended.

19th April 2006 - THIRD DAY
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Weather was again against us, so as it had rained in the morning and beforehand, we can’t go for the jungle trekking as the steps was said to be slippery, and there’d be tons of leeches.

We were brought to yet another freaking snorkelling site again, but this time the waves was so strong a few of us including me felt a bout of seasick and could very well throw up. Even being in the sea itself makes it worse.

We couldn’t go anywhere else, so we requested to turn back to JBR. Played volleyball near our chalet for a while, then we played mahjong again. Like, what the hell, haha.

Kai Tzin couldn’t stand it so he told us he’d be off cycling. I finished off a round of mahjong by winning it, then followed Kai Tzin for a spot of cycling. There was a trek to Kg Tekek (the place where all the other duty-free shops are) 7km away, which Joanne forbade us from going there by a rented motorbike citing reasons the road is incredibly bad, unlike the ones we cycled before.

Let me tell you both of us were not prepared what laid in front of us. The road for the first several hundred metres was alright, but later on it winded into forty-five degrees diagonally. By then, cycling is not an option and we were forced to push our bicycles. This went on for a while and we kept talking to put our minds off the fact that we are being swarmed by insects and mosquitoes.

I also had this silly song, “Wo yao kuai le ???? (I Want Happiness)” by A-mei, playing in my head repeatedly while hiking up. This is due to TS’s CD playing the song at the JBR’s restaurant during lunches/dinners repeatedly that it got stuck in my head, and it’s a completely sad song. It also turned out to be our “theme song”, just like how Langkawi’s theme song was The All-American Rejects’ Straightjacket Feeling.

We stopped by for a while to snap a pic.

It was tiring, and a complete workout. We were sweating and kept talking about purchasing bottles of vodka and 100 Plus at the end of the journey, so that kept us going.

We stopped by again.

The winding road. A 4WD can fit through this.

There are times when we could hear the sounds of river flowing, and waterfall on our left. We continued pushing our damn bicycles, and when the sound of the water was close enough, we trekked down the jungle a bit (off the course of the road), and were greeted by the sight of a river.

We lapped up the water and doused ourselves in it, only to realise shortly after when we returned to hiking that there was some chemical smell.

It’s like a mini-paradise.

We were sure that if the rest were to come with us, they’d be complaining like hell. Shortly after the river session, we went up and saw an abandoned house on our left in the middle of nowhere. How scary could that be, with only two of us in the middle of a hill, and the fact that the house is up there in the middle of nowhere.

We continued the hike, and by then an hour had passed. The trek split into two roads, one has 4WD muddy tyre marks turning to the left, while the other was the normal trek heading straight.

We carried on going straight, and that was when I felt a tiny rock falling from another direction towards me, as if someone threw it at us. I instinctively turned left, and saw someone wearing a pink bonnet and a completely pink attire from afar. I thought it was a typical ang moh, but Kai Tzin said something about her face being “fake like a model’s”.

I looked closely, and what I realised gave me the fucking creeps. It isn’t something I’d normally admit, but at that time, when we were physically exhausted and mentally crapped, with only two of us with no other humans in sight, it was goddamn scary. The sight of a fucking scarecrow, with a white and red hideous face. In the middle of nowhere, with no paddy fields in sight.

We went off in a hurry, not wanting to give it another glance but by then I was slightly freaked out. We continued until the road ended, and all that was left was a tiny trek which we followed. We dumped our bicycles, walked and walked in the middle of a jungle and I kept wanting to turn back, because getting trapped in it at night would not be pleasant.

We saw a signboard from afar, and we told ourselves that sole sign would tell us if we need to turn back or not. We joked it might say something as lame as “Selamat datang ke Pulau Tioman” or “Jangan buang sampah merata-rata”.

Yes, we saw this, which told us to not to venture further because I do not want my face to be removed by a bear or encounter other carnivorous blood-thirsty creatures.

We were indeed surrounded by a huge jungle.

We finally backtracked, dumped our bicycles at the intersection, followed the 4WD tracks, and after walking for a bit, machaohai we saw that scarecrow up close and personal. Huhu. If I had a thrombus, it would have burst at that exact time.

The view on top.

We walked up further for 10 more minutes until we saw a 4WD coming down. I put out my hand and asked how long more till we could reach Kg. Tekek, and the Malay dude said, “Kalau ikut jalan ni, lebih kurang 2 jam lagi lah.”

.....

“Bang, boleh tumpang kitorang tak?”

We gave up, after all we had went through and was indeed something to remember. The Malay guy kindly gave us a ride, and at the intersection, we placed our bicycles behind the 4WD.

Going downnnnnn. It only took about 10-15 minutes for that vehicle to reach Juara from where we were, compared to that hour plus we took to hike up. =____=

Both of us bought 100 Plus immediately when we reached JBR, even though it costs a freaking RM2.50 per can (so much for duty-free). We related our ‘ordeal’ to Joanne, who then chided us indirectly for not telling her that we were cycling to Tekek. “If I know you guys were going there I wouldn’t have let you go, later the bicycles spoil etcetcetc.”

