Paradise Island (Sian)

Have just got back in to Mersing after spending 4 days in the most beautiful Island I have ever seen!

After a late night at Karaoke we awoke to an extremely good breakfast, and met an Australian guy called Matt who was heading to the Island too. Matt has been hanging out with us for the last few days and enjoying the adventure Island.

The crossing over was extremely rough but well worth it, once the brown waters from Mersing changed in to grey, blue, and then an amazing aqua marine I knew it would all be worth it!

We arrived at ABC chalets top be greeted by a stream of meowing cats, they were so cute and we instantly adopted one which we called Molly, she looked after our chalets for the duration of our stay. She was so cute and would talk to us all the time. I miss her already!

The Island was so amazing! We spent most of our time there snorkeling, starting from the afternoon we arrived. The snorkeling was great, although the coral was a little spread out more like a coral garden than a reef. We saw the most amazing fish, it was like we were swimming in a tropical fish tank. I jumped a little when I saw Barracuda for the first time, a whole school(?), but realized that they were not interested in us at all. Steve and I enjoyed playing tag with the neons, although unfortunately they seemed to win every time. We also saw a huge Angel fish. It must have been really old because it was about 10 times bigger than all the other Angel fish we have seen. The cleaner fish were so cute, often when we saw bigger fish, they would have a smaller fish nibbling on it! The beaches on Tioman were so beautiful, white sandy beaches surrounded by dense rainforest.

On our last full day on the Island we chartered a boat with Matt and a Japanese man called Sukasa. We first went Snorkeling on this massive reef where I saw a Shark! (I was pretty scared) It kept on swimming off before I got a chance to show the boys though! We spent most of the day on Coral Island. Coral Island is uninhabited and very, very, very, very beautiful! The sea surrounding it was brilliant blue, the sand was as soft as talcum powder, and we could sit in the shade of the rainforest. Steve, Matt and I had a brilliant time playing with the tropical fish which were following us around. I think they liked Steve and Matt the most as they fed them biscuits! We were a little disappointed that Monkey Bay was completely empty of Monkeys but it was saved by the swim that Steve and I had with a turtle. It was amazing and kept on swimming in circles like it was showing off! I felt so priviledged to have seen a shark and swum with a turtle on the same day.

Just before we left the island Matt and I hiked through the rainforest trying to get down to Monkey Bay to hopefully see some Monkeys. We kept on loosing the path though! It got a bit trecherous in places! With the humidity and lack of path we walked for an hour then turned back, finding the path really easily on the way back. We did get to see some Monkeys though! They were having a fight in the path! Well, we thought it was a fight but really they were mating!!!

We headed back, checked out the chalet and sat on the jetty for 2 hours waiting for the boat. Luckily the crossing back to Mersing was much easier, but we were all really sad to say goodbye to Tioman where we had such a brilliant adventure.