Pulau Tioman 1st Day

So after and intense 2 days of waiting, heat, humidity, tropical storms, waiting some more, night buses, more waiting, and Paul Blart Mall Cop on the two hour boat ride, we finally made it to a small island off the east coast of Malaysia called Pulau Tioman. In an instant, my "Malaysia sucks, when do I go back to Japan?" changed to "Next time I come to Malaysia ..."

We got off at a village called Salang and this place is amazing. The crystal clear blue waters, coconuts dropping off trees almost killing me, scuba divers, snorkelers, monitor lizards, friendly locals, cats with half ther tails cut off (probably because of the monitors), awesome freshly squeezed orange juice ... it's my first tropical island, but I don't want to leave.


The locals, when there aren't any customers at their shops, just hang out with each other smoking, shooting the shit, and relaxing on the beach. At night, the bars light up, the BBQ's fire up, Bob Marley starts singing, and I go to sleep because of an 8:00 wake-up call for scuba diving.

So far, it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. This white-skinned Japanese boy who hasn't been to a real beach for 3 years isn't so crazy about the sunburns and blood-sucking sandflies though.

I had never imagined that I would be hanging out on a tropical beach in Malaysia.

I just want to shower

It's hard to believe that we were eating shaved ice in Taipei with Shirley only two days ago.  It feels a lot longer.  Getting to today has been so insane.  The last time I showered was 3 days ago in Taiwan, but I feel so grimy and smell pretty bad I'm sure.  The past few days have been such a blur ...

7:30PM - 11:30PM  
Flight from Taipei to Singapore
- slept 2 hours
11:30PM - 7:30AM  
Layover in Singapore
- slept 3 hours
7:30AM - 8:30AM
Flight from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur
- slept 20 minutes
8:30AM - 10:30AM
Bus from airport to KL
- no sleep
10:30AM - 1:00PM
Looked for Bakit Jalil bus station
- no sleep
1:00PM - 6:30PM
Walked around KL
- no sleep
7:30PM - 11:30PM
Waited at Bakit Jalil bus station and played cards
- no sleep
11:30PM - 4:00AM
Night bus from KL to Mersing
- slept 4 hours
4:30AM - 10:30AM
Waited for boat to Tioman Island
- slept 1 hour

I just want to shower and brush my teeth ... So far, Malaysia's not so great.

First Day in Malaysia

Taiwan is not Hot.  Malaysia is HOT!  It was my first day in Japan all over again, only it wasn't Japan, wasn't August, wasn't clean, and Japan was a bit cooler.

We took an hour long bus to Kuala Lumpur and drove passed miles and miles and miles of jungle and got off at the next major bus station only to find out that it was under construction so we squeezed onto another bus and went halfway back to the airport to reserve tonight's night bus ticket.


Then we went back to KL where we started our Malaysian adventure with a peach mango sundae from McDonalds.  In 95°F (35℃) and humid weather, couldn't ask for more. Then after a $3.00 Malaysian lunch, I had the pleasant experience of havng about 50 fish eat away the dead skin on my feet ... the first two minutes were REALLY weird, but after 10 minutes and $2, my feet feel beautiful.  It was the strangest feeling I ever felt though.


Malaysia is a Muslim country so we went to the biggest mosque they had.  We walked about 10 minutes and tarted to realize that it was the wrong way so we got in a "teksi" because it was so hot.  The confused driver drove us down the street the other way about 3 minutes and charged us $3.

We still had about an hour and a half before the mosque opened so we went to a museum about Islam.  It was interesting with its history of mosques around the world and a huge collection of Qur'ans

We got out just in time for a huge tropical storm, which lasted about 30 minutes, but we were able to take shelter in the mosque.  All the women had to cover themselves before going in.  There was one other guy who had to cover himself as well, but try wouldn't give me the purple hijab for some reason.  I figured it was cause I was wearing pants and te other guy was in shorts.  Either that or they thought I was special.  We weren't allowed to go I to the prayer area, but it was cooler in there so we just sat around outside it for a while.


It was still raining when we started to go back and that's when my ¥100 Daiso slippers decided it didn't want to travel around Malaysia anymore so try broke on me, but an outdoor stand had a $3 pair waiting for me.

... now we wait another 4 hours at another bus stop.

Malaysia before going

• There are many mosquitos
(Not as many as I thought though)
• People from Malaysia aren't called Malaysians, they're called Malays
• Two main islands. One is on Borneo Island, which is an island, not a country
• There are lot of Chinese and Indians here, but that's sorta true for the whole world
(Not so many chinese, even in China town and I only saw one guy from Bangladesh)
• Mostly Muslims
(Yeah ... it was)
• A Sultan is a Muslim sovereign, not just a guy from Aladdin
• Sipadan is one of the best diving spots in the world and under terrorist high alert!
(But people still kept going ...)
• The Petronas Towers used to be the tallest building in the world. Now it's ONLY the 4th!
(But you can only go up about a third of the way)
• The largest flower in the world, Rafflesia, is in Malaysia and it's supposed to smell like dead people apparently

Singaporean Food

Wang Cafe - Singapore Airport, Terminal 3 Cafe - $5.00
• Kaya butter toast - Kaya is egg and coconut cream. Tasted like jam
• Rambutan juice - tropical fruit that tastes like lychee

Singapore Airport Terminal 3

So Singapore Airport's Terminal 3 is supposed to be one of the best airports in the world. It's very green and plays elevator music. Josie and I found a little niche at a coffee shop, where I had rambutan juice and kaya butter toast ... we slept on the seats for 3 hours, woke up, checked in, went through security, and now we have about an hour before we leave for Malaysia. We're tired and I smell pretty bad ...

Singapore

We left Taiwan last night and now we're in Singapore in transit to Malaysia. Initially, we had two seats on the plane that were in infront of each other, so we asked for seats next to each other. We got to sit in the first row of the plane. But Jetstar airlines is like the Jetblue of international flights, so it was just a big economy class plane. The baby in the same row was a whiny brat, but the mom busted out here boob to quiet it down. It's midnight right now, and we have about 7 hours to kill before we leave for Malaysia.