What happened on the East Coast...

Tioman:

Lots of people either travel up from Singapore to Bangkok through Malaysia or down the other way as the bus network is pretty good in a sense of the bus depots being really central, near to places to stay, pretty much on time and the locals use them.  We started in Malaysia heading for the east coast.  Now some real travelling begins, no car hires here.  Lots of buses and carrying bags! 

So after catching a bus from Singapore we got into Johor Bahru in plenty of time but found out all the early buses to Mersing were booked up, so we got on an afternoon bus.  This took 2.5hrs of mad bus driving through one hell of a storm of rain and lightning.  We thought we would have to spend the night in Mersing as we should have missed the last ferry.  But luckily they were running a later ferry as the tide was good.  So after an hour on a high speed ferry we got to the Island of Tioman and the bay we wanted to stay at, Panuba.  One minute you are in Singapore, next you are on a desert island off the east coast of Malaysia how cool is that!

The island is a lovely place.  You can choose from any number of bays to stay at with plenty of types of accommodation available.  We spent a couple of days snorkelling around in beautiful warm seas and getting some sun on the skin even though it was still a bit tender from the sun we caught while having a quick swim at the local outdoor pool in Singapore!  One night when coming down for some dinner we saw some people gathered around a man who had hold of a baby python he had seen around and picked up.  Luckily we didn’t see an angry mum python chasing after him!

After a couple of days we caught the ferry back to the mainland, Mersing and within an hour of being back on land we where on a bus heading for Kuala Lumpur…

Perhentian Island:

There are two islands to choose from.  Funnily enough one called small isle and the other big isle.  I remembered when I was here before seeing the taxi boat picking people up from a beautiful bay on the big island before heading back to the mainland.  I thought then that if I should ever come back that’s the place I would love to stay.  So after many chats to people at the Cameron Highlands who had just come from the isle and what the guide book was saying, we could only assume it was Coral View.

We knew it would be a bit more expensive here compared to the rest but worth it as not just a remote bay but a corner of the big isle that had two stretches of white sand beaches, rocks, coral for snorkelling and different types of accommodation to choose from.  We got a great cabin house this time with a short walk through the trees to another beach that sure was paradise.  White sands, warm clear blue seas, barely any coral to walk on either and hardly a sole about, paradise…

That first night we had one hell of a storm that started just luckily after we got on the island from the open topped taxi boat.  Monsoon season is not due until November, but this was a taste of what it would be like on a constant basis.  After some dinner we managed to get back to our cabin before the rain got even heavier…  Feeling trapped by the rain we tried out one of the dodgy DVD’s on the laptop we had bought from Kuala Lumpur.  The rain was so loud we had to where our headphones as we couldn’t here it with the volume turned right up!

Next day like after most storms it was damn hot, so a good day for sunbathing and floating around in the sea as hot as a bath looking at the fishes…

After a few days here frying in the sun, snorkelling, relaxing and watching DVD’s we caught a midday boat back to the island and took a very hot and sweaty taxi ride in a car that was falling apart and the best of a bad bunch as well for what seemed ages to Kota Bahru for the night. 

Kota Bahru is the city for that province and really a bit of a dirty hole as cities go.  It’s very Islamic with lots of people staring at us, not in a threatening way just that we are westerners and all the women wear headscarves.  After a night here we got the early bus across the country to the West Coast, Butterworth Penang.