8:26:00 PM
A Much Better Tioman Post
A long, long time ago in a far away time zone of GMT +8, YEAR 2005, I made about 2-3 long posts rambling on about Tioman. However, on hindsight, I guess it would have been easier to paste the whole schedule of the tioman trip there, which incidentally is avaliable on http://www.ecofieldtrips.com, somewhere. Anyway, what was REALLY missing was and is PICTURES :) Unfortunately, in 2005, Nigel Fong had not yet purchased his D70 and was hence not involved in photography of any kind. Furthermore, the constant water activities was a turn off for Nigel's photography zest; overprotectiveness over his cameras (you can't blame a man for protecting his $1000 camera from water, can you?)
So: here's an array of pictures coming at you. Unfortunately, ecofieldtrips (the company organising the trip) decided to resize everything and everything is rather small. So, here goes. Paul, Ben Lee and Daniel, ENJOY!! My memory is good. Don't worry. I mean it :P This might be a lot longer than last time, but more thought has gone into it, 2 years from the actual event.
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After being cooped up in a really tiny bus (I guess our oversized bags made a BIG difference in our amount of legroom), we were unceremoniously hoarded into an old, scary boat. Although I can swim averagely (is that a word??), I am really quite scared of some forms of water transport. This would include Bangkok canal boats (IF YOU FALL INTO THE GUNKY WATER THAT WOULD BE UTTERLY DISGUSTING), and old, rickety boats, such as the one we were in. If I'm not wrong, there was this ancient looking TV in the middle of the boat, and it was showing Ice Age. Note that I said showing. It was hard to really hear anything, so it was basically causing a headache. To make things worse, the boat was hardly moving much. It was just bobbing around and instead of surging forward, as we would have liked, we were constantly being overtaken by fishing ships.
Bored as I was, I managed to indulge in pinball on Daniel's old motorola phone. I racket up 5 million points (a high score which would be broken by Daniel later) and got really bored. Pressing 3 and 6 and 0 makes me lethargic. Like listening to Mr Rizal rattling on about "t equals to zero seconds" and standing at the door. (Sorry to say, he is the main reason why I dropped physics. You just DONT take a subject you hardly understand anything about!) I couldn't sleep either. I had already slept on the bus to make up for my rude awakening at 4+ am, so this was clearly not a time for shut eye. Also, the cacophonous rattling of the ancient engine seemed determined to drive us crazy (huge pun intended... engine > drive... argh never mind).
Finally, after many hours of travelling, we reached our desination! (cue first picture)
WELCOME TO TIOMAN PAYA RESORT! Actually the official name is Paya Beach Resort (Tioman has many beaches, we were at Paya Beach. No prizes for guessing that, though. After a quick lunch, we went for a round the island rainforest/mangrove tour, showing off the flora and fauna of Tioman immediately.
Daniel's group in the mangrove. Faces to note are Jian Xiong, Guo Wei, Daniel himself (right in the middle), Manek, Tan Yong En amongst others. On the extreme right is Mr Law and the guide for the day, Karen (she's a total ____ by the way). We were given group names Porpoise, Orca and Dolphin, which forms POD together, i think Daniel's group was called Dolphin. Anyway, I was in Orca, and the first day guide was RAJJJJJ! The best ever.
Here's our group. I don't see myself, but you can definitely see Raj. Right in the center waving for us to hurry. Anyway, we did LOTS of cool stuff in the mangrove. We learnt about BRAS (no, it's not something sick, it's just Brugueria, Rhyzophora, Avicennia and Sonneratia, the 4 main species of mangrove), bowed fervently to the cocoa trees, listened in awe was Raj imitated bird calls and managed to get some birds to reply :D The main highlight of the day was Ben Lee's up close and really personal immersion into the mangrove environment. He was such a huge sensation. He created such a splash at Tioman. No really. There was some kind of mangrove root above water, and we stepped over it one by one. However, as Ben Lee made his ascend up the mangrove root, he fell head first into the murky water below.
(Something tells me that Ben Lee became Valine after that; he seriously became Mangrove-Aquaphobic. On the last day at the seashore survey, Karen asked us to go over and see some rare shell or something. Everyone plodded over except for Ben Lee, who refused. The nice guy that I am :), I went over to ask Ben Lee what was wrong. Ben Lee quipped:
"Yucks! I don't want to go there, it's too dirty."
I shall jump straight to the seashore survey while I'm here, we had to find objects of interest in the area we were designated (we orcas went to the rivermouth, near the place where Ben Lee plopped into the water). After that, we went back to the resort to present our findings with regards to the environment and possible factors affecting it.
This was my group's presentation. Joshua Tung handled everything brilliantly :P
Paul and this mysterious other guy was presenting for the Porpoises. If my great memory hasn't failed me, there was an imitation of Channel Newsasia by Guo Wei's group, and Mr Law asked Joshua Tung out of 3 objects, two of them plant leafs and the last one a frond of seaweed (apparently we were presenting on that, hmm wonder why) which was the odd one out. Joshua Tung promptly replied in his cutecute (maybe not well..) voice "I think it's seaweed." Mr Law said "And why?" and Joshua said "It does not have real leaves"
Ok I was clueless about this. I did not know that, but O_o.
Anyway. Back to the first day. After a snorkelling lesson and a MARVELOUS BUFFET DINNER (All our meals were Buffet style, and the food was GOOD. Not some cheapskate catering service food like at low budget camps, but REAL HOTEL FOOD. What a treat :) Anyway, we all gathered in this small, cold bar (beer+wine, not like a metal bar) to have a briefing on what we should have seen but never had a chance to see.
