A Long Trek to Paradise

Our bus ride to Mersing to was uneventful, but it was pleasant.  The bus driver didn't think he was drag racing and we were able to read our new books in relative peace.  I have become quite fond of our transit time.  We are somewhat insulated from the world as we cross it, only to emerge in our new destination feeling refreshed and ready for something new.  This bus was also on time unlike our previous one, which was a nice change.

Mersing was a bit of a shock after our time in Melaka.  It was small and grubby, with little to see besides traffic on both land and sea and uninspiring architecture.  We almost immediately wanted to return to Melaka.  Upon alighting from the bus we were told by the proprietor of the ferry company that the ferry to Tioman island had only a few more tickets left for today and none for tomorrow.  We told him that we weren't planning to go to Tioman until Saturday (it was Thursday when we arrived).  These plans, as it turned out, were not to be.  We walked from the bus station to a busy road that we had to dash across.  While we were waiting on the meridian a young boy about 12 dashed across the road through traffic, just before he got to the curb he was side swiped by a man driving a motor cycle, knocking the boy flat on his back.  The man stopped immediately and made to go help the boy, but before he could even get off his motorcycle the boy got up, dusted himself of and wandered away.  We and the man on motorcycle stared after him in shock.  As far as I could tell he looked barely winded as he walked away.  Tough kids around here.

We found the hostel of our choice, Omar's Backpackers, and our troubles began.

Omar was not in when we arrived, but a friendly note on the wall said to just grab a key and a room, and pay later.  Not long after we had done this three more people arrived: an English guy (John), who had come with a German who girl that he had met on the bus (and whose name I cannot remember, she did have a PHD in Microbiology though) and another German girl who had just returned from Tioman (this one was a Political Geographer, or something like that, she seemed very tough and self sufficient; we later learned that she had done some work in Northern Afghanistan).  To keep them distinct I will call them Micro and Geo (I need to write down people's name more often).  After we had all introduced each other we decided to go out for dinner after John and Micro finished freshening up.  As we were lazing about in our sparse room, Geo wandered by and asked if we had heard anything about bed bugs at this place (Omar's).  We hadn't, but this question did make us rather nervous.  Geo said it looked okay, but she had read something on the internet about it.  We spent some frantic moments looking around our room for places that bed bugs could be hiding, but after consulting THe Lonely Planet and finding they mostly hung out in the walls we gave up.  Geo apologized for scaring us and said she was sure it was fine.  We never really got the chance to find out though.

John and Micro finished their freshening up and we all went to an Indian place suggested by Geo who had stayed in Mersing before going to Tioman.  John also wanted to find a place to have a beer (he was English after all), and there was a Chinese place across the road that sold some Tiger beer which he expressed an interest in for later.  The food was pretty good and so was the conversation.  John and Geo were quite the travellers and they shared some tales with us of their adventures.  I don't really remember much of what they said though, largely it had to do with how to travel lightly.  John only had one small backpack with him.  Micro had been in Singapore for a conference and was taking a small vacation in Malaysia before returning to Germany and her husband and two boys.  She seemed to have not done too much in the way of traveling before.  Before we finished dinner, an older Malay husband and wife (from Melaka as it turned out) who had met Geo on the boat from Tioman sat down with us for a while.  They were very friendly and talked to Geo like they were old friends (not people who had recently met), though they talked to everyone.  The man was particularly playful and Geo kept asking his wife how she had put up with him for so.  She had a fond and patient smile for a response.

Towards the end of dinner Geo had the idea that we could take a trip to Endau Rompin National Park with Omar, which was something that me and Nancy were considering.  It was something that we could do from Mersing which could be arranged by Omar in fact.  Geo either wanted to do this or take the bus on to Cherating if not.  We decided to see what Omar had to say on the matter, after checking the bus times and the boat times (we thought we might head to Tioman island the next day after all if not).  After finding that the buses were mostly full for the next day (actually there was no direct bus to Cherating, but we will talk about that later, because that was our next destination after Tioman) and the boat was full except for a few seats in the very early morning and some on the boat leaving at midnight.  Geo called Omar from her phone and found out that he wanted 200 RM per person for a trip for a day to Endau.

