Tag: Tioman

Buddy Up and be rewarded with amazing trips!

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Although we left school more than 10 years ago, my high school buddies and I still hang out together. Some of them have left the Malaysia and settled overseas. Three of them have settled down in Australia namely in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.

Nevertheless, we still keep in touch and we will all hang out when they are back. Whenever they are back, we would make a road trip. Our last trip was to Pulau Tioman. We spent quite a lot of time sight seeing.

Went swimming. My buddies tried to merge themselves into a boat for my other buddy to ride on -_-

To travel around Pulau Tioman. 12 of us cramped in a van with deflated tyres -_-


We played futsal in the evening.

And night time, drinking!

However, getting there was terrible. We missed our ferry and somehow got some strangers to send us to Pulau Tioman using a fisherman’s boat.


This wooden boat had no toilet. The sea was choppy and we got seasick halfway. When we arrived at Pulau Tioman, the boatman dropped us on the wrong jetty and he decided to abandon us at the jetty! We found some fisherman to send us to the hotel jetty.


It was a terrible 8 hours ordeal -_-

But the trip was well worth it. We rarely get to hangout due to our locations and busy schedules.

If I am rich, I would sponsor all my buddies for a road trip to Australia to meet up with our other buddies staying in Australia! No more fisherman’s boat!

Perhaps I should get Great Eastern to help me. Great Eastern is celebrating its 103rd anniversary and they’re giving away cash and trips worth more than RM55,000.

All I need to do is sign up, create a wishlist and invite my friends to Buddy Up with me. If I have the most friends who Buddy Up with me, I will be rewarded with fantastic trips of my choice! I get to bring 3 of my friends along. Check out the prizes below! The Grand Prize is worth RM 16,000!


Other than the above prizes, there will be weekly winners. The top participant with the most friends who Buddy Up with him/her in a particular week gets rewarded with cash! And the cash amount goes up week after week!!


You have until 4 December 2011 to invite friends to Buddy Up with you. Who knows, that theme park holiday to Disneyland, Hong Kong or to Gold Cost, Australia might just be yours. Good luck!

Visit www.Lifeisgreat.com.my to join!

Tioman Island: Misc Photos

Just like my Krabi Trip, I will end my entry on Tioman Island with some miscellaneous photos.


While we were having breakfast in Kuchai Lama, an elderly lady came up to us asking us for donation for a ‘charity home’. Most of us ignored her thinking that she’s a fraud. But Umeng, in his usual kind hearted way, gave the elderly lady 10 Ringgit as donation. She issued a receipt to him with his name written as “Hou Sam Yan”…that means Kind Hearted Person..


While driving around Melaka, we saw this van belonging to UMNO Bahagian Tanjong Karang. On the right, you will see a person’s face, probably the Division chief’s face, with a mobile phone on his hand. Can’t they find a better picture?


Picture of an ‘open air’ toilet taken in a petrol station @ Mersing. As you can see, there’s no roof. It was hot so hot that everything in the toilet was dry. I could literally see salt in the drain. Also, it was probably the driest smelling toilet I’ve even been.. Another photo for my throne series!


Kid on the bike..
few minutes later..


Vrooomm.. Underage and no helmet.. perfect recipe for fatal accident!


Picture of an unique postbox taken @ Kluang. It looks like a postbox converted from one of the Chinese altars!

Tioman Island: Tioman Island: Part II

We had lunch at Tioman town. We hired a van from one Indian chap to ferry us to Tioman town. The Indian chap offered to take us to town at a very low rate so we took up his offer.


Indian Chap on the left

But unknown to us, his van was an old, old van.. Just enough to fit 14 of us – with one fellow sitting on the floor.


Me on the floor


Deflated tyre – the van was too heavy..

Tioman Town also has numerous duty free shops. We bought two cartons of beer for the night and loads of snacks. I also bought a bottle of Greygoose for Melvin at RM110.


After filling our beer into our hotel fridge, we hung out at our hotel’s challenger’s park.


We got Ping to do some stunts. Ong Bak!!!

After that we played futsal but it ended abruptly after Umeng twisted his toe (we were all playing barefoot). It was Sunday and the inhouse doctor has left. All Umeng had was a bag of ice to minimize the swelling. We continued playing futsal again after that – with Umeng on the bench.


Futsal infront of our rooms

At night, we tried to finish up our beer but failed. We had to tahpao some back home.

On the next day, everyone got up extremely early to pack up. We didn’t want to miss our boat ride again!

The trip back to Mersing was a breeze. We had comfortable seats – with air con on full blast. It took only 1 1/2 hours, just nice for a short nap…


Zzzzzzz

Tioman Island: Tioman Island: Part I

Tioman Island is well known for its beauty. Many divers flock to Tioman Island to dive. In 1970s, it was selected by TIME’s magazines as one of the most beautiful islands.

