After our KK trip, Rick and Myself basically felt that the 4 dives I got and the 2 dives we got, were basically not enough. Immediately we started looking for options for a cheap weekend dive trip away somewhere..but where???
A friend of mine had recently told me that he had opened up a dive operation on an island off the coast of peninsular Malaysia called Tioman, or Pulau Tioman in the local dialect, Pulau meaning Island. Unfortunately his newly opened dive shop was unable to accomodate us on such short notice, but he did help us find accomodation, more on that later.
Rick had a business trip to Singapore coming up, and one of the ways to get to Tioman, is via The Lion City. So we decided that we would go for a quick weekend to Tioman.
We decided to take the bus from Singapore Direct to the Port town of Mersing on the 16th of April, spending a night in the town of Mersing and then taking the first ferry out to Tioman the next morning. The bus fare is approx 25sing dollars I cant exactly recall the exact price as it was Rick who purchased the tickets. It departs at 10pm and supposedly arrives at Mersing in 2-3 hours. As we approached the Woodlands border crossing, we were caught in an traffic jam. The Jam lasted the better half of 45 minutes. The border crossing is also a bit of a hassle, having to take our luggage off the bus, up a series of escalators, through immigration and customs, then down back onto your bus. Thats the first half, The bus then proceeds across the causeway, also at a snails pace due to consruction going on at the time, then you reach the Malaysia Border. Pretty much repeat what you did on the Singapore side. We arrive in at the Johor Bus Terminal at around 11:45. The bus waits until about 12:15 before making a move again, its a single lane, long winding highway without street lights, compared to the Mainland China busses I have ridden on before, this was a cakewalk, but I still couldnt bring myself to sleep, Rick was out like a light.
We finally arrive outside of Mersing town, at around 2am. Everything is closed, we were pretty hungry, and tired, but decided to see if we could find the Pier before we crashed for the night, so we wouldnt miss the first ferry. We were pointed in the general direction, and we proceeded to walk. We went the wrong way…and pretty much had to double back for 20 minutes with our luggage to get to the ferry pier. I blame it on Rick. Anyhoo, after finding the pier we needed to find a place to sleep, we asked at a couple of joints, but some had no response and some only had fan rooms, we finally managed to check into the Mersing Inn for 90 ringit for the rest of the night for an A/C room.
The room was horrible, the A/C wasnt really cool enough and was way back in a corner, the room was so hot, that the A/C had trouble cooling it in the first place. it felt like a jailcell. I couldnt get much sleep, Rick was out like a light, he complained the next morning about the loudness of my watch, but im sure he snored, even though I use earplugs while sleeping. Waking up at 6am the next morning we proceeded down to the ferry pier we found the previous night.
Rick had made arrangements with a local operator for ferry tickets. So off we went to try to find the guy, the guy found US. Quickly shoved his business card into our hands and introduced himself as Nick(I think) and handed us our tickets while asking for money at the same time. He then led us to book our return tickets and pay and collect them. The guy was nice enough, he offered a taxi service on the way back so we said we’d think abotu it and call him on the way back if we needed a cab.
The ferry was cold, the A/C was a little too cold, The ferry was packed, so in went the ear plugs on went the eye mask and i tried to get some sleep, it was going to be at least 1.5 hours before we got to the island.
The island itself, Consists of many villages, The main village with the airport is called Tekek, and its our first port of call, It takes about 30 minutes between Tekek and Salang(where we were staying) by boat so the island it of a decent size. Other Villages you can stay at are ABC, Genting, and a couple of others. Salang and ABC are the more budget orientated options of the 4 and thats where we were booked. My friend also said thats probably the best place for First timers to get a general feel of the island as it has decent nightlife.
Because it was a weekend and being April which is considered Peak Diving Season in Malaysia, it was hard to get a dive booking. I always like to book ahead cos I would hate to get to a destination and finding all the dive shops are full up on divers. The other reason is that a lot of the smaller dive operators we found out on the island dont have Websites or up to date websites. I managed to book with the Operator named Eco-Divers at ABC village and they offered to pick us up from Salang for our dives.
We arrived..LATE..as we got ready to get out of the boat I looked out the window and saw the perfectly Tourqouise water. I turned to Rick and said ” Check out that water man, theres gotta be cement or something under that…paved” he took a look and nodded in agreement. We found out later that it was sand and the colour was natural, from that moment on, I fell in love with Tioman.
Zombie Divers 