We pondered whether we wanted to do this or not (and whether it was worth the price, after all Uncle Tan's was about double this for 3 days and 2 nights, while this was only a day trip) all the way back and still had not made a decision then.  We talked a bit longer and asked Omar some questions about what it entailed (well mostly Nancy did this; I am still terrible at asking questions).  We decided that we should go after all (I was a little frustrated by this point and ready to simply make the decision either way it looked to be going).  I wandered away to have a show just as an Italian man arrived.  While I was in the shower, Nancy struck up a conversation with the Italian and just as Omar was about to call the people for the trip the Italian mentioned that he had had a great time in Teman Negara, which was a much bigger and easier (cheaper) to get to park to the North.  Nancy stopped Omar from calling the people, Omar got cranky about this and went away to sulk in his room.  When I got back from the shower, I found that our plans had changed while I was showering, which made me a little cranky, but when I found out about Teman Negara, I was soothed.  

The Italian man, in the mean time was looking to find out what times were left for the boat and came back to tell us that there were some tickets left for 5 AM.  So we followed him to the dock to get the tickets.  When we got there, we found out that the tickets that were left were for a ferry that left from a dock 20 KM down the road at 5 AM, which was rather hard to get to from our location (and hailing a cab around 4 in the morning did not seem like a fun prospect.  The people at the ticket booth told us that the midnight ferry was a little delayed so we could catch that if we hurried.  We hurried.  We ran back, with our new Italian friend, to Omar's, grabbed our bags as fast as we could (in the confusion we forgot our Taiwan cellphone) and pelted back to the jetty, which was fortunately not that far away.  We bought our tickets and went through the check and proceeded to wait for 20 minutes for the ferry.  The boat that pulled into the jetty looked very small for a 2 hour boat ride in the dark and it made us nervous.  Fortunately it turned out to be only a ferry taking us out to the big boat that would take us the rest of the way.  The big boat was much more spacious and seemed to be largely full of Singaporeans (who had a long weekend starting the next day).  Why Singapore has Easter as a long weekend, I do not really know.

We found some seats and to put our bags on and let the Chinese lady in the same row sleep on them (in guardianship) while we sat outside at the back of the boat and watched the boat's wake make a big V in the ocean behind it.  Nancy took a nap on my shoulder and I read my book.  It was quite peaceful really.  The two hour boat ride by in what seemed like minutes and suddenly we had arrived.  We had wanted to go to a place that the ferry did not stop so we were told we would have to stay in Genting which was the closest stop on Tioman.  But as it turned out the ferry had skipped this stop and we ended up in Tekek, the main settlement on Tioman.  Out Italian friend was rather put out by this, as he specifically asked to be dropped there too.  As we were getting ready to alight from the ferry we were drawn into a conversation about having accommodations upon arrival.  A Belgian man who worked in Singapore was talking to a Singaporean couple about where to stay and they seemed shocked that he didn't already have a place to stay.  We volunteered that we had nowhere to stay either.  They said that there might be places with reception still open at 3 AM but it seemed doubtful.  Their accommodations (a resort called Purjaya, that largely catered to Singaporeans) was picking them up.  They said that maybe we could sleep on the hammocks on the Purjaya beach front (this included all of us even the Italian), they could probably sneak us on the van that took them to Purjaya.  We thought about it, but suddenly the lady (whose name might have been Irene) said that there was a place she knew in Tekek, that was run by a friend of her's called Cheers.  We could probably even get a deal if we mentioned Irene from Singapore.  We all decided to try there.

We got off the ferry and walked down the road towards Cheers as we did we saw some rather large shapes flying around above our heads.  Very large bats.  We hurried on to Cheers, but it was closed.  We knocked on several reception looking door, but to no avail.  The Singaporeans came by on their bus and asked the driver to stop.  They asked if we were okay and we said we were fine, we'd just sleep on the  beach.  They seemed a little skeptical of that but said ok and their bus drove on.  The Belgian laughed and said that he didn't that any Singaporean had slept on a beach before.

We wandered down to the beach and the Italian and the Belgian picked hammocks for themselves and we set up our tent for the night.  As we were doing so we noticed that thunderheads were on the horizon and lighting flashing across the sky.  We put on the weather dome.  After two uncomfortable hours of "sleep" climbed out of our tent, took it down and went to some other hammocks and tried to sleep on those for a bit.  Thunder and lightning were still grumbling at us out on the South China Sea.  We slept in out hammocks for maybe half an hour before climbing off them and making out way to the reception area at Cheers.  There was a sign that said not open until 9 AM, as it was 6:30 AM we wished desperately that this was not true.  The Italian and the Belgian wandered to the same spot a while later and shortly after, the sky opened up above and a hard shower began and lasted for the next hour.  We had gotten to shelter just in time it seemed.

