Hello White Sandy Beaches!

DAY 1
After much waiting and travelling, we finally arrived in Salang, although we had never actually intended on coming here. We left Singapore at 630 in the morning, went through two immigration check points, and were in Mersing by about 1030. We had only planned on coming to Mersing as a transition point into the jungle, but once we got there there was nothing very appealing about it. The book described it as a small fishing town with lots of stray cats, and that’s really all it was; except, that Mersing is also the main transport hub for people coming to Tioman Island. Consequently, we decided to join the masses and head to the island as well, so we bought our ticket at the ferry terminal and continued to wait. They told us the ferry was leaving at eleven thirty, and by about 1/130 pm we finally got on board. It was another two hours or so before we got to Salang, on the north/eastern side of Tioman, and while it was a long wait, it was totally worth it.
This place is absolutely beautiful, and the book says it’s hardly one of the better beaches in Malaysia. As your walking along the jetty, all you see is turquoise blue water, coral and funny little fishies with long noses. It’s quite a sight and apparently the diving around here is phenomenal. Our favourite part about it is that it’s quiet. Normally, before we even step off any form of public transportation, we’re accosted by people trying to sell us tour packages, hotels, transportation and souvenirs. When we got off the ferry here, the only people who came remotely close to trying to sell us anything were the ladies at the tourist info centre that we stopped at to ask for directions. All they did was inform us that if we needed anything to come to them. Other than that, we made the entire walk to our hostel of choice (Ella’s), which is literally the second to last accommodations on this side of the jetty, and not a soul approached us with anything to sell. The extent of “touts” on this island seems to exist only in the signs offering massages with a phone number/place to contact if you’re interest. Who would’ve thought that you could actually decide when you wanted something and not be bothered about it until then. It’s quite a relief to be able to lie on the beach without constantly needing to turn people away.
That being said, our first day, all we did was lay on the beach. There are hammocks everywhere, 8 out here in front of Ella’s alone, with just about one on every balcony/porch (our’s included). Most people, who know me well, know that it is one of my lifelong dreams to own a hammock; thus, I am in heaven! Darren, my own little water bug, was in the water right away, and I took a nap, in a hammock. It was wonderful! Afterwards, we went for dinner and drinks, sat on the beach and I came and went to sleep. Darren stayed out with some people we met, but I was wiped and exhausted and was passed out by 10pm.


DAY 2

Yesterday was a good day—a very good day. Apparently it’s been fairly rainy here the last little while, but yesterday was just gorgeous weather! The sun was shining, and the tide was in (it was out in the evening when we got here, and the beach is much nicer when it’s in). After breakfast Darren, of course, was in the water right away, and I hunkered myself down into a hammock and just read the afternoon away. I did come out of my coma for a little while to join Darren in the water, but it was much cooler and much more relaxing in the swinging in the shade. That was the extent of our excitement for the afternoon. It wasn’t until about 3 pm that we finally decided to move and go get lunch. After lunch, we didn’t really do anything different, just a lot more laying around in hammocks and reading.
Our hostel/inn is probably one of the better ones on the island. It’s fairly basic, and by that I mean that we don’t have a sink just a tap, but as I said, it’s almost at the very end of accommodations on this part of the island and it’s consequently, very quiet. It’s also one of the only accommodations that’s right on the beach, and the best part is it’s not ridiculously priced. We’re paying Rm 50 a night (about $15), for our own little bungalow/”chalet”, with a hammock, and no more than a small paved pathway from the white sand beach. It’s fantastic! The owners of Ella’s are also making an effort to repopulate the turtles in the area as well. I’m not sure exactly why their efforts are needed, but as a result, there are two buckets of turtles at the restaurant/reception area. Two of the turtles were only a day old when we first got here, and the others are no more than a few weeks old. They are too cute. The teeny baby ones are so young they still have their little sacks stuck to their bellies, and one of the older ones has been named Nemo for its lack of a whole fin on one side. The owner also informed us that they have buried forty more eggs on the beach that should hatch in the next two months. They are currently expanding their little pond to keep the turtles in until they’re big enough to be released and fend for themselves. The great thing for us is that we get to take them swimming, though I’ve heard that they’re a lot faster than they look so we’ll have to keep a close watch on them.

Once we finally stripped ourselves out of the hammocks, we ventured out for dinner at one of the many seafood barbecues on the island. For some reason we ended up ordering chicken instead of seafood, but it was still excellent. They grilled the chicken, along with some potato, carrot and eggplant, and everything was moist and tender and oh so yummy! We had a really nice evening, just enjoying the ambiance and a little shisha (don’t worry mom, there’s no tobacco, it’s just molasses). We mixed two flavours, strawberry and mint, and Frank, you would love it, it ended up tasting to black liquorice. We stayed at the restaurant for about an hour or so until a lightning storm broke out and after another half hour of waiting we finally decided to make a run for it. On the way back we ran into the same guys we met the first day and sat and had a few drinks with them under the shelter of one of the picnic areas.
The rain was pretty brutal however, and the wind wasn’t helping much. I was sitting on the side closest to the water and the wind coming off the ocean basically blew the rain in sideways under our little shelter. Once we finally decided to move into a closed restaurant, I was already soaked down my one side, and a little cold. We then hung out in the restaurant just long enough for me to try off a bit, before deciding to call it a night and run back to our place. It was a nice night though, rain and all, and we both fell asleep pretty quickly, though Darren chose to sit outside for a while and take a breather before coming to bed ;)