We then went for kayaking to the beach we went yesterday. KS suffered a cut on his head after a huge wave knocked the entire kayak on him, throwing his spectacles off into the sea. We searched for a bit until WH found it in the end, a triumph jump and exclamation in the air.

TS and I took off first successfully, while the other three kayaks encountered problems when setting off. When we finally reached the beach at the other side, we played around and even buried Teck Seng beneath a mountain of sand, higher than what we did to Esther in Langkawi. There weren’t any pics since we didn’t bring our cameras along whike kayaking (that would’ve been foolish).

Ironically, when we were about to leave the beach, both TS and I had problems setting off. Water from the rough waves poured into the kayak and two of us couldn’t lift it off. Kai Tzin, who was already out in the sea swam to us and helped us out.

By the time we reached our Juara Beach, it was almost dark - the dusk, the twilight was surreal. We had our dinner in our wet clothes (save for Teck Seng who took bath since he still felt sand in his body), then played mahjong. We also joked how the scarecrow we saw might sing the song “Wo yao kuai le”. Rofl.

Ding was scared of the cockroach that never was, somewhat of a false alarm from WH.

Yay for mahjong. It’s sad that this was our only source of entertainment. Other than my DS.

We initially said that we wouldn’t sleep to catch sunrise, but one by one all of us dozed off. We woke up at 6.15am, and one by one we went off for the beach where we had to walk for about 5 minutes for the perfect location to see the sunrise. Kai Shen wasn’t with us cause he wouldn’t wake up, or something.

This was the final picture I snapped before Shawn’s memory card threw tantrums.

It was only at 7am that we finally saw the sunrise, snapped on Kai Tzin’s camera. We almost gave up on waiting as we had to leave JBR early, but the sun rose at the right time.

After eating a quick breakfast of toast, egg and sausage, we went in two separate 4WDs and went to the exact same way Kai Tzin and I went yesterday to Kg Tekek. The ride was bumpy and certainly something different, as we had to cross kilometres of mud, and at one point, the 4WD I was in was akin to stuck at a steep slope of mud but the driver deftly and cleverly manoeuvred the car to safety.

The ride to Tekek was about 40-45 minutes.

Most of the duty-free shops were still closed except for the one at the tiny place they called an airport. The only alcohol they had were typical beers like Carlsberg and Heineken, the chocolates they have were limited to Cadsbury and M&Ms, and the usual cigs like Marlboro and Dunhill. Pathetic, compared to the vast choices at Langkawi. All those, and Langkawi was still cheaper.

We had to hurriedly shop as our boat is due to arrive at 9.30am, which meant we had only about 20-30 minutes worth of shopping

This is the Thai kok mui posing at the jetty, aka Ding.

The boat ride back to Mersing’s jetty was about 1 hour 30 minutes long. We had our lunch there (tried a roti jala); and the Tioman souvenirs was so much cheaper than the ones near the airport, wtf. Kai Tzin unluckily bought a few expensive keychains from there. =/

Dirty Mersing beach.

We had to wait for a long time before our Super VIP bus (stupid name for a comfy bus <_<) depart at 1pm plus.

Nice.. reclining seats.

The bus stopped for a while at one point, as the baggage compartment of the bus opened and the various odd items like a mod, bucket, etc fell out.

The baggage compartment.

Nothing much to talk about the journey back, except that they screened some shows like Demolition Man and Universal Soldier which I didn’t bother to watch but sleep my way through. Woke up a couple of times since sleeping on that comfy chair gave me back aches for some reason.

The bus also stopped at a bus terminal in Johor Bahru for a long time, before we finally set off again. Near the end of our journey, we crowded together at the back of the bus, making jokes and such.

We finally stopped near Puduraya, carried our heavy luggages to Lowyat Plaza to eat at this HK-based restaurant, “something like Kim Gary”. The cheese-baked rice was bloody good, although the high price tag comes together as well.

Went home by train, then we went home by Kai Tzin’s and Teck Seng’s car. Reached home at 10pm.

To be honest I had lowered my expectations of Tioman after learning my lesson from Langkawi. That didn’t stop my visions of boozing and going around the island by motorcycle/car to be dashed, as well as the jungle trekking that never took off due to weather conditions. Bloody.

Nevertheless, it could also serve as an alternative way to bond together, learn more about each other, even though this group of friends (whom I’ll term as the ‘Chinese gang’, since they/we speak Chinese more often) I have never mixed close enough while in school. Like how TS loves slow songs (something like I do I suppose), and how Asa does not eat rice (O_O) and avoids it like the plague.

Like how Teck Seng and Daniel are both unfortunately colour blind, and when tested by us, both could not recognise the colour purple (TS said it was pink, Ding said it was blue) which we’ve taken for granted. Like how FC funnily oogled at bikini girls, like how I discovered how much I love to stare deeply into any profound scenery that strikes me as nice.

Like how the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves finally reached a happy ending to a happy vacation no matter how mediocre it might have seemed.