Over the years, tourists flocked to Tioman Island which eventually brought development to the island. It now has a five star hotel, a duty free town and also an airport. The Berjaya Group operates an airline namely Berjaya Air to connect Subang Airport in Kuala Lumpur with Tioman Island.
We stayed at Berjaya Tioman Resort, which is a fairly decent and nice resort. The chalets are double storeys and its interior and facilities are nice. We paid around RM190++ per room per night. It didn’t come with breakfast though.

Snorkeling and diving are the main attractions of Tioman Island. Since our hotel stay doesn’t provide meals, we ventured out from the hotel for food. There are two restaurants outside the hotel namely Restoran Citra Anugerah and Delima Tomyam and Diana Seafood. Delima Tomyam and Diana Seafood is not bad. I quite like their roti kosong.

Restoran Citra Anugerah on the other hand sucked big time. Although the atmosphere was pretty nice (we dined at the beach), the food sucked big time. The cheese baked crab that we ordered tasty funny. It was bland and the had been fried and thus soft! It was quite expensive too!

On our first day, we went on a snorkeling excursion around Pulau Tioman. Before we left our hotel, we bought few bags of fish food which are mostly leftover toasts and buns.


There was even a blueberry tart insidel!


Our boat this time round has cushioned seats and sufficient lifejackets. It was a luxury!


Looks like turttlleeeee!

Although the water was fairly clean and clear, most of the corals were dead and the fishes were nothing interesting. But we managed to swim a little and fed loads of fishes. The fishes were crazy over the toasts and buns.


WK, Umeng, sLoonG and KF merged to form…


into a boat for AaHim. Unfortunately, the boat wasn’t tough enough..

Our snorkeling trip only lasted half a day. We were supposed to snorkel at 3 locations but it was cut short to two locations. The guide told us that there isn’t much stuff to see at the Marine Park and asked us whether we want to cut it short so that we can spend more time at the two locations. I wonder if this was one of their tricks to limit their working time.

The snorkeling trip left me a very poor impression on the marine environment of Pulau Tioman. So much for one of the most beautiful islands.

To be continued..

Tioman Island: Mersing to Tioman Island – Part II

One of the villagers offered to bring us to the correct jetty at RM50 per person. It was too expensive.

We called our hotel, Berjaya Tioman Island Resort, to enquire whether they could come and get us. Unfortunately, they don’t have a boat to get us.

Fortunately, Him managed to convince a local fisherman to bring to to the correct jetty at RM200. Within no time, we threw our bags on to the fisherman’s boat and headed straight to Berjaya Tioman Island Resorts’s jetty.

When we reached Berjaya Tioman Island Resorts’s jetty, it was around 12am. We took 8 hours from Mersing to get to Tioman Island! I could have reached Melbourne, Australia with 8 hours.


At the jetty..

The receptionists at Berjaya Resorts were very surprised to hear our story. We looked exhausted and dirty.


sLoonG looked as if someone rolled him down the hill.


Syen’s pants was awfully dirty


KF had eye bags of a panda

We checked into our hotel rooms, took a shower and rushed to the mamak outside the hotel. Food never tasted that good.

We were very fortunate to be well and alive. We would have turned into fish food and nobody knew about it. I wouldn’t do it again even someone pays me to do so. I highly admire the Vietnamese boat people who once went through this kind of ordeal for few weeks in a row. 5 hours was like hell to me.

I wouldn’t do it again!

If you guys have the time, please call Shukor at 013 788 0075 middle of the night and tell him we’re still at the jetty waiting for him or drifting in the sea waiting for help. wahahahhaha.

Tioman Island: Melaka: Abandoned Baba Nyonya House

We spent the entire day walking around shopping and eating around Jonker Street.

While walking back to our hotel, we found an abandoned house with its door wide open. The house is one of the old Baba Nyonya Houses, which is probably around 100 years old.

The Baba Nyonya House was dilapidated – with its roof missing. Almost all its fixtures were missing and the paint on the walls was peeling. The well was cover with a plant.

Other than the roof, the second floor is gone except for the front portion of the house where a room is still intact. The room is locked with a padlock. I wonder what’s inside!


See the padlock?

One of the things that interests me was the stairs. Here we found a dilapidated concrete stair which ends abruptly.


I walked up the stairs..


Looked up..


Viola! Lovely picture by WK!

I walked toward to the end of the house which was probably 100 meters deep. The end of the house was a small garden with overgrown weed. I could see its neighbour’s house from there.

Suddenly, I heard someone slamming the door at the neighbour’s house. I quickly made my move to avoid being caught by the neighbour for being a nosy bastard.

After taking some pictures, we left the place. I told Umeng about the neighbour slamming the door. Umeng and I then peeped at the neighbour’s house and find that…the neighbour’s house is empty and vacant.

\(*O*)/ chong kuai ar!!