I stayed on Tioman for about 5 or 6 days. Most of the time was spent diving, hiking, or doing nothing.

The journey to Tioman was long and complicated, with several stops involved. I ended up traversing almost all of Malaysia to get there!

The first stop, or the starting point, was Kota Bharu. This had its own train station on the ‘Jungle Line’, Wakaf Bharu, several kilometers out of town. I got up early on my first full day in Malaysia and got a taxi there.

Once in Wakaf Bharu, I realised that there was nowhere local to eat, so ended up having some kind of coconut pancakes in the station cafe. The train arrived and I boarded it, eager to see the Jungle Railway. This excitement didn’t last for long however, as most of the train line was surrounded by palm oil plantations. I think they should rename the Jungle Line the plantation line, as some of it was good, but most of it was plantation, which was very boring. At some points, all you could see in any direction was plantation. On the plus side though, before the journey I could only recognise coconut and banana palm trees, so this added another palm tree to my repertoire.

I decided to break the journey in Kuala Lipis, as I had been looking forward to travelling on the Jungle Line and didn’t want to gulp it all down in one greedy sitting. This was a good choice, as Kuala Lipis was a very replaxing place to stop.

After spending a night in Kuala Lipis, I got back on the train the next morning, to finish the Jungle Line and end up in Gemas. Here I got off the train, into a station that was still being built and worked my way round to the old train station, that had some ticketing staff in it. They advised me to get a bus from the bus station. I walked aroundthe corner, trying to find the bus station, but could only find a small shopping centre, which had looked like some utilitarian building from the outside. Here, some woman who was only interested in selling me a ticket, gave me some advice which was to buy a ticket from their ridiculous office and go and wait outside 7-Eleven. Unhappy with this advice, I went and asked someone in a petrol station what the best way to get to Mersing was. They said go to the big bus station, which was just around the corner, which I did. Here, under the bus shelter, was a public bus to Segamat. The bus left in about 10 minutes, but the restaurant that I was eating in had the bus driver in it too, so I didn’t have to worry too much about it leaving without me.

Once in Segamat, the bus driver pointed me in the direction of a ticket office that would have a bus to Mersing. They didn’t have a bus to Mersing, unfortunately, but they did have one to Johor Bahru, where I could change for Mersing. Not knowing where Johor Bahru was, I happily got on this bus and waited until we arrived. It turns out that it’s the closest city to Singapore, so to get to Tioman on the east, I had to go south, all the way to the bottom of Malaysia, and then back up again, towards the east. This took a few hours and with only palm oil plantations to look at, it was a bit uninspiring.

I got to Mersing in the evening, having spent most of the day travelling. I looked at two hotels and in order to save money, went for the cheapest one. The next day I got up early for the boat to Tioman, which I thought left at 10:00. I was cutting it fine anyway, but when I eventually found the jetty, I found that the boat was leaving at 09:45 and this would have meant some serious rushing to get there in time. I decided to wait and opted to take the later ferry at 17:00.

During the day I checked emails and ate roti, my first expereince of Malaysian/Indian cuisine. Getting to the ferry one hour early this time, I got to people-watch in the ferry terminal. Once on Tioman, I followed my friend’s instructions and got a motorbike to the chalets where I would be staying.

I met Neil, my friend from a trip to Fiji in 2008, in the dive shop where he was working. He was going out on a night dive, a dive that I could have gone on had I not missed he first ferry, so I sat with everyone else on the veranda of the dive shop whilst we waited for them to come out. The next few days were spent diving, hiking through the (partial) jungle to Juara or just doing jobs and relaxing. As I had spent most of the preceding week trying to get there in time, this was much needed.