DAY 3

It was a great day, not for all the exciting going ons, but more because of the lack thereof. Our day started at noon. Our usual breakfast place was either no longer serving breakfast, or they were out of eggs, it was hard to communicate which exactly. We had omelettes at a local hole-in-the-wall restaurant (always the cheapest and with great eats), after which we came back to our inn and basically carried on doing nothing. I wrote a little for the blog while Darren slept. Then I went to lay down for a nap in our hammock and Darren read for a while. At one point he woke me up for lunch/the meal between our noon breakfast and dinner, and we both somehow ended up passed out on the bed. We didn’t wake up until the children at our inn started making a bit of noise.
It was a good thing we did though, because some of the turtle eggs (which the owner “rescues” and barriers in the beach) had hatched. About ten of them hatched right beside the hammock I normally sit in, and ten little baby turtles have now become the newest residents of our beach. The owners keep them in a bucket on their porch, along with another bucket with some slightly older turtles. Apparently, the eggs are normally eaten where their laid before they even get the chance to hatch. On the odd occasion an iguana doesn’t devour them, it’s something like on out of every ten that might actually make it into the ocean, and most of those are also devoured by larger fish or birds before their shells harden. My first instincts were that Mother Nature should just be allowed to run its course, but apparently the bigger culprit of the declining turtle population is the boats and fishing nets. Apparently it’s a pretty big deal, so the locals who run our inn are making their own little conservation effort. Right before monsoon season when they leave the island, they’ll let all the little things go and hope for the best!
After a bit of watching the tiny little turtles scurry around we walked down to the other end of the village for dinner. If I haven’t mentioned already, there is a river about the island where you can often find monitor lizards of all sizes. Whenever we’re in the area, Darren insists on stopping to see if we can find any. Actually, after breakfast we had to wander by and watch two smaller ones swim up and down the dirty water. Our after dinner agenda was no different. This time however, we got to see more than just a small one or two. This one looked like it had eaten a small child! Whatever it ate, it must’ve just eaten something large because it was so fat it looked like it could barely move. I wasn’t about to risk this theory however, because though they normally look sluggish, they’re pretty quick. We stopped and stared of course, until it crawled under the bridge and couldn’t be seen anymore. We saw a lot of other little creatures that night, including large fruit bats, hermit crabs, big snails, frogs, and a “guppy”. Darren insists that I wrote about this. Apparently, a guppy is the only type of fish that can exist both on land and in water. He was pretty excited about seeing it. That night, we also saw some sort of possum or something crawling along the power lines. The island is full of life!
After dinner and a little walk, we stocked up on snacks and lay on the beach in hammocks, eating peanuts and listening to Coldplay. Not a bad way to end an evening if I dare say.


DAY 4

It was yet another lazy day, but with an earlier start than noon. We were out and eating breakfast by about 10am but again, had nothing special planned. We were going to go snorkelling, but it was pretty cloudy and windy and the water was pretty murky. Since I’ve finished reading my book, the extent of our activity today, was searching the island for Book 2 of “Lord of the Rings”. In his persuasion to get me to pick up the trilogy, he assured me it would take me forever to read and that it’s the one set of books you can find everywhere. Well, I read a lot more often than he does (usually 2-3 books to his 1), and I haven’t seen a copy of “Lord of the Rings” since we left China. Anyway, it doesn’t help that any books that do seem appealing are also not in English, so at the moment I’m reading a book called “The Little Lady Agency”, and I’m almost half way through already.
We had planned on maybe doing a hike instead of snorkelling, but our host informed us that there weren’t any trails and it was too easy to get lost in the jungle. Note taken. So we detoured a little on our way back from breakfast. I think Darren really wanted to go into the jungle to catch a glimpse of some more cool creatures and while we didn’t get to do that, we did some a few other things. Like, the river was really high and there weren’t any lizards in it, and instead we saw one walking around someone’s backyard. We were able to get pretty close, and it was nice not having to see them in the dirty water. We also saw a family/herd/pod of monkeys (what is the proper term for a group of monkeys?) raiding some mango trees behind some of the “chalets”, and a one point Darren thought he saw a monkey, which he then thought was a lizard, which turned out to be a squirrel; and, not two minutes later he thought he saw a rabbit, which was actually a coconut. Though he says he’s not getting restless on this lazy island, I think he’s more anxious for our jungle trek than he’s letting on.
Once we got back to our inn, it was more reading and lying around. The weather eventually brightened up and we went for a bit of a swim and a little sun bathing. But again, the day was altogether uneventful. We’re currently, once again, lying in hammocks, listening to music, wasting the night away. Not that I’m complaining. I could definitely get used to this.


DAY 5

Other than run a few errands in the morning, we literally did nothing. But it was still fantastic!


DAY 6

We woke up to a bit of a loud bang on the roof. I sent Darren out to inspect and when he opened the door there was nothing there. After a moment, one of the peanut bags slowly fell from above him, and sure enough, there was a whole family of monkeys about, who had apparently been raiding through our garbage.

It turned out to be a beautiful day. The crazy winds from the day before had blown away all the clouds and we were left with beautiful blue skies and calm waters. Finally, we could go snorkelling. We didn’t plan anything too exciting, like one of the trips out to special spots, we just went snorkelling off shore. There wasn’t quite as much to see as on the reefs of Amed, but we were still able to catch glimpses of rainbow coloured fish and other strange sea life.

Afterwards, while we were doing what we do best—sitting on the beach and reading—the monkeys came back! They were in the tree right next to our place. I grabbed a bag of peanuts and managed to tempt the thing out of the tree and onto the walkway. He was pretty cautious, and pretty crafty. I was actually amazed at how many peanuts it could shove in its mouth. It run around, shove them all in and then run back to a safe distance to eat them. If ever he got too close, the older looking monkey in the tree, would send out a little noise—as if a warning call—and the little guy would jump back as if checking himself. It may sound childish but we both found extremely amusing.

The rest of the day was spent doing the usual; we spent the evening watching a pretty intense lightning storm over the ocean; and, the next day, we were off.