Time Out on Tioman Island
We caught a bus from Singapore to Mersing. We went executive class which means the bus seats were (meant to be) like business class on a plane but old age meant that they wouldn't pass any airline inspection. Didn't really matter as the bus was air conditioned.
Because we were leaving Singapore we had to get off the bus at the Singapore end of the bridge and get our passports stamped. Then it was back onto the bus, cross the Straits of Johor and back off the bus, this time with all our bags, and pass through customs into Malaysia. The bus then stopped in Johor Bahru (Larkin Bus Terminal) to pick up more passengers. This meant that the bus went from 7 passengers to capacity at 28 passengers.
We were actually arriving in Mersing a day before we were booked into the Panuba Inn Resort. We had sent an email to the Panuba Inn asking that if we could get a ferry to Tioman on the day we arrived in Mersing could we get there a day early - unfortunately we hadn't heard back. Because the bus pulls up right outside the ticket office for the ferry to Tioman Island we got ushered into their office where they told us Panuba Inn had told them that we could get our room a day early - no having to hang around in Mersing!
It is a two hour trip on the ferry to Tioman Island with the ferry stopping at a few places before arriving at Panuba Inn. It would appear that there are numerous ferry services a day but the schedule is tide dependant. Anyway, our room is right at the end of the jetty so we can watch the arrivals and departures from our balcony. (Hover mouse over pictures for more information.)
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The Panuba Inn Resort is on its own small beach and the accommodation is built virtually above the shoreline onto the hill.
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As this is our designated "do nothing" time while on this holiday we have done exactly that. Sitting on the balcony enjoying the view, getting something to eat in the restaurant, sitting on the beach enjoying the water when hot, a beer in the room to help cool down, dinner and, much to Sylvia's delight a lizard in our room! (under the pillow on the second bed, fortunately not ours or I could have squashed it).
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We haven't been completely slack though. The other day we walked to Tekek to buy beer!
This involved a steep climb over a headland (reminiscent of Railay to Tonsai but without the low-tide option) to get us to Air Batang (abbreviated to ABC). This is the next beach along and isn't anywhere near as clean as Panuba and the accommodation didn't look anything special. From ABC there is a paved path to Tekek.
This is the main town on Tioman and has had some serious money spent on it. The first place you get to when you come into Tekek is the Marine Centre, could be that they manage the marine park in the bay out front. We aren't too sure what purpose it serves but it appears to have accommodation and classrooms. The next stretch has a walkway built along the sea front that goes for a couple of hundred metres. There appears to be no reason why it is there - it does appear to have supplanted what there might have been of any beach. There also appears to be accommodation places that have closed - I guess because they no longer have a beach.
Then you come to an enormous marina that can hold around 40 boats, yachts and assorted floaty things. (Apparently this was quite a contentious development.) There is an airport here too but best of all - Tioman is a duty free island and there is a duty free shop here! We bought a slab of Chang for 45RM ($15) and caught a water taxi back - bit too hot and sweaty to carry a slab back the 4kms.
Much to Sylvia's surprise she has discovered that she can snorkel. [The last time I tried on Belize with Frank and Matt I inhaled rather a lot of water which rather put me off - Sylvia]. Tioman has many dive sites that are coral reefs. In fact, there is coral just off the beach that we explored together. Unfortunately a lot of the coral has been "eaten" by Crown of Thorns so it is rather patchy but there are a lot of fish to spot.
With Sylvia's new found snorkelling ability we decided to walk to Monkey Bay and snorkel there. This involved a much more strenuous hike through the jungle on a path that (pretty much) follows the power line that goes through to Salang. It was only 2.5kms to Monkey Bay but by the time we got there after an hour in the jungle we were drenched in sweat, but we were the only people there!
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It was straight into the water to explore. Again, Crown of Thorns has attacked the coral but there were significantly more fish there - both in numbers and species. It would appear that they are fed there as well because a lot of them followed us (and in particular Sylvia) around. Some of them even went up to her face mask as if to say "where's our food".
The most special thing we found was a turtle. We followed it around for a while until it was in quite deep water and appeared to just stop. That, and the sensation of snorkelling in what felt like a gigantic tropical fish tank full of so very many different and colourful fish, made Sylvia realise that snorkelling was pretty cool!
Tioman is also a scuba diving destination and there is a reputable dive school at Panuba. I fully intended doing a course but have discovered, while snorkelling, that if I go down any lower than about 2 metres I get a severe pain behind my eye. (I have had it happen on a plane as we descend as well.) I assume it is some sort of sinus condition so I decided to heed my own advice, "if it hurts don't do it", and not go diving.
For our last day we took advantage of Sylvia's newly discovered snorkelling "mojo" and took a boat trip to Coral Island. We went to three sites there. The best find of the first site were the colourful "Nemo" fish hiding amongst purple sea anenomes. The second site had sharks (black-tipped reef sharks I think). Our boatman said we should see some but we came in after spotting about 10 of them in 10 minutes. He also confirmed that they were "vegetarian sharks". The third site was quite a deep reef that had a lot of fish and different coral.
He took us to Salang back on Tioman for lunch. It gave us a chance to look at another major town on the island and we have come to the conclusion that Sylvia's choice of Panuba Bay was the best of the lot, although younger people might prefer Salang as it has a bit of a night life scene. (There are a couple of other places that don't even have a ferry service so we aren't sure of how they look.)
The boatman then took us back to Monkey Bay (where we walked to yesterday). He moored in exactly the spot Sylvia and I were snorkelling in when we saw the turtle - needless to say he was somewhere else doing whatever turtles do. I quizzed him about the coral and he confirmed that it was dead. He says that it is a combination of the Crown of Thorns and global warming. He also said that as recently as last July the coral was still alive - "but it growing again" he said with a grin.
I think just to prove that there still was healthy coral he took us to an unscheduled stop at Monkey Beach - the inlet between Monkey Bay and Panuba. The coral there comes in many different shapes and sizes and colours and appears quite healthy. There are Crown of Thorns but the water felt colder so I guess the coral bleaching hasn't affected it - yet.
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