I was in Singapore for a few days before getting on a boat for Australia.

The journey to Singapore went well. It involved several modes of transport and a bit of improvisation.

I didn’t know exactly how the journey was going to go before setting off, just that I had to get up early and that there was a good train that I could be on and one or two other less good ones.

I got up early in Melaka and went and got something to eat. Nothing was open at this time, other than a wife-and-husband porridge restaurant, so I waited 10 minutes in there (until the porridge had finished cooking) until that was ready. On returning to the hostel, I found that Stanley, the hostel owner, was around. He gave me some ideas on getting to Singapore and gave me a lift to the closest bus stop. Here I bumped into two people who were on the same public bus in the other direction, about 2 days earlier.

In the bus terminal, I walked around until I found the bus that I needed. People were saying that in order to get to Gemas, the station I had got off at on the Jungle Line, I needed to change in Tampin. This had its own train station anyway, so as soon as I saw it on the bus I hopped-off. I had a roughly 30-minute wait in Tampin, when I called the hostel in Singapore and reserved a bed for 3 nights, at roughly 60% of the advertised price.

On the train I was torn between getting something to eat from the restaurant car (a counter at the back of my carriage) and waiting until I got to Singapore. I hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast, but the choices looked uninspiring, so I decided to wait. After a while though, I couldn’t wait any longer and went back, determined to buy something. The woman had packed-up, as she was getting off at the next stop, but gave me a piece of banana cake from her handbag, that she was saving for herself, for free. I ate this gladly and this kept me going until I got to Singapore.

At the second to last station I got my passport checked by Malaysian officials and then at the final station, Woodlands, I got checked-in to Singapore. Once in Singapore, I had to find an ATM machine to get Singapore dollars, find something to eat and then get a bus to the nearest MRT station. Once here I got the metro to where I was staying.

The time spent in Singapore was as follows:

Day 1 – looking for somewhere to stay (the hostel was full for the second night)
Day 2 – looking for a rain coat
Day 3 – looking for a rain coat, seeing Wahida (who I had met in Chengdu)
Day 4 – preparing for the voyage, going round the botanical gardens.

I had to board the container ship at 21:00, so getting there after the botanical gardens was a bit of a rush.

Melaka was a recommendation from someone on Tioman. I stayed here for a few nights before heading to Singapore.

I got up very early on my last day on Tioman Island and made it to the jetty for the first ferry back to Mersing. The person who stamped the tickets hadn’t turned up yet and customs was closed, the the bloke selling tickets just told me to wait. The boat arrived slightly later than planned but took us all back to Mersing.

In Mersing I went and got some more roti and made my way to the bus station. Here I waited for a few hours for a bus to Melaka, which took a few hours itself. The journey wasn’t very interesting and I surprised someone at one of the stops by getting off and buying a load of deep-fried tofu and what looked like fish-fingers on sticks.

In Melaka I got dropped at the bus station and asked a woman behind an un-marked desk how I got to Chinatown. She told me what bus to get on and I went and found it, bumping in to two people who had got the same ferry as me from Tioman.

I got off in Chinatown (when the bus driver instructed me) and asked some taxi drivers where to look for hotels and guest houses. They were surprisingly helpful and pointed me in the direction of the streets where most of the accomodation was in Chinatown. I ended up wandering around here for a few hours, until I found somewhere which was incredibly cheap, clean and convenient.

The next two days were spent exploring Melaka, either looking round the independence museum or the city itself. I managed to find at least one abandoned building to look around, plus a security guard showed me around one of the schools I had been peering into from the outside. With Dutch, Portugese and British colonial rule present in Melaka at some point over its varied history, there were architectural influences from all of these countries in many of the buildings. Apart from this though, unless you stuck to the back-alleys of Chinatown, it was a bit touristy.

I spoke to Stanley, the hostel owner, the morning I was leaving for Singapore. He gave me some ideas on how to get there along with a lift to the closest bus stop.

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.

Here I stopped for 1 night on the journey to Tioman Island.

To get here, I had to get a train to Su-ngai Kolok, on the Thai-Malaysian border and then a bus to Pasir Mas. I didn’t realise how little there was in Pasir Mas, so I picked-up a train timetable and got on another bus to Kota Bharu.

The journey to Kota Bharu was a long one. I got up early and got a train from Hat Yai, which was late. On arrival in Su-ngai Kolok, I started walking in the direction of what I thought was the border. After being pointed in the right direction by a taxi driver and a policeman on his phone, I decided to sit down, as it was very hot. Here I asked a shopkeeper where the border was and he pointed me back the way I had come and to the right for 2 Km. This matched up with what the taxi driver had said and I don’t think the policeman knew what I was asking for, so I walked back to the main raod and got a taxi to the border. Here I was stamped-out and walked the 500 m to the Malaysian border.

Once I had been stamped-in to Malaysia, I walked down a covered gangway to what looked like a bus station. A taxi driver hoping to give me a lift helped me by providing information on how to get to Pasir Mas, which I ended up doing by bus. The public buses seemed to stop outside th bus station, but as there was no sign and I didn’t know whether it was OK to flag-down buses in Malaysia, I walked to where I thought the buses were coming from, which was closer to the border.

I sat down in the checkpoint building that allowed buses and vehicles to cross the border into Thailand or continue in Malaysia. Here, someone recommended that I go and stand by the nearest car, where the bus was more likely to stop. Someone else sugested that I walk to the bus station, which was very close and the first person agreed with him. I walked to the bus station and found the buses, but there was a problem with paying for them. I only had Thai Baht and they would only accept Malaysian Ringit, so after unsuccessfully trying 3 cash machines, I found a money changer in what looked like a newsagent who changed a load of Thai Baht for me.

Once in Pasir Mas, I asked a load of kids in the bus station where the train station was. It was 100 m away (more like 150 – 200 m) and after getting a timetable and speaking to a few people, I decided that I had to get the last bus to Kota Bharu. This was the main city in the area and was far more likely to have somewhere to stay, according to the guy who served me in the restaurant.

In Kota Bharu I walked around until I found a hotel. Even basic rooms were expensive, so I settled for one and found something to eat. It was a Muslim restaurant so they didn’t have any beer, so I had to make do with some kind of sweet drink that I hadn’t tasted before.