Singapore and Tioman - Disaster Strikes in Paradise

We traveled down to Singapore for a few days, which we adored. It is a cool place to be in. The views are stunning, the air feels fresher and cleaner, and people here were really friendly. On a train looking for somewhere to stay, an Iranian guy started chatting to us, and rang his wife to ask if we could stay with them and their family for a few days if we couldn’t find anywhere else. He was so sweet and chatty, but as we had just arrived in Singapore, and didn’t want to be naïve, we headed to Aljunied to a hostel. This was where I had my first experience of the giant cockroaches of Asia. I was on the toilet in the shared bathroom, when one ran under the door and started some sort of ceremonial war dance aimed at me. Panicked, I shrieked a lot, and threw toilet paper at the vulgar creature, which antagonized him further. Realising that nobody was coming to my rescue, I built a toilet paper wall between us, then did a giant leap over its head, and ran out the door, still shrieking as I was convinced it had jumped up my skirt as I leaped over it. Vile! Needless to say, I spent the next thirty minutes on the internet researching them, whether they could bite, and how I would know if they were coming for me. I found out, Southeast Asia is one of the only place where (giant) cockroaches are actually attracted to the light. This freaked me out greatly. As cool as Singapore was, we were desperate at this time to get to a beach, and just chill out in the sun for a while. We’d spent over a month going from city to city since Interraling in Europe, and were massively excited for tropical paradise. After hours and hours trailing around the bus companies, we finally found a bus which went to Tioman Island on the East coast. At 5am the following morning, we were leaving Singapore, and embarking on the long journey north. It was on this journey we met ‘Backpacking Dave,’ who became a great friend of ours, and who we bumped into everywhere in Asia. We met him whilst we were waiting for the ferry, when the three of us had trouble finding an ATM machine (Dave’s card was actually swallowed by one, leaving him a bit stuck at the time). 

Beautiful Tioman

We got off the two hour ferry at Air Batang, or ABC for short, and my jaw literally dropped to the ground. Never before had I seen such a beautiful place. It literally was a tropical paradise. The three of us quickly found some cheap wooden bungalows to stay in on the beach, dropped off our stuff, and dove into the tranquil turquoise waters. It was bliss! We spent a few hours floating about in the sea, lounging on the hot pale sand, and chatting, before deciding we were famished, and searching for food. To our dismay, the majority of the island closes between 2pm and 4pm, so it’s impossible to get food! We were starving! So we decided to get some beers in while we waited for the kitchens to open. Interestingly, most of the food here was western food; burgers, pizzas and sandwiches… and it wasn’t all that good. 

 Snorkeling on Tioman was amazing, it has such beautiful marine life. We spent about three hours bobbing about in the tropical waters, playing with fish, examining the coral, and personally, not realising I had no suncream on my bum, and burning horrifically. That evening, we had an early night, in readiness for another day of idle sun-worshipping. The following evening, we stayed up late drinking Tiger beer, and playing card games with some guys we met, and decided that we would do the 14km mountainous jungle trek the next day, to the opposite side of the island. Supposedly, there was an even better beach other there, and it was an amazing surf spot. Later that night, after several games of ring of fire and numerous Tiger beers, we went to bed, to wake up bright and early the next morning for our little ‘jaunt’ up a mountain rainforest. Well stocked with water, mozzie repellent, plasters for our blistered feet, snacks and sun-cream, we began our ascent. Feeling energetic and full of life (maybe still a bit drunk from the night before), I raced ahead of Josh and Dave, keen to stretch my legs and encounter some wildlife. Within about two minutes I had to sit down to put plasters on my bleeding ankles, pull my socks up after developing a sudden phobia of leeches, and down most of our water supply. Ten minutes later, I was sweating profusely and cursing the heat. Twenty minutes later, I was sprawled out on my back, gasping for air, threatening to turn back, and covered in mosquito bites – the repellent couldn’t handle the continuous rivers of sweat washing it away. We eventually came to a little stream, where we all dove in, submerged ourselves into the luke-warm water, thankful for a reprieve from the unforgiving heat, and wondering if it was safe to drink the water as we had finished our supplies quickly – clearly we were not prepared enough for a 14km trek. In fact, who am I kidding – why on earth did I agree to such a nonsense idea? I could have been tanning on the beach, sipping a cocktail and watching the sunset, or something equally idyllic, never mind sweating my ass off clambering around in a rainforest, up a bloody mountain. I must have had sunstroke or alcohol related confusion when I agreed to this. After leaving the stream, we spotted a sign saying “Do NOT enter water, it supplies local drinking water and must not be contaminated.” Erm, again I blame heatstroke for this confusion….

