Don't Test the Rainy Season in Malaysia - Pulao Tiamon Island, Malaysia

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Pulao Tiamon Island, Malaysia While travelling to Thailand for the party holiday of my life, leaving on 12/26/04 probably wasn't the best way to start off the holiday. Not to dwell on the negatives, this seasoned traveller diverted from Thailand in search of other adventure within Southeast Asia. So off to other regions, with an initial stop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Some of the best scuba diving on the planet lies in Malaysia and this traveller wanted to get his thoughts as far away from the tsunami disaster as possible. So, a few words on finding out the hard way why Malaysia's rainy season should be taken seriously. I decided last night that I would head for the island of Pulau Tioman, renowned to be one of the better dive spots around the world. Hey, I've been looking forward to diving Malaysia for a long time. Never mind the fact that we are in the midst of the rainy season. Hey, less crowds for me to deal with, right?? Lonely Planet said the island virtually shuts down during the rainy season, and last year, all the diving I did in South Africa about the same time as this was with a bunch of instructors from guess where?? Yep, you guessed it, Malaysia. You'd think that fact would have registered with me. But no!!! Hey, so the visibility won't be the greatest, I'm in Malaysia and damn it, I'm going to dive it! I can deal with a little rain, hey I'm from Phoenix, Arizona. I love the rain when I can get it! So, I wake up this morning, go to Kuala Lumpur's other airport to catch the once a day flight to Tioman, buy my r/t ticket for 450 RM, will spend 3 days and nights there and then back to KL. What could be easier? So, I hop off the little puddle jumper after making an acrobatic decent onto this little strip of runway that serves as Tioman's airport. I take my first glance around and walk a few steps where I find my way to a pier where I was told a boat would be by shortly to take me to my desired beach. The only problem I see is that there are absolutely no other tourists walking about. "Oh well," I say to myself. And, by the way, the whole island is covered in this thick cloud of mist, the jungle walls simply disappearing into the dark clouds above. "Wow! Guess they weren't kidding about it being the rainy season." But who could tell? KL wasn't like this at all and it's only a 1 hour flight away! So, after a few minutes wait, my boat arrives and I climb aboard. There's the captain, a couple deck hands and only 3 other backpackers on board. Okay, now it's time to start worrying. The backpackers don't have a place to stay either and are hoping for something at ABC beach. I was heading further up the island, but said adios to that plan! I get off with the backpackers at ABC. At first I thought that getting off at ABC was one of the worst mistakes I ever made. I should have just stayed on the boat and proceeded to Salang Beach, at the northern most tip of the island. There's supposed to be a few resorts and restaurants and what not about. Never made it that far. Turns out, there were three other backpackers with the original three, all coupled up naturally and I was the odd man out, not that it mattered to me one way or another. We all started hoofing it through the jungle on a little path looking for a place to stay. Dude, it wasn't a pretty site. Lots of places, lots of "closed" signs. So I say f**k it, should have just stayed on the boat with my original plan. So, I turn around and start back to the pier all alone. I'll wait for the next boat to come by and continue on towards Salang. Well, sometimes life is just cruel to you and you have to suck it up. Turns out, there isn't another boat to Salang that day after all. Frickin great!! Now the profanity laden poetry begins to flow from my mouth like Niagara Falls. Okay, I'll just catch the boat on its return this way and head to another resort down south of the airport. Umm, no, that's not going to happen anytime soon either. The return boat isn't due back for another 3.5 hours! Okay, now things are just so far past screwed that I actually start to chuckle for I know that I am in the middle of one of those times when you know you'll look back and laugh, but you still have to endure the torture for however much longer. Okay, what the hell to do? I basically resign myself to the fact that my only chance of salvation is to make my way to the airport some way and see if I can make the return flight to KL. So as luck would have it, I managed to flag down a dude on his scooter and luckily enough, he agrees to give me a ride to the airport. But we have to boogy, I know that I only have like 40 minutes until the flight leaves and I have no idea if we'll be in time or not. So, he hoists my bag onto his handlebars effectively enough and I get on the back and off we go. Okay thank God, we're making good time on a little path, farbeit from any semblance of a road when we come to a dead end with a bunch of scooters parked at the bottom of this jungle wall. Now what? Turns out, this is the end of this particular segment of road, we have to hike up this path, meander through the jungle for a bit, then once at the bottom of the other side, he supposedly has another scooter waiting for us. You have got to be frickin kidding me!! So, after about a fourth-mile trek through the jungle on an overgrown, mossy, trail with my bag and my flops gripping the way, sure enough, salvation, his other scooter is there waiting for us. So, on again and we make our way another mile maybe until we get to the airport. Luckily enough, the flight is pretty much empty and the ticket guy gives me a new boarding pass with no penalty and just chuckles to himself. He had just seen me get off the plane a few hours earlier. Hey, I still have 15 minutes to spare! I gave my new found best friend 20RM for the scooter effort and now I find myself on the plane heading back to KL. An exercise in futility to be sure, but now, at least my mindset is one of pure comedy. What the hell else is going to happen to me on this journey? One thing for sure, I'm going to get drunk tonight and laugh off one of the funnier episodes of my journeys.


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