The second day saw the 3 groups going out in 3 different bumboats to various snorkelling spots of choice.
I am not sure which boat this is; I have a feeling this was not our year, but just to let you know what it was like, here's a pic. Pity, a lot of the fish were realy cool looking, but the water was quite murky despite the rain, and the tide was sending salty water into my mouth via the really inviting breathing tube in the snorkel, which was disgusting. We saw lots and lots of tiny fish anyway, and Ms Aymie Lim, the Orca teacher IC was really nice, bringing Milkybars for all of us (I probably will do the same if I get to go to Tioman for the juniors; after LOADS of suffering ala Salt Water, chocolate never tasted better!)
Anyway, during lunch, we stopped at a random beach and had lunch of packet-ed fried rice with a large drumstick. It tasted average compared to the resort food, and it tasted a little bland. Maybe it was the overdose of salt. Oh well. Later, we continued to some mangrove, which was quite cool. Patrick brought our group to this nice desolate place which he knew about. Apparently, at high tide, the place which we sat down at would be completely flooded with water. Oh yes. As we were making out way though the dry mangrove roots, Ben Lee stepped on one and broke it in two. I KID YOU NOT. I tell you, if Raj was our guide that day he would have CRIED. Anyway, mangroves are resilient heh.
Coming back, we were crusing ahead of both boats, and we were ready to take a early showers, when disaster struck. Daniel's boat was stuck! The rudder had caught on to something. Oh no! We valiantly made a huge circle back to save the other group. To our dismay, our boat's efforts were rewarded with smoke from the other boat charging ahead of us. They were "unstuck", BLAH. We were now behind, and a little miffed. Our early shower was gone, and instead of playing heros, we had ran straight into a burning building and realised that the screams for help were coming from a radio. Haha no hard feelings but life's like that :)
That night, we hiked through a different section of the jungle. The climax of it all was when 5 volunteers crossing some minature river to search for mangrove snakes. That was really cool haha. It was like *search for the murderer.* everybody shhhhhhhh. kind of thing. After that, we searched for long sticks. Wondering what it was for, we followed Patrick, Raj and Karen as they led us to Paya Beach, where we saw what was in store for us. We had to create a stick pyramid and then climb it. Then we had to dive into the water!
*shakes head like Mr Vetuz and says in the Vetuz-cutevoice: "No ah!"
It was a CAMPFIRE!! The sticks were for roasting marshmallows. Hahaz we played lots of lame games, such as um.. cheka cha? :) Well, I'm not sure if that's the real name, but you go around saying cheka cha, cheka cha, cheka cha cha cha and do accumalated random stuff. Like, you have to stand on one leg, then you have to stand on one leg and touch your head, and then stand on one leg and touch your head and hop around or something like that.
The highlight of it all was the Toilet Bowl song by Patrick.
"Sitting on the toilet bowl"
"Ooo"
"Backside feeling very shoik"
"Aaaa"
Something like that. Daniel, please fill in the blanks! After that, we headed back for a MAGGI MEE PARTY! Jon Lee, Daniel Lim and some others from other rooms came over for a cup noodles party!!! We had boiled some water before we left, and boiled even more and had a really nice time. Hahaz, Nigel was REALLY funny, every night, he would stand outside his room, chatting with his mother in hokkien on his handphone. Putting the fact that it would probably cost a lot aside, Nigel was REALLY funny talking in a strange mix of english, hokkien and malay. Well.
Ok anyway, on the last day, after the seashore survey (mentioned earler), we hiked over to another beach (starts with M, Melina, maybe?) to see a turtle sanctuary. We watched a video at the sanctuary, saw a turtle rearing enclosure (they dont rear per se, they help young abandoned turtles grow properly, I think). As we made our way back, we took a group photo which we never got to see..
(insert photo that never appeared here!)
Back at Paya Beach Resort, Karen decided to play school teacher and went
"Guys, do you know, the Malaysian government want to turn this wholeeeeee stretch of sea into an airport. And what is going to happen to the reef and all the beautiful fish and corals that you saw on the first day? And what would happen to the turtles at the other beach? And who would want to visit Paya Beach Resort if there's no beach???" Despite my dislike for politically correct lectures, I thought it was really quite striking. If the airport popped up there, everything would be screwed up. Which is why I want to go back this year with Daniel and Paul.
Well. The ferry was supposed to come at 2. It came at 5
Here's us waiting at the jetty :)
Yayyyy. Oh yes, while waiting we fed fish with fish bread, and ahem, some potato chips. Ok sorryyyyy. We dropped some by PURE ACCIDENT! SORRY FISH!! Ok anyway, the boat was a different one, this one really fast. We got back to Mersing, got up a bus and started the drive back. En route, we stopped at a certain P1 restaurant in Mersing, which served fantastic home cooked food. The best dish was the mashed potatoes, which were seriously mashed potatoes, not some potato powder which fast food restaurants use. It is called P1 restaurant for a weird reason. Apparently, there is this whole wall with drawings done by p1 students. Did you notice this guys? On the way to the toilet, there is! :)
On the way, there were loads of stories and jokes etc. etc. shared by Patrick and everyone, we sang songs, did random stuff at the back of the bus... hahaha. Lots of crap but lots of fun. Well, as Nelly Furtado sings, all good things come to an end (did I need Nelly Furtado to tell me that?) We reached school at about 3 am, and that was the end of a great adventure. I WANT TO GO BACK THIS YEAR!
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On a seperate note, you can now call me at 82397768. :) Yay
