Last week I found myself working through yet another public holiday to finish off a competition entry. I was in desperate need of a holiday, as it dawned on me I had not visited anywhere since Singapore roughly two months ago. Therefore, when my friend, Gorka suggested visiting the coral island of Tioman off the east coast of Malaysia, I jumped at the chance. It became apparent that in order to make the most of the three day Independence Weekend, we would have to leave on Thursday night, however there was a slight hiccup, as it just so happened that I was due to attend a meeting onsite at Johor Bahru (next door to Singapore) that day. Nevertheless I told Gorka to book the accommodation and that I would meet him on the island.
Since I was due to arrive back in KL around midnight, and the Coach was leaving at 11:30pm, I didn’t count my chances of traveling with him that highly. As luck would have it, the meeting finished earlier than expected and I found myself back in my room at 10pm. Ringing Gorka, I asked him to buy me a ticket as I was currently chucking clothes into my bag and running straight out to catch a taxi. When I explained my predicament to the driver, he chuckled and told me that I would be very lucky indeed to get to the coach terminal for 11:30. It seems Lady Luck was with me that night, as he dropped me off at 10:45 and I was racing to the platform to meet up with my friend. It was then that we found out that all the coaches to Tioman were fully booked. It felt like a nail in the coffin of our island escape, but once again, luck prevailed as there was a coach with two cancellations. Without hesitating we jumped on board and promptly found ourselves en route to Pulau Tioman.
The coach arrived at the ferry port of Mersing just after 5am. We had managed to grab a couple of hours of sleep but I for one was feeling the affects of waking up at 5am the previous day to visit JB. It was as close as one could get to feeling jet lag without ever stepping onto an plane. After booking passage on the first ferry of the day, we proceeded to relax and try to find somewhere to eat, however the only place open was a 24 hours Roti shack. Boarding the ferry, we were both exhausted and it didn’t take long for us to pass out on the 2 hour journey.
When I awoke we were beginning to slow down as we had approached the main village of Genting. It was beautiful. We stumbled out exhausted and red eyed and saw the gorgeous coral beach and tiny villages dotted around the coastline of the island. Ringing our hotel, they confirmed that a boat was coming to pick us up and so we again proceeded to wait. In my mind I was expecting a fairly decent boat, considering that this was supposed to be a respectable hotel. What greeted Gorka and I was a tiny Dingy boat that could barely house us and the bags. I was petrified. Nevertheless as soon as we were on board the boat sped off leaving us to scream in both joy and fear as we skimmed along the waves for the better part of 40 minutes to get to the hotel.
Once there I realised that the word Hotel was definitely overstating the place. What it was was effectively a wooden box with a pedestal fan and an annexe with a tap. This is the price you pay for last minute bookings I thought but it didn’t matter, I was too excited. One thing that the last boat ride did for us was wake us up, it was 10am now and we were eager to get to the beach for a spot of snorkling…
