Pulau Tioman (9 - 12 Jun 2009)

I was invited by my sister to go Pulau Tioman this school holidays. There were 10 of us going on this trip and so we went with 2 cars. I was the leader as I have the GPS with me. Using the malfreemap that I downloaded, the GPS brought us to Mersing Jetty without any major hitches except for a few confusing routes. There was one place which is supposed to turn left, but the GPS shows us to go straight. Fortunately, there's a signboard to guide us. On the way to Mersing Jetty, I am puzzled why the GPS ask us to exit to Yong Peng instead of Air Hitam which is a shorter route as well as a faster route. Anyway, on the way back, its shows us to exit at Air Hitam and coming back was a breeze with the GPS. We stayed at Salang Pusaka and the packaged of 3 days 2 nights include 5 meals (2 breakfast, 1 lunch and 2 dinner) as well as a 4 hours trip out to the surrounding island for snorkelling. We were serve breakfast late and with a full stomach, after snorkelling for half an hour and bobbing in sea, my stomach was not feeling good and I think I developed motion sickness, but after vomitting out a the whole lot of food, I was OK and started to enjoy my snorkelling near Tulai Island. There is no beach here and the sea is deep but there are plenty of corals and fish. If you want to get a close up of fish, get some stale bread, hold it with your fingers and all the fish will come, even those deep at the bottom will surface for a bite of the bread. But a bit caution, be careful when the bread has become too small or they will bite your fingers. I got bitten twice, but don't worry, nothing happened, surprisingly.

Waiting at Mersing Jetty for the ferry to take us across to Pulau Tioman. The journey to our destination at Kampong Salang took about 2 and a half hours

Catching the sunset at Salang Beach. There are lots of corals and many types of fish here, but unfortunately there are also lots of dead corals wash up at the beach. The locals told us that its because of the construction of the new hotel. The water is really crystal clear and we could see the corals and fish even standing on the jetty

My sister, nephew and nieces. Regretted that I didn't join my nephew and nieces to go snorkelling at Salang beach. And also not going scuba diving which is very cheap which cost RM85 if less than 4 person and RM80 if more than 4 for 2 hours i.e. 1 hour learning the techniques and breathing and around 45 mins diving to a maximum of 12 meters. Since we don't have licence, the instructor will only bring us for beach dive. Hope to do it next time.