Tioman, Juara Beach
Bus ride to Mersing was some 2 hrs and we arrived at Mersing around 9.40. A lady asked if we were connecting to Tioman and quickly shuttled us to the counter to get our ferry tickets. She made a quick check to see if we could get the 10am ferry and yes, we could but we have to cab there. Cab was only rm10, and we arrived at the ferry terminal. But an additional expense that I did not expect was the marine park conservation fee. That came to rm90 for us. The ferry was rm280 for return trip and would take 1.5hrs. So from the moment in Lakin to Tioman, we were all rushing to get from one place to another that I did not have time to change more money or get a phone card. But before 12pm, we arrived in Tioman, the Tekek jetty.
Terek jetty was on the western side of Tioman, and we had to get a 4WD to the other side of the island. We were charged rm30 per pax (minus Raiden). So another hidden cost. We soon got to understand why 4WD was needed, as the road was quick steep and at some place 45degrees.
Arriving at the resort in 1/2 hour, we settled into our room. It was quite decent with a big bathroom and air conditioned. Only thing was the cleaniness. But for the price (about $50 per night for family room) we cant really complain. First order was to grab food. A had her kampung fried rice and it was good. Food here is cheap and we could get by as a family for rm50 per meal.
Seeing that the weather was burning hot, we decided to nap in the room till 4pm before venturing out. At 4pm, the intense heat subsided a little and we spent some time on the beach. R took his beach toys and had fun on the sand. I thought it was a good time to pull out my drone to take some aerial videos. Surprisingly, no one bothered me on my drone flying. I was a little out of practice and did not fly it well. The day before, I could not find my SD card and had to settle with recording from the internal 8gb memory.
On the 2nd flight, i made the mistake of flying it when the battery was already half used. I lost visual contact of it halfway and then the controller started beeping that I have to land soon as the battery was fast depleting. At that time, the drone was still far away and I could not see it with my eyes. I kind of panicked and flew the drone back to where I was using the phone display. Somehow it came back near me just near the beachball netting pole and before I could steer it away, a gush of wind pushed the drone towards the pole and it hit it and went topsy turvey. Luckily it was only a metre high and it dropped into the soft sand. The drone had a good mechanism whereby if the drone were upside down, the power would be cut off. That saved my drone and as far as I could tell, no damage was done, only thing was that sand got into some part but it was easily brushed off.
We headed for dinner then. At that time, i also got to realized that this place was full of sand flies, starting to feel the familiar itch. True enough, The family came back with many bites. I think D got the worse followed by me. Luckily, R had long pants on most of the time and only gotten a few bites
Dinner wise, we tried this Juara cafe. It looks quite upmarket and food was decent. We decided that we would do some snorkeling tomorrow. Only problem was that by now, I had run out of cash. We asked the resort owner if we could use card and he gave us an account to transfer money to. With the WIFI, I somehow made a remittance with DBS, a first for me.
Next day, we had breakfast and then gathered for the snorkeling trip. Weather was just superb and it was overcast and there was no sun at all. It rained while we were in the boat but stop when we arrived. The boat was a speed boat and would take us out to the northern part of Tioman to another island. When the time came to get into the water, we could see that R was fearful and we had to cajole him to get into the water. And funny that everytime he was in the water, he wanted to get back to the boat. Anyway, this was a good experience for him and he gradually gained more confidence. D was enjoying herself and I could see that all her swimming lessons were well worth it. She was definitely comfortable in water. We had brought some bread along and we had fun feeding the fishes. But R wanted to stay on the boat to feed the fishes instead :)
We went 3 places in the morning and will break for lunch at Salang before doing a last one and then back to Juara. At one of the place near the rocks (Marang Rocks), D said she saw a fish with a sword nose (could be a sailfish). At the place near the beach, i kind of jumped into the water from the boat and D followed. To our surprise, R said he wanted to jump too. A dropped him nearer the water but his whole head was submerged into the water before I caught him. He was terrified and grabbed me and pushed my head down. But he calmed down after while and we heaped praises at him and promised him a toy for his bravery :). We could tell that Salang was a busier place with more folks at this part of the island. During lunch, the sun came out and it was rather hot. But amazingly when we headed to the last place for snorkeling, it was overcast again. Really fantastic!
We broke for lunch after Long Beach and the boat brought us to Salang jetty.
So all in all, a very good day of snorkeling and then back to the resort. We washed up and them headed to the chinese place for dinner. Dinner was Zi-char style and I honestly quite like it.
Next day, it was back on the 4WD for the drive back to Terek. We had fun sitting behind the 4WD this time, like roller coaster. However along the way, a tree had fallen down and we had to transfer to another vehicle to get to the ferry terminal. We were early and we grabbed some Ramly burger for breakfast.
Reaching Mersing, we had lunch at KFC and them it was on our bus back to Lakin. Traffic was smooth and we were back in Singapore before 6. It was a wonderful trip and I am happy to see my son experiencing things like this out of his norm and doing things that continued to surprise us.
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