Tioman O Tioman! [Take 1]

I'm going to write a nicely detailed account of the trip to Tioman this past weekend, because 1) I planned it with Kathleen exhaustively, and 2) We had such issues finding updated, detailed information, so this deserves to be recorded online for others who also want to go to Tioman :-)

For those who just want pictures,
[Album 1] Pictures are worth a thousand words
[Album 2] Pictures pictures pictures are never enough
(But not all of them are up yet -- namely, of the Komodo dragons (Update: correction, as per Larry's request, they are monitor lizards :P) and monkeys ^__^) (Update: both album links added)

From the beginning:

Planning -- in short, Kathleen and I stayed late at work a couple of times eating dinner and using the Internet and phone to call/look up/try to book stuff, and we definitely did not do much work that Friday before, figuring out every last detail, researching everyyyyything and compiling a nice guidebook for Tioman.

Transportation was a bitch to figure out because the direct express buses from Singapore to Tioman (there's only four companies I'm pretty sure: 5 Star, Transnational, Discovery, and Kai Ho) were alllllll booked like weeks in advance. To get to Tioman Is, Malaysia we needed to take a ferry at Mersing, so how to get to Mersing from Singapore (around 4 hrs away) without a direct bus? We were left with an almost infinite combination of train, taxi, local bus, and ferry.

Our original plan was to take the train from Singapore KTM to Malaysia Johor Bahru (JB), then negotiate a taxi to Mersing, or take the local buses. Well, after passing through Malaysia immigration and customs -- no problem at all -- we accidentally missed our JB stop :-(

We planned to get off at the next stop and find a local bus to somewhere that takes us to Mersing, or take a taxi back to JB because that's where the buses to Mersing are. A guy sitting next to us told us to take the train further to Kluang, where there are buses to Mersing, and plus Kluang is much closer to Mersing than JB, halfway. Our problem was, we hadn't exchanged currency yet and now we were in the middle of Malaysia with no Ringgits, and we needed to pay the difference in train fare. When the ticket conductor came around, the same guy next to me said some stuff that we couldn't understand and I tried to explain to him that we missed our stop. The conductor was let us pass, but it wasn't until later that a woman told us the guy next to us was actually another train agent and he convinced the ticket conductor to let us go for free. Plus the other people in the train were super nice and helped us because we kept freakin out thinking we missed our Kluang stop again. Then, when we got out the guy introduced us to a driver who took us to Mersing, 1.5hrs for 90 Ringgits, which is really good. The driver took us to a nice Chinese travel agency in Mersing that sold us ferry tickets at the correct price and explained to us all our options to get back, etc. super helpful. And off we were to the ferry to Tioman!

Saturday 6/14/08
5:50am - Train Singapore to Kluang
8:00am - arrive in Kluang
10:00 am - arrive by car to Mersing
10:30am - ferry to Tioman
1:00pm - arrive at Tioman

We got there around 3 hours before we thought we would, and caught the early 10:30am ferry just on time, sweeeeet.

Whew. Now for the fun parts!

We went to Salang Beach because it was popular, lively, and had lots of budget accommodations. We heard it might be super crowded and hard to get a room, so we frantically called at 7pm Friday night to find a place and reserved a few places. It wasn't that crowded when we got there, and we actually found available rooms for walk-in, but we stayed at Salang Inn where we had reserved an A/C 2 double bed, 1 single bed chalet with bathroom for 95RM, pretty good deal. The chalet wasn't right by the beach front, but it was in a nice sheltered area by the jungle, less than a few minutes walk to the beach.

Okay, to be continued!