A Big Adventure

Thursday 12^th February 2009,  Tioman Island (Pulau Tioman, Malaysia

Sofia and I were woken by strange noises in our room, Sofia thought it might be something in our litterbin al lizard she said, before looking at each other we both said ‘or a snake’ (dum dum dum) Sofia reached down and passed me the torch, I shone it on the bin we could see nothing.

I got out of bed opened the door, the early morning light poured in, and carefully picked up the bin and put it outside, I then slowly poked through it with a snorkel, but nothing seemed to be in it.

Sofia and I then just stood there watching the early morning life on the island, truly tropical and totally awesome.

We went back to bed and that it until about 1:00pm.

Finally we all got up and showered, I was sitting out on the balcony drinking a coffee when I noticed some movement, looking to my side I could see a macaque, Sofia started trying to find some bits and bobs to feed them.

We all set off to go to the beach to a part I had found yesterday, with clear water and some concrete structures to encourage new reefs to grow,

So we set off at a slow pace to walk there.

On the journey we saw so many things that if we had seen them in England anyone of them would be the highlight of the year, any year.

We saw a monitor lizard in a icy cold mountain stream, further along the path so many monkeys jumping from tree to tree almost falling to the ground as they were flinging them self across and down over our heads.

And them the highlight of day, I spotted it on the path in front of us, stop I said to Sofia and Basty, at that stage I still was not sure what I was seeing, it was either a thin orange branch that seemed to be tremoring, but no it really was just 5 feet in front of us on the path was a snake, I was so excited, then a couple of motorbikes came along the path with locals on, I tried to make sure they did not run the snake over, I needn’t have worried  they all stopped and waited as I ushered it across the road, where it headed up into a bush.

I was so pleased, I love snakes and this little tree snake was so unexpected.

We walked further until we came to steep steps that go over the headland to the next bay, at that point Sofia gave me her clothes and went into the sea to swim around the rocks into the next bay, while Basty and I walked over.

The water is so clear and aqua with plenty of colourful corals and fishes, better even than Anilao, but way too many sea urchins eating at the coral.

The boys went to a floating platform in a roped off area by another jetty, the water was very deep with big concrete structures on the bottom to encourage coral growth, it was good to see and to know that there would be a beautiful reef here in the future.

There were loads of big fish of many types and colours, Basty kept getting nibbled,

It was fantastic, we were literally becoming a part of the shoal of fish all of which were a good size, and various shapes and colours.

Later Sofia started a crusade against urchins as they apparently kill the coral and indeed there are massive areas of dead coral and almost fields of urchins covering the bed, she was knocking them off with her snorkel, I found her a large stick and we both set about them with gusto, the fish seemed very happy to eat as we bashed them.

Afterwards with Basty already having gone on ahead, Sofia and I set off on a gentle walk back to our place  on Bamboo Hill, on the way back we had already decided to try to extend our stay, this place is simply enchanting, for all that I enjoyed Pulau Pangkor this place is so much more a tropical island, so much less spoiled.

Our room, is high up overlooking the sea, backing into the jungle and is a simple wooden chalet, with a nice sized balcony, the room has a double bed for us and a pull out bed under it for Basty, we have a mosquito net, there is no TV, none, There is a fan but no air conditioning and there is a shower but no hot water.

But still this is as close to luxury as you need and the simple fact is the most luxury hotel in the world may have gold taps and a huge bath, maybe a butler, probably will pick you up at the airport in a Rolls Royce, or fly you in by helicopter and all that bullshit, but really It does not get close to this, this is true luxury, the views, the wildlife, the sun, the sea are all totally awesome.

We spent an hour or so reading, drinking coffee and getting ready for the evening and then there they were again, our gang of macaques were coming from the trees, we could see branches moving all over as they got closer, Sofia was soon throwing some nuts (specially bought for this purpose) and very soon they were with a few feet of our room.

For dinner this evening we ate the ABCD restaurant that is the nearest place to our room.

The food was very good and Sofia had the best Garlic squid ever, I know I tried some.

After supper we walked on down to the B&J Dive Centre Bar for a nice cold Tiger beer and some kalooki.

We got chatting to Desmond who runs the place, he is a nice guy and sounds like a man with a plan, when I mentioned to him that we were very serious about moving out to Malaysia and he immediately started talking about some land he had available and we should come and see it. He told us we could have a place built for about Rm 10,000 or less than GBP£2000!

Such a wonderful dream.

We then walked on back, with the massive flying foxes flying overhead, we were also keeping our eye’s peeled for other nocturnal life. Sofia did find a snake skin shed under our cabin.

We boys watched the Sopranos while Sofia caught up with her diary out on the balcony by the light of an oil lamp with the company of `gecko’s munching on the insects and listening to the sounds of the jungle and sea, Perfect.

We then all watched Slumdog Millionaire, I am not surprised this film has been put forward for so many awards. It is a terrific film, we enjoyed it immensely Sofia was very impressed by the format, very clever story telling – Go see it.

Back out on the balcony we watched a gecko eat a large dragon fly as big as itself, it had to then escape from another gecko trying to pinch it’s dinner before it could swallow it.

[mappress]