Flying Hot Air Balloons: Malaysia... Tioman: Day 1

Day 1

For the last three days, Saturday to Monday, I've been in Tioman. An island just outside of Malaysia. Woke up at 4am to catch a cab to Pungol with my Aunt, her name is Alice btw, to meet Uncle Thomas and Aunty Yolanda. They are my Aunt's friends. :) Left the house at 5am to drive all the way to Mersing to take the boat to Tioman. I almost brought everything except my passport! :O It was a 3hour drive there. Stopped on the way to go to the toilet and steal some chili padi! HAHAHA. The whole sky was pitch dark, no street lamps in the country side, but the sky was filled with thousands of stars! LOVELY.

Reached the Jetty at about 8am, ate some roti prata, before going onto the boat at 9am. An hours ride to Tioman. THE WATER IS FREAKIN' CRYSTAL CLEAR! NO SWEAT. Thousands of fishes of different species just swimming around. Sigh but no corals. All dead. :( But other than that, everything else was great. The sun, the wind... just great! You can't imagine how strong the wind was. I felt as if I was dorothy, going to fly away. Far, far away. Ok, that's exaggeration. You get the point. Lots of cats. LOTS. Bleh! Lots of monitor lizards too. :) We chilled in the jetty for a while, talked to some people, namely a man from Iran. I got the shock of my life when he told me he was a fresh PHD Graduate. Shock. Of. My. Life. Looks can be deceiving~

Moving on. The hotel that we stayed in was, well, not good! Ants crawling from the sides of the mattress. Yellow blankets and pillows. A TV that would on but won't have any picture. A heater that does not do its job of heating up water. Bugs, many kinds, crawling out of cracks in the walls. HAHAHA. EW. Luckily, we found another place to stay that was SO MUCH BETTER! ONLY 8 BUCKS MORE FOR THE FOUR OF US. Wonderful! Really couldn't wait to stay there the next day.

Had lunch at a restaurant near the jetty at about 12pm. Then the fun part comes. Trekking in the jungle to go to another side of the Island for Ice Balls and to see the Rock Falls. Uncle Thomas was like," ohhhh at most 30 to 45 mins only!" So of course I would be like, " YEAH! Let's go! " In the end, it took us 1h 15mins. Oh My Gosh. We trekked in our slippers! HAHAHA. Got like 2 blisters now. The place was filled with monkeys, mozzies, spiders and leaves. LOL. There were rocks that we had to climb though, steep slopes, etc. IN OUR SLIPPERS. And Uncle Thomas kept on saying, " Oh its round the corner! Reaching already!" That was a huge corner I must say! HAHAHA. Sigh... In the end, it was well worth it!

Finally, we reached Paya! The rest is coming soon.