WE SAW A TURTLE ON TIOMAN. ALSO, MY CAPS LOCK KEY IS STUCK. =P

OK, so we left Tioman about a week ago, so maybe its time i got off my unemployed butt and actually strung together a few sentences about it.

Probably i should start by telling you that the water around Tioman is some of the clearest water i have ever seen. equally as good as parentian, only with no rubbish washing up on the shore. We stayed on the beach known as ABC, which is like the quiet beach of the island, and has only a few backpacker spots along it, each with its own little restaurant. We avoided the main tourist beach of Salang, since it was meant to have more tourists (well that kind of figures i guess) and we didnt go to tioman to do white whale watching anyway.

The best thing about where we stayed was that the beach right in front of our hut was great for snorkelling. So on a few occasions we would hire a snorkel and mask and head out to look at the marine life living in and around the reef which was only about 20 metres from the shoreline. Shame we dont have an underwater camera, since we saw some great stuff, including a 2 metre reef shark, the biggest trevally we have seen yet (both in size and number), a few different sting rays and .... a turtle! yes, kate has finally gotten her wish to see a big turtle in the wild. we watched it for ages from a distance while it munched on stuff stuck to the coral. really great experience.

I think Kate has well and truly covered food in the last post, but ill just mention quickly that food on Tioman was overall some of the least inspired, most tasteless rubbish we have encountered yet. overpriced, overcooked and not worth writing home about (even though here i am writing home about it...). Oh, and Tioman is duty free, just like Langkawi. too bad that the closest duty free outlet was an hour's walk from our place, on the next beach along the coast. thanks to that, we had a very dry, but very cheap stay in Tioman.

We thought we would go there to do some more scuba diving, but ended up just using the time to relax and take in the tropical atmosphere. it was one of the few places we have found where we didnt even think about when we should be moving on until after a week or so of being there, which was nice actually.

Oh and by the way, there were big monitor lizards all round where we stayed, since it backed onto a jungle. the picture of the lizard here i took in the restaurant of our hostel, but they get a lot bigger than that. they seem harmless tho, and look tasty... could be a good candidate for a beach barbie next time round...

After leaving tioman, we headed to Singapore, where we are at the moment. I was kind of interrogated at the singapore immigration checkpoint when they discovered that i was carrying a bottle of duty free red wine which we bought in tioman. after being handed from one set of concerned dudes to another... and then to an office with three important feeling knobs asking me questions, i just told them to keep the freaking wine so i could leave. Despite that, they continued with the meaningless lines of questioning as if i was some kind of terrorist. obviously they had nothing better to do. they tried to charge me 1o singapore dollars 'duty fee' for the wine, but i told them i didnt have their currency, so they just said to forget it and they let me go. Finally. They took so long i was worried that the three condoms of heroin in my stomach might rupture.

anyway, here we are in Singapore, contraband red wine intact, staying with my penpal Jo, who we met up with in KL a couple of months ago. we are leaving on Tuesday probably, and will do a write up on singapore then.

lastly, we've added our other contact details onto the top right hand corner of the blog, just under the title bar, so you can email, skype or message us. see the useful links section for a link to download Skype if you dont already have it.

till next time!

//Brendan