Sweating my way up the mountain

 So about fifteen minutes passed, when the air became cooler, and the skies darkened. Initially I decided it was due to us being near the summit of the mountain, but then I felt a tiny drop of rain. “Guys, I think it’s starting to rain,” I suggested, quite thankful for the coolness of the water on my skin. However, within precisely 12 seconds, a monsoon has began. Oh. My. God. I had never seen so much rain appear so rapidly before in my life. Within a minute, it was ankle-deep, another minute and we were no longer on a safe path, but wading through a rapid running stream. Dave, who had a rather expensive camera in his bag, panicked and wrapped it up with plastic bags and jumpers. Now, up until this time, I had taken my important personal possessions with me everywhere. My insurance was invalid if something got lost or stolen whilst not in my possession, and the hut we were staying in could be broken into by simply breaking through the thin wooden walls. So I had my camera and our passports in my rucksack. Luckily, the passports were in a water proof wallet, in a waterproof money-belt, and my camera was wrapped up in a plastic bag. So we thought we were safe. As we were at the summit already, we decided to carry on down the mountain; we were halfway there, we might as well carry on. Now, if I’d thought going up was hard work, going down was nearly impossible. We were literally paddling down, trying damn hard not to get knocked down and washed away, I was even more terrified at the prospect of leeches, and snakes, and anything else that came out in the rain. It was slippery, the newly formed streams hid sharp rocks and jagged edges, along with vines that could get your feet wrapped up and pull you over in an instant. It was horrific. About 40 minutes passed before we found a road, and I have never been happier to see tarmac in my life. Along the road we saw at least 3 dead snakes, all different colours, that had drowned. Also, it was impossibly slippery, and crazily vertical. We pretty much slid all the way down, falling over every few metres, cursing the rain, and laughing at the sight of ourselves. After what seemed like an eternity, we reached Juara, the village on the eastern side of the island. 

Drying off our money

The first thing we did was find a café and order hot tea – despite the humid weather, we were chilled to the core. Typically, the monsoon was over, the skies were blue, and the sun was shining. Then we assessed the water damage. Our money was drenched, so we set it out on the table to dry, pinned down by salt and pepper pots, and various pieces of cutlery, much to the delight of the staff who seemed to have never seen so much money in their lives. Thankfully, Dave’s camera, and our own, were fine. However, the passports were wet too. Josh’s photo was a little smudged, and a few of my visa stamps were smudged, so we laid them out in the sun too, along with most of the clothes we were wearing. We headed into the sea – we were already soaked, so there was no reason not to. The sea was flat, not the surfing haven we had imagined…. Not that I can surf or anything. We decided it would be ridiculous to walk back over the mountain, so paid a local guy to drive us back in his Jeep. That night, I slept better than I ever have.

Dave and Josh feeling like two drowned rats

Giant monitor lizard

 We moved on to another part of the island after, Salang, and I’m sure we were the only three people staying there. It was similar to ABC, but had more giant monitor lizards. Now, the first time I saw one of these lizards, I thought it was a Komodo dragon and freaked out. They are HUGE lizards that eat fruit, monkeys, kittens, probably small children if they could, and scare the hell out of me. The largest one we saw was getting on to two metres long, and they can move fast. I’m still a little convinced they are Komodo dragons, so didn’t get too close to them. In Salang, there was a river. Well, actually, it was a long body of stagnant dirty water where the locals put their rubbish, and the giant monitor lizards seemed to enjoy swimming in this, cunningly disguising themselves as crocodiles. Josh became fascinated with monkeys, and followed them around everywhere much to my dismay – I was convinced they had rabies and would attack him, resulting in his untimely death, and possibly infecting me (I imagined a sort of ’28 Days Later’ theme going on across the island). We probably stayed on Tioman Island for a few weeks, then finally decided to move on… back to Kuala Lumpur actually, to the British Embassy to see what they thought about Josh’s damaged passport. We said goodbye to Dave, who we had firmly adopted during our stay, not realizing we would see a lot more of him in the future, and got the bus back to good old KL.