This really is remote! Pulau Tioman is a reasonably sized island 2 hours by ferry off the East coast of Malaysia. And there’s really not much here apart from a jungle mountain, pristine beaches, coral reefs, and a few huts! All of which are very beautiful of course. To give you an impression - we are staying in one of the most developed regions of the island, Air Batang, but this village consists of a sparse row of huts and small houses on the line between the edge of the beach and the start of the jungle. It’s beautiful, and to our eyes almost untouched by humans, but still, this is meant to be one of the most built-up parts of the island! The main road here is actually a concrete footpath that motorcycles can navigate up and down – there simply aren’t any cars.
Which leads to pretty impressive local wildlife. When we left our room the morning after arriving, the first thing we saw was a group of monkeys playing only 10m away. They didn’t like us and backed away a little (to say 20m), and then continued playing as if we weren’t there! The same morning we encountered our first significant reptile – a monitor lizard over a meter long. It looked just like one of the cast of dinosaurs in a 1970’s B movie! They can actually get to the size of alligators apparently – the largest one we’ve seen was a 2m monster. And we’ve walked under trees filled with sleeping fruit bats, seen wild goats, avoided inch-long ants and chased weird unidentifiable mammals – humans are definitely outnumbered here…
We’ve also seen a bit of the marine life. We wanted to continue diving, so we spent 2 days doing the PADI Advanced Open Water Course, which involves some underwater navigation, a deep dive (to about 30m), and three other dives of your choosing. We opted for a wreck dive, fish identification, and a night dive. And on these we saw lots of lovely fish, coral and urchins as usual, but also a few turtles! Best of all, we came across a huge, almost spherical jelly fish (over a meter diameter) which had a school of small fish constantly living in it and swimming around it. The whole effect was spectacular and very beautiful. But oddly enough I think we saw our most impressive marine animals off the jetty while waiting for a ferry – four turtles surfaced to take gulps of air, while little squid chased each other and tropical fish before hiding under the pier. But all these were swiftly outdone by a large octopus which came along and settled on a rock for a while, before scooting off head first, tentacles following!
Continuing with the activities, Gary had his first chance of the holiday to play a round of golf. He was a little bit out of practice at first, but he soon got back into it. I was designated ‘caddy’ – which involved driving the silly golf buggy around and agreeing enthusiastically with his choice of club from time to time. A taxing job! We actually spent a lot of the time watching monitor lizards basking in the sun and families of monkeys playing on the golf course. It was a really pretty place: beautifully manicured, and situated on the coast, just by the beach but ascending up rapidly to the rainforest levels. Our favourite bit was the 7th hole as you actually had to hit the ball across a small bay from the tee to get to the green. Gary cleared the sea successfully, but got trapped in the largest bunker we’d ever seen – the beach!
Anyway, our next stop will be Singapore (apart from a night’s stopover in the fishing town of Mersing on the way back from Pulau Tioman), which should offer a good contrast to this coral-jungle island.
Which leads to pretty impressive local wildlife. When we left our room the morning after arriving, the first thing we saw was a group of monkeys playing only 10m away. They didn’t like us and backed away a little (to say 20m), and then continued playing as if we weren’t there! The same morning we encountered our first significant reptile – a monitor lizard over a meter long. It looked just like one of the cast of dinosaurs in a 1970’s B movie! They can actually get to the size of alligators apparently – the largest one we’ve seen was a 2m monster. And we’ve walked under trees filled with sleeping fruit bats, seen wild goats, avoided inch-long ants and chased weird unidentifiable mammals – humans are definitely outnumbered here…
We’ve also seen a bit of the marine life. We wanted to continue diving, so we spent 2 days doing the PADI Advanced Open Water Course, which involves some underwater navigation, a deep dive (to about 30m), and three other dives of your choosing. We opted for a wreck dive, fish identification, and a night dive. And on these we saw lots of lovely fish, coral and urchins as usual, but also a few turtles! Best of all, we came across a huge, almost spherical jelly fish (over a meter diameter) which had a school of small fish constantly living in it and swimming around it. The whole effect was spectacular and very beautiful. But oddly enough I think we saw our most impressive marine animals off the jetty while waiting for a ferry – four turtles surfaced to take gulps of air, while little squid chased each other and tropical fish before hiding under the pier. But all these were swiftly outdone by a large octopus which came along and settled on a rock for a while, before scooting off head first, tentacles following!
Continuing with the activities, Gary had his first chance of the holiday to play a round of golf. He was a little bit out of practice at first, but he soon got back into it. I was designated ‘caddy’ – which involved driving the silly golf buggy around and agreeing enthusiastically with his choice of club from time to time. A taxing job! We actually spent a lot of the time watching monitor lizards basking in the sun and families of monkeys playing on the golf course. It was a really pretty place: beautifully manicured, and situated on the coast, just by the beach but ascending up rapidly to the rainforest levels. Our favourite bit was the 7th hole as you actually had to hit the ball across a small bay from the tee to get to the green. Gary cleared the sea successfully, but got trapped in the largest bunker we’d ever seen – the beach!
Anyway, our next stop will be Singapore (apart from a night’s stopover in the fishing town of Mersing on the way back from Pulau Tioman), which should offer a good contrast to this coral-jungle island.
No comments:
Post a Comment