As we waited the Italian took advantage of us all being there and went looking for a place to stay.  We talked to the Belgian guy for a bit.  He told us that he had been living in Singapore for about 2 months and was an international sales manager for Johnson and Johnson.  He liked Singapore and its people, but thought it was way too expensive, especially when the very cheap Malaysia was right next door.

The Italian returned and said he had booked himself into a chalet for 100 RM, which he did not like that much (especially the price), but he really needed to sleep, he was in his 40s I think.  We bid him farewell and the Belgian said that he was going to head to Air Bitang (or ABC as it is more commonly known), where his friends were supposed to meet him.  We decided to wait a bit longer, but after an hour and some talk to the people going by, we decided to walk to the other side of the island.  We had thought to do this the next day, but so many people seemed to think that it might be the only place that had any accommodations that we thought we better get there before they were full too.

So we started to walk.  There were two paths over to Juara, as the town on the other side of the mountain was know.  One was a road, the other a foot path, both involved climbing up a mountain and then down again and both were about 7 or 8 KM.  The foot path was farther away from Cheers so we decided on the road.  We were helped in this knowing that we could always break down and flag a passing 4 Wheel drive if became too weary.  The reason we did not take one directly is because The Lonely Planet said that it could cost up 90RM per person after bargaining.  We stopped at a Chinese Restaurant to use the bathroom.  There was some nice Buddhist music playing (I think it had something to do with Guan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, because I heard the name a lot) and it lifted our spirits before our long trek.

The mountain started immediately and we walked up, and up, and up.  The rain had stopped by the time we set out, but about halfway up the incline it was back, though not as strongly as before.  Still before long we were soaked.  This was fine though as it cooled us down.  We used our rain coats to keep the bags relatively dry.  The road twisted back and forth on itself as went further up and further up.  Each time we came to a curve we hoped that it was the last up slope.  When it finally came we got a nice view of a valley and then another large hill in front of us.  Wearily and grumpily we trudged on.  In the valley there was a lot of neat vegetation and big trees.  We even spent a little bit of time admiring them.  Then up the next hill.  It was the same thing, the road twisting back and forth.  By this time we began seeing 4 wheel drives going by with obvious tourist in them, many of whom waved cheerfully.  This worried us, but we could not quicken our pace so we simply kept on.  We came to the crest on the next hill and it seemed like we should almost be there.  There was a valley and we could see the Ocean beyond.  With somewhat renewed vigour we carried on.  20 minutes later we still had not arrived and were starting to wonder just how long the road actually was.  The next corner we kept thinking and when we turned that corner there always seemed to be more to it.  It was actually quite like A Walk in the Woods, the book I was reading at the time.  Like Bill and Katz, we kept thinking we were almost there and were always disappointed.

A big tree along the road. 

Nancy making sure our bags did not get wet. 

Not Juara yet, but it was a pretty view.

A sign of civilization!

We did finally make it.  We came around a bend on flat ground and saw signs of civilization.  We came around another one and saw a T section beyond which, thorough the guest houses and shops, we saw the beach.  It looked like paradise.  We were greeted by a friendly guesthouse proprietor who told us that, "yes he had rooms left" which took a huge weight off of our minds as we had been up to that point uncertain as to weather there was actual room anywhere.  His guesthouse was 80 per chalet  which we told him was a bit beyond our budget.  He looked us up and down and asked us if we had walked.  We told him we had, he seemed impressed.  He told us there was a place not far called Paradise Point that had chalets for 40 RM a night.  We thanked him profusely and made our way to Paradise Point.  There a small and thin Malay man met us and asked us if we wanted a room.  It was indeed 40 a night.  The view from Paradise Point really lent to the name: a white sand beach stretched away, just through the trees on either side and soft ocean waves washed lazily into the it in front.  We got our key dropped out bags inside the door, took a quick look around our new room (it was nice, good fan, good mosquito net, decent bathroom), fell on to the bed and went to sleep.  We weren't to enjoy our new paradise for the next few hours.

Paradise Point.

Our room.

At last we can rest.